Ipod

[JBall]

Does anyone else have an ipod hooked up to their Rotel? I have been a geek and look thru here everyday, but noone has ever mentioned one. Stereophile this month even put it on the recommended list. I bought one and am burning my entire collection to it (40GB). I know it will not be 100% of the actual CD quality, but it sure is kinda nice to have any CD available at the touch of a button. I can also take collection to car or second home at a whim.

I have also found the quality to be pretty good

[Azeke]

JBall,

Yes, I hook-up my IPOD to my Rotel RSP-1098, using the cradle and a monster cable made especially for the IPOD, via analogue.

Regards,

Azeke

[Elmac]

Me Too
and I love it sound quality is really good.
40 hrs of music and only 4 gigs
It works like a charm 26 more gigs free
Its a forth best thing I got for my HT
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[egaither]

I have my 30GB iPod hooked up to my 1098 and it sounds pretty good. Have to turn the volume up quite a bit higher than DVDs, but still sounds good.

Anyone hook up an AirPort Express via optical connection or a Squeezebox?

I'm curious how good these sound vs. a direct iPod analog connection.

[eddyg]

Airport Express

I have my 30GB iPod hooked up to my 1098 and it sounds pretty good. Have to turn the volume up quite a bit higher than DVDs, but still sounds good.

Anyone hook up an AirPort Express via optical connection or a Squeezebox?

I'm curious how good these sound vs. a direct iPod analog connection.

Yep - I'm running an Airport Express via optical into my 1098. It sounds great. I tried with both the optical and the analogue, and the optical was better. The analogue sounded slightly compressed, and the high frequencies were muted.

You don't have to bugger with the volume (obviously) as it is perfectly matched with other digital inputs.

I've also run my iPod and powerbook into the 1098 via analogue, which was alright. But again the Airport Express with digital is better.

The only problem is that if you have the computer in the study streaming music wirelessly to the AE and 1098 in the front room then that makes it tricky to see what is playing, or to change tracks. I tried bluetooth from my mobile to the Mac, but it didn't have the range.

Having the iPod directly plugged in is handy for the UI. I plug my iPod into my Bose waveradio in the bedroom where it's little screen is perfectly usable.

One thing to bear in mind when using the AE, I found that when running with 802.11b and also using a computer on the same WLAN then you sometimes got Audio dropouts. This went away when I changed to 100% 802.11g.

Cheers, Edward.

[egaither]

I'm anxious to hear feedback on the Squeezebox because you can control your playlist, go to the next song, etc. Seems like a much better solution unless you are using a dedicated tower/laptop next your entertainment system.

Airport Express sounds like it would be pretty nice for parties though. Just start a really long playlist—don't have to worry about charging your iPod battery.

[greve]

JBall,

Yes, I hook-up my IPOD to my Rotel RSP-1098, using the cradle and a monster cable made especially for the IPOD, via analogue.

Regards,

Azeke

What about digital? Can we get digital out of the iPod (1098 should be able to decode MP3, right?)?

Could you provide details of the Monster Cable you are using?

Thanks.

[Azeke]

The IPOD currently has no digital outputs that I am aware of, perhaps an adapter, but I have not researched this area.

Check out this URL for the cable:

IPOD cable

Hope this helps,

Azeke

[JBall]

ipod isnt MP3, it is (i think) AAC. THere is something about lossless files and loss-somthing...i can't find out where to find out what the heck it all means, i intend to. But I do know that if you install ITUNES on your PC it will convert all your MP3's for use on Ipod. I don't know which has better quality either....good thing to throw out on forum???? We gotta have some computer/media wiz's here!!!

[booktrunk]

AAC supposedly has better compression ratio with less data loss.

So being less lossy or lossless it supposedly looses less of the original data. Which in theory means you get better quality out of it.

So the less lossy is supposedly the better

Steff

EDIT: No I didn't have a bet to see how many times I could use the word supposedly in one post It's just i'm paranoid someone will nitpick everything i've just said so i'm adding lots of caveats Mind you my spelling isn't great so i've probably messed up spelling caveat now aww what the heck I tried

[gostan]

My ipod mini (when not in my gym bag) is docked on top of my audio rack and hooked-up to my 1098 via analogue cable. I gave my 30gb ipod to my wife when the mini came out.

When entertaining lots of guests I can attempt to listen to the somewhat inferior compressed sound of the ipod as convenience outweighs the inferior sound quality. I transfer songs at 192kbps (you can transfer from 128 to 320 kbps) which is the most bang for the buck on the ipod, but the sound while being adequate is very distinguishable from a cd. Convenience is the important factor with the ipod, as I can listen to some great jazz or vocal or dance playlists.

I am very interested in trying the airport express digital connection to listen to determine if the digital connnection sounds better, but I am saving for new speaker cable at the moment.

Stan

[egaither]

AAC is also better for your battery life. I don't remember where I heard this but apparently it requires less processing than MP3, so your battery will last longer.

The cable for the Airport Express looks like a standard RCA-mini adapter, but they also include a mini-to-optical connector. Has anyone tried using the mini-to-optical with just the iPod? Found this photo online.

[eddyg]

When entertaining lots of guests I can attempt to listen to the somewhat inferior compressed sound of the ipod as convenience outweighs the inferior sound quality. I transfer songs at 192kbps (you can transfer from 128 to 320 kbps) which is the most bang for the buck on the ipod, but the sound while being adequate is very distinguishable from a cd. Convenience is the important factor with the ipod, as I can listen to some great jazz or vocal or dance playlists

I suggest encoding those tracks with Apple Lossless, I can't tell the difference between that and a CD. Not that I'd expect to, it's the same digital stream into the optical either way.

Both iTunes and the iPod decode Apple Lossless, however on the iPod I don't really notice the difference between that and 192Kbps AAC.

FYI The iPod (and iTunes) encodes and decodes AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF and Apple Lossless.

Of course the problem with Apple Lossless is that third party appliances can't decode it, which is a bugger. I think that Apple Lossless is simply a high bit rate AAC with the filters and lossy encoder parts removed. It appears in the info as ~800Kbps AAC. The files are also large, but who cares when disk space is so cheap these days. Also, you can always transcode from Apple Lossless with no loss of quality.

Cheers, Edward.

[eddyg]

ipod isnt MP3, it is (i think) AAC. THere is something about lossless files and loss-somthing...i can't find out where to find out what the heck it all means, i intend to. But I do know that if you install ITUNES on your PC it will convert all your MP3's for use on Ipod. I don't know which has better quality either....good thing to throw out on forum???? We gotta have some computer/media wiz's here!!!

The iPod can decode many different codecs, amongst them both AAC and MP3.

AAC is a much newer codec than MP3, AAC is the codec used for audio in MPEG4, whereas MP3 is the audio codec in MPEG1.

AAC is about the same quality to the average listener at 128Kbps as an MP3 is at 192Kbps. Which means for the same filesize you get better quality. Conversely if happy with the low quality sound then you can fit more of them on your disk.

Apple Lossless is an Apple proprietary codec, which is based I believe on AAC. It is lossless, and so is the same quality as the CD, but uses a lot less disk space. Basically the same as the comparison between a GIF and a JPEG. The GIF is lossless and the jpeg is lossy.

Cheers, Edward.

[eddyg]

AAC is also better for your battery life. I don't remember where I heard this but apparently it requires less processing than MP3, so your battery will last longer.

The cable for the Airport Express looks like a standard RCA-mini adapter, but they also include a mini-to-optical connector. Has anyone tried using the mini-to-optical with just the iPod? Found this photo online.

The Airport Express has a combination Optical/Electrical 3.5mm socket. You can connect either the optical or electrical cable. The cables are not electrical on one end and optical on the other.

The iPod has a 3.5mm electrical connector.

So no, you cannot fit the airport express optical cable into the iPod electrical headphone socket.

Cheers, Edward.

[gostan]

Edward

How much disc space does an Apple Lossless recording take up compared to an aac 192 kbps recording. Recording size is not an issue on my 80gb AlBook, but it is on my Ipod Mini.

I will try to transcode a few songs tonight (no-tomorrow nite as the Red Sox will hopefully be winning the World Series tonite) and make a listening comparison.

Thanks,

Stan