Thursday, March 16, 2006

I Have Succumbed

To this.

And this.

For those of you too lazy to follow the links, that's a 30 GB iPod With Video Playback (Black) and an Altec Lansing InMotion IM7 Portable Audio System. The iPod will be fun, but the little earbud is a serious problem (particularly when you've already got a hearing aid in your ear), so I'm most excited about the iPod cradle/docking station/speakers. First, the contraption looks like a big mortar shell, so if you can't drive particularly annoying people crazy through the music you play, you can actually lob the device at them and cause serious damage. Second, I was amazed by the quality of sound that comes out of that little mortar shell. I compared it to the better-known and higher priced Bose SoundDock, and thought it blew the Bose out of the water.

I'm a happy guy. Anybody know an easy way to convert vinyl --> .wav files --> MP3s --> the IPod?

7 comments:

Karen said...

DUDE. you are gonna LOVE it. i say get new headphones: ones that fit over the hearing aid.

i'm excited for you!

KarlandBethany said...

Vinyl conversion...

Yes, Andy, we can talk.

K--

teddy dellesky said...

welcome to iPoddom. you may want to talk to fred kohn about converting vinyl to MP3. he has a converter that he may let you toy with for a while.

Anonymous said...

If anyone could just type in some instructions, or equipment needed on how to convert vinyl to mp3 that would be wonderful.

g

Andy Whitman said...

Fred, thanks for the detailed instructions. I really appreciate it.

I suspect it will be a while before I get around to the vinyl conversion. For better or worse, I have enough CDs right now to fill up about four of those 30 GB iPods (yeah, 30,000 songs sounds about right), and an equal amount of vinyl if I ever get around to it. This is the product of a now 40+ year music fetish. What can you do?

So I'm trying to be selective, only adding those songs/albums that I genuinely love. Ideally, I'd love to have about a 200,000 song (that would give me room to grow) database of music that I could carry around in my pocket, but that's not going to happen. So I'll need to pick and choose.

This is also an incredibly time consuming process. I spent most of my free time this weekend importing CDs to the computer and then downloading them to the iPod. And I think I made it through about 12 albums. This could take a while. :-)

Andy Whitman said...

One other thing: Fred, have you ever considered a career in technical writing? You're very good at it.

This is what I do every Monday through Friday: write Step 1 through Step n. You've got the routine down very well.

Anonymous said...

You should check out the Bose sounddock - I liked it better.