The i-Touch or Zune HD Which One Should I Get?

[Zer_]

Neither. They both are tied to proprietary software, have nearly no storage, planned obsolesce, a pitiful amount of format support, and atrocious sound quality. Oh and they are both made by absolutely evil companies.

the only player that has more storage than a touch is the ipod classic

and as for sound quality, i don't think you know what you are talking about at all

:looks over at his mountain of audio gear, 300$ headphones, stacks of vinyl and his beloved wall of speakers:

I obviously have absolutely no idea about what I'm talking about.

The iPods support more then MP3's encoded with the ALAC codec. They support any MP3 format. The only thing is if you have WMA formats then they will be converted, and yes your sound quality *may* suffer, but what kind of damn moron gets WMA music if they have a bloody choice?

 

[cleverlymadeup]

Neither. They both are tied to proprietary software, have nearly no storage, planned obsolesce, a pitiful amount of format support, and atrocious sound quality. Oh and they are both made by absolutely evil companies.

the only player that has more storage than a touch is the ipod classic

and as for sound quality, i don't think you know what you are talking about at all

:looks over at his mountain of audio gear, 300$ headphones, stacks of vinyl and his beloved wall of speakers:

I obviously have absolutely no idea about what I'm talking about.

really so there is the fact that you can easily encode the mp3 with total lossless conversion, ie in WAV or at 320kbps and higher and also a couple other lossless codecs

so yes you don't know what you're talking about

just cause you have vinyl, $300 headphones and a "wall of speakers" doesn't mean you know anything about sound or how it works. it just means you paid a lot of money for what you have

I have noticed the low quality on ipods too. Don't know about zunes, but whenever I listen to stuff on my friend's ipod, which has connected to a pretty high quality headset and the music is loseless(at least in it's original format), the quality is notifiable lower than on my PC with my headset on.

Then again, I am an audiophile so this probably won't bother a lot of people.

actually it probly has more to do with how you friend has encoded the file

also at more than 226 kbps you can't tell which is real and which isn't, there's been more than a few tests on it and they couldn't. anyone that says they can is lying plain and simple

 

[Zer_]

*snip for space*

Generally you want it to be over 192kbps for good audio quality. Only with the best audio headphones could you ever tell any difference above 192kbps anyways.

It also depends how he had his iPod EQ set. If he had a high bass setup then of course it'll sound bad with say, heavy metal.

 

[brainfreeze215]

I love my ipod touch. Since they are more widespread, there is more for them than for zunes.

 

[Zer_]

*Snip*

Dyeah, ALAC is M4A, which is basically the next generation MP3.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Niether, they're a nice waste of cash.


(To my knowledge your current one is working fine)

 

[cleverlymadeup]

really so there is the fact that you can easily encode the mp3 with total lossless conversion, ie in WAV or at 320kbps and higher and also a couple other lossless codecs

so yes you don't know what you're talking about

just cause you have vinyl, $300 headphones and a "wall of speakers" doesn't mean you know anything about sound or how it works. it just means you paid a lot of money for what you have

Educate yourself, Mp3 Is a LOSSY format. You can't encode losslessly with a LOSSY format, hence the term LOSSY.

So yes, you have no fucking idea what you are talking about, sir.

And yes, I have a lot of nice shit. The reason I have a lot of nice shit is because I understand how such shit works and why I need it. If I didn't understand Hi-Fi, do you really think I would have seen the value in lossess compression and a pair of 300$ headphones?

cept the ipod and itunes default encoding is NOT mp3, it's the mp4 standard which is different

it can also do OTHER codecs besides the mp3 codec which ARE lossless, but i guess you decided to totally ignore them

Hi-Fi wasn't that something released in the 70s and a REALLY old and basically useless sound standard being replaced by the various Dobly Standards many years ago?

I have noticed the low quality on ipods too. Don't know about zunes, but whenever I listen to stuff on my friend's ipod, which has connected to a pretty high quality headset and the music is loseless(at least in it's original format), the quality is notifiable lower than on my PC with my headset on.

Then again, I am an audiophile so this probably won't bother a lot of people.

actually it probly has more to do with how you friend has encoded the file

also at more than 226 kbps you can't tell which is real and which isn't, there's been more than a few tests on it and they couldn't. anyone that says they can is lying plain and simple

No it doesn't have anything to do with how the file is encoded(you fail to understand how lossless compression works), it has to do with the hardware it's being played through. I could play something source from a SACD through a old busted radio, and it would sound horrible.

And yes, I can tell the difference between flac and v2, most people can.

[sub] I told you not to fuck with me, son[/sub]

oh i know how lossless conversion works, i could even tell you exactly how the mp3 standard works and how it does the tricks that it does.

it also does have a lot to do with how the file is encoded and played back, also most people can't really tell the difference. the ones that think they can are really just fooling themselves into believing that.

i'd suggest you try a blind test with someone and i'm more than willing to bet you couldn't tell the difference. it's really easy to play the files and go "oh yeah i can hear the difference" but try it when you don't know which file is being played. you are simply suffering from the placebo effect

 

[mattttherman3]

Go for the I pod

 

[RooftopAssassin]

I was just wondering, to the average persons ear the iPod earbuds it comes with may sound pretty good but for the trained ear you can hear a difference between them and more high-quality headsets/earbuds. As for the audio formats (thanks, by the way) I use whatever works and have never heard (I've heard of many, but have never actually physically listened to them) any other format besides MP3 or ACC format for apple.

Well to the "untrained" person they may sound pretty good, if by untrained you mean deaf. I assure you, once you hear a real rig what you're listening to know will sound unacceptable by comparison.

No need to get worked up over nothing. I think we never answered his question though, what does he go with? The iPod or Zune? Sure they may not be high quality like your "1337 music station" that you've been describing, but the whole point of a iPod or zune is so it can be portable. Is there an excuse besides the high prices that Apple slaps on it's product that they can't upgrade the hardware in their iPods? No, but I don't see change coming anytime soon.

 

[dee_dubs]

My personal choice would be to ditch both the IPod and Zune and go with a Creative. I've gone through a few MP3 players, from several different companies, and the only ones I'd be happy to recomend have been the Creative players. They support a wide range of audio formats (both lossy and lossless) without needing to convert, don't require you to use complicated/proprietary software (a lot of them you can just drag and drop files through windows explorer if you want), give very good quality audio and are generally a nice company.