thanks to everyone who weighed in with suggestions last topic
went with the iPhone. couple questions.
how much can I do without installing iTunes on my computer? I suspect it should be pretty easy to use foobar to transfer music, but what about video files from my computer?
can I get rid of icons sitting on the desktop (or whatever it's called)? I don't have much of a use for some of these.
alright I'm gonna have to do this the sucky way, it looks like.
copy my music folder to my desktop, run a flac to mp3 converter for all the files there, then sync my ipod through itunes to that. it'll be a one time sync and then delete all that stuff.
after reading around the internet it sounds like it's an issue with the latest version of iOS being recognized or something. oh well.
After having a 3GS for two and a half years, I have to say the 4S is f***ing amazing. Glad I finally upgraded. I don't use FLAC, so I don't have that problem. Also, I would like to recommend Spotify for music. High quality audio with a huge library to chose from that streams instantly to your phone. It's free, but for the mobile features it's $10 a month. Best $10 a month I spend, easily (not sure if you have a data plan, though). I can listen to this massive library while I work, in my car through the aux port, or at home through my surround sound. It's just great.
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Let's get drunk and make bad decisions "Life is a bunch of stuff" -- Whiskey Nick
iTunes is one of the worst programs you could possible use. Also, Spotify does not stream in high quality audio, nor is all of their "highest quality" offerings properly sourced. But it's still a great service, I just hate it when that phrase is thrown around! Personally, I subscribe to both Spotify and Rdio and am not sure which I like more. Spotify has more selection, but Rdio's app kills it in every way.
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Digi I plan on being more spontaneous in the future.
alright I think I've got a mostly more elegant solution
new folder in desktop transcode everything to AAC 256 with foobar, targeted at that folder go to sleep wake up, sync with iphone through itunes delete itunes
so with that I've got a hands off approach to making my library compatible with the iphone and still get to keep the original files in the format I want them in
downside to this is that I still can't sync new music I get without reinstalling itunes but whatever, I'll cross that bridge later.
there's no need to have lossless files on your phone unless you have a portable amp and a decent pair of headphones. Just transcode to V0 as it's the best for portable devices and will take up less space than AAC
-- ICON: Caught siphoning grooves from the local disco.
also, don't delete iTunes. It's garbage on PC but you only need to deal with it every so often. And I've never been a fan of syncing iOS devices - it's just too inconvenient.
-- ICON: Caught siphoning grooves from the local disco.
Icon Tang posted... there's no need to have lossless files on your phone unless you have a portable amp and a decent pair of headphones. Just transcode to V0 as it's the best for portable devices and will take up less space than AAC
I never wanted to have lossless files on my phone. I just wanted a way to get my files over in some capacity. I'm already a couple hours into my transcode everything to AAC effort but I'll see what the size looks like when I'm done and decide if it's worth re-doing.
I wanted my lossless files to be able to get to my phone somehow, I never cared if they were lossless on the phone. When iTunes can't read FLAC files and foobar doesn't think I have an iPod connected to my computer I have no way of getting most of my music onto the phone.
luckily foobar is awesome and converting files to a lossy format iTunes can read solved my problem. I'd prefer if foobar and the ipod component could see my phone but for whatever reason that just isn't happening.
From: OmarsComin | #017 alright I think I've got a mostly more elegant solution
new folder in desktop transcode everything to AAC 256 with foobar, targeted at that folder go to sleep wake up, sync with iphone through itunes delete itunes
so with that I've got a hands off approach to making my library compatible with the iphone and still get to keep the original files in the format I want them in
downside to this is that I still can't sync new music I get without reinstalling itunes but whatever, I'll cross that bridge later.
Why AAC 256? Go to MP3 V0. iTunes can read that fine. Just because iTunes sells you AAC doesn't mean you actually need to use it to use the program.
And yeah, I hope you're using good headphones and a good source/amp if you're using FLAC.
I went with AAC because I didn't want to go track down the necessary files for mp3 encoding. I'm sure it's not hard but I wanted a quick solution for now and I'd have a more ideal solution down the road maybe. foobar was able to encode in AAC already, so I went with that.
my speakers are good but not top notch. I'm sure you can't tell the difference between FLAC and MP3 320 using them. But I'll have better speakers somewhere along the way, and the same music collection. In the mean time, my hard drive is 1TB and they're only gonna get bigger. Having lossless audio files is something with no real downside. Except of course when I want to move my music collection to an iPod. then it's just a bit inconvenient.