The iPod That Changed How We Listen To Music

I talked about Sony Discman as portable CD player previously, which is the exotic player on early 90's. The Walkman, which Sony use the name on their portable player is remarkably put the Sony brand as the top class audio manufacture. They are easy to use and sound really good.

Then in early 2000, Apple company which not so popular for consumer audio market at that time, launch the iPod as the new portable audio player that doesn't need any physicals medium. Apple not the first one who made the player like this. There are so many portable player on the market at that time that already do the same. We all call them MP3 player.

But why Apple with the iPod still come in and become one of the best music player for decades? This is what I think very interesting to share.

I really remember to my first introduction with the iPod. That is the iPod mini that my sister bought directly from Singapore while she was on vacation. The capacity is just 4 GB but it is consider huge at that time compare to other player, that maybe you can get maximum 1 GB player.

At that time the MP3 is the king of music format. The 4 GB storage is more than enough to store your all your music files on it. The most popular MP3 music format is 128kbps which roughly only 3 MB per music. But this is the real problem from this portable audio player industry which the Apple want to solve it with the iPod.

MP3 music files are everywhere. You easily downloads them online and and save to the MP3 player. You ready for on-the-go music at anytime. But this is where the problem actually started.

Those downloaded music are pirate music and Apple disagree with this. If you bought the brand new iPod Video like I did in 2005, you aware that Apple put a note on the plastic wrap of the iPod with the wording "do not steal music". At that time, there are not yet available online music streaming or authorized music files seller. The technology are not yet ready. But the Apple vision already goes to what we have right now.

The other reason is the quality of 128kbps MP3 is sucks! No matter what audio system you playing with this kind of format it will suck up the music compares to the original, is the CD. There is no sound quality with this 128kbps MP3 format, yet there is no enjoyment for listening from those, except you only got tons of low-fi music files on the player storage.

So how Apple solve this kind problem with their iPod?

First with the iTunes that build for all Apple product including the iPod. Although you can still put the pirate MP3 music files on it, but the others function that iTunes put on it will attract you more. It is the CD converter to music files. The Apple create it's own music files that more advanced than the MP3 but with more flexibility to put the music data and information on it. It is the Advanced Audio Codec, which is same file size as the 128kbps MP3 but with the quality of 320kbps MP3.

I regret to know earlier that I also can convert the CD to the higher bit rate music files such as Apple Lossless or WAV. The WAV is better in term of sound quality, perfect capture from the original CD which about 1440kbps. But naturally the WAV files is not capable to store the music information on it. So iTunes crating another format to solve this problem by using the AIFF. Same quality as WAV but with more flexibility on store the music information.

This by all means to you having an original CD and convert to the higher resolution music files rather take the pirate low quality music files on the internet.

Did I said that the iPod sound so good for the price? Even after we all leave the iPod behind because we are now using our phone as a music player, but I suggest you to come back again and compares the sound quality between them.

This lead to the second reason why iPod changing on how we listen to music, at that time. All iPod sound great! Well not really, especially for newer version of the iPod shuffle sound really bad. But for the others, I still warrant it sound so much better than today smartphone or similar price DAP.

Back to the reason, Apple with iTunes that can convert CD to higher resolution as the CD itself cannot be useful if the player, the iPod itself cannot playback that files. From the old generation of iPod up to the latest iPod, they still can playback those high resolution music files flawlessly. Apple want you to listen the music as the original you gets from the CD.

But one thing need to reconsider for Apple is the higher music files that already available now. While the WAV and AIFF is stuck to the CD quality, means only 16 bit, but the market demand for music files already goes to 24 bit or more.

This higher resolution music player market is going bigger and bigger. While the number of more bits are always sells better but the quality of the playback need to be reconsider again.

Until now, I still keep few iPod from different series. This is not only for my nostalgic collection, but I can also use them again to playback the music. Sometimes I compares the sound quality to the today smartphone or digital player which in my opinion, the iPod still win among them.

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