Following on from my iTunes post, I thought I’d note for posterity my iPod useage, in other words how I’ve adapted the out of the box setup. As you can see, mine’s a fourth gen. Photo iPod, white, 60GB:

Engraved on the back is ‘This iPod belongs to ….’ - makes it near impossible to resell, but makes it mine and if it’s ever stolen, I’ll gain a little comfort from the difficulty this causes. If it’s ever lost, my name’s relatively unusual and I can be traced.

I’ve reduced the number of menu options to three - Genre / Notes / Settings. As with my iTunes setup, I use genres as a first step in deciding what to listen to - to me this makes much more sense that endlessly scrolling through album, artist or song titles. I’m not a fan at all of random selection. Notes - I’m a Quicksilver user and I’m always appending stuff to .txt files (to do list, what to listen to ideas, miscellaneous, ideas, shopping, books to read, stuff to buy, etc, etc). I upload these to my iPod on a regular basis. I no longer use my Sony Clie (can’t even find the damn thing!), though I still wistfully wait for a phone decent enough to take its place.



Griffin AirClick. How does anybody ever put up with only using the controls on the front of the iPod? I didn’t get an Apple wired remote with my iPod, but my friend Dan was kind enough to donote his to me. I used that until recently when the connection became faulty. I considered buying a new Apple remote, but I never used the radio and baulked at paying £35. I started to look around at other options and stumbled upon a mention of the Griffin and snagged a new one via Amazon resellers for about £12. It consists of a unit that plugs into the top of the iPod (bottom for 5th gen), into which the headphones then plug. The remote is wireless so no more fumbling with wires, I just put the iPod in a pocket and don’t have to bother with it again until the CD ends. The remote has play/pause, back/forward and volume up/down. I’m also turning the music up or down because of the (welcome) changes in volume. And the unit makes a lovely little hat for the iPod. Which is nice. Suggested improvement to the remote would consist of a different transport for the buttons which are too wobbly, so that it’s necessary to remember to press firmly to ensure the button operates. I don’t always remember this and am sometimes annoyed at having to press more than once. A real ‘click’ would be nice.



Shure EC3 headphones. Bought from someone Stateside for much cheaper than the English price, thankfully wasn’t nabbed for excise. Never even removed the iPod ones from their packet. Spent months trying to sort out the best way of wearing the Shures (the instructions said behind your neck and down your back - this didn’t work, was always pulling out). Then with a month to go before the two year warranty expired, one side stopped playing. The instructions on the new ones suggested another way of wearing them with the cord over the ear as before, but then snaking under the chin. Hey presto - perfect comfort. Which clearly shows how daft I am, that I didn’t think of this before. Sound is very good - much better than my previous Sony Fontopias. Could do with a bit more bass, but the sound is generally very well defined and the insulation from the outside world is more than adequate.

[Originally posted on A Personal Miscellany]

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When I bought my iPod a couple of years back, I didn’t even open the packet with the Apple headphones, but continued to use the Sony inner ear headphones I’d previously been using with my Discman. I thought they were pretty good.

Then I invested a fair amount of money in some better headphones, Shure E3Cs. They were a real pain at first - the wires are supposed to be snaked round the back of the head and over the ears, but the lead is too heavy for this and kept tugging the phones out of my ears. Fit is everything with this type of headphone. I eventually found that hanging the lead over my shoulder and inserting them in the more traditional way did the job. I was pretty much insulated from external sounds. A week or so ago, I noticed the volume on the left headphone was something between 25 and 50% of the other one. I did some web research and they’re still in their two year warranty. I’ve just sent them off for replacement. I have my fingers crossed that there’s no problem and that I’ll receive a brand new pair within a week or so. In the meantime, I went back to my old pair of Sony Fontopia, but found the sound awfully thin and lightweight. Which prompted me to finally break out the iPod ‘phones. I wore them today while travelling to and from Internet World, a webby trade fair at Earls Court 2. UGH!! the headphones I mean - the fair was fairly interesting… I won’t bang on about the sound quality as such complaints are pretty much a given - suffice to say ‘wet sponge/towel wrapped round head’, etc.

It’s made me really, really appreciate the E3Cs - there may be better on the market now in their price range, but I wouldn’t hesitate to say that spending the money on a decent pair of headphones is a worthwhile investment, particularly if you value things like sense of space (how the music is heard in what’s apparently called a/the? soundstage), bass, clarity, drama and so on. I’m no audiophile - I’m currently listening to Bullwackie’s All Stars’ Nature’s Dub through my Powerbook speakers (a sin I know, I know) - but I’m spoilt and will be pacing up and down, grimacing and gritting my teeth impatiently until I (hopefully) receive my replacement ‘bins’.

Until I can find the time to fix the **()&)!@!@ commenting, please email any responses to this or future posts to me: enquiries + the a with a circle round it + eleventhvolume + full stop + com. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks.

[Originally published on A Personal Miscellany]

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FoxyTunes started out as a Firefox plug-in that provides users with the ability to play their music without leaving their browser. It’s one of many similar services which may be either useful or redundant depending on how you’ve set up your computer. FoxyTunes Planet is of more interest as it’s a mashup that aggregates a diverse range of music-related services into one webpage. As they claim on their FAQ:

There are a lot of cool music sites and services out there and their number is constantly growing. The problem is that there are simply not enough hours in a day to discover, try and use all of these services. FoxyTunes Planet plans to solve this problem by integrating all the best music sites and services into one convenient place.

Type an artist’s name into the search box and by default you’re presented with:

• YouTube videos
• Lyrics from LyricWiki
• Flickr photos
• Artist info from Last.fm
• Pandora’s artist radio
• MP3s from Hypemachine
• Google links for video, blog, news and general search
• Amazon albums

Despite the awful name, Foxytunes Planet provides a much more usable interface than, say, MusicMesh. It could do with - besides a better name - tools to personalise the interface, a proper URL and even the ability to add user comments so fans could add their enthusiasm.

Links: Foxytunes Planet, MusicMesh
Related: Fan Sites RIP (Net, Blogs and Rock’n'Roll)

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The media have had a busy week with Apple’s new streaming media device - they’ve been tinkering, taking it to bits, hacking it and general trying to make sense of whether it’s a great product or not. The concensus seems to be a guarded ‘yes’, though with most reviewers lamenting Apple’s ‘walled-garden’ approach and wishing for more flexibility. Although the primary function of the Apple TV is to play back television and film content managed by - and possibly purchased from - iTunes on your (widescreen) television, this also means that users’ music collections can also be accessed via your television. I’m not an expert in this area, but I assume a significant number of people will welcome the opportunity to play their music through their surround-sound equipped TV. Those considering purchase Apple TV in part to enable this should note the following from PC World’s review:

(…) Apple TV starts copying your content from your iTunes library onto its hard drive in a specific order: first movies, then TV shows, then music, etc. If there was a way to move something to the front of the line, it wasn’t obvious to me.

Walt Mossberg notes in the Wall Street Journal that music and video content can be streamed from any of five computers additional to the primary sync’ed computer with which Apple TV can communicate with, so this isn’t such a concern. However, the following point is more worrying:

Music playback was very reminiscent of the iPod’s interface, with lots of ways to view your collection. Album art for the music I was playing displayed beautifully—so beautifully it made me wish I could navigate my collection by the cover art, like the cover flow view in iTunes. But, alas, that option isn’t available. One other complaint: Once you left the music area, your album stopped playing. I would have liked to be able to continue listening to my choice while I was picking through pictures or watching a slideshow.

Update: Example of Apple TV confusion regarding streamed music

Links: Apple TV product page, PC World review, Walt Mossberg review

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Via: CNet

Also: Om Malick takes a pessimistic view of Slacker’s chances on GigaOm.

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Gadget watchers sat up the other day when Slacker announced the debut of its personalised streamed music service, delivered via in-car/home satellite, wireless, web and a bespoke portable player. According to Engadget’s report, Broadband Instruments is a San Diego-based company that has employed former execs from the likes of iRiver, MusicMatch and Diamond Rio, so there’s a fairly impressive pedigree there already.

Users can indicate their preferences via the web or by flagging played tracks. Users will be able to use the Slacker portable player, pictured above, to listen to personalised radio stations, provide feedback to improve the accuracy of the music, and purchase and download tracks (at the now-standard $0.99 rate). It’s claimed that the player, which will debut this summer, will offer capacities between 2GB and 120GB (!) and supply metadata gleaned from AllMusicGuide, the web’s most comprehensive music information service. Fascinatingly, Wired reports that the company has employed professional radio programmers to programme genre-specific channels:

(…) even after users customize the channels, they will follow longstanding programming principles. For instance, rather than merely providing “shuffle within the hip hop genre,” stations will kick off every hour with a “power track,” emphasize new, hot tracks, and mix well-known tracks with lesser-known tracks to allow users to discover new artists without becoming alienated.

Slacker’s website player offers a plethora of radio stations, but tellingly while it offers the following (often pretty funny) alternatives for Rock: Rock, Classic Rock, Hard Rock, Soft Rock, Southern Rock, Party Rock, 90s Rock, 80s Rock, 70s Rock, 60s Rock, Oldies and Teen Rock, under its Electronic/Dance section it only offers Progressive Trance, Chill and Disco. Choosing Electronic/Dance indicates that it will play the “best music from Jamiroquai, Orbital, The Crystal Method, Underworld, The Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and more” - in other words the usual, unimaginative suspects and a few dodgy people who shouldn’t be there. This isn’t that much of a surprise given the mainstream US slant, perhaps the situation will improve if Slacker proves popular.

Another test is what similar artists Slacker recommends when an artist’s name is supplied. A Kraftwerk query results in an emphasis on 70s electronic German rock (Neu! Can, Tangerine Dream) alongside Brian Eno, Depeche Mode and New Order. Looking to Last.fm, which supplies similar artists based upon user listening habits, shows people who like Kraftwerk listen to Aphex Twin, New Order, Depeche Mode, Boards of Canada and Brian Eno. A fair correlation, though without the German electronic rock (which only comes 19th and 24th).

The web version of Slacker is live now. Reports are that the service is good. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to get it to work on Firefox, Camino or Safari on my MacBook Pro. However, the online FAQ doesn’t indicate any Apple incompatibilities, so I’ll keep trying until I can report back on its performance. A free version of the service with ads will be available or there’s a paid-for version for $7.50 with enhanced personalisation and no ads. The free version bears the dread limit on number of songs that can be skipped that I first encountered with FineTune’s service.

From the coverage it looks like this is the equivalent of Pandora or Last.fm’s recommendation radio stations, but freed from its ties to the computer. Whether its ease of use will make for a serious threat to the iPod’s hegemony will prove interesting. Slacker, the revenge of radio?

Via: NYT, Gizmodo, Engadget, Wired

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Bone conduction headphones - now there’s a concept to make the uninitiated dive for the exit. Count me in as a member of that crowd. Apparently they’ve been available in Japan for some time. The chap in the image above doesn’t look unhappy, but maybe those headphones aren’t plugged in yet. Okay, I’ll stop being a Luddite and confess that I’d love to try these out. The headphones don’t rest on the ear, but in front of them, using contact with the jaw to ‘conduct’ sound to the listener. In this way they simulate auditory nerves directly without damaging ear drums. Or so I’m told. The Thanko Vonia EZ-4200Ps can be bought in Japan for a mere 9800 Yen (just over £40). Gizmodo also refer to a more expensive competitor from Pegasus.

Via: Newlaunches.com

In other headphone news, the Motorola S9 are Bluetooth headphones that allow the user to switch seamlessly between phone calls and music. A 6 hour battery life makes these sound fairly unattractive.

Full details: Gizmodiva

And finally, talking of attractive design, who could refuse these floral delights?

Link: Newlaunches.com

No mention in any of these announcements of the products’ sound quality…

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As more and more people own iPods, Zens, and Zunes, and use those players in noisy environments, in-ear-canal headphones—commonly known as “canalphones” or “in-ear monitors”—have become increasingly popular. As a high-quality option for replacing the cheap headphones included with portable music and media players, the selection of canalphones has, over the past decade, evolved from a few expensive models to a wide-open market with dozens of choices across a wide price range.

I bought my first pair of ear-canal headphones a couple of years ago - Shure E3Cs. Once I’d got the hang of how best to wear them (over the ear, but with the cord hanging down under my chin), I’ve found them to be really comfortable to the point of not being aware that I’m wearing them. The sound is generally excellent - though the sub-bass of Dubstep and Jungle does get rather lost, however I suspect the same would happen to other types of headphone as well. Needless to say, I’d love to hear what the top end ear-canal versions sound like. Even before buying my Shures I used what the article refers to as canalbuds, but the difference in the general richness of the sound is really noticeable. I did notice when getting friends to try out the canalbuds that the sound took a little while to get used to - particularly when swapping from the iPod default headphones which although woolly and undistinguished sound initially a little fuller. Once acclimatised there was no way of going back though.

Link: Playlist article

There’s another shorted and less detailed introduction just been published at MacWorld.

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I just stumbled across this video on an MP3 blog and think it’s absolutely brilliant. It cycles through and literally explodes a small number of key pieces of music playback hardware, ending up with what my awfully limited knowledge of Spanish translates as ‘music is never going to die’ (la musica nunca va a morir). It appears to be an ad for a Spanish design/music/technology magazine. Do follow the link below to watch it all!

(Oh and seeing one of the old cassette players with the piano keys and integrated mono speaker (do they still make them?) reminds me that I used to borrow my dad’s one - a weighty brushed metal and black plastic affair protected by a leather outer cover - and take it to school. In particularly boring lessons I’d plug in a mono ear piece, snake the wire through my jacket, plug it into the cassette recorder secreted in my school bag and listen to my recently recorded John Peel compilation tapes. This was, for sure, before the mainstream popularity of Sony Walkmans. I never did get caught…)

Link: dailymotion.com page
Via: Original Funk Music

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Here’s a lovely Flickr gallery of vintage transistor radios. Sigh…

Reminds me of the time a few years ago that I visited a friend of my parents who lived in a small and quite ordinary cottage in a nearby village in the Yorkshire Dales. However, in his garden he had not one, but three sheds. Each was brimful of valve and transistor radios as well as stacks of gleaming 50s car radios that looked like miniature versions of those huge American cars that seemed to have existed in another galaxy, let alone another decade.

Link: Roadsidepictures’ Flickr gallery
Via: Retro Thing

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