Headphones? Whither the buds?

Actually we've only had a few iPods, they've held up pretty well and save for a couple left on planes, boats and trains we've only upgraded a couple of times. In contrast I've lost count of the number of times I've had to buy new earbuds. From Apple through to real cheap ones in the local hardware store I have answered the kids repeated cries that they've lost their earbuds and yes they can "borrow" mine. Now that both offspring have flown the nest the need to buy new bits of cable and tinny speakers has been reduced.

Last year, at the olympics, I was struck with the clever ambush marketing campaign that put lots of sets of big headphones into the hands of top athletes and from there onto our screens. Since then I've noticed many more people, even fashion conscious teenagers, walking around minus white Apple earbuds and plus medium or large sized ear cans. Even in Sainsburys on Sunday I was struck by the wide range of over-ear headphones on display, far more than the small alternatives. I remembered quite a few bills for around £5 when in scrooge mode I replaced yet another lost set, this weeks stock in a supermarket seemed to hover around the £40 mark.

So I have tried a pair. I've amused myself popping from buds to cans and they do make a difference. Even the cheap pair I've been playing with do sound a lot better and, for me, are much more relaxing. So much so that I'm looking enviously at the rather higher priced units I remember from the olympic poolside shots.

iTunes Match - Yes.

We've been asked if we can not only rip your music but can we also load it into Apple's iTunes Match service too. Yes, we can.

Once we have ripped the music we need your iTunes Match account settings - user name & password. Obviously you need to be comfortable about that and we'd ask you to change the password after the project is completed.

You need to have one spare "space" in your Match computer family. The maximum is 10 and we need one slot, after the upload is completed we de-authorise our computer and you can have your "space" back.

Where to with Apple?

Next week Apple conducts another of its well orchestrated product events. For the last few weeks the Apple fan sites have been speculating what might be in store for key product lines. Top of the list seems to be (yet another) iPhone model and (maybe) (yet another) iPad model. As the owner / operator of this and another CD ripping service neither new products would make much of a difference to us. But what would make a difference to our clients?

First, if Apple added the massively popular BBC iPlayer to its Apple TV product. Several of our clients have Apple TVs and they generally love them, the ability to stream music around the house, the sharing function for photos and your own movies, even buying films from iTunes Music Store, all are great, but no BBC? It would be great if this, for a UK audience, glaring omission were to be corrected.

Second, and this would have impact on us all, is better quality music. When we started out data storage space was at a premium so the ability to store decent(ish) sound in small files was important. Today even a massive hard drive is a modest price and our clients are spending more on high quality music players such as Sonos so how about a better sounding music file? Apple could lead the way with top quality music.

Third I'd like Apple to reach out and embrace other devices. In my opinion the iPod (and with it the iPod Touch and iPhone) are the best portable music players but I think its time for Apple to get real and acknowledge that many people have other devices. Would it really hurt for Apple to support, say, Android based players without having to resort to third party software?

Did Amazon Kill MP3?

Hard to imagine how different things could be in ten years time when I look back at the early days of setting up a CD ripping service.

I am amazed that people like us are still in business given the number of times I've heard people foretell our death, mainly at the hands of music streaming services such as Spotify. We quake at the thought of what a mightier giant such as Google might do, and yesterday at Google I/O they had the chance to strike. Thankfully, I don't think they did. But I did see something that was interesting from my MP3 perspective.

Google announced a new video format. I won't bore you with the details but compared to the current high quality format (H264) it generates better images, in smaller files, that load / transfer faster. Why not the same for music? Indeed, given the launch of Google's All Access music streaming service. Don't forget they're paying for the raw computing power and the internet bandwidth that will get those millions of tracks onto iPods, iPhones, computers and Sonos boxes. An uprated digital music file format would have dramatically improved their hardware bill but no, they're sticking with MP3.

So are we.

Your Music, Your Phone, Your Photos

Today the iPhone seems to have usurped the iPod as the ubiquitous portable music player. Just as people try to personalise their music collections they are keen to make their phone look unique by investing in a snazzy phone case.

How about a case personalised with your own photos? Photobox do them but if you Google "personalised iphone case" you'll find a variety of suppliers. What if you want a photo and you only have a print? Well, follow the link to a photo scanning service we can recommend.

Quality Sounds & CD Ripping

We get asked questions, mainly about CD ripping as you'd expect, but also about music in general. Friday's question was about getting the best (or should I say better?) sound quality.

Background - some ripped music, iPod, many un-ripped CDs, getting a new Sonos system. Having tossed this around for a few minutes this was my take. My first step would be to upgrade the speakers. I think Sonos is great, but most of your "investment" is in the hardware that streams your music, with speakers tagged on (unless you have the later single body units). Upgrading to better speakers makes a difference to all your music, instantly. In his position that would be my first step.

Then I'd bite the bullet and be critical about current digital files. As an early adopter of digital home and portable music he has a lot of tracks ripped at 128 Kbps. I don't want to stray into techno-geek territory but with today's hard drives and PCs offering massive storage capacity there's no excuse for highly compressed music. So be critical about what you currently have, dig out the much loved tracks and re-rip at 320 Kbps MP3 or go to one of the lossless formats. Sonos plays Apple Lossless so that would be a solid choice.

New music, rip at higher rates into MP3 or go for Apple Lossless along with a decent set of speakers. Great result.

HMV Gift Vouchers - Take Two

A few days ago we made an offer to part redeem gift vouchers from the chainstore HMV which had gone into administration.

We wanted to help, and share in the general feeling of anger that companies such as Jessops and HMV could take money and then simply walk away from any obligation to deliver products or services. Well yesterday the administrator announced that they would now honour these vouchers (or IOUs). Without the public outcry this would not have happened.

Well, if you'd like your CDs ripped (rather than another heavy metal band T-shirt) our offer remains good.