HiFi Blog: digital audio goodness

The new Zune MP3 player brought excitement to the MP3 player market. But apparently Zune sales are not so good, and the fact that iTunes was clogged with four times as many consumers this Christmas compared to last Christmas tells you something about who is going to be king for a while.

Consumers who buy a Zune will find new features that have not been on the market before Zune, but are they any good? Lets have a look…

Zune lets you play music, share photos and play videos, and the design is pretty slick. It’s not quite as cool as my proud Ipod though (you may disagree).

So what can you do with it? You can locate nearby Zune users using the “community” feature. Once you select “community” and then select “nearby,” you will see a list of other Zune users that are near you. You can then share photos, music, podcasts and videos through Zunes wireless WiFi feature.

You can turn your Zune presence to online if you wish other Zune users to locate you in their community, or you can set Zune to offline if you do not wish others to see you on their community screen. If you are online and wish to block someone from sending you files, you can easily block the user by using Zunes block feature.

This feature is not going to be well accepted in my opinion: If you receive songs from other Zune users, they are considered samples only and will expire in three days. Read the rest of this entry »

There have been rumors for years about Apple developing an iPod iPhone. It seems that these rumors may be true and the development may finally come to fruition.

The iPod iPhone will probably not be like typical MP3 cellular phones. An MP3 cellular phone adds music to communications, whereas converting an iPod to a cellular phone would produce superior musical quality that cannot be created by corporations that have spent years in improving communications instead of sound format and quality.

Apple has filed a patent that is a bit vague as to what the patent is for, yet it apparently covers everything Apple would need in a patent for an iPhone. Read the rest of this entry »

It was 16 months ago when I decided to put my knowledge regarding portable audio to good use. 16 months and 541 posts later, it’s time to pursuit other interests (and also: complete a degree) so I decided to hand over the keys to the HiFi Blog to somebody else.

I’ve always treated the site and its readers with respect; highlighting what I deemed to be the best, most interesting content around the Web applying as a precise and razor-sharp filter as possible. (Looking back at the archives of the HiFi Blog, they still serve as an accurate representation of the noteworthy happenings in the digital audio land.) And I think this effort paid off; the site never reached Engadget-like stat numbers, but it won a loyal following, a core fan base that stayed with me.

To all these readers, to those who emailed me with feedback or praise (sadly, no hate mail! I must be doing something wrong), to those who took the time to leave a comment —

To all the companies who offered review samples (BTW Josh! haven’t forgotten about you, still waiting for the Postal Service’s refund) —

To everyone —

Thank you.

Googling for “Konstantinos Christidis” (or visiting my “updated once a year” blog) every now and then should keep you updated on my new projects. You can always reach me via email too.

_—Konstantinos Christidis_

[Alternative title for this post: “Hey, we gotta get rid of that stock somehow.”]

The first batch of the new iPod Shuffles has already reached the hands of those who hurried to order it immediately after its announcement, on September 12. As with all Apple products, pictures of the new $80 device, its packaging and accessories have flooded the Internet.

What is interesting to note is that the new Shuffles don’t come with the new, improved iPod earbuds that were also presented on the same day by the company’s CEO, Steve Jobs.

If you were thinking the best “value-for-money” way to obtain the new iPod earbuds was via an iPod Shuffle purchase, think again. Photo credit goes to Jeremy Smith / AppleInsider.

We’ve presented the iGrados back in July. Grado’s low-budget, open-design, street-style cans, targeted to the iPod crowd house the same drivers as the company’s favorite SR-60s but cost $20 less ($49).

It’s been a few weeks since they were released—after reading more than half a dozen threads on Head-Fi from people who bought them (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), here’s what the general consensus seems to be:

Black iGrados with black iPod nano. They don’t look as good in stock pictures.
Picture © of Flickr user escobar702. More pictures from that set.

On Wednesday, the super-popular music store AllofMP3 announced the launch of its “Music for Masses” program. According to it, AllofMP3 users who download the “Music of Masses” program can pick all the songs they wish from the huge AllofMP3 catalog, and listen to them for free. Some restrctions apply:

• they can only listen to them through the provided software (which translates the custom DRM these songs are wrapped with) on one computer
• they must be connected to the Internet during playback—apparently for running login checks, and for refreshing the advertisements since the player will be ad-supported
• if they want to transfer these songs to your MP3 player, they have to pay to get the DRM-free versions.