Apple Ipod

I might be a bit biased, being an Apple dealer, but as a music lover, the iPod really makes it possible like never before to make a large collection of music practical in almost any environment. As an example, my typical morning starts out in the car on the way to work listening to music on the iPod, played through an iTrip, a device that sends a radio signal that's picked up by the car stereo. Sounds much better than you would think. At work, I drop it into its cradle and play it through my office system. On weekends, I drop it into another cradle at our ski condo, and, voila, 400 to 500 CD's are at my disposal. Apres ski never had it so good! A good wine, a fire going, and Miles on the system; you get the picture!

How good is the Ipod in terms of it being used as the main digital source in your system? Any good minijack to RCA connectors? Also, can I upload my CDs onto the Ipod?

Recently I started dling some music and movies onto a 8.5mm 60 gig external USB notebook drive, and the sound and picture is tremendously clearer and smoother when playing them from the USB drive than from my laptop's internal drive. I sort of want to explore this external drive avenue in terms of music playback in my system.

I have the ipod 40gb , got it at xmas. I also have a very good audiophile audio system. I highly recommend this tool. I have 2 cradles , 1 @ the computer and the other @ the stereo, which I take with me on the road.
I have 7800 songs from my collection, anytime anywhere I can listen to. It just doesn't get any better than that, for now. Parties no more changing cd's. Create your own files/ Dinner musik /Party musik/ On the road,skiing folder.

I have the
Etymotic 4P headphones
The Pivot mini to Rca interconnect
Creative -Travel Sound speakers ( WoW )unreal 3"x6" unit
I take this amazing little kit with me on holidays and this little speaker system is A MUST BUY, not cheap, but worth it.
Anyone know of any better sytem please let me know.

Nothing beats playing your music threw your chosen front end, on your home audio system. For comfort of random playing and travel, this is a 10/10 system for me.

Enjoy!

It is not mandatory that you load the ipod with MP3's. The 40 gig ipod will
hold about 100 CD's, UNCOMPRESSED. It will hold about 400 CD's using AAC at 320 kbps, which is pretty good sound for casual listening. I circulate music through my ipod UNCOMPRESSED using AIFF and it sounds really good.
I also have my car system set up so I can connect my ipod to a jack using the
Headphone OUT and play it directly through my car stereo -- and it sounds really good. 100 CD's, UNCOMPRESSED, is way more than any CD changer you will find. I keep my entire 1000+ CD collection on a hard drive and rotate them through my ipod as the mood strikes. I don't need the entire collection on the ipod at all times. 100 uncompressed CD's in the palm of my hand or in my car stereo is really handy. But, if you don't mind slight compression and you feel the need to have more music on your ipod, you can use AAC at 320 kbps and fit 4 times as much music. Further, I connected my ipod to my home system using the headphone out with an interconnect that splits into L & R and it produced better sound than the same CD through my Denon DVD1200 CD/DVD player. Finally, in other news, Alpine is coming out with with car stereos that will connect directly to your ipod, take over it's functions, and keep it charged. Do I recommend the ipod? Hell yes! I am not an Apple Dealer -- just a music lover who has been looking for a solution like this for years.

I'm a computer guy and just want to point ou that the IPOD is 'the best' mp3 player; not that it sounds the best as I don't feel one sounds better than the other, but the IPOD is easiest to use, has a good layout in it's controls and it's the most expensive. I owned the Nomand Jukebox Zen from Creative and felt it sounded every bit as good. If you want the best, buy the IPOD. If you want to save some of that bonus, buy something else.