The Audiophiliac

Does anybody buying an iPod in 2008 expect to get more than a few years of use out of the thing? My five year old iPod still plays, but I can't get it to work in newer iPod docks or iPod speakers. My iPod is too old.

Linn's turntable has been around since 1972.

(Credit: Linn Products)

A good friend of mine plays his 30-year-old Linn LP-12 turntable almost every day. It was an expensive turntable in 1978 when it sold for around $1,200. But he's gotten 30 years of use out of the thing, and even now listens to a lot more vinyl than CD. So his $1,200 investment works out to around $40 a year to own the thing. Can you imagine anybody buying an iPod today still using it in 2038? 2028? OK, how about 2018? Hmm, I don't think so.

Linn still makes the LP-12 turntable, the model has been in continuous production since 1972, and most parts are readily available. How's that for customer service? My Linn LP-12 is almost brand new, it's just 13 years old.

OK, iPods aren't high-end devices, they're disposable technology. Fair enough, how much do you imagine you'll spend on iPods or their equivalents over the next 30 years? There was one guy who responded to my "How many iPods have you owned?" poll who has already bought 26. So he's already made Steve Jobs richer by many thousands of dollars. Over the next three decades he'll spend a lot more, and still wind up with a closet full of useless junk.

I get it. Convenience trumps quality in most things. Fast food vs. slow food; fresh ingredients vs processed, which is pretty much the same deal with music. CDs, once the height of convenience and advanced tech are now viewed as archaic. CDs are too big, too easily damaged, and cost too much--so lower-fi MP3s and iTunes have put the CD on the road to oblivion. But to vinyl loving audiophiles LPs still sound better than any digital format. Everyone else couldn't care less about the sound quality their music, it's just not all that important to them.

Or is it that people are so busy now they simply don't have time for quality. Strange, our affluence makes us go for the quickest, lower quality option every time. Back in the day writers would use the same typewriter for decades, but now we have to toss out our computers every three or four years. We're living in a disposable culture, so we need to keep buying new, ever cheaper stuff, but if you have to keep rebuying it, is it really cheaper? High-end audio can be expensive to buy, but not to own.

I'd like to hear from you guys about your turntables, have long have you had yours? Is yours even older than my friend's 30 year old Linn?

The one and only Beatles DVD-Audio release

A reader responding to my The Beatles on iTunes? Who Cares? rant came up with this great summation: "iTunes are to audio what McDonald's is to hamburgers, but if this is how the public wants to buy music, then let 'em have it." Right on! Sound quality doesn't matter anymore, just the so-called convenience of downloading 1s and 0s at the cheapest possible price, or better yet for free. Why buy the complete "Sgt Pepper" when you can just get "With A Little Help From My Friends"? That's where it's at.

If a remastered recording sounds "better," but no one can hear it, does it sound better? No, not really. I get the feeling that the remastered tag has just been reduced to a catchphrase, something to connote goodness. Hey, it's been remastered, so it's got to be better. Yeah right, maybe, maybe not. I think Apple did a lousy job on the Beatles "Let it Be... Naked" CD a few years ago.

It's curious, the Beatles' Apple's supposed "remastering" for low-fi iTunes was mentioned again and again by The Audiophiliac's readers, as if the new digitalization would reveal new sound from the old tunes over 128 K iToons. Puh-leeze! Yes, sure, maybe they'll also put out remastered CDs or DVD-Audio like Apple did with last year's Love release. Maybe we'll get multichannel, 5.1 Beatles on Blu-ray, sure, why not? Now that would be something. We audiophiles can dream, but the market will collectively yawn.

Paul McCartney is now saying the Beatles catalog won't be available on iTunes until sometime next year. Yeah so? Maybe I don't get it, but didn't the "digitalization" of the Beatles catalog happen more than twenty years ago when they put out the CDs? So why are iTunes buyers a vast untapped Beatles market? The catalog is already online--if you have a hankering for Abbey Road buy the CD from Amazon and rip it right now.

I could give a hoot about the long-running legal feud between the Beatles' music label Apple Corps and Steve Jobs' Apple, and their endless haggling over the deal. Aren't Steve Jobs and Sir Paul rich enough already?

What's so good about good sound? Who gives a crap? Strolling around Apple's oh-so-cool Fifth Avenue emporium in Manhattan, taking in the screechy din of countless cute-as-a-button iPod speakers, you'd have to conclude no one. Apple's temple is flush with style, but the sound is, in my opinion, flat out dreadful. OK, it's a showroom and hardly the sort of environment conducive to a quality listening experience, but even so, the priorities disparity is jarring. With most iPod speakers hovering around $100 to $200, you'd have to conclude that's what sells: a tinny sound from a speaker system that doesn't take up a lot of space. Yes, Apple's iPod Hi-Fi speaker is a big step up from the little critters, but is that all there is?

Apple's glass house looms large

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

Maybe it's just me; the place is jammed with giddy Apple worshippers, oohing and aahing over every expensive Mac gadget. Steve Jobs knows where the action is, and sound quality ain't it. That's too bad.

By the way, I'm no Apple basher, I just bought a new 24 inch iMac and love it.