OK, I'm late to the party, but I finally picked up an iPod this weekend and these things are pretty damn nice. I've already loaded about 150 albums on it and am absolutely loving being able to carry all that around with me in a little hand-held device. I got a hookup hard wired to my car stereo so I play it in the car, bring it into the office and just plug it into my computer for music all day and have been plugging it into the small stereo in my bedroom to listen as I go to sleep.

Sound quality is quite good for these sorts of uses. I rip CDs to Apple lossless and store on an external hard drive, which I can playback through my main stereo if I want the best quality. Or if I download, I download lossless files to start with. Then I convert to VBR MP3s at the highest quality level and put those on the iPod. The MP3s are just fine for car listening and listening on the computer and quietly at night so I don't miss the better quality CDs for when and where I use it.

Anyway, just my latest musical obsession I'm ranting about. Eventually before I box up the CDs and take them in to trade for vinyl, I'll get a second external to ensure I've got a backup drive. But, for now, I'm thinking it's gonna take me a while to get all the way to that point just with the time involved in ripping and converting files and all that.

What's been interesting is you start loading this thing up and your musical priorities start showing through with the first things you feel like you NEED to have on there. In my case, Never Mind the Bullocks, most all of The Clash stuff, Massive Attack's catalog, lots of jazz, Chuck Berry, tons of reggae, Doo Wop Boxes 1&2, Johnny Cash, some Boards of Canada, a few of my favorite hardcore albums, Wax Trax Black Box, and maybe a dozen of my most recent favorites. I guess I know more clearly where my priorities lie.

Glad its working out for you; it really is one piece of technology where the positives (mainly that you can carry around most, all or a great chunk of your music collection) outweigh the negatives.

I think I had a 2nd generation when it came out, I forget what year that was, and since then have had another one but yeah, I have it with me all the time.

The having everything with you comes in real handy. Like sitting around with my dad having a beer and mentioning that Chuck Berry box set and his going...yeah, I'd like to hear that... and all I gotta do is pull out the iPod and pop it on the stereo...her ya go. Got to have a nice long talk about music with the old man over a few beers that would have gone barely past a few sentences had I not been able to just start playing those tunes right there to fuel the conversation further.

what's the wax trax box?

it was a box set/video collection released in the 90s with some great stuff from that label...and some hilariously awful stuff as well.

I believe the first pressings were in a metal box.

Welcome to 2004.