Canadian Price Drop

[moinmoin]

Not to mention that bluetooth can further degrade the audio from the source, which is why I much prefer to have files on a usb drive rather than connecting my phone. If you're concerned about optimal sound quality, I don't suppose the Stinger will support FLAC files, will it?
It's not something I've really looked into as a decent mp3 is sufficient for me with the road noise inherent in driving.

Edit: beaten to the punch on the flac question

That's exactly it: no concert hall comes with road noise, so you really can't expect perfection in a car, even with Cadillac's 34 speakers, and you are occupied primarily withdriving. You attention is ususally focussed on the task at hand. In respect to flac. I'll see whether I can get my hand on copies of the Genesis Operator's Manuals. If the manual/pages dealing with the audio system indicate what file can be played via USB, it probably is a good indication what the Stinger will do.
I don't really use Bluetooth for anything. Just today came across a write-up to be careful, as it can be easily attacked and hacked.

 

[moinmoin]

@davebo
Why would I want to listen to albums completely out of order?

Because it's different and fun. There is no law that you have to listen to music in a certain order. You do know that there is a "shuffle" function in almost any player app?!

 

[moinmoin]

Good point about the ability to disengage the nannies.

Old school as I am, I will take the time to download part of my CD collection, but my main objection to doing this is that CDs have better sound quality than anything I can download to. At least that's been my experience listening to MP3s or ITunes on friends' car systems. The loss in sound quality is not quite as noticeable to me with rock or blues as it is with classical, which I listen to at least half the time. The need to transfer and then end up with an inferior product is an annoyance. Hopefully the better sound system (over my old car) will compensate for that and I won't really notice the difference.

@eljay you are looking for "quality" rips with a high bit rate. 320 is probably the best you can get with MP3, and I would not go less than 196 or so. But satellite radio could be solution....and when you play hard to get, I mean really hard to get, you can expect considerable discounts. Never take the first offer, and do no automatically renew. Satellite because it's something you do not have in you collection, and it is something new to listen to.....
I have everything from reel-to-reel, cassettes, 45s, 78s, 33s, really you name it, it's probably there. Except 8 track. That was before I came to Canada (1969). But I really don't listen to the old technology anymore. One gets lazy.

 

[davebo]

@davebo
Why would I want to listen to albums completely out of order?

Because it's different and fun. There is no law that you have to listen to music in a certain order. You do know that there is a "shuffle" function in almost any player app?!

You're certainly not required to listen to tracks in the original album order, but alphabetically by track names seems awfully arbitrary, and bands put a lot of effort into deciding the order of tracks. That's without even mentioning all the albums that have a story to them, stand-up comedy cd's and good luck if you get some audio book where the chapters have actual names instead of just "Chapter 1, Chapter 2" If you want to listen to songs in alphabetical order have at it, but to not be given the option of listening to them in the correct order is just a lazy oversight on Microsoft's part that I hope is rectified.

 

[moinmoin]

You're certainly not required to listen to tracks in the original album order, but alphabetically by track names seems awfully arbitrary, and bands put a lot of effort into deciding the order of tracks. That's without even mentioning all the albums that have a story to them, stand-up comedy cd's and good luck if you get some audio book where the chapters have actual names instead of just "Chapter 1, Chapter 2" If you want to listen to songs in alphabetical order have at it, but to not be given the option of listening to them in the correct order is just a lazy oversight on Microsoft's part that I hope is rectified.

You are right. I did not consider the spoken word records. I'm with you on that. Let's hope that sort of thing gets corrected and done properly.

 

[eljay]

I'm soooooo confused! Thank you all; you've given me a lot to reasearch and learn about, and I'll figure it out when the time comes, but I was just hoping that life might get a little simpler, not more complicated. My current system is near perfect for me--pop in a CD, control the tracks from the steering wheel (I've memorized the number of clicks to my favorite tracks on all the CDs I listen to most frequently); 12 presets for FM radio, which is enough to cater to my tastes; no need to spend time at home downloading anything; no worries about what format to use; no additional cost or negotiating for things like satellite (there is such a thing as too many choices). But I'll research and adapt, even though I'd rather be reading a good novel.

Now I've got to go figure out what else I need to do to protect myself against the Experian hack . . .