My knowledge about stereo and audio equipment amounts to pretty much nothing. So bear with me and explain in "dumbass terms."

All I want is two speakers that I can hook up to my ipod and take out to the beach. I thought about getting one of those ipod boomboxes that are just for ipods...but I don't want to get anything too nice that can get messed up at the beach.

So I was thinking of just going to a pawn shop and getting a couple speakers and apparently a certain hookup. What exactly do a I need?? Can I just get a couple of cheap speakers?? What kind of hookup do I need??

4/11/2006 3:28:52 PM

your not going to be able to do that. The only way you could do that would to be to get some of those really small crappy battery operated speakers that can plug into a headphone jack. to do what you want to do you would need something to power the speakers (an amp) and speaker wire to plug the speakers into the amp, something to power the amp (a wall socket or generator...or if your really set on doing this a car battery and an inverter) then you would need a cable with an RCA hook up on one end and headphone jack on another. then you could plug your ipod into a stereo with full size speakers.
Get a boom box and cds. eaiser and cheaper

4/11/2006 3:37:31 PM

^Don't listen to that guy. There are literally hundreds of products designed to do what you want. A quick google search turns up this highly reviewed product.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Logitech_mm50_Portable_Speakers_for_iPod_white/4505-6519_7-31510921.html?tag=txt

I'm not sure how keen I'd be on the idea of toting something like that to the beach with my ipod, but if that's what you want to do, have at it.

4/11/2006 3:50:19 PM

the problem is, those hundreds of products are mostly over 100 bucks. If you want something cheaper than that, then an old boombox with cd's or something is probably the way to go. I really wouldn't reccomend cobbling together a shelf stereo system just to take to the beach.

4/11/2006 4:02:46 PM

lots of cheap stereos have aux in and can run on D cell batteries and dont cost that much

4/11/2006 4:11:36 PM

+ 1/8th inch line in.

4/11/2006 4:14:29 PM

you have to get one of these from Apple for $350. There's no other way.
None
http://www.apple.com/ipodhifi/

4/11/2006 4:30:51 PM

aahahaha what a waste of $350

4/11/2006 7:06:19 PM

they do sound really impressive though. I'd rather spend 900 on a decent home stereo system with a line in for the ipod though, so I could use the thing for more than just the ipod. as a portable option though, the thing is really really nice sounding. it's just limited and stupid looking.

4/11/2006 10:58:30 PM

if you spent 900 on speakers, you wouldnt use an ipod for music


im just saying!!!111!11


storing wav files is teh cool, thanks for other lossless formatz apple!

4/11/2006 11:03:56 PM

ive seen a house that had the stereo system in every room coming from an ipod
it was an apple vp... but still, some people do it

4/11/2006 11:09:02 PM

^^ haha, you're right. I have a media box that connects through optical out to my stereo system. It streams all my mp3's from networked machines if I need it to, but serves as a backup of all my media files so it's got about 130 gigs of media stored locally. Who needs a line in from an ipod?

4/11/2006 11:49:53 PM

^I think you missed the point dude

4/12/2006 12:56:08 AM

I thought the point was that it's silly to connect an ipod to a really good soundsystem because RCA component inputs you'd use are shitty and lossy.

4/12/2006 1:00:58 AM

The point is, even with optical superdooper connectors, you are still streaming MP3's to the thing.

In which case, you might as well just keep using an 1/8th" Stereo Plug.

4/12/2006 1:52:25 AM

psh, ogg all the way

4/12/2006 2:05:27 AM

uh, ogg is still just as lossy as mp3 dude.

4/12/2006 2:11:42 AM

ogg is the wrapper, and doesn't have to be lossy. Vorbis is the compression scheme.

There are some cheap solutions though ($20 ish) to get portable sound out of the iPOd. Best Buy has a Dynex thing that is in that price range that does it.

Of course, you get what you pay for.

If you already have a boombox, use a tape adapter (assuming it has a tape player) and just hook the iPOd to it, if it doesn't have a line-in.

[Edited on April 12, 2006 at 2:23 AM. Reason : ]

4/12/2006 2:20:14 AM

^are there any lossless codecs for ogg? I wasn't aware of any, but if there are, please link me

4/12/2006 2:53:19 AM

AFAIK, Ogg will support any audio codec, but the one Oggers like to use if FLAC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg#Ogg_codecs

4/12/2006 3:09:56 AM

about 1/4th of what I have is encoded in a lossless format of some kind, most of that is in FLAC. I could swear the 192 kbps ogg vorbis stuff sounds better than the equal bitrate mp3's I have, but that might just be self deception (although many people I've talked to think that 160 kbps vorbis encoded music sounds slightly better than 192 kbps mp3.)

Quote :

"uh, ogg is still just as lossy as mp3 dude."

as moron said, FLAC is not (what I use for the stuff I actually own). I also think vorbis sounds a lot better for the bitrate than mp3.

4/12/2006 3:47:28 AM

In unofficial listening tests conducted somewhere a while back, Vorbis came out to be about the same as AAC for the same bit rate, but both of them were marginally better (as in average people could tell a slight difference) than mp3 or lame.

4/12/2006 3:55:35 AM

heh, I've actually seen AAC, LAME, and vorbis all over the place in various comparisons. I think a lot of it has to do with the listener. They all seem to cut out slightly different frequencies (ogg generally does a better job with the midranges) so I guess it really depends on what frequencies you're acutally sensitive too.

4/12/2006 3:57:43 AM

Yeah, they have distinct encoding qualities. If you ever look at the files in the frequency spectrum, it's pretty apparent what the different formats are doing.

4/12/2006 4:00:57 AM

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/oggvslame/


fairly dated, but good examples of what you just said.

4/12/2006 4:04:37 AM

Nice. Learn somethin new everyday

But the basic point still stands. Unless you are listening to a new audio-cd, or some dvd-audio/sacd, all the expensive equipment isnt going to do much for you.

4/12/2006 4:26:51 AM

Even lossy music will still sound better on a superior sound system (lossy to a point that is.) My system does a pretty nice job filling my living room with clean sounding powerful music or fairly intense surround sound for movies. The lossyness of the sound file is only part of the picture. A lossy but high quality sound file can still lose a hell of a lot more quality going from the computer/player to whatever's producing the actually amplified sound.

4/12/2006 4:35:46 AM

ever A-B

Flac -> 128kbps mp3?


i did because i thought the difference was bullshit

also A-B'd 22ishgauge -> 12 gauge wire

4/12/2006 8:36:22 AM

^are you saying you can tell the deff b/w those 2 wire gauges?

4/12/2006 8:42:19 AM

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/accessories/

speakers are near the bottom right. there are tons of options, many for well below $100

4/12/2006 9:26:34 AM

they make batteried powered amplified portable speakers as well that will plug into an 1/8th inch jack

4/12/2006 9:57:22 AM

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/ipod/review/pacific-rim-cube-travel-speakers-ipod/

they seemed to like those ones, and they're pretty cheap. not quite as loud as you'd want for a party or something.

4/12/2006 12:59:18 PM

Got these from this website in the mail yesterday. 10 bucks is pretty sweet for this setup. It's small as hell, took it out ot the beach with no problems, and it sounds pretty good for something so damn small. I also took the speakers off of my old computer and they hook up pretty well to my ipod...I'll be using those for my house setup.


http://www.eforcity.com/dothxxxxsp01.html



[Edited on April 15, 2006 at 10:44 AM. Reason : .]

4/15/2006 10:44:07 AM