Alpine is coming out with a car stereo that will interface with your i-pod,
take over it's functions and keep it charged. For me, that's a better solution than some of the others like Sony and Omnify. Sony and Omnify
make Hard Drive units that are dedicated to the car. The i-pod interface means you can plug your i-pod into your home stereo, your car stereo,
take it to the beach, etc. To me, that's the Holy Grail.
Also, when ripping CD's to a hard drive using Apple's AAC at 320 kbps,
one CD took up about 100 Megs. That's 100 CD's per 10 Gigs. With a
200 Gig Hard Drive, you could store 2,000 CD's.
When ripping them uncompressed, one CD took up about 500 Megs.
With a 200 Gig Hard Drive, you could store 400 CD's. You'd need 500
gigs to store 1,000 CD's uncompressed. That's two 250 Gig Hard Drives.
Just depends on your ears and how important are issues of sound quality
and Hard Drive space usage to you.
Another alternative is to prioritize. Perhaps you rip some CD's compressed and some uncompressed. A solution to the time expense of
ripping all those CD's is to pay a kid a few bucks an hour to do rip your
CD's. A child of 10 could easily do it and would love to have the money.
take over it's functions and keep it charged. For me, that's a better solution than some of the others like Sony and Omnify. Sony and Omnify
make Hard Drive units that are dedicated to the car. The i-pod interface means you can plug your i-pod into your home stereo, your car stereo,
take it to the beach, etc. To me, that's the Holy Grail.
Also, when ripping CD's to a hard drive using Apple's AAC at 320 kbps,
one CD took up about 100 Megs. That's 100 CD's per 10 Gigs. With a
200 Gig Hard Drive, you could store 2,000 CD's.
When ripping them uncompressed, one CD took up about 500 Megs.
With a 200 Gig Hard Drive, you could store 400 CD's. You'd need 500
gigs to store 1,000 CD's uncompressed. That's two 250 Gig Hard Drives.
Just depends on your ears and how important are issues of sound quality
and Hard Drive space usage to you.
Another alternative is to prioritize. Perhaps you rip some CD's compressed and some uncompressed. A solution to the time expense of
ripping all those CD's is to pay a kid a few bucks an hour to do rip your
CD's. A child of 10 could easily do it and would love to have the money.

