After several years without a portable music player (my ailing minidisc player suffered a catastrophic fall from the top of a chest of drawers), the end of January brought me an iPod Photo. As it turns out, it was probably a fortuitous time to buy one: I was able to acquire the now-defunct 40GB model, with all the accessories that the new models don’t have, including a Dock, A/V cable, and Firewire cable. Sure, it cost a bit more, but when you buy something as expensive as an iPod it’s hard to justify spending loads more money on extras. As it was, I could simply get the product I wanted, with the accessories I wanted, without getting that sinking feeling of “accessory guilt”.

The Firewire cable is, I’ve found, far quicker at transfers than the USB one, and having the Dock is fantastic. It just sits there, on my desk, waiting for me to jam in the iPod to recharge and synchronise with my iTunes library. Moreover, I can simply remove it and take it downstairs, then plug it into the stereo system when I want to listen to some music while I work (I usually get more writing done when I’m away from the computer). I’ve not had occasion to use the photo A/V cable yet, but I suppose I might; one never knows.

The one thing I did splash out on was headphones. Although I couldn’t afford the Etymotic Research ER-4S earphones ($330 is a bit out of my league), I did get some very nice Sony MDR-EX81 earphones ($70, or under £40, including shipping). The only caveats I have are these: if you have small ears, as I do, you may have some problems getting the loops to stay in place easily. They can also be a bit overwhelmed by exterior noise when on low and medium volume: the noise cancellation is noticeable, but not as effective as real in-canal earphones like the Etymotics. Of course, while on the one hand this makes it slightly harder to shut out the rest of the world, it does make it somewhat safer to cross the road. In any case, given the tinny sound of the stock white Apple ones, buying some decent earphones was a very worthwhile investment, one I’d recommend to anyone getting an iPod.

It’s certainly changed my journeying a lot: killing time is easier, especially when I can stomp around Reading station in the freezing cold listening to Blonde on Blonde very very loudly. iTunes is a great piece of software, and I’ve been slowly making sure all my mp3s have the correct metadata, adding album art and so on (having an iPod photo makes this a worthwhile experience, as Khoi Vinh notes—his suggestion of using Walmart’s music section to get album art is a sensible one, too).

Perhaps more importantly, it’s changed my music listening more than anything has since… well, since I got the minidisc player. Listening on journeys, especially, when one can simply concentrate on listening to the music, has afforded me an opportunity to return to old favourites and encouraged me to listen to new music more than I have for some time. Recent purchases include PJ Harvey’s Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea, Thea Gilmore’s Rules For Jokers, Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm (I’m nothing if not a bandwagon jumper) and a 22-track Yardbirds best-of entitled Shapes of Things. More reports on these and other noises to come, possibly.

A quick note on an unrelated subject: if you’re a LiveJournal user, you can pick up the syndicated feed of this blog here; I’ll try to keep an eye on comments there as well as here. Still, it’s really not that hard to just register a username and start commenting away here instead! Blogging is becoming even more of a distributed activity. Hopefully I can keep up the work on the templates, and get this place somewhat more shipshape.