# I Got an iPod (Classical Related)



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

So, I got tired of toting my CDs around along with my computer and external CD drive so I got an iPod Touch. I just put select albums on it and shuffle the songs on random. This means I get single movements from the Classical works, and it hasn't bothered me yet. I'm actually enjoying the variety!


Feel free to add any points or related ideas.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Well, I don't know how much I would like single movements in shuffle. I used to frequently run shuffle on my non classical by artist, but have never tried it with classical, it just didn't seem to be suitable. Worse for me would be that I listen to a lot of opera and shuffle by tracks would really make a total mess of things. But doesn't the Ipod have a means to shuffle albums or folders? But you always can simply select a folder for a particular work and play it, right? I don't know how Ipod works because I use a Sansa MP3 player, which is pretty easy for me to work.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Occasionally I accidentally have my iPod on shuffle -- and get the most wonderful and quirky juxtapositions that put a whole new light on things (the Meistersinger overture followed by the first movement of Mozart's c minor Serenade!). Wouldn't do it all the time, but it's a great lark sometimes.


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## T Son of Ander (Aug 25, 2015)

I agree that sometimes shuffle provides some interesting juxtapositions, but I don't do it often. I use an iPod all the time, and I use playlists like crazy. I have playlists for every composer, plus a "now listening" playlist that changes all the time, depending on what I want to listen to. I don't want to be messing with it while driving, so I set up the list with works I want to listen to, several hours long. Unless I am wanting to go through a particular composers works or type of works, I do tend to mix it up from one work to the next (a Mozart symphony, followed by a Prokofiev concerto, followed by some Wagner overtures, etc. & whatever). But random movements, while interesting at times, not so much.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

As best I can determine (and I have been known to overlook features in iTunes) you can no longer shuffle by album on an iDevice.

You can choose to "join tracks" when you rip music into iTunes, combining the movements of work into a single track. This allows you to shuffle complete works, unless they are multi-disc, such as opera. There are of course pros and cons. To listen specifically to the second movement of a work, you have to find it within the joined track. And I don't think you can do the equivalent with downloaded music.

I ultimate gave up using iTunes for ripping, because it made too many errors, even with its version of error correction on. I now use JRiver. I'm not sure if I have caught a single error since I made the switch. And while JRiver does not have a "join tracks" feature it does have a "play together" feature. But I doubt this would carry over to an iPod.

You can't have everything.

Correction - JRiver has reported a very small handful of track errors (3-5?) on the 100s of discs I've fed it. At least one was an obvious disc flaw. But the point is *JRiver reported* that it could not do a clean rip. iTunes lets them pass unreported.


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## T Son of Ander (Aug 25, 2015)

It's funny, I have heard people complain about iTunes, but I have had very, very few errors in all my importing. Maybe less than ten in tens of thousands of tracks. Some of those were fine when I did that track over, and with some of the ones that didn't, I discovered it was an issue with the disc when I played it in a CD player. So, at least for me, the error rate is so low I can't complain.


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## MissKittysMom (Mar 2, 2017)

I mix some classical with non-classical for driving music, which is always on shuffle. The key for me is the classical tracks need to stand alone, like Scarlatti sonatas, or Bach/Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, for recordings where the prelude and fugue are a single track. 

When organizing stuff in iTunes, I group symphonies, concertos, and such as single" albums"; this makes them easier to find play.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

That's why I like my Sansa player. It is simple drag and drop to load music and I can play a track or a whole folder.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Florestan said:


> That's why I like my Sansa player. It is simple drag and drop to load music and I can play a track or a whole folder.


iTunes can do that too. The issues come with shuffling.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I used 4 Sansa players before the iPod came along. When I got my 1st iPod, I was struck by how much better the sound was.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

DaveM said:


> I used 4 Sansa players before the iPod came along. When I got my 1st iPod, I was struck by how much better the sound was.


perhaps it has a preamp? I would think the sound is mostly dictated by the earbud, though to some extent there could be a really junky mp3 player that affects sound. Certainly you need enough power to push the bass, which is not a whole lot for an earbud.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Florestan said:


> perhaps it has a preamp? I would think the sound is mostly dictated by the earbud, though to some extent there could be a really junky mp3 player that affects sound. Certainly you need enough power to push the bass, which is not a whole lot for an earbud.


I never used earbuds. I used the same high-quality headphones on both the Sansa and iPod so the difference was due to the iPod. Reviews of the iPods when they first came out emphasized the superior sound-related firmware over a number of popular MP3 players at the time.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

DaveM said:


> I never used earbuds. I used the same high-quality headphones on both the Sansa and iPod so the difference was due to the iPod. Reviews of the iPods when they first came out emphasized the superior sound-related firmware over a number of popular MP3 players at the time.


I suspect it would be more apparent on headphones. Earbuds tend to hide a certain amount of (but not all) sound quality issues.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Florestan:

Yes, you can select to play an entire album and you can shuffle by album, at least on the iPod Touch I have.


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## EarthBoundRules (Sep 25, 2011)

I'm listening to Classical music on my iPod right now! (Le Nozze di Figaro, if you're curious)
In fact, I got it just for that purpose. 32GB, which is enough for a lot of music that I switch out.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Florestan:
> 
> Yes, you can select to play an entire album and you can shuffle by album, at least on the iPod Touch I have.


Looks to me as though you need a third party app to shuffle by album on new iDevices.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smart-shuffle-album-shuffle-and-more/id342320176?mt=8

To be clear, when I say shuffle by album, I mean shuffling entire albums on your iDevice e.g. playing the Carlos Kleiber Beethoven 5th and 7th followed by Abbey Road followed by Kind of Blue, each in order in their entirety.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'll have to put a bit more thought into how I want to utilize my iPod. I missed being able to select from my entire collection mostly, and playing through an entire disc.

Plus I was having issues with strange noises that appear on a ripped Apple Lossless file but don't appear on the CD when it's played back. That threw me over, and I don't feel like investigating at this moment.

I'm open to suggestions.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

T Son of Ander said:


> It's funny, I have heard people complain about iTunes, but I have had very, very few errors in all my importing. Maybe less than ten in tens of thousands of tracks. Some of those were fine when I did that track over, and with some of the ones that didn't, I discovered it was an issue with the disc when I played it in a CD player. So, at least for me, the error rate is so low I can't complain.


Funny... my error rate is probably low, but I have SO MANY ways I could stilll find to complain about itunes. lol


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

jegreenwood said:


> Looks to me as though you need a third party app to shuffle by album on new iDevices.
> 
> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smart-shuffle-album-shuffle-and-more/id342320176?mt=8
> 
> To be clear, when I say shuffle by album, I mean shuffling entire albums on your iDevice e.g. playing the Carlos Kleiber Beethoven 5th and 7th followed by Abbey Road followed by Kind of Blue, each in order in their entirety.


Ya, I'm not sure what it was doing. But I went to albums and hit shuffle all and it was still doing the same thing as shuffling songs.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I'll have to put a bit more thought into how I want to utilize my iPod. I missed being able to select from my entire collection mostly, and playing through an entire disc.


You can save albums as albums, or multi-movement works as playlists, or either or both. The iPod can show menus of albums and playlists both. Shuffle, I think, will only shuffle individual tracks. You can merge tracks into one-track albums using other software before loading them into iTunes if you like.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

KenOC said:


> You can save albums as albums, or multi-movement works as playlists, or either or both. The iPod can show menus of albums and playlists both.


Do you have a preferred program to rip CDs with that maximize the chance of a clean replication of the audio?

I have become aware of the errors iTunes creates in some of the albums I ripped.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Many people swear by Exact Audio Copy, which is free. I use JRiver which is a full fledged media management/player/networker all in one application, but it costs (about $50 for a new copy I think). They offer a 30 day tryout period.

You still need iTunes these days, I think, to get tracks onto an iPhone or iPod Touch. Apple now uses a process, such that third part products no longer can see an iDevice as a hard drive.

Edit - it looks like you can transfer onto an iDevice by uploading a music file from your computer to Dropbox (or an equivalent) and downloading onto your iDevice.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

jegreenwood said:


> Many people swear by Exact Audio Copy, which is free. I use JRiver which is a full fledged media management/player/networker all in one application, but it costs (about $50 for a new copy I think). They offer a 30 day tryout period.
> 
> You still need iTunes these days, I think, to get tracks onto an iPhone or iPod Touch. Apple now uses a process, such that third part products no longer can see an iDevice as a hard drive.
> 
> Edit - it looks like you can transfer onto an iDevice by uploading a music file from your computer to Dropbox (or an equivalent) and downloading onto your iDevice.


Is EAC for mac?


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Is EAC for mac?


It's Windows only.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Klassik said:


> It's Windows only.


What's a good program for Mac?


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> What's a good program for Mac?


I'm not familiar with Mac CD rippers, but here's a chart that might help you choose something.

http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Comparison_of_CD_rippers

dBpoweramp is excellent, but it's not free. XLD looks promising on paper, but I've never used it.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'm trying out XLD and it seems to work well so far. I'm kind of new to this terminology when looking at that chart you provided, does this have a strong check for errors? That was my main gripe with iTunes.


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I'm trying out XLD and it seems to work well so far. I'm kind of new to this terminology when looking at that chart you provided, does this have a strong check for errors? That was my main gripe with iTunes.


I'm not sure if I understand the question, but XLD seems to support AccurateRip. This will compare your rip to a database to see how close your rip is to others. This may not work with obscure CDs, but it is helpful to gauge the accuracy of your rip.

I hate iTunes, but if I remember correctly, there's an option to enable error correction in the settings somewhere. Enabling that might give you better rips, but I would just use XLD if it's working well for you.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Klassik said:


> I'm not sure if I understand the question, but XLD seems to support AccurateRip. This will compare your rip to a database to see how close your rip is to others. This may not work with obscure CDs, but it is helpful to gauge the accuracy of your rip.
> 
> I hate iTunes, but if I remember correctly, there's an option to enable error correction in the settings somewhere. Enabling that might give you better rips, but I would just use XLD if it's working well for you.


iTunes has a box to check for error correction - however, in my experience, its effectiveness is sub-par.

I had a copy of "A Hard Day's Night" from the Beatles Mono box (bought from Amazon directly - not a counterfeit). Somehow the playing side got some kind of gunk on it. Quite visible once you looked. Yet when I ripped it in iTunes it reported no errors. Playing the ripped file on the other hand - just a mess. That was one of the discs that JRiver couldn't rip either - but it told me that it could not do so.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I use the Sony Soundforge to both rip and edit classical works. I then can import the individual WAV files into CD Architect that can create one long continuous WAV file that contains several works. That file is then imported into iTunes and converted into a 256 VBR AAC file.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I rip with Asunder. I edit with Audacity. I burn with Brasero.


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## T Son of Ander (Aug 25, 2015)

Florestan said:


> I rip with Asunder. I edit with Audacity. I burn with Brasero.


Are you still talking about music? :lol:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

T Son of Ander said:


> Are you still talking about music? :lol:


Those words do sound like pleasant adjectives to describe the rather violent verbs when observed from a sexual perspective, which is what I think you were doing! :lol: :lol:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I have been ripping with XLD and have been happy with the results thus far. I have decided to put a select few albums on my iPod at one time and learn the music, and as I learn an album's worth of material, I'll take it off and replace it. This is the best way for me to develop a closer relationship to classical music!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

My all-in-one solution to ripping files, editing metadata, conversions, and so forth is Foobar2000. Free. Also Audacity, of course, for music file editing.

http://www.foobar2000.org/


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

f


KenOC said:


> My all-in-one solution to ripping files, editing metadata, conversions, and so forth is Foobar2000. Free. Also Audacity, of course, for music file editing.
> 
> http://www.foobar2000.org/


I'm on a Mac, it doesn't look like Foobar is Mac friendly.


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## Rach Man (Aug 2, 2016)

On a slightly different look at this thread, some people here at talkclassical stated that they put _some_ of their music on their iPod/iPhone and just utilize their favorites or more recent music. Something that I did that alleviates that is I bought a refurbished iPod on eBay where the seller replaced the original dirve with a 512gb SSD. So now I have about 170 gb of music on my iPod, which is over 30 days of playing. This is all imported with the Apple Lossless format, which is the best sound that iTunes produces.

The nice thing about this iPod is that I still have over 300gb of memory left! So I don't have to triage any music. I just put all of the music on it. Plus, since it is a SSD drive, moving to any song/album on the iPod is very quick.

If you are interested, this is what I bought: http://www.ebay.com/itm/512GB-SSD-Flashpod-Apple-iPod-Video-5th-Gen-Classic-Flash-Memory-Black-/222034916218?hash=item33b24ff37a:g:e8UAAOSwyQtVzSOg

I am not promoting this for any financial gain. I am not the seller of this item, nor do I get any kickback for promoting it. It is just something that I bought and I find it to be a great addition to allow me to keep all of my music on one device.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

Since you're just starting out with your classical music iPod, I urge you to follow this guy's conventions for cataloguing items as you rip them using iTunes and put them onto your iPod:

http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/itunes.htm

(I don't use his suggestion of swapping the artist and composer, but I use it otherwise 100% for my collection, and it really makes the iPod work great for classical). it will save you a lot of grief as your collection gets larger.

When my iPod Classic died, I did the solid state swap out on eBay also, and it worked great. Still going strong, and a ton of room.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Does anyone know exactly what CDParanoia III 10.2 is? It's an option on this XLD ripper.


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Does anyone know exactly what CDParanoia III 10.2 is? It's an option on this XLD ripper.


I would use the Secure Ripper option instead of CDParanoia unless Secure Ripper does not work for some reason.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Klassik said:


> I would use the Secure Ripper option instead of CDParanoia unless Secure Ripper does not work for some reason.


Why?

I ripped my copy of B Minor Mass using secure ripper and it came with skips. I re-ripped with Paranoia, and no skips...?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

gardibolt said:


> Since you're just starting out with your classical music iPod, I urge you to follow this guy's conventions for cataloguing items as you rip them using iTunes and put them onto your iPod:
> 
> http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/itunes.htm
> 
> ...


I let my Metadata arrange itself however it wants, and then just search by album. That works well enough for me!


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Why?
> 
> I ripped my copy of B Minor Mass using secure ripper and it came with skips. I re-ripped with Paranoia, and no skips...?


CDParanoia is somewhat outdated. It's slower and may not be as accurate, but there may be cases where it works better. I'd use Secure Ripper unless you run into a problem disc as determined by your ears or AccurateRip, but you can use CDParanoia if you think it's working better for you.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I've never been tempted to buy an ipod, though I've used one. I don't like itunes and all that faffing about. 

I think it was Florestan who remarked that the sound output is dependent upon the earphones/earbuds and this is true. I have good earbuds and a good pair of headphones running from a bog-standard 6gb generic mp3 player.

I also rip using Asunder (or convert files using Sound Converter) on Linux. Drag and drop and go.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Klassik said:


> CDParanoia is somewhat outdated. It's slower and may not be as accurate, but there may be cases where it works better. I'd use Secure Ripper unless you run into a problem disc as determined by your ears or AccurateRip, but you can use CDParanoia if you think it's working better for you.


I suppose the best solution is to rip with secure rip first, test it out, if it doesn't work out, use CDParanoia, if that doesn't work, go back to iTunes. If that doesn't work, throw the disc out, and get a new copy, :lol:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

eugeneonagain said:


> I've never been tempted to buy an ipod, though I've used one. I don't like itunes and all that faffing about.
> 
> I think it was Florestan who remarked that the sound output is dependent upon the earphones/earbuds and this is true. I have good earbuds and a good pair of headphones running from a bog-standard 6gb generic mp3 player.
> 
> I also rip using Asunder (or convert files using Sound Converter) on Linux. Drag and drop and go.


Does Asunder work on Mac or just Linux?


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Does Asunder work on Mac or just Linux?


It doesn't work on Mac as far as I know. You'll have to do a search for 'open source CD rippers for Mac'. Maybe these are useful for you:

Fre-ac

iPodDisk


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

I've recently adopted a habit that I wish I'd thought of years ago. 

My tendency was to fall in love with three or four tracks and listen to them over and over at the expense of everything else I'd put on my player. I liked doing that, but it prevented me from discovering new things. Give yourself a few weeks to learn and enjoy your favorite things on the playlist and then delete them, that way you're forced to keep trying new things.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I put all the movements of a single classical work on one file, so I never run into this issue, or whatever you want to call it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

violadude said:


> I put all the movements of a single classical work on one file, so I never run into this issue, or whatever you want to call it.


Curious...how do you do that?


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Curious...how do you do that?


It's pretty easy to do in Audacity or any other DAW. There may be free standalone utilities for joining .WAV files as well, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Klassik said:


> It's pretty easy to do in Audacity or any other DAW. There may be free standalone utilities for joining .WAV files as well, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.


Fwiw: Though not a free standalone utility, this is a lesser-known capability of the Sony CD Architect. You can put the movements of a concerto or symphony together with individual tracks and burn the work to a CD hence the name CD Architect. But instead of burning the CD, you can save the work as one big WAV file. Now that I'm not listening to CDs all that much anymore, I'm using the latter capability to create music files to listen to on my iPhone or iPod iTouch.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I'm interested in a program to join MP3 files without expanding/compressing them and subsequent quality loss. Any suggestions?


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

KenOC said:


> I'm interested in a program to join MP3 files without expanding/compressing them and subsequent quality loss. Any suggestions?


This might do what you are looking to do, but I have not used this software so use at your own risk!

mp3DirectCut - http://mpesch3.de1.cc/mp3dc.html


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Thank you Klassic! I'll check this out.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Klassik said:


> This might do what you are looking to do, but I have not used this software so use at your own risk!
> 
> mp3DirectCut - http://mpesch3.de1.cc/mp3dc.html


Klassik is owning it with the recommendations in this thread! Thank you, !


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'm not too interested in joining files together into one file for complete work. I just put on an album and let it play through, and when it's finished, I put on another album. 

Just like you would change a CD after it's done. I'm through with the shuffling for right now.


I am not worried about expanding my tastes, by listening to certain works over and over again, I learn them, and then I can add something else once I've learned them and that can be something I've never heard before!


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> I've recently adopted a habit that I wish I'd thought of years ago.
> 
> My tendency was to fall in love with three or four tracks and listen to them over and over at the expense of everything else I'd put on my player. I liked doing that, but it prevented me from discovering new things. Give yourself a few weeks to learn and enjoy your favorite things on the playlist and then delete them, that way you're forced to keep trying new things.


Maybe there is some confusion. I have about 8 full albums on my iPod at the moment that I'm giving myself to learn. About 7GBs worth!


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