The ipod is just style over substance. I have a ipod shuffle , but i ionly use it now & again, spend mor etime listening to minidiscs on the move or at work. Minidisc is ace for recording vinyl onto. Even for analogue recordings off my micromega is pretty good (micromega only has a coax & my minidisc deck only has optic!)
Quite agree that quality of sound is not the overiding issue , but that music as information that can be shared & picked up 24/7 , played back on sophisticated objects that are in the main style items is the main focus for a lot of people. My wife finds it potty that i need al, these 'boxes' as she puts it & that she would gladly have rid of it all for a ipod dock or noise box. Over my dead body!!! There is something about going over to the machine, opening the drawer or placing the record on the platter , putting needle on the record etc & then sitting down & listening to it & then reading the sleeve notes & then doing it all over again when its finished.
I have my dad to thank for getting me hooked on seperates as hed wnet down that path in the late 70's & i over vthe tears inherited his cats offs , until i started earning the pennies to get my own.
The loudness levels on music is appaling, things ive downloaded off itunes are miles louder than when bought on a cd. The difference in 'mastering' between US / Japanese / European CD's is all to apparent. I much prefer US made CD's as these sound as they should , whereas Japanese cd's often tend to have the emphasis on the vocals with a softer sound for the instrunentation, whereas British made cd's alaways seemed very bass heavy, & those made on mainland Europe are to be honest just even , but loud. Even vinyl made in differnet countries can be poles apart. the new 180-gsm pressings form Japan & the US are superb & show that vinyl technology can still be developed to produce stunning sounding records.
The digital era is all good & well , but its amazing how much stuff has yet to be put on CD. I recently bought a copy of the John Barry 'Americans' LP off ebay, made in 1975 , its still bever been issued on CD. My dad is serious collector of 'soul' music pref southern states, the amount of run offs of 45's onto CD recorders because the original tapes dont survive is amazing.
Long live real hi-fi