Last week I got a 16GB Creative Zen V Plus, the first flash-based MP3 player to move past the 8GB mark (aside from players with microSD card slots). And we’ll be seeing a 16GB iPod nano before the holidays. Aside from simply holding more songs, more flash means those tiny players can hold bigger and better-sounding digital files, which is right on time for the glut of DRM-free 256Kbps digital downloads from online sources like Wal-Mart and iTunes — and now Universal and Google’s brainchild gBox — not to mention the increasing popularity of lossless compression formats.

Signs are pointing to mainstream listeners’ demand for better sound, so why are music player makers still cheaping out on critical sound quality helpers like headphone jacks and lossless compression codecs? A few companies were on the right track in the past — Apple even once proved that better audio quality doesn’t cut into profit margins much. What gives?

If you’ve ever used a set of headphones with and without a headphone amplifier, you’ll know that your cans or buds aren’t living up to their full potential without being driven well. When you get past stock earbuds (like those crappy iPod whities), it’s not just about loudness, it’s about detail, realism, and bass that’s so tight you can bounce a quarter off it.

When I test an MP3 player, I usually run the output through a computer to get a visual handle on how strong and balanced the audio is. Most players crap out in the bass, so headphones have to compensate, or you boost the bass artificially on the player — often turning it to mud. When you plug in headphones, that audio signal degrades even more depending on the strength of the tiny amplifier behind the headphone jack.

A former colleague of mine from my PC Magazine days, Bill Machrone, figured out that the first-generation iPod shuffle had a better headphone output than any other player on the market. I even tested one myself, and upshot is that the shuffle’s already unusually strong output didn’t even flinch when I plugged in some expensive cans that usually require the extra oomph of a headphone amp to sound good.

Apple never gave us a straight answer as to why they included that rockin jack on their lowest-end player. But it certainly didn’t seem to drive up the price of the iPod shuffle, so the part couldn’t have been very expensive, and it sure didn’t add anything significant to the size. Since then, Apple has never put that type of jack on any of its players.

Oh well, at least iPods support lossless compression — extremely high-quality digital files with no audible or measurable difference from what’s on a CD. And given how important a link in the audio chain the source (your digital music) is in the grand scheme of things, I’m shocked that more companies don’t make players that handle lossless.

There have been other great-sounding players in the past, like the Archos AV500 and the Sony NW-HD5 both of which had better-than-normal headphone jacks — though neither touched that of the iPod shuffle.And finding a player that does lossless compression is still on the tough side: Toshiba’s gigabeat S series and many players from Cowon are pretty much aside from iPods, though they all have the same cheap headphone outputs as everything else.

You can get a portable headphone amp like the HeadRoom Total BitHead and hook it up to your player for better sound. iPod users can use a SendStation Pocket Dock, which is a small adapter that outputs audio from the dock connector and gives you louder and fuller sound than what you get from the headphone output. You can then either plug that into a headphone amp or even plug headphones into the Pocket Dock (though you lose control over volume this last way).

But these all mean you’ve got to carry around extra stuff and spend more money than you’ve already dropped on your player and (hopefully) nice headphones. This should all be built into the MP3 players, especially since those are fast becoming the primary method of music listening.

Audio quality is about a strong chain from beginning (your digital music files) to end (headphones). Any weak link in between will take that precious sparkle and liveliness right out of your favorite tunes, leaving them sounding flat and dull.

And trust me, once you experience truly great sound, everything else begins to diminish the excitement of listening to music. Remember how you once thought 128Kbps MP3s sounded fine? Chances are, you’ve moved to a higher bit rate or even a lossless format since then, and if you listened to those low-quality files now, it’d be like hearing nails on a chalkboard.

The latest digital music news is that last week the Universal record label decided to “test” selling DRM-free tracks on RealNetworks’ Rhapsody, hot on the heels of EMI’s decision to drop copy protection from its downloadable catalog online. On the independent front, LimeWire — my favorite barely-legal way to get free stuff — is polishing up its shady reputation as a piracy pit by selling DRM-free 256Kbps MP3s, with big names like Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, and Sarah MacLachlan in the store window.

It’s a big circle: You’ll be able to buy your music and do what you want with it once again, just like in the nearly bygone days of the CD — the difference being that digital downloads give you more-or-less instant gratification. Phones, music players, and computers will be fully loaded with unrestricted content that can be shared at will.

Not everyone is thrilled about this idea, most notably the two remaining ultra-conservative labels, Warner Music Group and Sony BMG, who are clutching DRM in a death grip. Warner jumped all over AnywhereCD when the latter tried to sell DRM-less tracks from WMG’s catalog, and although they’ve dropped the lawsuits against each other, Warner’s music will be dropped from the service on September 30. So get your 192Kbps Metallica albums while they’re still unprotected! And Sony’s “anti-consumer” DRM missteps have been making headlines for years.

Unfortunately, it’s not just the recording industry making it difficult for digital music to live up to its potential. The three biggest stiflers of universal music sharing are music management software, audio file formats, and operating system support — things the major labels have very little control over. Sony has been an exception here, with its multifaceted existence as label, hardware manufacturer (Walkman phones and music players), and software maker (SonicStage), and music store (Sony Connect), though SonicStage is now dead, and the Connect store is about to go dark after a traumatically unsuccessful life.

Most music players from companies like Samsung, Creative, iRiver, and Microsoft still don’t support the AAC format or lossless compression — or Apple computers, which is just nutty if you think about who’s buying music players. This is one area where Sony seems to gotten in a lucky shot; its Walkman players have supported AAC for a while now. (Warning: When Sony is ahead of you in the MP3 player market these days, you know you’re doing something horribly wrong!)

Instead of nickel-and-diming on licensing fees — which is almost always the reason behind such asinine exclusions — hardware makers should shell out a few extra bucks for a better user experience through interoperability. Creative could use some of its $100 million settlement with Apple to forge some kind of working relationship between Zen music and video players and Macs and perhaps even iTunes.

Those costs could easily be absorbed by increased sales volume. More likely, though, that would be passed onto the consumer, but the tiny extra cost per unit ($10 at most) would hardly be a blip on most people’s radar, especially if you market the no-fuss-no-muss benefits of not leaving tons of potential customers out in the cold.

“Spend a little to make a little” probably isn’t much of an incentive for hardware makers to add a little versatility to their products and give them a fighting chance against Apple. But spending a little to make a lot should be pretty convincing.

It took me years to realize that maybe it’s not such a bad thing for people to listen to music without owning it, and it was my renewed interest in radio — both FM and Internet — that did it. Now I’m constantly checking out stuff at all these online spots and it’s definitely broadening my horizons. (Newsflash: Jazz Nerd Now Checks Out Indy Rock Bands!)

Remember radio? You don’t own the music, but you hear it for nothing and then you go and buy it if it rings your bell. Well Internet radio is alive and kicking, and it’s starting to play nice with portable players: Look at the happy marriages of SanDisk and Rhapsody, iRiver and Rhapsody, SanDisk and Yahoo, Sonos and Rhapsody, and so on.

For the iPod, though, it’s been lonely at the top. Apple is still holding out on the whole subscription service idea (a la Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo), preventing 80 percent of music player owners from getting new music regularly without having to do a term paper’s worth of research. Sure you can get an iPod Shuffle and constantly update the music on it automatically with random tracks from your own library.

There are other online sources of iPod-compatible digital music besides iTunes. But aside from eMusic, which has always done well with the iPod set thanks to its DRM-less MP3s), it’s tough to say how many iPod owners actually use them.

Slacker
One of the better things to come along in the Net radio universe is a Web radio service called Slacker, and the company is about to drop the Holy Grail of dedicated portable music devices. Prototypes are floating around out there, and they look frigging awesome: WiFi, 4-inch screen, I’m all for competition, but it would really kick ass if Apple got in on this early, because I’m starting to get sick of scrolling through my 80GB iPod to find something I haven’t listened to in a while.

Lala
This online CD shop lets you buy discs from other users for a fee. But you can upload your own iTunes library to Lala’s servers, whether your music was ripped or downloaded (as long as there’s no DRM). That means you can access your tunes from any Internet-connected computer, and even copy it directly to your iPod.

For about a month, Lala users were able to stream full-length tracks on-demand from one major label (Warner Music Group) for free — which was huge. But that service went dark; the company cited server overload, which I’m sure is true, but I suspect its immediate success (despite the unstable interface) may have scared some labels into backing out.

Other Freebies
There are always a few free offerings on iTunes and some free music download sites out there, though usually none of them has anything you’ve ever heard of. And then there’s SpiralFrog, a ballsy new ad-supported free download service with 700,000 tracks from the Universal record label (which is making headlines of its own). Of course, those tracks are in WMA format, so the iPod will once again be cut out of a free musical extravaganza.

DIY
While it would be great if there were a subscription service on iTunes, you can still “time-shift” Internet radio with recording programs like WireTap, which simply grab any sound your computer plays. If you’re really determined, you can even use an external sound card like M-Audio Transit USB and line the output back into the input and record analog. (People still tape stuff off the radio with tape recorders, and plenty of MP3 players have FM recording features.)

If the next significant generation of the iPod (not just a capacity bump or internal changes) turns out to have WiFi built in, which is still in question, Slacker would be the ideal partner for Apple to take over the digital airwaves and take iPod owners out of their boxes. Imagine being able to refresh your iPod wirelessly with music tailored to your tastes — though I’m certain “free” doesn’t fit into Apple’s vision.

Next year, portable wireless audio is finally going to stop sucking. With the advent of the next generation of Bluetooth and improvements in miniaturization techniques, not to mention ever-increasing efficiency in power consumption, we’re going to see some pretty hot ear candy in ‘08. Finally, Bluetooth audio will relinquish its crown as the world’s most annoying sound to this cartoon bird.

(Turn down your volume a bit before clicking that link above.)

Here’s how I felt about Bluetooth six months ago:

February 3, 2007

Dear Bluetooth,
I’m sorry to have to put this in a letter, but I feel it’s the only way I can express how I truly feel about you without getting hysterical. Okay, here goes: You’re just not living up to what I expect from you.

I wanted us to grow together as I found more excitement in the idea of low-power high-quality wireless audio, but you’re holding me back. I admit I listen to compressed MP3s sometimes, but your extra layer of compression and spotty synchronization only make things worse. When we hear music together, I like that it can be in stereo, but hearing crappy sound even in both ears still isn’t enough.

And I don’t mean to sound shallow, but when I’m out with you, everyone stares — not at me, but at you, with your blinking LEDs and your… size. You really should think about dropping a few half-inches, because it’s keeping me from being attracted to you. Speaking of which, you’ve really got to get better at pairing. I have real wireless needs!

I know your battery life just isn’t up to the task of being there for me consistently when I need you, but this is exhausting for both of us.

I hope we can work this out one day,
Mike

But now things are finally changing, and I’m starting to have feelings for Bluetooth again. That’s because it’s taking a few steps in the right direction towards fulfilling my wireless dreams.

On August 1, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) unanimously approved the next version of the technology, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. That lets headsets and other BT accessories and phones, or music players hook up and do their secret handshake faster. It also doesn’t sap as much energy from batteries (or me).

The same day, a company called Open Interface North America (OINA) broke out their new lossless Bluetooth compression technology called SoundAbout Lossless. If you’re familiar with lossless compression, you already know it’s a very good thing for sound quality. It lets a phone or music player or whatever transmit a signal that reaches its destination (headphones, headset, tin-foil hat, etc.) without losing any quality. But it still fits into the transmission bandwith Bluetooth 2.x+EDR makes available.

Bluetooth has long had the attention of midrange and high-end headphone companies, so all this should mean companies like Sennheiser, Shure, and Ultimate Ears will release wireless earbuds sometime before next summer, and possibly sooner. (Etymotic’s relatively unsuccessful attempt with the hilarious-looking Ety-8 will presumably be followed up with a better-sounding — and hopefully better-looking — second generation.) Not to mention what this’ll do things like Bluetooth speakers and wireless iPod transmitters.

I’m telling you, if I had a wireless version of a sick set of earbuds like Shure’s SE 420 or Ultimate Ears’ super.fi 5 Pro that didn’t make me look like I’m commanding a Starfleet… Let’s just say that’s my picket fence dream. I can almost taste it.

Here’s looking at you, Bluetooth. But please, ditch that blinking blue light.

This week: Computers, set-top boxes (like AppleTV), and AV
receivers are battling to be your household hub, streaming music and
movies back and forth across your pad until you become sterile and
glow in the dark. All this gear is versatile, but it’s hard to know
which one to pick — especially when hefty sums of money are involved.
Sonos and now Denon seem to have the most promising solutions, but
life is passing their equipment by while gadgets like the iPhone and
Archos’s 605 WiFi threaten to swoop in and take all.

If I can get my digital music from any place to any other place with
no wires in between and control it easily, I’m a happy audio geek.
But assuming you have a reasonably sized budget, how do you choose
among dedicated streaming hardware (Sonos, Squeezebox, etc.), Media
Center-type PCs, straight-up networking gear (AirPort Express,
Sondigo), and networked home stereo components?

At a press event the other day, Denon introduced some very cool
networked stereo gear that has a lot of potential, thanks to a TV-
screen interface that functions as your command center. But it’s
going to have a tough time competing with some of the stuff already
out there, not to mention what’s just on the horizon.

What’s new
Denon turned over its entire line of AV receivers for the first time
in 10 years, but the most noteworthy changes came at the top end:
Denon’s 5308CI ($5200) and 4308CI ($2500) both have built-in WiFi and
USB inputs for hard drives and some portable players. The WiFi is for
things like remote maintenance, multizone music distribution (similar
to Sonos), and Internet radio, and streaming music from an iPod (via
an optional $129 dock).

Of course, these aren’t the first WiFi receivers and won’t be the
last, but it does show that the big boys like Denon and Sony are
trying to retain the living room control they’d had in the pre-
wireless era. And other WiFi-capable stereo components are garnering
attention, like Olive’s line of high-end CD players, which can stream
music from anywhere on your network — or as I accidentally found out
back in my days in PC Magazine Labs, it can take down a swath of a
corporate network).

The hottest thing Denon introduced the other day, though, was an iPod
dock that also turns any stereo component into a wireless music
system. You just hook it up to your receiver and/or TV, and it can
access files from anywhere on your home network using your TV screen
as a navigation interface.

Impressive, but even with their reliance on handheld remotes, all of
these tether to your TV screen for browsing and controlling your music.

Best of what’s around
Sonos’s wireless digital music system and handheld controller (with a
big LCD and iPod-like scroll wheel) seems to hold the most promise in
terms of convenience, and the entry point there is $1000. It’s hard
to beat taking your music around with you and wirelessly controlling
it in every room in your home. But honestly, that controller is
pretty ridiculous to lug around while you’re hosting a party, and the
other remotes on my living room couch are scared of it.

Sonos is on the right track, but the controller could just as easily
be a bitchin’ WiFi music player (iPhone? 6G iPod?), not a big brick
with only a few more features than a paperweight. The current iPhone
could easily be rigged up to transmit signals to WiFi-capable gear
with a simple firmware upgrade — in fact, someone should do an
infrared transmitter attachment so you could use it to turn on your
TV! (Might as well… no one really talks on the iPhone
anyway, do they?)

What’s next
I remember being amazed 7 or 8 years ago when I saw a buddy of mine
take out his PDA and turn it into a fully customizable remote for the
TV set — it was brilliant! Where did this idea go? Hopefully into next-
gen music players from companies like Apple, Archos, iRiver, and
even Microsoft.

If you’re wondering whether you should make a big investment in a
wireless streaming audio setup, consider that in the next year or so,
the iPhone/iPod/Zune combined with something along the lines of
Apple’s AirPort Express or Denon’s new WiFi gear could be what keeps your digital music — and
probably video — pumping to every nook and cranny of your house.

The image above was created by Leah Perrotta, a Brooklyn-based artist and all-around lovely gal. Check out her stuff every week right here on the AudioFile, and Flickr.

I was riding my bike the other day, when I got a call from Apple. I pulled over to the curb, and by the time the light on the corner changed, an iPhone was on its way to my apartment. I hadn’t even requested one, yet 36 hours later, it arrived.

Sure enough, within an hour I was compulsively checking email and surfing the Web on it, like a kid picking at a mosquito bite.

I did pretty normal stuff with it: checked out the features, loaded it up with music and vids, and found a few things to gripe about. But some people out there are interested in doing more than just the basics with the iPhone.

I took my iPhone to my local pub so I could have a beer and check my horoscope online watch some YouTube clips. Within two minutes, some nutty-looking guy was asking me whether the iPhone sucks or not, and in return for my 15-second answer, he bought me a beer! Conclusion: The iPhone is not a chick magnet, but it can get you pretty drunk.

After a couple of beers, I started to get some funny ideas about things to do with my iPhone. For starters, I kept it in my back pocket for a night — my own special torture test — which resulted in a nice dent in the back of the casing after I sat on a stone ledge. But apparently, that’s just scratching the tip of the iceberg.

Here are the top ten (Homeland Security Department-approved) iPhone activities:

1. Rant about its effects on the mind to a bunch of teens.
Some woman escaped from her house full of cats to vigorously caution a bunch of teens against the dangers of the iPhone. Note the intensity of the teens’ response… not to mention the lady’s awareness of how insane she appears. This video makes me feel uncomfortable the same way watching Jerry Springer does.

2. Blend it.
This clip of the host of Will It Blend pureeing an iPhone has already achieved an infinite number of clicks — twice! It disturbs me that the guy isn’t wearing a protective mask when he opens the blender and black smoke from the ruptured battery begins to pour out. I’m proud to say I resisted the urge to try out my own recently purchased blender to make iPhone margaritas.

3. Start stealing random things when you see an iPhone.
You know it’s a slow news day when the news itself becomes news. Someone steals a news reporter’s microphone as she interviews one of the early iPhone testers. Would’ve been nice to have had a secondary camera to catch the beatdown — which should have been for not snatching the iPhone instead.

4. Worry that it might destroy society.
And now a word from Dr. Bruce Weinstein, of BusinessWeek’s Contradictory Statement Department: “Our social fabric is in danger of being ripped to shreds as we swap electronic connection for personal relationships. The very nature of community depends upon us being connected to one another.” I’d prefer not to think of Steve Jobs having the power to bring about the end of civilization, but he can be pretty impressive at times.

5. Eat it.
The iPhone, eaten raw, doesn’t quite have the same kick to it unless you blend it. Or at least make it out of cake.

6. Beat the hell out of it to show it how tough you are.
Ars Technica did a “stress test” on the iPhone. They keyed it, they slashed it, they tossed it on the ground. The person in the video does it all so casually — I bet the sequel features flower-stomping and puppy-kicking. Just wait until the next version of the iPhone comes out, complete with defenses like thorns and laser beams.

7. Make a musical about it.
David Pogue’s musical about the iPhone was definitely the most f-ed up thing I’d seen on the day it came out. Like Flashdance, however, its day in the sun was short and sweet.

8. Use it as a justification for your conspiracy theories.
Not sure how I found this one, but it’s a pretty strange connection this guy’s trying to make: Apple’s video tutorials on how to use the iPhone show some news headlines from NYtimes.com on the phone’s screen. Somehow that means Apple has a political agenda. I was skeptical at first, but Apple doesn’t usually make marketing decisions lightly. Maybe Jobs is building up his presidential platform for 2012?

9. Use it to replace a human heart.
An artificial heart with CoverFlow — Dr. Robert Jarvik has nothing on Steve Jobs! Seems like it might work better as a brain transplant though.

10. Dress your kid up as one.
(Sigh.) It won’t be long before iPhone addiction becomes a diagnosable disorder. Looking for the root of the problem? Look no further.

Just don’t refer to it in your… err… home videos–no one thinks that’s hot.

It’s crystal clear that the Internet holds the future of radio. But there’s no reason social networking sites, Web radio, and music subscription services shouldn’t all be part of the killer app for music discovery, but mobility is still a major limiting factor. Now that we’re in the iPhone era, the hardware exists for removing mobility as an obstacle.

Satellite radio companies XM and Sirius have a combined 14 million users, and their merger is still in regulatory limbo. Talk about a great idea that was essentially squashed by industry forces. But Web radio is looking to step in to fill the void, despite having a brush with the U.S. Copyright Royalty Commission, which is trying to make it more expensive to broadcast songs on the ‘Net. (Thankfully, SoundExchange has announced it will not enforce the rate hike that was scheduled to begin next week.)

The big news this week is that CBS-owned Last.fm just added Sony BMG’s entire catalog to its arsenal, giving its roughly 20 million users access to streaming music from all but one of the major labels. That’s pretty impressive, and it makes Last.fm the largest Internet radio service in the world.

Last.fm is a pretty hot service if you’ve never used it; the service’s unique recommendation system (called “scrobbling”) creates instant radio stations by keeping track of what you listen to most often — including tracks in your own music management software and even on your MP3 player. Privacy issues aside, it makes for a pretty mean music discovery platform, and you can opt out if you’re paraniod. The social networking features (inviting friends, making recommendations, and seeing what others are listening to) are what give it potential to deliver on what the Microsoft Zune promised in terms of sharing.

But something’s still missing: You can’t take any of that content with you when you head out for the day. (Last.fm does provide links to Amazon.com for tracks you’re listening to — but only so you can buy the physical CD!)

I asked Matt Graves from RealNetworks’ Rhapsody service if Rhapsody would ever get into social networking, since it really adds a lot of value to online music. While he couldn’t give me specifics, he did confirm that “we plan to get into the social networking side of online music. […] We’re going to be doing some things on this front with Rhapsody in the coming months — so stay tuned.”

With regards to the success of sites like Imeem and Last.fm, he contends that “social networking is just one aspect of it. In our mind you need to be able to combine solid curation, the wisdom of the crowd, and unlimited access to music. THAT is the killer app.” I think he’s right there, but I also believe it’s critical to take all that into today’s mobile world.

Companies like Microsoft, MusicGremlin, and SanDisk have experimented with various methods of getting music lovers to discover and share music using dedicated music players with wireless capabilities. But none of them really swung for the fences.

Devices like the iPhone are changing this landscape, giving users access to broadband wherever they are. (Yes, I know the iPhone uses the slow EDGE network, but it won’t always be that way.) If Apple partnered with Last.fm and integrated it into the iPhone — and with the iTunes store — it seems like everyone would benefit. Apple’s iPhone-centric parternship with YouTube gives me hope for something like this.

Connecting like-minded users via social networking, letting them listen to and rate virtually limitless content for free even when they’re on the go, recommending new music effectively, and giving them the opportunity to capture that music and take it with them… It may sound too good to be true, but it’s only a matter of time before it’s a reality.

(The illustration above was created by Leah Perrotta, a Brooklyn-based artist and all-around lovely gal. See more of her work here.)

Not long after Steve’s open letter to the recording industry essentially requesting that the major labels offer DRM-free music, it actually came to pass. The ensuing battle with EMI over the pricing structure of the unprotected tracks resulted in Jobs capitulating by selling the new tracks for 30 cents more than the old protected ones–albeit he justified it by encoding them at a higher bit rate. Not a bad Jedi mind trick, eh?

In fact, the pricing of tracks on iTunes has been a thorny issue between Jobs and the major labels for quite some time. This new business about Universal Music Group not renewing its annual contract with Apple to sell music through the iTunes Music Store smacks of the same old issue. Universal basically wants to sell music a la carte to Apple for resale at the iTMS so it can try to create different pricing structures.

But Universal better watch out. Steve Jobs may not have the roundhouse kicking power of Chuck Norris, but he is certainly a force to be reckoned with.

10 Facts About Steve Jobs

* Steve Jobs doesn’t wear black turtlenecks and blue jeans, he secretes them from his pores each morning.

* When Steve Jobs gives a keynote speech, he makes the entire Internet reconfigure itself to handle the blogging traffic.

* OS X isn’t based on Unix, it’s based on Steve Jobs’ DNA.

* Steve Jobs doesn’t need eyes. He sees everything he needs to see through the iSight cameras built into newer Macs.

* The iPhone had no design and production team; Steve Jobs simply willed it into existence with the magic phrase “One more thing.”

* Steve Wozniak isn’t real. He’s just an astral projection of Steve Jobs’ bigger, nerdier alter ego.

* Steve Jobs knows exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop.

* When Steve Jobs sneezes, tiny ones and zeroes are expelled, which assemble themselves into OS X widgets.

* Steve Jobs doesn’t need a computer to load his iPod; he interfaces with it directly using his right index finger.

* Steve Jobs can change the weather by writing an open letter to the sky.

So if the major labels know what’s good for them, they’ll continue to let Jobs set the pricing structure for digital music. It doesn’t really make sense for them to do so much complaining, given that selling digital music cheaply (relative to the exorbitant prices for the soon-to-be obsolete CDs) actually appears to be working! Digital music downloads jumped more than 50 percent in the first half of this year compared with the same time last year according to a recent Nielsen SoundScan report.

Remember when the iTunes Music Store sold its billionth track after being in business for about 3 years? Well dig this: Only a year and two months after announcing its billionth song in February 2006, Apple announced it had sold 2.5 billion songs — meaning roughly 1.5 billion songs were sold in just 14 months. Now the major labels are getting greedy once again and trying to put the squeeze on the man who’s helping them survive the rapidly flagging physical album sales.

Think you’re going to use the iPhone as an iPod with your fancy aftermarket headphones? Think different(ly). But is this a missed moneymaking opportunity for Apple, or a sign of hidden secret just beyond the horizon?

The iPhone is first and foremost a phone. I don’t care what else it can do. But it is also an iPod, and as such, it should be satisfying to listen to even if it doesn’t replace your regular ol’ iPod. In fact, it supports the ultra-high-quality Apple Lossless audio format, so it’s more than likely someone will want to plug in a set of $450 earbuds from Ultimate Ears or Shure to hear all that sparkly musical goodness.

But they can’t. For some reason, Apple decided to set the headphone jack so deeply into the iPhone’s body that many high-end headphones won’t fit in the jack even though it’s a standard eighth-inch plug.

A red flag went up in my mind, and I immediately thought this was going to be some licensing scheme along the lines of the Made for iPod program, whereby Apple would sell companies licenses to make headphone adapters or headphones with iPhone-compatible plugs. But a conversation with Mindy Harvey, head honcho-ess of earphone maker Ultimate Ears, revealed that there’s no licensing fee involved at all in making either accessory.

So let’s recap: The headphone jack is recessed, requiring an adapter or a straight plug with a small enclosure. But Apple isn’t making any extra money off this design. So I must ask, in all seriousness: WTF?

I put in a call to Apple’s PR team asking why the company might have designed the iPhone with such an inconvenient headphone jack, figuring I’d get no response as the team prepared for the product’s launch. So imagine my surprise when Apple PR rep Simon Pope returned my call yesterday to talk about it! Granted, he’s not actually on the iPhone team–he works primarily on iTunes.

Of course, he said that he couldn’t really say much about it until after the official product launch, and that he’s not even aware of the reasoning behind that particular aspect of the Jesus-phone. But he did say two extremely tantalizing things: First, he said “Apple does not make designs like this lightly.” In other words, there’s a method to the madness. Second, he said that next week, he’d be able to clue me in to what’s up Apple’s deeply recessed sleeve.

Sure, adapters are beginning to pop up from the usual suspects like Belkin, and companies are working furiously on iPhone-specific headphone models. But what could possibly be the purpose behind a headphone jack design that merely seems to defeat the purpose of having a standard eighth-inch jack?

Besides, have you seen the Belkin adapter? Do you really want something like that hanging off your sexy iPhone? At least is more practical (includes a mic) and a lot better looking…

iRiver and SanDisk are feverishly trying to keep up the pace of feature bloat, while Archos and Creative are increasingly focusing on video players. Meanwhile, Sony is getting ready to throw in the towel, and still others (okay, Microsoft) should probably start thinking along the same lines.

More and more companies are turning away from MP3 players, since it’s now pretty much established that Apple owns that market and will for some time to come. They’re either jumping ship entirely or they’re focusing on video players, where Apple hasn’t really made its mark yet. (Repeat after me: The iPhone is still not the… err… “true” video iPod.)

Sense and Sansability
SanDisk — still number two behind Apple — has been on a tear since it got into the MP3 player biz, scoring big hits with its excellent distribution deals at places like Radio Shack and Best Buy. But what really drove those players off the shelves is the price and simplicity — and more recently with the Sansa e200, a little polish.

But SanDisk appears to be succumbing to feature bloat as well. The company’s first PMP, the Sansa View (introduced at CES 2007), was intended to be “easy to use with pretty basic features and functionality,” according to the company’s PR firm. It was due out in late spring, but the company recently shelved plans to release it.

SanDisk is mum on what they’re planning instead, but you can bet it’s going to be some sort of cross between the Sansa Connect (which has built-in WiFi) and the View, with just enough crammed in to keep it out of the hands of mainstream consumers.

SanDisk should stop pussyfooting around leverage its flash memory business to make a higher-capacity MP3 player along the lines of the full-size iPod — without trying to stuff the kitchen sink in it. Then they’d have a shot at creating an environment like the game console market where you actually have more than one company with significant market share.

Another one bites the dust
Not many people in the industry were surprised to hear that Sony’s MP3 player days are numbered. Rarely has a company been so good at alienating digital music consumers: Sony’s rootkit DRM debacle combined with its abominable Connect software/service couldn’t have had any other result.

It’s a shame, too, since Sony’s damn good at making hardware. In fact, the short-lived NW-HD5 was a great MP3 player — simple and very good at what it did. It was simply suffocated by Sony’s relentlessly restrictive software. What a tragedy for a company with so many marketing dollars available!

Video killed the MP3 star
Yesterday, Archos officially announced its Gen 05 line of portable media players. It seems that even the company that invented the MP3 player has abandoned music players in favor of do-it-all video products. (Granted, the new Archos 605 sure does look pretty sweet. Check back soon for my full review!)

So who are the remaining contenders? Creative had the best shot with its Zen Vision line, but their catalog is so diverse that they can’t seem to spend enough marketing dollars to back the right horse. If iRiver had any marketing money, the Clix might have taken off, but since they abandoned high-capacity players they’re pretty much out of the running.

Samsung has the most interesting lineup right now, with the K3 and K5 as its flagships, but I’m hearing rumblings of Bluetooth — the upcoming T9B — which will let you use your music player as a surrogate handset for your cell phone. It’s a nifty idea, but by the time the public understands what the hell to do with this, we’ll all be sporting implants anyway. Also, it’s a tough idea to sell when Sony Ericsson is making such good music phones.

Personally, I’m hoping for a retro backlash of gadgets that do one thing, but do it extremely well in a very small form factor at a reasonable price. In the meantime, for $600, that damn iPhone should be making me espresso and giving me a nice Shiatsu massage.

This week, I’m temporarily gettin’ religion, thanks to a photo someone forwarded me of an actual prototype of a crucifix-shaped MP3 player. No, not just a silly first-gen iPod shuffle cap — a real live (and snazzy looking) Jesus-pod. But WWJLT? So where’s my Ankh-phone, or my DAP of David? The possibilities abound for enterprising zealots.

Wanted: Divine Cans
I’ve seen more than one online forum post asking which headphones are best for someone who wears a turban. For tightly wrapped turbans that completely cover the ears, ear clips, earbuds, and over-the-head headbands are all no good. Even street-style headphones, which go around the back of your neck, have clips on them that go behind your ears.

I’ve been racking my brain all week to think of some sort of commercially available solution, but I can’t! Sure, you could jury-rig something that might stay on, but if you can just go to your local headshopbuy an MP3 player/crucifix… Well, you’d think someone would look into making money off this. (Got ideas? Leave em below in the comments, but keep em tasteful…)

Keepin’ it ‘Rael
One answered prayer in audio tech is the advent of kosher cell phones — handsets approved by the Rabbinic Commission on Communications for orthodox Jewish groups like the Hasidim. Such phones lack amenities like Internet, text messaging, and a camera, and you can only use them to call other kosher phones. Many even have ringtones that mimic Hasidic melodies (nigunim).

For the less extreme but still devout, a clip-style iPod Shuffle as a yarmulke clip seems like an excellent marriage of faith and function. But at least it doesn’t require any DIY like some dorkier more sophisticated ideas — like a yarmulke with a solar-powered Bluetooth transmitter!

Rockin on the Fringe
The audio possibilities presented by religious headgear are infinite, but some seem so appropriate that it’s practically a sin that they don’t exist. Seriously, if I don’t see a Rastafarian hat with a few integrated 1-inch speaker drivers pretty soon, I may just have to make one myself.

I’ve gotten to know one of the Santeria initiates who lives near me — he’s recognizable because he’s always clad all in white. He’s usually wearing beaded necklaces that correspond to his metaphysical needs of the day, which naturally set me to thinking: a Santeria bead FM transmitter with touch-sensitive beads that let you dial the FM stations while they attract or repel various spiritual energies. A simple analog jack on the back of the necklace would be a perfect connector for any ultra-tiny music player.

From there, of course, my mind wandered to voodoo doll iPod cases. (C’mon, I can’t believe there isn’t one already….)

The Heaven’s are the Limit
I could spend pages and pages writing about imaginary audio gear for the faithful: Hindu statues that double as wireless multichannel speakers. Incense-holders that function as wireless USB hubs. (Hey I said imaginary, not imaginative.) But that’s besides the point.

Religion is making a big comeback these days, especially give the current climate of fundamentalism that seems to pervade current events. Where are the rest of the hucksters trying to cash in on people’s beliefs? Man cannot live by Hasidic ringtones alone.

At least Creative’s Zen line of players is already ahead of the curve–load em up with koans and you’re ready for enlightenment on the go!

(The illustration above was created by Leah Perrotta, a Brooklyn-based artist and all-around lovely gal. Check out more of her work here.)

I downloaded the latest version of iTunes to finally try out the sort ofmuch-anticipated DRM-free tracks from EMI’s catalog, and I was pleasantly surprised at the way Apple handled this somewhat delicate transition.

Some things about iTunes Plus are great: no DRM, higher bit rate files, the ability upgrade previously purchased songs to iTunes plus tracks for 30 cents each (if they’re available), and no apparent increase in album price.

But some aren’t so hot, like the still widely unsupported AAC format (despite Apple’s claim that “many other digital music players” besides the iPod support it), not to mention the $1.29 per-track price.

There’s also the revelation that the DRM-free tracks contain embedded purchaser info, so if you start distributing it, the RIAA can find you and zap you with its satellite-based lasersue you till you cry Uncle Tupelo.

To many, it looks like this is another nail in the coffin for rumors of an iTunes subscription service, which Jobs has repeatedly pooh-poohed. This quote from a 2003 Rolling Stone interview pretty much tells all: “People want to own their music. You don’t want to rent your music–and then one day, if you stop paying, all your music goes away.” More recently, he informed Reuters that “The subscription model has failed so far.”

Never have I seen such a forward-thinking person be so stuck in the past!

Subscription services like Real’s Rhapsody and Yahoo Music Unlimited aren’t quite failing. In fact, they’re constantly opening up new possibilities and partnerships that have real potential for success. By far the most serious problem for subscription services as we know them now isn’t the rent vs. own issue: It’s the GAPING HOLE on the hardware side!

Why didn’t SanDisk’s partnership with Real’s Rhapsody service, which yielded the e200R series players, take off? Simple: There just aren’t enough non-iPod users out there (let alone SanDisk fans) for something like this to be even a blip on consumers’ radar. The same thing will probably happen with SanDisk’s more recent venture with Yahoo Music Unlimited, the Wi-Fi-capable Sansa Connect.

Apple, on the other hand, wouldn’t even need to create a hardware install base for subscription music — it’s already got 70 or more percent of the MP3 player market locked up, leaving a scant 30 percent split among a dozen manufacturers! Jobs appears to ignore the fact that the current crop of subscription services don’t work with iPods, ensuring their marginalization.

The single biggest success with subscription music is Sonos’s partnership with Rhapsody, giving users of this multiroom wireless audio system streaming access to over 2 million tracks. I’ve used it extensively, and it is nothing short of awesome with a capital A.

Hello? Apple TV may not be the same thing as Sonos’s Digital Music System, but it’s definitely similar enough. Jobs, why don’t you offer us some kind of subscription service we can at least use at home? I’m betting you’ll come around to the idea of iPod-compatible subscriptions after a huge chunk of Apple TV owners jump on the subscription bandwagon.

(And if downloads are so important to you, why’d ya stick such a small hard drive in the Apple TV, huh?)

iTunes Plus will prove to be far more interesting if and when the rest of the major labels besides EMI capitulate and offer their catalogs sans DRM. But consumers may not even notice the difference in audio quality, since AAC doesn’t really give you significantly better sound at high bit rates, unlike the MP3 format.

They also may not notice the lack of DRM, unless they’re trying to share music–and I’d be curious to see the stats on how many iPod users actually share their digital music. In fact, I’m guessing many iTunes users won’t notice the change at all.

What would they notice? An iPod full of music for $15 a month!

MP3 players have had expansion slots for years, but until now they supported a max of only 2 extra gigabytes on top of the built-in memory. Well, according to a new spec, those fingernail-size microSD cards can now hit up to 32GB–enough to warrant rethinking the role of flash memory in an MP3 player. Luckily, cell phone and digicam makers provide plenty of inspiration!

Beating Moore’s Law
Moore’s Law states that every two years, microchips double in complexity (i.e., number of transistors) while maintaining minimum cost. Flash memory is nothing more than a microchip, and it’s not just following Moore’s law, it’s cruising at an even faster pace.

The SD Card Association’s new SDA 2.00 spec — which includes all Secure Digital formats, like miniSD and microSD — allows for cards up to 32GB, thanks to a change in file systems from FAT16 to FAT32. (Current devices aren’t compatible with the new spec, but they can be brought up to speed via a firmware upgrade.)

8GB microSD cards should be in stores by the end of this year (or early 2008) if Samsung holds to their recent announcement, and it’s a good bet someone’ll announce a 16GB microSD card by summer’s end for release next year.

You can already find 4GB players for $150 or less online, so by this time next year, 8GB players should be hitting or nearing the same price point. A 4GB SD card costs about $90 right now, so an 8GB card should be about $120 by the time it arrives in stores.

Confused? It means you’ll be able to get a player with a total of 16GB of flash for about $230 by next summer — not bad, especially considering you’ll be able to shuttle half that between your MP3 player, phone, GPS, HDTV, and (if automakers really get smart) dashboard. And lest I forget to mention it, you can move stuff on and off your computer via your laptop’s built-in card reader or a cheap external one.

SanDisk has long been ahead of the curve on expandable storage. According to Eric Bone, SanDisk’s director of audio/video product marketing, “The SanDisk e200, c200 and Connect families all (today) support up to 2GB microSD cards. We are working on firmware upgrades as we speak to get us to SDHC compliance, which clearly will give the products lots of headroom.”

Sharing Is Caring
Getting tons of music and videos onto a fingernail-size card is great, but you generally can’t transfer content between cards and music players — though there are a few exceptions like the Creative Zen Vision and some older Archos players. Everyone wants to do that wirelessly, but Wi-Fi really puts a hurtin’ on battery life… and will for the foreseeable future. Plus you’re not always near a hotspot, and Bluetooth is still way too slow for copying lots of music or video.

One of the reasons most manufacturers won’t let you transfer files to and from cards is to cover their asses limit possible company liabilities if the RIAA ever decides to crack down on hardware companies. But the industry’s stranglehold on music appears to be loosening, given recent developments on the DRM front, and I think hardware makers should help pave the way for a better sharing experience.

They can do this by looking to the digital camera market: Most digital cameras come with little if any internal flash memory. You get a starter card (nearly always uselessly small), you get a bundled card (usually at least 1GB), or you already have a suitable memory card. This strategy could easily be a huge hit in the MP3 player market within a year or two as flash prices continue to plummet and capacities increase.

DRM seems to be disappearing — at least for digital music — indicating a sea change in the attitudes of the recording industry towards sharing music. It’s time for MP3 player companies to start changing with the times and let us transfer content to and from removable media.

Then perhaps people will be more apt to share music one-on-one — especially among their own gadgets — rather than illegally distributing it to thousands of people at a time on a P2P network.

(The illustration above was created by Leah Perrotta, a Brooklyn-based artist and all-around lovely gal.)

Amazon’s role in getting the other three major labels to go along with EMI and drop DRM is potentially very big, given it is currently slated to sell only unprotected tracks at launch later this year. Combined with the iTunes Music Store and Steve Jobs’ open letter to the majors, Amazon could parlay its enormous user base into a copyright hater’s music lover’s wet dream.

Archos’s forthcoming Gen 05 line of portable media players, slated to launch in June, will support Bit Torrent as well as CinemaNow according to ArchosLounge.net… Then you’ll have the choice to download movies and music in a snap either legally or not, as long as you’re near a hotspot. Voilà, piracy on the go!

If the RIAA wants to control piracy, it should work more closely with ISPs to handle the changing landscape of digital music sharing. Of course, that would probably mean some kind of tax on usage. Yuck. But that would be so much more effective than trying to control things on the consumer’s end; they can’t stop people from sharing, but they can at least make online piracy less convenient.

Reselling Your Soul
I’m a bargain-hunter at heart. I love to get things for less than full price, and as a music nut, I’m naturally a sucker for used CDs (and LPs). I’ve gotten some pretty amazing things for 5 or 6 bucks for a used CD or $3 for a record, but I can’t really do that with digital music — there’s no deep discount for used digital goods. What’s a digital bargain hunter to do?

The problem is that when you make a copy of a digital file, you get something identical to the original, and you can do so ad infinitum. But what if digital files degraded, say, with number of plays like vinyl — or better yet, with the number of times the file is copied? It would ensure that the original would be preserved, but the more it’s copied, the lower the quality of copies gets.

You could then legally resell copies of songs, but at reduced rates based on the quality. So after you sell a file, the quality of copies drops a specified number of kilobits per second, and so on until copies are virtually unlistenable. In other words, you’d probably have a hard time selling a 64Kbps MP3 file… but at least you’d have the pristine original.

Unfortunately, any way you slice it, this adds up to just another form of DRM — but a less restrictive one. Sadly for Big Music, it would be too little, too late, as DRM is clearly a terminal patient.

(The illustration above was created by Leah Perrotta, a Brooklyn-based artist and all-around lovely gal.)

About a year ago I gave her a non-Apple MP3 player (the original free Napster player) in hopes that she would get into the idea of digital music. While she loved having the two albums I put on there for her (Best of Bobby Darin and a Neil Diamond album), she was never able to get the hang of using Windows Media Player to rip and transfer music.

With that in mind (I think you see where this is going), I figured an iPod would be a foolproof plan. As it turns out, I had a chance to test whether this is true or not when she bought her husband a 4GB iPod nano…. The phone calls I got when they were trying to set it up were pretty hilarious, culminating in a problem removing the plug from the iPod’s dock connector. Oy.

So what’s simpler than an iPod? Well… for music management software, you can’t get a whole lot simpler than iTunes, even if it’s not your favorite app. (I thought something like one of those flash-drives that can also play music would be easiest, but ripping isn’t as intuitive, and organization can be a pain.) Sorry WMP 11 and Winamp fans, but I just don’t buy it.

If I had to pick an iPod alternative, it would have to be the second-gen iriver Clix, since it’s got an excellent interface and works with Windows Media Player as well as with Windows Explorer (USB Mass Storage Class). Since many Windows users are used to file/folder organization, that’s the best candidate for someone who’s not into music management software.

Being the audio gear nut I am, I’m always disappointed to see someone wearing regular earbuds. That said, getting mom to stick stuff deep into her ears just isn’t going to happen, and I’d like her to be able to hear what’s going on around her when she’s walking around.

My hands-down choice for mom-friendly headphones are the Sennheiser MX-500. They’re just regular ‘buds, and with the earpads on they don’t fall out too easily. They also sound surprisingly good for $13 — better than any stock earphones and less likely to get mom mugged than the iPod whities. If I wind up getting her the Clix, though, the earbuds that come with it should be fine.

If she didn’t like putting things in her ears, I’d go with Sennheiser PX-100’s, which are amazing-sounding flat-pad-style headphones for about $40; they also fold up nicely in a purse. I bet she’d love a set of Bose QuietComfort 3’s though.

Of course, no matter what I get her, I just know I’m going to be spending at least a couple hours setting it all up for her and showing her how to use it. I think the bottom line is that nothing is ever quite easy enough for people who are resistant to learning about new technology.

But at least this year my gift will be more thoughtful than just a gift certificate.

(The illustration of my mom above was done by Leah Perrotta, a Brooklyn-based artist and all-around lovely gal.)

The source
Needless to say, if you’re interested in audiophile-level sound quality, you’ll want to rip your CDs to the uber-pristine Apple Lossless format, though 320Kbps MP3 files will provide plenty of sound quality at smaller file sizes. Check out the following table for a rough guide to file formats and sizes. (Note that the numbers are averages, based on 4-minute song length, and 30GB iPods generally have about 27GB of free space.)

The player
Chances are you already have an iPod, given Apple’s 70-plus percent market share. People who’ve complained about the iPod’s sound quality are invariably talking about the headphone output, not the output through the digital dock connector on the bottom, so I’m going to recommend it based on that. (You’ll see why below.) And I went with the 30GB fifth-gen model because it’s the thinnest high-capacity player on the market.

The amp
HeadRoom’s Total BitHead is the obvious choice for a pocket-size headphone amp. There’s a lot to like about this versatile gadget, especially its USB audio input capability (meaning you can use it as an outboard sound card for your computer). The crossfeed switch is handy for evening out the stereo image on many recordings — particularly those that have instruments panned all the way to the left or right, since the circuit effectively bleeds a bit of one channel into the other and vice-versa. It’s not great for all music, but you can turn it off if you’re not feeling it.

The connections
The iPod’s headphone output is reasonably robust, but nothing beats the good solid digital line-output from the dock connector. You can take advantage of this with a tiny adapter–the SendStation PocketDock Line Out USB. Just plug it into the iPod dock connector and use a line-in cable to connect it to the BitHead’s analog input.

Use the BitHead’s included short line-in cable, or if you want to store the BitHead in a backpack and leave the iPod in your pocket, use a high-quality line-in cable from Monster.

The power
Lithium AAA batteries will keep your BitHead running for a loooong time (alkalines give you anywhere from 30 to 50 hours). Rechargeables are okay too, but just make sure they’re high output–1000ma/h if you can find them, but definitely no less than 850ma/h. (It will say on the package… the higher the number, the higher the output).

The headphones
All you need now is a set of headphones that will block out as much noise as possible while giving you virtually transparent sound worthy of pro or pleasure listening. Etymotic Research’s ER4P fills that bill to the penny — and they’re easy for portable players to drive even without an amp.

But since you’re carrying around the BitHead, you’ll get even better sound if you pick up Etymotic’s optional ER4P-24 adapter cable, which effectively converts the ER4P into the even more audiophilacious ER4S. By doing it this way (instead of buying the one-piece ER4S), you can use these sweet canalphones with or without the amp, depending on the level of pocket bulge you can stand.

Make sure you attach the included clip to the headphone cable and your clothing to minimize the thumpy microphonic effects of the cable flopping around.

Cost analysis
In the audiophile world, even the cost of cables can be steep. So how much will this portable hi-fi dream gonna set you back? Here’s the price breakdown for my particular configuration, based on the cheapest prices I found online at the time of this writing. If the total seems outrageous to you, you should probably avoid audiophile equipment as the sticker shock may be lethal…

iPod 30GB $250
Total BitHead $150
SendStation adapter $25
Etymotic ER4P: $170
Ety S adapter cable: $65
4 AAA Lithium batteries $10
Monster line-in cable $10

TOTAL: $680

The company’s solution to the increasingly crowded 2.4GHz frequency band is simple: use another frequency! The concept isn’t revolutionary, and it does involve a proprietary wireless technology, but it could help solve a major issue over the next few years. By incorporating both 2.4GHz and 5GHz — a band usually reserved for military and medical devices and such, though it was used briefly for the ill-fated 802.11a flavor of WiFi — new electronics will be able to do lots of pretty amazing things wirelessly without bogging down your existing home network.

SST is aiming its MelodyWing SP chips at PCs, projectors, HDTVs, set-top boxes, home theater systems, gaming consoles, wireless headsets, and anything else that might need to stream audio at the highest possible quality.

The killer app for this kind of technology is clearly providing wireless multichannel sound — possibly in multiple rooms — for HDTVs. It would be so frigging sweet to have a nice 5.1-channel setup without worrying about interference and having to run wires all over the place.

I read through the specs for the chipset, and it’s got some pretty cool features, like support for both S/PDIF and I2S (two popular high-quality digital audio I/O interfaces) and built-in security so no one hacks into your network to broadcast subliminal messages. The chips can handle up to 24-bit 192kHz audio, which means serious audiophiles can go wireless too.

The setup I envision that will make this all a must-have is as follows: You’re streaming high-def content to your HDTV from your desktop PC (while simultaneously downloading more content). You’re wearing a Bluetooth headset and talking to your mom on the phone while you’re watching a movie. Your laptop is sitting next to you so you can compulsively check your email.

Meanwhile, your HDTV or home stereo system is spitting out totally uncompressed audio to your wireless speakers. You fire up the microwave to make some kettle corn (mmm… sweet and salty — now that’s technology!), and youyour kid doesn’t miss a moment of dialogue between Woody and Buzz Lightyear.

(Okay, fine–you’re high on your couch listening to the 5.1 mix of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon in all its trip-tastic glory, and your buddy Jay needs 300cc’s of popcorn, stat! You can at least make it without harshing his buzz by causing audio dropouts.)

Perhaps the real question is: How many different kinds of tumors are we going to get with all this wireless stuff being zapped around the house — and through our bodies? After all, wireless signals are killing honeybees… we may be next!

(The illustration above was created by Leah Perrotta, a Brooklyn-based artist and all-around lovely gal.)

People have been clamoring for WiFi-enabled music players for a long time now. But current offerings from Archos, Microsoft, and SanDisk make it seem like they’re all just taking weak jabs at Apple, like when George McFly goes to deck Biff in Back To the Future and just lands a wimpy blow on his shoulder.

The big blunder is simple: keeping social WiFi (sharing music) and productivity WiFi (browsing, email) apart like two fighting kids. I may not be the sharpest spoon in the drawer, but even I can figure out that you can only score a truly big hit by incorporating both.

By leaving out half of the equation, companies are just throwing Apple a great big softball. Of course, whether Steve Jobs can manage to make the iPhone and its equally-important phoneless iPhone stripped-down sibling not suck is another story.

All Apple has to do is let the iPhone run Safari competently and make the device compatible with the Bonjour protocol so you can share music across devices and computers running iTunes. After all, what’s the difference if you’re accessing a nearby iTunes library with your laptop or with your music player?

Aside from the fact that Microsoft missed the boat on any kind of productivity uses for the Zune (ironic for a company that makes Internet Explorer and MS Office), over-restriction with sharing is what will ultimately kill the Zune.

Still, I admire Microsoft’s ballsy (though admittedly ill-fated) entry into the playground, and as I’ve written before, I think MS has a great shot at eventually getting it right with future Zune products.

But now Microsoft has a big hurdle to overcome: the reputation they’ve created with a crippled not-ready-for-prime-time product.

I recently spoke with Eric Bone, director of audio/video product marketing at SanDisk, about the company’s new Sansa Connect, which — like the Zune — focuses entirely on the sharing equation but with a twist that actually brings it close to being a real winner.

The Connect integrates with Yahoo in such a way that it gives you access to your Yahoo Messenger friends — but only for sending song recommendations. Why they couldn’t throw in some email or messaging functionality? (Don’t talk to me about screen size… I use my phone to check my Yahoo email account now, and I can still see straight. But I have to pay for it in airtime, which sucks.)

Bone talked about SanDisk’s gradual, cautious entry into the premium music player market in the last year or so, beginning with the Sansa e200 series. Fine — they bunted and got a triple out of it.

But SanDisk is still waiting for an intentional walk with the bases loaded, even though they’re down by a lot more than one run. It’s time to be Robert Redford in The Natural and try to smash the stadium lights.

Archos is a different story. They just don’t quite get what the US market wants — they’re based in France and seem to cater to a very small elite audience. The company doesn’t seem to realize the potential of its products, from the very first Archos Jukebox all the way to the 604 WiFi. Of course, it doesn’t help that Archos doesn’t have much in the way of marketing dollars either.

Face it: Release mediocre or half-baked products intentionally and that’s how people remember you, if they remember you at all. Take a mighty swing, and at least you get people’s attention, even if you strike out.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not an Apple hater — but I was definitely a bigger fan when they were the underdog. Now there’s a different underdog (okay, everyone but Apple is the underdog), and I can’t help but root for them.

It really steams me when companies wuss out by not trying to knock one out of the park, especially when the winning formula is so crystal clear. Just remember, SanDisk et al: Steve Jobs can smell your fear.

Remember: In Back To the Future, Biff laughs off George’s McFly’s first failed punch, but while he’s laughing, George pulls back and knocks his smug, gloating ass out with one shot.

(Sorry, no illustration this week… Leah’s busy and I’ve been watching too many 80s movies and Mets games.)

“[eMusic CEO David Pakman] believes he can still compete with iTunes because eMusic sells music in MP3 format, which runs on a wide variety of digital music players, unlike Apple’s FairPlay format for the iPod.”

Then there’s this Jupiter Research analyst’s “first take” on the announcement (emphasis in the original): “EMI is now making it’s entire catalogue for sale in high quality (256 kbps) MP3 (AAC on iTunes) download with no DRM.” Talk about misleading! Sometimes, I think the media is trying to confuse the public just like Fox News.

And if I hear one more reporter even hint that this all came about because of Steve Jobs’ infamous open letter, I may just have to burn my iPod. We know it’s really because of my April Fool’s post, right?

The Consumers
The biggest news for consumers aside from no DRM is that the unprotected AAC files they’ll get will be encoded at a higher bit rate. The technical differences between MP3 and AAC are many, but the main things are that AAC supports way more audio channels, and AAC sounds better than MP3 at lower bit rates (160Kbps and lower). Granted, the likelihood of most listeners hearing the difference between 128Kbps and 256Kbps AAC files is pretty low.

The question on many minds is: Which music players will unprotected AAC files purchased from the iTunes Music Store play on? Here’s a quick list:

- iPods and the iPhone
- Sony Walkman E, A, and S series
- Sony PSP
- SanDisk Sansa e200R series
- Microsoft Zune
- Archos 04 series players, but only with optional $20 software plug-ins
- Sony Ericsson and Nokia music phones

The Artists
I recently had a chance to speak with Peter Erskine, drummer in the seminal fusion band Weather Report from 1978 to 1982. As an artist who has many albums on major labels, I figured he’d be pro-DRM, but he had a very interesting take on the issue: “I would always want to err on the side of freedom for the consumer versus restriction, because I think ultimately there’s a self-leveling mechanism,” says Erskine.

Erskine explains, “It’s like talking about kids and sex–instead of restrictions, education is the answer. Instead of going after some college kid or Napster, record companies should have engaged in a much more liberal and concentrated form of education, and realizing that the paradigm is shifting and there wasn’t a whole lot they could do to stop it. And I think heavy-handed or ham-fisted efforts didn’t do the cause very well.”

The Future
Erskine’s point is that the relationship between consumers and record labels has thus far been based on a lack of trust instead of mutual understanding, and it may be too late now to completely rectify the situation. As I’ve said before, DRM will be around in one form or another, as long as there’s money to be made off it or guarded by it.

But since the RIAA has clearly pursued the wrong path with online music from the get-go, is it even possible for consumers to forgive that? We’ll soon know, once we see sales numbers as other major labels jump on-board the DRM-free bandwagon; if people start sharing the crap out of files on LimeWire and BitTorrent, it may create an even more hostile relationship.

(The illustration above was created by Leah Perrotta, a Brooklyn-based artist and all-around lovely gal. Check out more of her art here.)