Originally Posted by ScottC
With large (lossless) files the file is too large to be buffered, so it has to be read off the constantly spinning hard drive.
The 40Gb has a 32Mb buffer, so compress them using the method with the least compression that keeps the file under 32Mb and you should be fine.
I remember buffering had a few issues with some of the earlier models, but I thought they improved this with the newer ones... I thought the iPod buffered the first 32 Mb, regardless of file size.
I'll go see if I can find anything in the docs at some point today.
Also, Teacher49, if you haven't looked into Apple's lossless format available in iTunes, you may want to check it out. It will shrink the file size a little bit without compromising quality. I have heard good things about it.
Monster accessories are about as good as it gets. You should have no worries there. Just about anything out there should be fine to plug into your iPod. Those available through the
Apple Store will have jumped through a few hoops to prove themselves worthy. Of course, many not available through the Apple Store are also fine and may not be included by Apple for reasons unrelated to quality or compatibility. Could be that they can't produce at the volumes required, or that they simply don't have an oem contract set up yet, etc etc.