Byline: Rob Pegoraro

The Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro was online to field personal tech questions and discuss developments in online music sales. In his latest column , Rob wrote that if you're going to buy more than a few songs a month, you may find yourself in the kind of long-term commitment associated with inking mortgage documents.

Rob's column was part of a special report on digital music/radio that also included articles on satellite radio and digital music players . A chart also lets you compare four MP3 players.

A transcript follows.

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Rob Pegoraro: Good afternoon, gang... between my last two columns, about digital photography and online music stores, we should have plenty to talk about. On the other hand, I'm competing against Wilbon *and* that David Segal punk, so I might just be talking to myself today.

Either way, let's get started!

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Washington, DC: Enjoyed your column yesterday, although I'm still a fan of CDs. I like the portability and maybe the notion of buying something I can actually hold on to.

Question: Isn't there a quality difference between a downloaded MP3 or WAV that of the CD I purchase?

In your column yesterday, you didn't mention the easiest way to feed your computer into your home stereo: take the output of your sound card and plug it into one of your receiver's inputs other than the phono (turntable). Works great!

washingtonpost.com: Fast Forward: Priorities for the Store-Shopping List

Rob Pegoraro: Thanks for the comments. All the music sold as downloads comes in one compressed form or another, such as AAC, WMA or MP3, but these file formats are designed to preserve all the parts of the song that you (or most people) will actually hear. There are still differences, but in practice--meaning when I've played the same song back over good speakers in CD and downloaded form--I've had a hard time hearing a significant difference.

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Washington DC: Hi Rob,

Your column and the related articles this week couldn't have come at a better time. I'm not a big music person but am finally considering an MP3 player for use on the Metro. I've asked friends for their opinions but they're not too helpful because they aren't using online stores because they've got thousands of CDs that they've just converted.

So for a person who doesn't own a lot of CDs, doesn't listen to music much would an iPod mini be the best bet since the iTunes store is the best?

Rob Pegoraro: Seems like a reasonable conclusion to me; you don't need to buy the extra storage a regular-sized iPod offers, but an iPod shuffle would be too small altogether.

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Arlington, Va.: Thank you for sharing your knowledge. In your last chat, you advised a person having a bad wireless signal to "boost" the signal by adding another WIFI port. Here's my problem: I live in an extension off a main house. The main house is wired for DSL. We set up a Lynksys to transmit a wireless signal to my laptop, in the extension. The signal must pass through two rooms (three walls) to reach me. There are several places where the signal is low (or nonexistent) and the signal is generally weak. Without paying the phone company to wire a DSL jack in the extension, which will cost at least $100, is there anything I can do?

washingtonpost.com: Discussion Transcript (August 15, 2005)

Rob Pegoraro: It sounds like you only have that one access point, so I'd try adding a second Linksys device to act as a repeater. Or you could try one of the MIMO category of WiFi access points, which offer much greater range (and now don't cost quite as much as they did when I tried them out several months ago).

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Alexandria, Virginia: Hi Rob:

I'm thinking about getting an MP3 player to use when I exercise, but want one with enough memory to carry lectures and not just songs. I've heard certain people swear by the Ipods, particularly the ones with more memory (20 GB or more) and I've read great reviews in PC Magazine about the Ipod Mini. (I have no interest in the Ipod Shuffle.)

On the other hand, if you talk to others, particularly some in the computer business, they'll tell you that the Ipods aren't ideal for a host of reasons: they're proprietary and therefore offer less music choices and you also can't replace the battery when it runs out.

There's also a debate aboubt whether you want to have an MP3 player that relies on the hard drive memory or one that uses the flash memory and is more mobile.

Finally, I'm concerned that my computer, a 1999 Emachines with Windows 98, Celeron chip, and 160 MB memory, isn't powerful enough to work with a modern MP3 player.

Could you provide your candid thoughts about (1) the shortcomings and pluses of the Ipod versus non MAC competitors (Rio, etc.), (2) pluses and minuses of hard drive memory versus flash memory, and,