How has life been after converting my 2,000-CD collection to MP3 files? In the five weeks since I shipped off my discs for good, it has been chaotic — but in a good way. I wrote in today’s paper about my use of iPodMeister – which ripped my discs and sent me the contents on a hard drive, along with two 120GB iPod classics, backup DVDs and $640, in return for the CDs — and the various issues that have arisen in the ensuing five weeks. You can read that column here.

Here are some other things that I wanted to elaborate on or that I didn’t have room to include:

Copyright concerns: As promised in today’s write-up, here is the original column and a followup blog post for those wanting to read past concerns about copyright issues. Since I wrote the latter, in which the RIAA opted not to comment or get involved and a copyright attorney said I was not in legal trouble, I heard from the RIAA again. This time it was from a paralegal in the organization’s legal department who was following up on a phone call from an anonymous reader who “reported” me for copyright violations. After I offered details, he thanked me for clearing it up for him and wished me “a great day.”

iPodMeister’s view: After reading through the volume of reader comments, iPodMeister owner Kris Schrey noted, “80 percent of our customers do not opt for digitizing. They just give us their CDS and get an iPod. Digitizing is usually chosen by people with a large number of older out-of-print titles which are not available in the iTunes store.” That describes me exactly.

Customer service: As I noted in today’s write-up, iPodMeister initially missed one of my discs. Some people have asked me what it was. It was a fourth disc included as a limited-edition bonus in the initial release of the boxed set The Beach Boys: The Pet Sounds Sessions. The disc reproduced the mono mix of the original album and was included in a sleeve apart from the set’s other three discs. Knowing that it might be missed, I hunted for it. When I asked iPodMeister about it, they immediately located the disc, ripped it and express-shipped a disc with the MP3s on it. Abby, who oversaw my project, said the company was holding onto my collection for longer than usual just in case such an instance occurred. I was impressed.

Room to spare: My collection took up less than 300GB on the hard drive that iPodMeister sent, Seagate’s 1.5-terabyte FreeAgent. So I’ll have plenty of room to add more music through downloads from Amazon’s MP3 store and ripped discs that I buy (as noted in today’s column), creating backup DVDs as I go.

Necessary add-ons: As part of the conversion, I’ve made three major tech purchases with the cash from my deal. After buying an iPod-ready car receiver and around-the-house iPod dock for my wife (as detailed in today’s write-up), I used the rest of the money to buy a laptop, a deal from the Dell Outlet for about $450 shipped. I figure that it will give me the most flexibility to manage my digital music collection, since the home desktop PC has to be shared with two teenage daughters who always seem to want to be on at the same time as me. Once it arrives, I’ll dive headlong into the 30,000-plus music tracks I now have to wrangle.

Playing a music video game such as Guitar Hero or Rock Band makes you more likely to buy the tunes you hear, according to a report released a few minutes ago by the NPD Group.

“Twenty-two percent of music buyers (CDs, digital or mobile) overall – and 35 percent of consumers under the age of 35 — reported playing a music-based video game, such as Rock Band or Guitar Hero, in the prior three months. Many of these music gamers reported that the gaming experience had a positive outcome, such as creating music discovery or triggering a digital-music or CD purchase,” the report says.

One reason why the music games are having such a positive effect is because they are so popular.

“Year-to-date through November, the music and dance genre was the best-selling genre in video games, representing 16 percent of total software sales for the year,” NPD analyst Anita Frazier says.

“Even though gaming competes with music for the consumer’s entertainment wallet share, music-related games are evolving into an important source for music discovery that can have positive revenue implications for the recording industry,” NPD analyst Russ Crupnick adds.

The rest of the news for the music industry is mixed, according to the report, with the expected results: CD sales are down (19 percent in the third quarter, compared with the same period last year), paid online downloads are up (29 percent) and illegal file sharing is up (23 percent — 46 percent among teens). �

If you’re looking for another headphone option, Oakdale-based Hearing Components might have the answer — and a little deal for Strib readers. I actually wish I had remembered to include it in my recent write-up on headphones. A 3M spinoff, the company makes a variety of in-the-ear headphones and accessories under the Comply brand name that use “high-tech viscoelastic polyurethane foam.” Here’s what that means, as the company explains:

“The Comply Foam Technology used in Comply products forms to the individual shape of each ear canal, allowing the foam to expand and remain in place. The foam also creates passive noise reduction by sending sound directly into the ear canal while sealing out unwanted noise. The technology used in the earphones is actually the same foam technology that U.S. Army helicopter crews and Special Forces use to reduce ambient noise.”

The cool thing is that even if you don’t want to buy the Comply earphones, which sell for $60 to $80, the company makes products that can juice up the earphones you already have.

Its Whoomp! Earbud Enhancers snap onto the stock earbuds that come with the iPod and iPhone to provide a better fit, a comfy feel and improved sound quality (if nothing else than because of the passive noise reduction). At $20 for two pairs (one slim-size and one standard), they’re a reasonably priced upgrade. 

There’s also the proprietary Comply Foam Tips, which replace the standard tips of 35 brands of earphones. Again, it’s a reasonably priced upgrade at $15 for three pairs on every model I checked, and better deals on higher quantities, such as 10 pairs for $38.

The nice little deal: If you enter the code STAR at checkout, you’ll get 20 percent off on a nifty product born right here in the Twin Cities.

Check them out at www.complyfoam.com.

I did a quick overview on headphones today because they make such an easy gift at this time of year. Besides the main article, be sure to check out the sidebar on some trendy picks I’ve made. I have to admit that I was surprised when I asked the Consumer Electronics Association for its most recent sales data and found that headphone sales (by unit) are up 25 percent over last year to this point. They’re clearly a popular audio accessory.

A few follow-up points to my article:

* Two readers pointed out that Grado Labs makes great headphones, which I didn’t mention. They are absolutely right. Grado is highly acclaimed for both its high-end headphones and more affordable models. There are also many other fine headphone companies, including Klipsch, AKG, Audio-Technica and Denon. There wasn’t room to mention them all in the original article. Suffice it to say that if you follow the links I listed,  you’ll discover these and many others.

* The Able Planet active noise-canceling headphones I mentioned, the NC200, retail for $100, but the company is discounting them 40 percent for readers who use the promo code MNST08 when ordering online or by phone. I mentioned that in my article, but since I wrote it, the company is now discounting them 50 percent through Amazon.

* For all-around use, including portable, I’ve always been stuck on the Bang & Olufsen Form-2, which I first got when they came out in the mid-’80s. But my first experience with really nice headphones was when my older sister bought a sweet stereo setup when I was a kid and let me borrow her Koss stereophones to listen to her albums. They were monstrous over-the-ear models, typical for the day. The only thing missing was the light wands to guide the jetliners on the tarmac. ;-)  �

Here’s the latest update on my quest to convert my 2,000-CD collection, using the services of iPodMeister: I got an email Thursday saying that my project was completed and shipped. Coming Wednesday, according to UPS, will be a 1.5TB (that’s terabyte) external hard drive containing the contents of my collection as MP3s (320kbps), backup DVDs of the collection, a silver 120GB iPod Classic and a check for $640. Coming soon after will be a separately shipped black 120GB iPod Classic. (It was out of stock.) So it took iPodMeister less than two weeks, including the Thanksgiving break, to convert my collection. We’ll see how it looks once I have everything.

In the three-plus weeks since I sent in my CDs, I’ve ripped maybe 50 of the 200 or so discs I kept behind to do myself. And those were the easy ones that showed up in the Freedb.org database. The rest will be much more tedious, because they don’t show up in the database and will take longer to process because I’ll have to enter the track info. Suffice it to say that at my current pace, it would have taken me more than two years to convert my original collection. No, thanks.

Again, I’ll follow up my original column in the paper on Dec. 23.

Oh, and for an enlightening take on iPodMeister’s operations, check out this comment to a previous blog entry from a former employee (posted unsolicited over the weekend).

I recently got an update from iPodMeister — the company that rips your CDs to an iPod, sends you the player and backup DVDs, and then keeps the CDs as payment – on the progress it is making in converting my 2000-CD collection. Things appear to be going fine so far, and I’ve been impressed with the customer service.

I got a call from the company on Nov. 20 to say it had received all 10 of my boxes. I got a follow-up call Nov. 25 to say that they were halfway through my collection but were shutting down for the Thanksgiving holiday. The expectation then was that they would finish up by the end of this week. I asked how they were handling my many discs whose track information doesn’t show up in CD databases. They said they were entering the data by hand. Cool — I thought I would have to do that.

I’m still waiting to hear back from the owner on the final terms of my deal, since my collection far exceeds the minimum number of discs for their standard deals (such as 200 CDs for an 8GB iPod Nano or 400 CDs for a 16GB iPhone 3G). Meanwhile, I’ve started buying some accessories I’ll need as part of the change-over, having gotten good deals on a nice iPod-ready car receiver for my wife ($110 shipped) and an iPod dock for her to use at home ($100 shipped).

I’ll offer occasional updates here. My follow-up column is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 23.