MP3 Sound Quality Through Hi-fi

[admin_exported]

For convenience I sometimes play my (IRiver) MP3 player through my hi-fi system but (obviously) the sound quality is not as good as playing directly from cd.

Does anyone know if I can rip cds into Windows Music Player and then onto the Mp3 player at a better quality?

If no - then could I produce better sound qulaity with Ipod & Itunes?

Many thanks.

 

[Thaiman]

I'm not up to modern MP3 tech but can say that IRiver sound did shock me! I didn't expect it to sound that good compare to the Ipod. I couldn't answer the question about i tunes but I am sure many members here can. The other section of the forum (MP3/MP4) would get you a quicker respond, I think.

 

[Anonymous]

Use EAC (exact audio copy) to rip the wave files from your CD to your computer. Then compress them using EAC again with LAME. Use a variable bit rate id say 256kb/sec is more then high enough for an iPod/iRiver. Will sound a lot better on the HIFI system to then other compressed methods. Do a websearch for EAC and Lame, theres many guides out there to configure as its not the more straight fwd program, but 10min of readin will be worth it.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="heystak"]For convenience I sometimes play my (IRiver)
MP3 player through my hi-fi system but (obviously) the sound quality is
not as good as playing directly from cd.
[/quote]

If you are sound quality conscious, you should have chosen a player that could play wave (.WAV) and/or lossless compressed files (.FLA/.FLAC). An iPod can play .wav.

[quote user="heystak"]Does anyone know if I can rip cds into Windows Music Player and then onto the Mp3 player at a better quality?[/quote]

Yes, follow Kiwi_Jonno's advice above.

To learn more on the topic, see these threads:

Why Do MP3's always sound quiet when compared to a normal CD?

APPLE LOSSLESS VS WAV. which is better?

 

[Anonymous]

Just clicked on the link above......... Wow I would not have thought the apple lossless would sound any different to wave files. I havent done a comparason myself, but the ALE is compressed without losing any data, just like FLAC. If you convert to lossless you can convert back to wave without losing quality, so the filesize of the wave will be exactly the same. The ipod must be straining and using more of its memory/power when playing the ALE compared to the WAVE? As if the files are both lossless the only variable can be the way the file is played on the device? If both a wave and a ALE was burnt to a CD I wonder if there would be any audio difference?

 

[Anonymous]

That's a good thought. But there are differences even if you play a WAV file on your PC and play the CD through a CDP. The difference lies in the way the data reaches for decoding and how the conversion is done. I doubt there is any player that tries to simulate a CD transport. The difference in sound is inevitable. By what margin, remains the question.

 

[Anton90125]

[quote user="ranjeetrain"]

That's a good thought. But there are differences even if you play a WAV file on your PC and play the CD through a CDP. The difference lies in the way the data reaches for decoding and how the conversion is done. I doubt there is any player that tries to simulate a CD transport. The difference in sound is inevitable. By what margin, remains the question.

[/quote]

I have compared a CD played through my Sony CD player (through Cyrus Dac X) and Roku M2000 linked via ethernet to a Maxtor NAS (running Firefly) with Flac Files (through Cyrus Dac X). I could hear no difference.

I created a second set of recording with MP3 (for use with an Archos device) and saved them on the same NAS (different folder). By accident I connected to this folder and spend the next hour and a half wondering what was wrong with my hifi. The sound was dead though it was not immediately obvious why. The top/mid and bottom seemed to be there but there was no life, no 3 dimension (stereo depth). As the music got more complicated the sound got blander. I was so relieved when I discovered my mistake and connected to the flac folder/server.

Moral of the story IMO don't bother with MP3 through your hifi. It will show MP3s limitations ruthlessly. My accidental blind test proved that to me. MP3 is good for ipods/ Archos and alike but not for Hifi's.

 

[Anonymous]

Anton, nice story. I am impressed with your experiments. Just that it was a bit off the mark as you were doing something other than what I spoke about.

I wrote "there are differences even if you play a WAV file on your PC and play the CD through a CDP". You are not talking about that, are you? I hope you understand that there is a difference in playing music stored on a PC using a standard media player software or on a MP3 player like iRiver and playing it through a music server.

Until (some piece of software) does a conversion back to raw wave (from ALE, FLA or whatever) implicitly and sends that data in PCM format exactly the way a CD transport would, it would be impossible to achieve the same level of accuracy in the sound reproduction.

Do let us know if you can demonstrate otherwise.

 

[Anton90125]

Mmm...

What I am saying is Flac files and .wav files (just tried it) saved on a NAS, then transcoded on the fly to .wav (not necessary for .wav already there) by firefly which is running on the NAS and then transmitting it via ethernet to the Roku M2000 which does the conversion to a PCM output. This is then connected by Coax to a Cyrus Dac X.

Now the Dac X has multiple digital imputs which has the Roku connected on one and my Sony SCD 777es to another. Now playing some music from the Roku (flac copied from CD Disc A) and music from the same CD Disc A playing on the Sony (both music feeds synchronised) I could not tell the difference and indeed (when my friend switch between imput 1 and 2 ) which was which.

Other then using the PC to create the flac/mp3/.wav files I dont use the PC at all.

I think you might be right that its is a little different to what you where saying -sorry jumped the gun a bit.

I thought you ment that despite Flac being lossless you do hear a difference which is not what you are saying.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for clearing it up, Anton.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="ranjeetrain"]
That's a good thought. But there are differences even if you play a WAV file on your PC and play the CD through a CDP. The difference lies in the way the data reaches for decoding and how the conversion is done. I doubt there is any player that tries to simulate a CD transport. The difference in sound is inevitable. By what margin, remains the question.
[/quote]

Just a question about Apple Lossless.... All my music is stored in this format on iTunes. When I make a CD, does iTunes convert to wave (without showing you) before burning the songs to the CD-r? As I know a normal cd player cant read Apple Lossless, and when you make an AUDIO cd with mp3's they appear as wave on the CD-r, (but only the same quality as the mp3...). Would it sound better if I made a CD on iTunes if i first converted the Apple Lossless back to wave and then burnt to the CD? Or would it be the same if the songs are wave and lossless anyway?

 

[Anonymous]

Apple Lossless is a proprietary format. Not sure whether it is really 'lossless'.

Assuming it is, there should be no difference. A consumer CD player doesn't play Apple Lossless (I don't know if someone has started manufacturing one recently), so it is implied that iTunes converts them back to wave before burning CDs. Mu guess would be, it does.

One way to verify this would be, to take the CD and try reading it through a PC CD-ROM. Check the file system, is it recognized as an Audio CD or a data CD. If it is recognized as an Audio CD, ALE-2-WAV conversion was done by iTunes, else you have a data CD full of ALE files.

 

[Anonymous]

CD's are written in 16bit 44Khz PCM (Pulse Code Modulated) Stereo. The wave file format is capable of this resolution and ... well basically any resolution, the format does not limit that. ALE almost certainly does not.. but I expect that when it is decoded it *also* decodes to a PCM stereo data stream of the same width and depth. So I'd say it's unlikely that it would be needed to convert the whole file to wave before ripping to CD as it could be done 'on the fly'.

I don't personally have a lot of confidence in the software apple writes though, so I wouldn't be suprised if they do convert the files to wave and leave them wasting space in a temporary directory on your computer.

After having bought a sony MP3 player I will never, ever, EVER buy a portable music device that requires me to install 'conversion software version 7.0' for me to put music on to it. My Iriver is plug, cut, paste and play. No software, no converting files, no nothing. I always found these programs, including iTunes, to be insideously slow and really, far far to difficult to use given the simplicity of the operation I am performing. Tis a shame, that sony NWA-1000 of mine had really good sound.

Oh yeah, and don't get me started on ID3 tags being the only way to organise your mp3 files on these players. I have the ability to create directories with the name of the band/album I choose for a reason. Why can't a portable player handle this? It's one of the basic freedoms of sensible file systems! one of the freedoms in life that the government is yet to take away :O