Which MP3 to connect to HI-FI

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Please do you have any suggestions or experiences with:

 

1. Buying an MP3 (preferably SSD) to hold my mainly acoustic and classical music CD collection.

2. Buying a new mini style hi-fi system (sony, denon,onkyo etc)

3. Connecting the two by USB, bluetooth or wifi - I don't want a PC involved !

 

[Anonymous]

What are your reasons for not wanting a PC involved, ugly, big, noisy, expensive?

 

[Anonymous]

Octopo, there are a few reasons why I don't want a PC involved:
... Simplicity, the fewer boxes the better as far as I am concerned : an MP3 connected to a hi-fi keeps it fairly simple as long as the sound is ok and if it has a flash drive then no moving parts.
... I don't want a PC in the room where I listen - it would have to be wifi connected from another room - so thats 2 more boxes.
... I have a laptop already and another PC would mean a trip to the other room to turn it on when I want to listen to my hi-fi and Windows maintenance issues.

 

[Anonymous]

Looking at your other post you seem to have come up with some ideal solutions yourself, all of which would work.

Can I just point out though, you will confuse matters if you keep refering to a device as an MP3. An MP3 is a type of music file which is stored on a hard drive and played by an mp3 player.

 

[Anonymous]

Octopo,

Thank you for replying again.

You are quite right that I ought to make it clearer to people and use the term MP3 player rather than just use the word MP3.
I think people would probably realise that I wanted to hold my CD collection on an MP3 player rather than in a single MP3 music file and that I am thinking of connecting an MP3 player to a hifi rather than a single MP3 music file.
Anyway thank you for all your help and suggestions so far.
ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

I would say it originally seemed you meant a hard disk by MP3? So no I don't think it was too clear. Anyway let us know what you decide, I'd be interested to know.

 

[Anonymous]

Denon have a D-M37DAB which is a mini system featuring DAB radio and a USB port in the front for plugging a USB memory stick, iPod or other MP3 Player.

You may want to look at iPod's as many systems offer a rather nice iPod dock. Yamaha and Onkyo have ones that plug into their main AV amps such as Yamaha's AV759SE that I have. Not sure if any of their mini systems carry the same feature?

I might push you more towards the Sony MP3 players as the iPod's are often critisised for having a very flat, clinical sound where as the Sony's seem to have a more vibrant interesting sound. It all depends on what suits your music taste the best I guess.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks YellowPeril.

My shortlist includes a Cowon with it's FLAC capability and large GB storage and of course Sony with their DMPORT facility.

I am not over keen on an in IPOD andÿlean towards a Sony because of their (perceived) quality image - I have heard people criticise them for using their own proprietry recording methods such as ATRAC, BETAMAX (in the past) -ÿany thoughts on that ?

When I go to hi-fi shops they tend to talk down MP3 music files when played through HI-FI as not having CD quality; just wonder how true this is. I remember when CDs appeared and people who loved LPs said they would never catch on.

My music tastes are classical music, folk music - I would say base is less important to me than clarity and a warm sound if that makes sense.ÿ

ÿ

 

[Anonymous]

DERBINGLE:
When I go to hi-fi shops they tend to talk down MP3 music files when played through HI-FI as not having CD quality; just wonder how true this is. I remember when CDs appeared and people who loved LPs said they would never catch on.ÿ

ÿThere are actually quite a few thread's on this topic, a quick search will provide you with your fair share of opinions on that matter!

But to avoid the MP3 subject, if you get a device that can store and play FLAC files (as was your first option) it is the quality and capabilities of the system that will be called into question.

 

[Anonymous]

I'd avoid using the ATRAC format as it restricts future use on none compatible systems and would say the same for FLAC. I'm all for using formats that are generally accepted. Having sat archiving multiple recordings into MP3/WMA I wouldn't want to do it again so am glad I opted for a common system.

As far as sound quality, if you're not a HIFI connoisseur then you needn't worry about the CD vs MP3 arguement. Yes it is not as good, often clearly not as good as you lose a lot of depth. However for the average joe, this is not important and hence the success of iPod's etc. For myself I use MP3's in my car stereo and am more than happy, it allows me to take my music with me and gives an endless jukebox facility when listening on my pc.

People who demand quality reproduction will not accept the claims of an MP3 file (or similar) being anything near as good as a cd (or for that matter an LP). But at least the CD had the benefit of no clicks and hiss, where as MP3's don't offer an audio benefit, only one of convenience.

I would say that if you're after a clear, warm sound go for WAV files which take up the most space but offer the closest you will get to CD quality. As USB hard drives of 750Gb are now only around £60 this makes storage less of an issue that it was say 12 months ago. As a compromise, something like Apple's Lossless format or at the very least, a high bit rate MP3 such as 256 or 320 Kbps.

 

[Anonymous]

TheYellowPeril:
I'd avoid using the ATRAC format as it restricts future use on none compatible systems and would say the same for FLAC.ÿ I'm all for using formats that are generally accepted.ÿ Having sat archiving multiple recordings into MP3/WMA I wouldn't want to do it again so am glad I opted for a common system..ÿ

As a compromise, something like Apple's Lossless format or at the very least, a high bit rate MP3 such as 256 or 320 Kbps.

This is all wrong.

One of the major benefits of a lossless filetype such as FLAC (which you don't recommend) or AIFF (which you go on to recommend) is that they are lossless and can be converted at any time in the future to the then common lossless filetype without losing any data. So if you encode your music to ANY lossless filetype you have basically future proofed yourself. The downside of lossless is the file sizes are expectedly largerÿÿthan lossy files.

MP3 is more at risk of becoming obsolete than any lossless filetype because as HDD become cheaper and download speeds become faster people will start to expect nothing less than CD quality sound from their computer music files.ÿEvery time you convert a lossy type such as MP3 you will lose more data.

We are not yet at the point where HDD are so cheap everyone can afford to do this, but it is not very far off. If you are just starting out ripping your music I fully recommend to rip lossless but if you think you won't be able to afford the storage I wouldn't go less than 320kbps because filesize wise it is a massive step down from lossless (roughly 10%) but any less than 320 you are losing more audible quality per mb.

Just though I'd clear that up.