hey, i was thinking that with all new head units providing mp3 format and aux ports for IPods etc, as a compressed format would mp3 (at 128kbps bitrate) lower sound quality in a large car setup compared to a lossless format (WMA)

i have an IPod and playing mp3's through the stock headphones is perfectly fine for me. but in a car where the sound is far louder with higher quality components used, a higher quality sound file would i assume be more important.

im considering burning music onto CDs in WMA form instead of Mp3 for my car... is it worth it? will the improvement in sound quality be noticed?

Yes.

mp3s at 128kbps generally make the music less detailed and i find that tones become deeper and duller in general. You could try using VBR from 192 to 320 as a comprimise for sound quality

As SlimLim said, it makes a big difference. MP3's at 128kbps simply don't do music justice. Play around with the different formats available and have a close listen. You'll hear the differences in music reproduction which will help you decide which format is for you.

is ther any way you can turn a 128kbps file into a 320? a program mayb? because i kno it sounds muh better at 320kbps i was wondering is ther is a way of doing so because i have so many file sin 128kbps.
thx
nick

if its 128kbps already no point in re-encoding

but i want them 2 sound better, n louder, on my iriver.

in other words, no u cant make a file that is already 128kbps into a 320kbps one.

basically, the raw data from a music file is compressed - this means that some of the data from the original file is averaged down into smaller packets, ie. some of the original data is lost.
this averaging process tends to happen more at the extremes, where the human ear is less likely to notice small differences in frequency (20-35hz, and 16.5-22khz)

the ability to hear the difference between different encoding settings is also limited by the equipment you are using - on a 'reference' audio system you will easily be able to pick differences that you simply would NOT be able to hear on a cheap system.

i find that on my computer ($100 logitech speakers), mp3s at 192kbps or higher sound very good and extremely close to the originals.
whereas in my car ($2000+ system), i can still pick the difference between 320kbps mp3s and the originals (most of the time - if an original is poorly recorded/engineered in the first place, encoding it at a high bit-rate will not change the sound too much).

encoding is like cutting wood or metal.

if you have excess your fine, but if you remove too much(in this case, encode it too low) you cant get it back and have to start from scratch.

Yep, you'll need the original recording to record at the highest encoding bit rate available to you if you want a better sounding, louder recording.

My iRiver is also very handy for the train ride to work and all of my MP3's are at least 192kpbs, which is fine for me as far as portable music goes.

thanks for that guys, looks like im now going to have to get some new recordings

If you are 'acquiring' these songs illegally, may I suggest picking the song out of the bunch that has the highest bit rate....it may take longer but the bump in quality will be worth the extra wait

Umm... I'm pretty sure WMA isn't lossless. WAV is lossless, but the files are huge and take up about as much space as CD format (about 35mb per track).



Don't bother.

The reason why a track loses quality when compressed is that data is lost as a result of the compression algorithm. By running a 320kbps MP3 compression on a 128kbps file you will actually compress it a second time at a better compression rate. I.e. instead of compressing the original file once, you are compressing it and then compressing the compressed version on if. It'll make it worse before it makes it any better.

Once data / detail has been lost, it's lost for good.

buy originals and rip them at lossless or a high bit rate.

Not that i download music, cause that has legal consequences but this is what I would reccomend.

or if you are really concerned about quality then

thnx for the advice guys apreciate it
cheers
nick

just addidng to this, i jsut ripped the games album on 320kpbs and compared back to back with the cd. I can still tell the difference between the two. Subtle, but its there.

Good to see people using iRivers instead of iPods, at least you'll still be using them in 18 months time, the click wheel wont have fcuked itself and the battery will still hold charge.

In re: to mp3 or compressed file sound quality, no such thing. Even ripping to raw WAV loses a lot of information. CDRW drives are designed to read data, not music. Play a burnt CD vs original on equipment thats highly revealing (Krell/Wadia/Musical Fidelity) and there will be a marked difference.

jipped...my iriver has shat itself...and i think its the battery...not that i really use it much but it used to double up as a spare 40gb of storage

i want krell dual mono power amps.... sigh. they will fit in my entertainment cabinet too.

my iPod works fine after 2 years - replaced the battery about 3 months ago (no big issue).

as to lossless compression, Ogg/Vorbis I think is the only one. (maybe wrong) but also, the playback decoder is often the difference in the SQ.

I know the Windows' "Lossless" format is rather crapty, and MP3 isn't far behind.

What formats are lossless, and if there are a few which is the best.

Also do any of these play on an Ipod

Can't find the quote but someone said recently they could hear the difference between coppied and original music.
Just wondering what the physical difference is. Also why cant CDA files be coppied to your computer as is.

(i sereously have no idea about music format types.)

CDA files are CD audio files - the reason you can't copy them, is because they are not 'files' in the sense like files on a hard disk. The CD standard specifies how the files should be stored, with index and track/time markers. You can 'format' a drive to comply with the CD Audio standard, but Windows couldn't read it, other than like a normal CD (Linux can though, with the right module loaded).

If you copy the Digital data from a CD to a PCM wave file, there is no loss in SQ. the size of the file will be about 10MB per minute for stereo CD Audio Discs.
The disc you then write that data to may have errors, or the player may not recognise the disc properly.

I have a CD Audio disc which only works in my Pioneer Car CD player, not in any other of my players (Car or Home or PC). go figure!

I agree. I did a test with a female friend not really into Car audio but she had a good system and even she could pick the copied CD v the origional. The copy lost some of the deep bass of the origional and sounded a bit more confused, noisey and unclear. I cant listen to MP3s. Its a backward step sound quality wise.

A properly burnt CD-R will not sound any different to an original.

Most burners are terrible at burning audio discs because they rely on error correction too much. There have been many tests and trials on this subject.

Try burning good quality audio onto a good quality disc at 1x on a compatible burner, and it will be every bit as good as the original (Even 4x is usually indestinguishable).

I always burn at the slowest speed available on high quality audio CDRs. Have you personally ever compared the two (ie copy v origional) back to back? I have and I trust my ears. I do however accept that some burners are better than others.

how good is the FLAC audio format? It is what ive been using lately for backups on my harddrive of originals

just 320 or 256 for a mp3 disc and use a high quaility audio CD-R and slowest possible speed for a quaility disc copy for stuff worth haing the extra detail for so you dont scratch/get stolen those originals

I couldn't tell the difference between an original and a burnt copy. comparing the same disc in 2-ch. SACD format - the SACD is far superior, much more open and alive, with deeper and more natural stage (same player, hybrid disc).

just watch SACD and DVD-A be about as popular as HDCD..

blueray and hddvd will open up new audio opportunities for audiophiles, but of course its dependant on how fast the car audio manufacturers can get it into the headunits.

from the track record, i'd say that chinese cheapo manufacturers would get onboard faster than the majors.. look at the use of DivX as a video format for mobile media compared to the majors.. only JVC and Pioneer have recently picked up DivX. DVD-A has only started to enter into the car audio market and SACD is nowhere to be seen.

Hell even the fabled Ural CCD/AudiotecFischer - Brax unit still only does CD..

Seems that computers are the only thing capable of keeping up with the mutlitude of formats available out there.

/2c

Install Rockbox onto your iRiver/iPod to get FLAC support and other high bitrate formats

Also burning at a slower speed does not make a difference with current burners, in fact sometimes it makes it at higher risk of producing an error. Check cdfreaks forums if you are really interested.

I was talking from experience - I have coastered many good discs by forgetting to burn slow. anything from 'spit spit spit' sound (32x) to clicks/pops(16x) and missing bits of track (8x). This is using a Pioneer A09 (or whatever) burner, with TDK CD-Audio blanks.
Slow it down to 4x and it burns fine, every time.

TDK media is not considered "good" at all, media is just as important as the burner. Want high quality discs? Use Taiyo Yuden.

Or anything by Verbatim. Almost every single benchmark of cd's i've seen put Verbatim at the very top.
LG's cd/dvd burners are also very highly praised.

On another note, are there any decks around that support SACD or Ogg Vorbis?

Not that I can think of bar possibly Alpine F1....

With DVD-Audio now, I doubt that SACD will be a popular addition due to proprietary codec (DSD) being expensive.
I think McIntosh and Blau have SACD decks, but they're older ones.

FLAC ftw

I can't pick it from the originals and its a well used codec. It will take up ten times the space but its worth it for the SQ.

Hi,go to 'Allofmp3.com" put in maybe $10 bucks,download from possibly the biggest range of legal music on the net for around 20 to 25 cents per song, listen to the music first, choose the desired codec and bit rate, (I use WMA at 192 and it sounds great), this site is legal because it is registered in Russia, but don't let that worry you, I have been using them for some time and they are very reliable. Create a collection for for a few dollars. cheers Pete. PS sometimes they are so busy you can't get things happening,I do most of mine around 3.am, but try daytime anyway.

The quality at Allofmp3.com varies and it is not legal if you live in Australia. (not recommended!)

Got to agree there.. I sell MP3 players at my work on occasion and Ipods are probably THE single most frequently returned out of all the brand name products (naturally there are more issues with generic and el cheapo crap gear).

I think it's pressure from society that tends to lead people to buy Ipods... style and advertising.

Aside from an intruitive interface, they really don't do anything that other branded units don't... in fact they do less with almost every feature (that is standard in many players) an expensive optional accessory for an Ipod.

Yet Ipod's still sell by the bucketloads...go figure!



I also use Verbatim disks for the exact same reason, combined with a Pioneer burner. I've had very good results thus far. I've found the reliability of the TDK disks (even the gold ones) to be sketchy at best.

Nero encoder will actually do this for you, but I wouldn't advise it.

Although it gives the impression of being a 320kpbs file it isn't. It's a synthetic reproduction of a 128k file at 320k. Think of it as orange juice that's just past it's due date......it's still cold and refreshing, but has a bitter edge to it that just isn't quite right.

In short, you are better off with the 128s, unless you re-rip the CDs....otherwise you are wasting your time.

just on the speed of burning things, the majority of 52X cd burners will have less errors at around the 32X speed. dont believe me? then run a cd checking utility after burning a cd and for most burners the lowest error rate is around 32X

been documented very well on the website D_C quoted

try different media.

No offense, but tdk are cheap sh*t media, not the quality of yesteryear like their sa-x and ma-xg 90 cassette tapes, which were the shiznit in their heyday.

there's really only 2 brands one can be assured of, thats Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim.

Not the cheapest, but if you're after quality, you get what you pay for.

as for burners, your pioneer a09 should be fine. there isn't anything wrong with Pioneer, LG, Yamaha, toshiba, phillips et al.

BUT.. make sure you have a clean disk partition, enough ram to support your burning application and close all other applications while you burn. Defragmenting your drive is also a very good idea to make sure your files aren't fragmented, which will make the seek time significantly lower.

I've never coastered a single taiyo or verbatim, but I've lost quite a few imation, tdk, laser, and ritek, all of which are super crappy el-cheapo discs imo.

I want to back up all my cd's to hard disk. I stated doing the first few on windows media player as lossless WMA files.
From what I have read I undestand that WAV is the best file type to use.
Is this correct?
If so how do I go about doing this as windows media player only does WMA.
I also want to get album info as well as the cd covers if possible like windows media player does.
Burnsy

I used CD-DA to rip for a while, but now use Nero and save discs as iso files. then you can ZIP them

isobuster can load/edit/whatever iso files.

WMA is capable of lossless encoding, but is usually VBR. Also you can convert 128kbps to 320kbps, but you would actually lose quality. I would recommend ripping from an original CD at 320+ kbps for optimal performance. Mp3 is a far superior format to WMA imo, simply because it is more widely supported. They have also done independent testing and found that MP3 is better quality than WMA, despite microsofts claims otherwise.

Has any one tried "Exact Audio Copy" (EAC) for their MP3's or backing up their original CD's

I have several audiophile friends that put me on to this program as it creates excellent CD backups and MP3's when used with the LAME external compressor. Best of all both EAC and LAME are freeware !

Some of the features as described from a web guide are :
Using an advanced reading techique called secure mode, EAC is able to make quality guarantees most other software can't. Contrary to most other extraction software EAC reads every audio sector twice and compares these to each other. Are both the same, then EAC knows there was no read error. Are both sectors different then EAC knows at least one sector was read incorrect. EAC reads the faulty sector again until it gets the correct data. The program may reread up to 82 times if necessary.

Audio data can be recovered this way often where other programs would give up (if these already noticed the error). Of course EAC isn't a miracle drug and it is possible very well that even EAC can't recover the audio data. In this case EAC will report the exact location of the error in the log. After extraction completed you can listen to these suspicious positions in a few moments and decide whether or not there's an audible artifact (a read error does not automatically translate to an audible error).

With most other programs you can only guess where the read errors occured and listen to the whole cd to spot errors. That is of course if the software noticed errors...

Most bad mp3s you can find at peer-to-peer networks were ripped with software that does not indicate errors and the rippers did not prelisten the mp3s before releasing.

Got a little sick of all my cd's getting marked in the car so I just burnt the whole 300+ to the computer in wma lossless format and that works fine for me.

The slight loss in quality I am prepared to endure for the sake of keeping the originals 100% for enjoying on the home system.

I might see if I can track down this free software you are talking of and give it a run.