Those are the only noises that our 10 yr old cd player is making these days, so it’s time to get something new. We we’re looking at some of the players that hold 300 or more discs, thinking that we could load it up with pretty much all of our cds and never worry about changing discs again.
But then I saw an add for an IPod and began thinking that perhaps this would be a better way to go.
I did some research on the sound quality of MP3s and while almost everyone seems to think they’re fine for portable devices or car stereo, there appear to be two camps for home stereo use. Some folks claim that if the if it’s ‘ripped’ at a high enough bit rate (160), you can’t tell the difference from a cd. Others claim that even at a much higher rate, you can tell the difference and that the music sounds flat.
I don’t have a MP3 player available to do a side-by-side comparison, so I turn to you for opinions. Does anyone have their MP3 player hooked up to their home stereo? What do you think about the sound quality?
One of the promotions people at our radio station has his iPod running through a very good system in his Jeep, and it sounded just fine to me. Scrutiny through headphones was pretty good too. I did not get the sense of that digitized “swirling” or “breathing” sound that occasionally plagues MP3s.
Also heard a CD burn of a Ray Charles song downloaded from iTunes and it was almost indistuingishable from the genuine article, at least to my ears, which tells me that Apple’s source recordings must be pretty good transfers from the ground up (at least in the songs I’ve heard - your mileage might vary, of course).
If you have plenty of stoarge space on your hard drive device (whether it’s an iPod, or a computer hard drive), you can even rip your songs at a higher bitrate than 160. Using 320 will give you even better sound, obviously.
Also, it’s not just the bitrate that counts. Some mp3 encoders are a lot better than others. Most people recommend that you don’t use the encoder that comes with software like Musicmatch Jukebox.
The most-recommended encoder seems to be the LAME encoder, which is free. There is free software available that comes with the LAME encoder. I’ve used the dbPoweramp Music Converter with very good results.
Another piece of freeware that comes with LAME is CDex. I’ve had some trouble getting that to work properly, but i think the problem might have been with my old computer. I haven’t tried it on my new machine. By all accounts, it’s a good music converter.
Also, rather than using an iPod or other hard drive storage device, you might think about getting a CD player that will play mp3 CDs. That way, you can have CDs with hundreds of songs on them.
So, pipper, if you have a DVD player, then you may not need to buy any new hardware at all. And if you don’t, maybe it’s worth thinking about getting one, because you can kill two birds with one stone.
You may well be able to tell the difference between CD quality audio and 160 kb/s mp3s if you have a high-end stereo system and you know what to listen for. For the rest of us, it’s pretty much a non-issue.
It was prompted by TiVo deciding to give away the “TiVo Server” software that they previously charged for. TiVo server allows you to play music stored as .mp3s on your computer through your TV, using the TiVo box connected to your TV. You have to have a wireless network that encompasses both your TiVo box and your computer to do this.
I had a pretty nice surround sound stereo system in boxes in the basement after my last move, and I finally got my shit together and hooked it all up to the big-screen TV that came with our house. Now, using the TiVo, I can copy CDs to my computer’s hard drive and pick them from a menu on the TiVo to play in my living room. I can also just point TiVo to the folder where my music is kept and say “randomly shuffle through all these songs.”
I love the damn thing. I’m listening to music I haven’t listened to in years. I’m no sound expert, but the .mp3s sound fine to me. The convenience of just using the remote to pick what CD to play is wonderful - I’m horrible at keeping CDs in order, and more often than not the CD I wanted to hear is in the car, or upstairs, or lost. That’s not a problem any more, all my CDs are on my hard drive.
We did just obtain a DVD player (seems like we were about the last people on earth to purchase one), but the key for us is being able to have all the music loaded up and ready to go. This is a key feature because we’re trying to wire the house to allow for remote control of the stereo from certain rooms. It’ll be nice not to have to go back to the cd player (or mp3 player) just to change albums.
While I’m not an audiophile, we’ve got some decent equipment that will probably be able to bring out any shortcomings, if they exist. Plus, I’m neurotic enough to probably superimpose imagined imperfections if I gather enough evidence that other people hear a difference!
I’m wary of MP3s only because I obtained a ‘mix’ cd that someone put together from a collection of MP3s they had stored on their computer. The sound quality ranged from mediocre to horrible, although I have no idea what the source of the songs was or the method he used to create the cd.
I hardly ever play CDs now. I have a 100% computer/MP3 setup. It’s revolutionised how and what I listen to. The convenience of being able to instantly make up play lists and jump between artists and recordings in an instant without forever shuffling CDs is great. You’re also much more willing to listen to the patchy, not-so-good stuff in your collection. You can skip the really bad stuff and go listen to something else the moment the mediocre stuff gets boring.
MP3s are also great if you make the effort to record your old vinyl records. Combine the increased convenience with a little bit of audio cleaning and you’ll never ever need your old turntable again. Same goes for those worn-out tape cassettes that you were about to lose forever.
Soundwise, however, you will notice a difference. Obviously it depends on your encoder and bit-rate, but unless you’re going for full CD quality ripping you will notice that your MP3s don’t quite have the “depth” the orginal CD had.
However, I think that whenever you’re really wanting to sit down and sample the full CD experience is the time you’re going to go to the effort of getting the CD out. Any other time; MP3s are perfect. The only thing you might miss is the CD inlays, but everyone knows that the true art of album covers and liner notes died with the 12" LP.
The music quality is what you make it. Import your CDS at a good bit rate, and you’ll have good sounding (albeit larger) songs. -Just spend a few bucks and get the dock so you have a “line out” to hook up to your stereo, using the headphone jack alone is kinda crappy.
I spent a couple of days importing my CDs and couldn’t fill the 20GB iPod (I have almost 3,000 songs on it so far.) I’ve got all my music, and I can easily take it with me in the car, walking, exercising, at work, in the yard doing work, cutting the grass, whatever. Whatever mood stikes me, I’ve got the music handy.
I’m moving in a few weeks, and I’m honestly not sure I’ll even unpack my CDs when we get to the new house. They’ll probably all go in the basement somewhere. Why waste the shelf space?
I haven’t even mentioned iTunes or Playlists yet…2 more great reasons to get an iPod.
Oh shoot, one last thing. iPod can take “MP3s”, but it also encodes in “ACC” (it’s own format, pretty decent I think), but they also have a lossless format with NO DIFFERENCE from a CD.
Yeah, people often use poor encoders, and also sometimes settle for low bitrates in order to save space.
Also, some people put together compilation CDs from music that they download from online peer-to-peer networks. I don’t want to get into the legality or the morality of doing this, but from a simple sound quality point-of-view, it means that you basically have to put up with whatever crappy encoding has been done by other people on the network.
If you do your encoding yourself, from your own CDS, and use a good encoder at a high Constant Bit-Rate, or a high-quality Variable Bit Rate, you should find that the quality is fine.
Probably not quite the last. We only got one last month, and that was a gift.
I actually hadn’t even considered the idea of hooking the computer to the stereo, because they are a few rooms apart. But based on the above posts and a little web searching, I see it’s fairly easy to integrate the stereo into a wireless network (which we already have) with the right components.
So now I’m thinking maybe I’ll just buy a much cheaper single cd player (for quality sound if needed) and then purchase the right stuff to connect to the computer (for better management of the entire collection).
One of the big advantages of a legitimate online music store (like the iTunes Music Store) over file-sharing services (like Kazaa) is that the music on file-sharing services are generally encoded at really low bit rates – 64bps or 96bps. That makes the files very small, so they can be sent quicker, but sound like total ass.
Got iTunes for Windows.
Set it to rip as 192k CBR MP3s
Fed it all 500+ of my CDs
(With rare exception, the CDDB system it uses provided accurate title/track info)
OK, now what? 500+ CDs are ripped and living on my drive as MP3s. How to hear them through the stereo in another room?
After much research, I got a Slim Devices Squeezebox. I couldn’t be happier. This critter has excellent sound quality and unlike some of the “media receivers” out there, it understands track order. Some of the cheapie units play in alphabetic order only, which will really wreck albums that need to be played end-to-end - such as Pink Floyd’s The Wall, or most classical works.
The version I got can use either wired Ethernet or WiFi. After plugging in my SSID, it hopped onto my network and found the server. (There’s now a cheaper wired-only model.) When I set up the “Slim Server” on my PC, I told it to look for iTunes, and it happily read in the iTunes database without quarrel. (At the time I bought the Squeezebox, there were some media receivers that had issues of corrupting iTunes.)
I have a Windows system, and i have iTunes on it. How does the iTunes mp3 encoder compare to the LAME encoder used by dbPoweramp etc.? Do you find the sound quality is OK at 192kbps?
Second on the Slim Devices stuff gotpasswords mentioned. I’ve had their first player, the Slimp3, for a while now and love it. I’m considering getting a Squeezebox for another room.
I’ve got a second PC I bought used that I’ve placed in the bedroom, ripped all my CDs using iTunes, and hooked it into my stereo in there. I’ve got to say that it’s one of the best things that I’ve ever done. I don’t have to hunt down a CD if I want to listen to it, and the sound quality’s just find (plus there’s none of the annoying thunkwhirrthunk when it switches albums like there is with my multi-disk player). Now all I have to do is get a wifi network going between my two PCs and it’ll be perfect.
