Switching over to all MP3’s, what do I need?

In My Humble Opinion
1

That’s right. I’ve decided to chuck my ever-aging stereo component system in favor of a computer-based, MP3, system.

All of it is going- speakers, amp, CD player, the whole sheebang.

I’ve wanted to do this for a while now, but with Christmas, and the money, soon on its way, I want to start now and build from the ground up.

What should I look for in a PC sound card, preamp, stand alone amp, connections, speakers and software? Do I need more than that? What about a dedicated hard drive for music- Good/Bad? Assuming money is not a huge concern, what’s the best set-up? What would you really want?

Or is it too soon to go all MP3?

BTW- HP 466 128ram currently using SoundBlaster Live! *All of which I can upgrade if necessary and am expecting to do.

2

Depending on what incarnation of the SB Live! you’re using, you may or may not need to upgrade. Personally, I endorse the SB Live Platinum (ideally the newer Platinum 5.1), as it has the “Live Drive” bay that will give you connections to headphone and speaker jacks at the front of your computer, which can come in handy if you have easily riled neighbors.

As for the standalone HD for MP3s, that should only be necessary a) if your main HD is slow (5400 RPMs or worse), b) you use a lot of apps that access the disk repeatedly (anything that uses a large disk cache such as video editing or even Photoshop will cause issues) as this will cause skipping, c) you’ll need a new HD anyway, as it seems like you’ll be ripping a LOT of CDs. A lot of dopers have MP3 collections that are measured in gigs - personally I have about 10, my ex-roomie had about 25 - so if you’re going ALL MP3, this might be a consideration.

And it’s time to abandon work now, so I’ll try and add more later. :slight_smile:

3

KKBattousai-

I have the Live Drive thingamabob. I was told to get a specific card for sound. Something I’ve never heard of before or since. I try to look it up or remember it ASAP, because I’m drawing a blank on it right now.

The reason for the standalone HD is more of a precautionary measure than anything else. Right now I only have one HD. It’s accessed for everything. My thinking with a dedicated music HD is better reliability and stability. I’d hate to lose a gig or two of music because of an aging and overworked HD.

4

Since you already have a sound great sound card, you will need

Some awesome speakers. Your sound card will allow you send the signal to a preamp, or a receiver (all with the proper cables, of course) so you can use real speakers if you want to. If you just want to use PC speakers, this can be good too. Creative FPS 2000s are a great way to go in this respect.

A hard drive. Definitely get a hard drive to slave to your C drive that is solely for MP3s. Tho’ the temptation be very real, don’t start putting other junk on there. If you’re like any other audiophile, your collection will grow over time. You may start out with a few hundred megs worth, but eventually, you’ll have every song you like on there, some comedy, some soundbytes, some remixes and so on. You can very easily reach the 10s and 20s of gigs of mp3 files.

A CD burner. Nothing beats going to a party and burning some party music for it first. Not only that, but it’s a great way to give the gift of music, and at 50 cents a disc, it’s cheap too. If you’re single (and a guy), chixdiggit, too.

Good rip’n’encode software. Personally, I use Sonic Foundry Siren. It works great. I usually rip at 192 Kbps and encode at the highest quality. Sometimes you may want to sample at a higher bit rate so you can go back and improve the quality of the recording, such a live bootleg or something.

And that’s about all. I remember one time some fool tried to tell me that you couldn’t shoot a signal from you computer to your home stereo system. I had to have him come over so I could show him how it’s done. It works quite well, but really, I almost can’t tell the difference between my computer speakers and my stereo speakers. But that’s just because my stereo speakers suck ass right now, and my computer speakers rock the house.

5

Personally I’m using Boston acoustics 7500 speakers, they are slim line and sound great.

you will need a burner, get a high cap. high speed drive, and keep your soundblaster.

Also, you may wish to consider getting an MP3 player for your car. Aiwa makes a deck that will read MP3’s off of a burned CD. I am putting one in on thursday so I’ll let you know how well it works. it is, however, a little pricy at $300

6

oh, one last thing. If you plan to use napster, or even if you don’t, get a high speed internet connection. Go DSL or cable.

7

Oh, nice to see ya Lexi

8

Lex-

I have good computer speakers right now- Altec Lansing Pro Logic somethingorothers. They weigh a ton (Always a good sign to me) and actually sound better than the main stereo.

But I want more. I want the big babies that can handle the bass and any amount of volume I want to give them. The current system is a good, mid-range set-up with higher end speakers. All nice and everything, but they’ve reached the end of their life. I’m noticing fade and distortion at higher volumes (Neighbors are fine. We’re all a young bunch and the building is made of stone). So a serious upgrade is definite. Price wise? Say about 1500-2500 for sound card, software, amp, speakers, and necessary connections.

What kind of amp should I look for? Something simple, or an amp set-up that has the needed extras? I was thinking a good software package could handle that part of the equation. Besides, I like it simple, but nice.

In terms of software, I’ve been using the Creative Sound package that came with the card. It’s O.K., but has some serious limitations. I’d like something better. If I chuck the Creative package, what’s a good upgrade to go to? I know Winamp gets high marks, but I don’t like it. I want a stand alone player, volume controls, and EQ software, along with anything else recommended. Which ones? Which are the best?

HD. Which is the best for all MP3 files? You say speed is important, alright, what speed and which HD fits the bill?

In terms of connections, do I go optical? RCA? What’s best?

Assume your starting from scratch and building from nothing- except the computer- what’s the best set-up?

If it goes over the price I’m thinking, fine. I’m assuming that there will be some give and take.

Kinoons-

No problem with the burner etc… I have the latest in that area and am happy with it. Same deal with the Internet connection-DSL.

For a portable player I picked up an RCA upgradeable player not too long ago. With a change to the headphones, it’s a nice little player. Good memory and easy to change songs aroung. I’m not too concerned about the car part of it yet. I’ll worry about that later when their more popular and more available.

Thanks again, I can’t tell you how much I want to pitch the current system and go all new.

9

Just a tip for downloading from Napster (or anywhere else):

Try to find songs with ‘variable bitrates’ if you can.
(they’re the songs with unusual bitrates like 112, 68, 184, etc., not the standard 128, 160, 192)

Don’t worry if the bitrate only shows up as something like ‘72’ because the bitrate flucuates throughout the song, and some other parts of the song will have a bitrate of 128 or higher. It doesn’t necessarily mean low quality.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I think variable bitrates attempt to emulate analog sound digitally. Many agree (as do I) that analog sounds much better. Some digital recordings–especially with static bitrates–seem “flat”

In my experience,vvariable bitrates always sound better.

10

Okay, here’s what you do.

Go with RCA connections, since getting an optical signal from you sound card to your receiver would be a bitch. Use Monster Cable, there is none better. Allow me to forestall any argument to contrary, as nothing anyone even God himself could say will sway me from this convictiong. Monster Cable is the best, period, and you should use it.

When you buy a receiver, you will want to consider what you’re going to be using it for. If it’s just for audio, you can get away with one that will only do audio. If you are going to hook it up to your TV (and especially your DVD) you will need to get a good one. I recommend Yamaha or Harmon Kardon. Pick it up, and it should weigh more than you do. If so, that’s a good sign. If it feels like a bucket of chicken when you pick it up, you will want to pass on it.

As far as speakers are concerned, you can get away with some relatively small ones to handle mids and highs, and a if you’re smart (which you are) you’ll get a subwoofer to handle the bass. Boston Acoustics makes a great sub. It’s tiny, and it “kicks the PA” so to speak. But all by itself it will run you about 1500 bucks, so you may want to think on a less expensive but still rather nice one. For speakers, I suggest Infinity or Def Tech (Definitive Technology).

Software, software, software… Hmmm. Like I said, I use Sonic Foundry Siren in addition to Winamp to do all I want. SFS is good, and I like Winamp, but I have a hard time recommending it to others because it’s about as user friendly as a sypphlitic rottweiler with poison oak.
You can check out other titles, such as Acid DJ, and I think you’ll find something you like. Make sure it will allow you to edit and merge audio in mp3 and not just wav, and that that you will be able to convert files from mp3 to wav and not just the other way around.
The editing part is very important. Consider Voodoo, by Godsmack. The first four minutes are awesome, but then it drags on in silence for another few minutes and then has some dinky shit at the end. You may want to chop the end off and just have the good stuff. You know, trim the fat. A lot of songs are like that.
Also, you will want to be able to clean up a song by dynamically filtering, re-encoding, and changing the preamp and all that. This is in case you get a crappy recording of a song that you like, such as Let’s Get It On. You can almost do you own digital remastering.

Hard drive. I would suggest a Quantum or IBM. Do not, I repeat, do not get a Western Digital. The price is tempting, but you won’t be able to hear your music over it. The damn things have a penchant to sound like a handful of jacks in a garbage disposal. Go with about a 20 ~ 30 gig hard drive, at 7200 rpms. Ultra SCSI wouldn’t hurt either, but I think that fast hard drives are over-rated. But that’s just me.

And last but not least, if you can spare 400~500 bucks, get a Nomad Jukebox. 6 gigs of mobile mp3 goodness. And it’s the size of your Sony Discman, too. Word. I can’t wait till Xmas so I can play with mine.

In any case, the last thing you must consider is that 3 gigs is about 500 songs. If you can think up 500 songs that you like, or if you have 700 CDs, you will need a large hard drive. Otherwise, you should be okay with a small and therefore cheap, 10 gig hard drive.

Let me know what you end up getting, okay?

11

Personally, I agree with Lexi on most of this stuff. The only thing I think I’ll disagree with is the RCA connections. I’m not as familiar with all the outputs of the Live Drive as I was when I was looking to buy it, but from what I remember, it already comes with an optical digital out, whereas RCAs would require (ick) a 1/8" (headphone jack) to RCA splitter, and I can’t imagine that sounding good at all.

As far as speakers go, it depends on what you’re planning to do. If this is replacing stereo and becoming the center of a home entertainment system (which it very well could, once you throw a DVD drive and a Hollywood+ decoder in your box), then you’ll need a “real” home audio setup. If you’re going the more traditional “hooking speakers up to your computer” route, the Klipsch ProMedias are the only way to go. THX certified, and from everything I hear, they blow walls down and piss neighbors off. Good stuff.

Going back to hard drives, for a sec, I’d recommend the IBM Deskstar 75 GXP series. Most computers are unable to take full advantage of ATA-100 interfaces, but it ensures maximum forward-compatability regardless. Also, they’re all 7200 RPM drives, with ridiculously high platter densities, which means that, well, they’re really fast. Probably overkill for MP3s, really, but you will need a 7200 RPM drive (as far as ATA interfaces go, you could get an ATA-33 for all the discernible difference; RPMs are more important).

Also, assuming you do get a fairly decent drive (say, 7200 RPM, 2 MB buffer, ATA-66 or better), do NOT slave it to whatever you have now. Assuming you have the IDE chains for it (which, come to think of it, you probably don’t), have it be a master, with nothing attached to it, on a separate chain. This is because an IDE chain runs only as fast as the slowest device on it. And I’m assuming that most older drives (which it sounds like you have) will be slower than a new one.

One last word of advice: Maxtors suck. (Well, maybe not, but all I hear are horror stories - your mileage may vary.)

12

Hmmm. Let me digest some of this info (btw- it’s exactly what I was after, thanks) and get back to you on the details. It’ll probably be this weekend that I start pricing systems and picking out components.

I’ll keep you up to date and see what you think.

13

All you really need is a sound card with RCA outs. These would hook directly into an AUX input on your receiver and you get to keep all of your remotes!
Now if you want to buy a stereo system as well…
bang and olufson 9000 system… ::drool::
amps- carver
speakers- infinity or bose