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Question about Digital Audio and headphone/amps

post #1 of 8
10/13/09 at 1:07am
Thread Starter 
I'm not sure where this should go, but here's my question.

For a music library that is mostly V2 and V0 mp3 files, how good can the headphone/amp be before the impurities can be heard?

Like, i'd expect the BEST Grado and Sennheiser full-size headphones would reveal flaws is the ripping and such; I'd think those headphones would require FLAC.

Not sure if this question is clear or even in the right place.

Any answers or opinions?

Thanks!
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post #2 of 8
10/13/09 at 1:53am
There's no such thing as a pair of headphones that need flac. There's no such thing as a pair of ears that needs flac. 320 kb/s is extremely safe, and you can probably go into the low 200's without any pair of phones showing a difference.

Human ears have great range, but people overestimate their ability to differentiate small changes. You really don't ever need flac except for peace of mind.

You'll hear impurities BECAUSE of cheap phones (as in the headphone's creating impurities), to attempt to answer your question, but all the impurities of the track (created from compression) will be there on cheap phones too (just in addition). So using good bitrate music is the first step to improving any set up.
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post #3 of 8
10/13/09 at 2:37am
Here's a good read that should take care of a lot of questions:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/be...primer-410022/

NK
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post #4 of 8
10/13/09 at 3:10am
Thread Starter 
Wow! Thanks a lot guys.

Now i don't have to worry about getting headphones that are TOO good, haha
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post #5 of 8
10/13/09 at 4:12pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chef View Post
There's no such thing as a pair of headphones that need flac. There's no such thing as a pair of ears that needs flac. 320 kb/s is extremely safe, and you can probably go into the low 200's without any pair of phones showing a difference.

Human ears have great range, but people overestimate their ability to differentiate small changes. You really don't ever need flac except for peace of mind.
Chef, perhaps you already answered my question, but to apply my question to a situation, i guess what I was wondering about is if 192-320 (majority v0 and v2) would be impurity-free to be safe enough for using, say, grado 225 headphones.

Sorry if I seem to be slow at understanding...

Thanks a bunch.
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post #6 of 8
10/13/09 at 6:34pm
There is nothing "impure" about mp3s. MP3's are a lossy codec meaning they compress while you do lose some quality. It doesn't add anything.

And you just have to check yourself honestly. Everyone's different, just like everyone's eye sight is different, everyone's ears are slightly different also. Maybe you will be able to distinguish maybe you won't be but what matters is if that matters to you. I can tell the difference for instance between 192 and 320 kbps but it doesn't bother me too much. Of course I would always try to get the highest bit rate that's not lossless.
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post #7 of 8
10/13/09 at 10:31pm
Thread Starter 
Cool, thanks.

The headphones i'm working towards are the Sennheiser HD 25-1-II...I'm a long way off though
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post #8 of 8
10/13/09 at 10:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by swilly View Post
Wow! Thanks a lot guys.

Now i don't have to worry about getting headphones that are TOO good, haha
I would say there's no such thing as "too good". Often times, people buy a expensive pair of phones and blame it for being crappy or whatnot simply because they didn't know what they wanted out of their audio gear and did little or no research before plopping down the benjamins for their 'phones. I would say "not perfect enough" would be a better word.
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