A really interesting phenomenon, the distortion only happens when I turn my music player's volume up (VLC).  If I max the volume on my Fiio and turn up the Mac's native volume then it sounds fine.  Very weird...

So I bought my first dac/amp recently (Fiio E7 Andes) to go with my old pair of Shure SE530s and it sounds pretty good so far.  If you turn up the volume on FLAC files things usually start to get crazy with distortion of all the sound (mainly the bass).  I'm looking to upgrade my listening...

So I've just got my first good pair of headphones (Shure SE530s) and I love em already...but I'm using my laptop and my ipod.  The sound is great but from what I read around here I'm sure it could be a lot better.    There are a few different routes I'm investigating and I'd like to go with...

There is some pretty good advice here. I've been your average listener to music forever though and its kind of hard to get out of that habbit. I'm going to keep working on my list of albums to buy. There's a lot of sites that let you listen to samples of songs and that's really helpful in...

I like pretty much everything. Hip hop, reggae, rock, and whatever else I think sounds good.

Allmusic is a really good site, thanks for the replies guys. I'm going to start compiling a list of artists I like right now and then go from there.

I can't help but feel like I'm in a pit with this. Bands don't really stick to me and whenever I sit down to put stuff on my player I can never think of anything good to put on it. I shuffle through songs on my mp3 player and half of them are like meh, skip. What do you guys do to find new music?

Crushed to death by vinyls, yikes. I like the idea of having CD's as well, I'm just a poor high schooler working for minimum wage 16 hours a week. I'm looking into the used CD market right now and I've found some decent sites to get what I'm looking for.

I have a Samsung yt-9 or something like that. The amp is a behringer ha400 microamp.

So are these better than the HD555's you can get for the same price?

So I got my "amp" in the mail today, and behold...I have nothing to connect it to my MP3 player (or w/e) with. I'm assuming I need a cable that is the topic of this particular forum. Anyone want to explain...

So do you guys prefer to buy whole CD's or just download the tracks you like...

Insane Clown Posse eww i know.

It's no big deal. I'm no novice to the forum scene, I half expected at least one standard "go search" reply. I am researching getting the most out of your mp3s, I just got my new phones in the mail and I'm enjoying them as I type this. I'm loving listening to 128kbs tracks, I can't wait to get...

Yeah, despite the quality of cd players, the convenience factor of mp3 players is just better...

I've recently been looking into getting some form of portable media player and was under the impression that CD players were pretty much obsolete. But some of the ones I looked at seem like they'd be better than your average MP3 player, sound quality wise. Plus you can get mp3 CDs with plenty of...

I'm using Razorlame. I'm familiar with C but I don't want to start messing with it again. I figured it out. I'm going to encode a few files and listen up. GOOD GRACIOUS!!! That song I turned into a lossless FLAC file went from 4.2 megs to 42 megs YIKES!!!!!!! I'm doing an audio test as...

Right now I'm trying to use LAME to encode an mp3 that I have, just to get the hang of this. I go to encode this mp3 file and it says "Input file and output file must be different" Please correct this for: Location of the song Any ideas? *edit* I'll be listening to an mp3 player...

So basically the best quality audio files are FLAC, flac variants. But not all Mp3 players support FLAC?

I'd like to be able to get something I can Rockbox. The zune is pretty nice though, some friends let me play with theres from time to time. I'd really like to get an 80g ipod, but I don't know if theres a way to use a subscription based download program with the ipod.

I'm a novice when it comes to this audiophile business. I hear all these terms like lossless, and FLAC(or flak) and I'm pretty much clueless. So what all do you need to consider to get the best sound out of your music, like the file type, bitrate, etc?

Well, I'm looking to upgrade from my current 2gb mp3. I'm looking for something that has at least 30gigs of storage, the more the better. I want to player to be durable, easy to use and have good sq. I'd look for them myself but theres so many brands and stuff I'm lost, I'd rather get a good...

I have some senn cx300s on the way from amazon...for $20 new I thought they'd be good bang for the buck...I'll let you know what I think when they arrive.

The HD555s can be found for pretty cheap...That's definitely what I'd go with under $100. Refurb $85 http://www.getpartsonline.com/hd555.html New(I think) http://www.dealznet.com/item.aspx?eid=1&pid=87095

NOT PORTABLE?? I thought the "micro" part implied it would be portable. BOO!!!! That was practically the selling point