[gg2327]

hi everyone,

i had narrowed down 2 iem to purchase the denon c551 and shure se210 when i read that with the se210 any music with low bitrate is going to sound flat and empty. so is it worth me investing in mid range earphones or should i just stick to cheaper ones like the creative ep630 (£7) or senheiser cx300(£17) which i can buy real cheap. thanks for any opinions.

 

[ZephyrSapphire]

128kbps?

 

[Zalithian]

128 kbps mp3? Get something junky.

 

[gg2327]

yes 128kbps mp3 unfortunately

 

[toughnut]

even ibud will sound nice.

why bother getting a new iem when the source so bad? cant even find files with better bitrates?

imho, c551 and se210 might even make the music worst cuz both iems are quite bright (from my observation)

ep630 is pretty good though, for 128kbps.

 

[mark2410]

why only 128k mp3?

 

[LFC_SL]

Having previously owned about 5, 6 different brands of canalphones they all sound pretty much the same. They all have different degrees of boomy bass, passable mids and thin highs. The ones that do it better than others are the ones that are recommended such as the CX300

If you ever upgrade to IEMs I would advise you to start afresh from CD and encode your music at a higher bitrate... unless you are for example tied e.g. iTunes store

 

[Duffy1207]

YEs, when I dinn't know much about bitrates or sources, CX300's sounded ok with my crappy 128kbps encoded library.

Try to get higher bit rate music,, by re ripping CD's at higher rates or trying to obtain higher quality downloads from iTunes etc.

Whatever you do, do not try to convert the 128kbps files into 256kbps, as its converting a very lossy file into another lossy file, which will no doubt make the quality even worse.

 

[jinx20001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duffy1207 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Whatever you do, do not try to convert the 128kbps files into 256kbps, as its converting a very lossy file into another lossy file, which will no doubt make the quality even worse.

doing this wont harm the file even more it just wont work because you cannot upgrade a file size and quality. you can only downgrade which isnt adviseable.

my advice to the OP would certainly only aim for cx400/500 or a cheaper sony set, maybe the best would be ex500 which are nice looking and wont be wasted with poor bitrates.

 

[Scott549]

I guess I'm in the minority, but I don't think 128 kbps files sound terrible. Not perfect, but not terrible either. I think you could spend up to $200 on an IEM and it would still sound good. The only way to know for sure is to encode a song at different bit rates and see what differences, if any, you can hear.

 

[Duffy1207]

I didn't used to be able to tell the difference, but now, I know within a second or two after the song comes out of my headphones that it must be 128kbps or less.

Only about 10-20% of my library is that low, now, most is 320kbps or lossless, although I'm in the process of making 320kbps copies of all my lossless to put on my ipod when I get it fixed, it'd be 99% full otherwise.

 

[TacticalPenguin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jinx20001 /img/forum/go_quote.gif doing this wont harm the file even more it just wont work because you cannot upgrade a file size and quality. you can only downgrade which isnt adviseable. my advice to the OP would certainly only aim for cx400/500 or a cheaper sony set, maybe the best would be ex500 which are nice looking and wont be wasted with poor bitrates.

Unless the encoder is quite smart and just says HEY DUMMY THIS IS STUPID JUST USE THE 128kbit FILE IM NOT CONVERTING IT BIGGER (last I knew even LAME won't do this) it WILL make it worse. Generally when you transcode a file, it takes the sound it gets from the source and reencodes that, meaning it takes the already compressed up sound from the 128kbit and recompresses it, often compressing certain bits worse. This is also true for transcoding high bitrate lossy to low bitrate lossy vs transcoding lossless straight to low bitrate lossy.

 

[Duffy1207]

Was basically going to say that, but didn't want to start an argument ^^^

 

[jinx20001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TacticalPenguin /img/forum/go_quote.gif Unless the encoder is quite smart and just says HEY DUMMY THIS IS STUPID JUST USE THE 128kbit FILE IM NOT CONVERTING IT BIGGER (last I knew even LAME won't do this) it WILL make it worse. Generally when you transcode a file, it takes the sound it gets from the source and reencodes that, meaning it takes the already compressed up sound from the 128kbit and recompresses it, often compressing certain bits worse. This is also true for transcoding high bitrate lossy to low bitrate lossy vs transcoding lossless straight to low bitrate lossy.

oh ofcourse the more times you compress the worse it gets...sorry i must have worded it wrong, i think all i was saying is trying to upgrade the coding will not make it better because it dont work lol

 

[Duffy1207]

That's more like it.
I won't forget the time I "upgraded" 100 songs from my library from 128kbps to 320kbps to test it out and then proceeded to tell my friends I had high quality tracks in my iTunes. Ohhh the shame...