[big_sound]

I believe that bitrate, when not using lossless formats, is extremely important to obtaining great audio quality. This also includes using lossless formats as an important part of HI-fi quality sound. Then I believe proper equipment is needed such as headphones. And then I believe sources play the least important roles out of the 3, because most of the time, when using a good format or bitrate, it will sound good out of almost any source.

What do you think is most important in Hi-fi equipment? (explain)

 

[chinesekiwi]

Equipment (output such as earphones), source then bitrate in terms of impact on your listening experience.

Equipment is most important as it most affect how the music is interpreted and ultimately heard by you, then the source as if you got a crap signal to begin with, it won't change too much once it reaches you and then the bitrate because of psychoacoustics and the equipment affect how you hear those frequencies.

 

[ilney]

The source is the most important imo. A bad recording produces bad sound no matter what equipment you use. Next is, of course, equipment. Bitrate is only relevant if you decide to encode you hand-picked recordings at ~128 Kbps, which makes no sense at all.

 

[userlander]

Source, then equipment, then bitrate. As long as we're not talking about very low 128-160 bitrates in comparison to >256+ up to flac, bitrate has the least amount of effect, imo.

 

[Il Mostro]

Add jitter reduction to your list of important variables.

 

[big_sound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by userlander /img/forum/go_quote.gif Source, then equipment, then bitrate. As long as we're not talking about very low 128-160 bitrates in comparison to >256+ up to flac, bitrate has the least amount of effect, imo.

I was thinking of bitrate as the difference between about 128 kbps to 320 and up to FLAC and Apple Lossless. That is why I picked it as my most crucial aspect of music. And I was referring to source ie an ipod or a zune.

 

[LingLing1337]

Equipment-->source--> bitrate

 

[userlander]

Quote:

Originally Posted by big_sound /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was thinking of bitrate as the difference between about 128 kbps to 320 and up to FLAC and Apple Lossless. That is why I picked it as my most crucial aspect of music. And I was referring to source ie an ipod or a zune.

Hmm, but source is more than just ipod vs. zune.

So in that case you have essentially removed that category as an option.

So that leaves us with what's more important, equipment or bitrate? Even there I would probably say equipment over bitrate, but I guess you could make a good argument for bitrate if we include 96, 128, etc.

Probably almost no one here uses those kinds of files, however, so that then leaves equipment. Unless you want to limit that category too, for example to stock buds vs. some other stock buds.

 

[dallan]

I say source and equipment evenly first then bit rate....and i believe bitrate makes a difference just not as substantial as A) what interprets the music to you-headphones and B)Source which I define as transport/dac, in your case an Ipod, in my case macbookpro/Amarra/Diverter usb converter/->Ram modded+ulraclock PSaudio DLlll. But for cost the cheapest,easiest thing to improve is the formate, thats for sure.

 

[krismusic]

Bitrate? Difference between 320kbps and lossless Highly debatable IMHO. Why choose though. If everything in the chain is as good as you can make it, job done.

 

[Pepito]

source>equipment>bit rate.

With a crap, poorly recorded source, it won't matter what bit rate its ripped at. If you are referring ipods and zunes etc. under sources it doesn't make any sense... ipods and the like should fall under the equipment category.

 

[kunalraiker]

We have to get the primary aspect here, what is it.
you are right it is the bitrate at which the music is encoded ,this would be a different answer if bitrate was 256 or above, but from your quotes it doesn't look like this is the case.

We all know the thumb rule- garbage in equals garbage out.

The next would be the equipement imo as the sources these days are very similar and don't vary too much in quality when you go upwards in price.

 

[jonhapimp]

Equipment->source->bitrate
cause you can have an source but you have to have something to listen to it

 

[dallan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kunalraiker /img/forum/go_quote.gif The next would be the equipement imo as the sources these days are very similar and don't vary too much in quality when you go upwards in price.

 

[bakhtiar]

IMHO, my ranking

Source > Encoder (format/bitrate) > DAC > AMP > Phones/speakers

Source : No compromise. Garbage in garbage out.

Encoder : All encoders or even decoders are not created equally. I use LAME encoded (--presed cd -v) (192kbit/s and above MP3 format for my DAP. I use FLAC lossless as a backup for original CD copy in my laptop. With my DAP, TBH, I cannot hear significant diffs between 192 VBR and 256 CBR.

3) DAC : Better details and resolution with good DAC. Higher end DACs have almost similar performance and sometime they have upsampling or DSP to enhance sound.

4) AMP : Bring dynamic and essential power to drive phones. The amp sound signature also important to match and get better synergy with phones or speakers. So with same phones/speakers you can get better SQ just by changing amp.

Note: (3+4) also representing DAP/PMP .... because every digital audio player MUST have DAC and amp to produce sound through headphone out.

5) Phones/Speakers " Good phones/speakers will produce wider sound spectrum with accuracy.



Thank you.