[jtevol1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by neoufo51 /img/forum/go_quote.gif You seem to be a true novice, so I suggest doing some reading on the topic rather than asking questions at a forum where pretty much everyone has fairly extensive knowledge on how to get great sound quality. People tend to just get really angry if you haven't done some research on your own before asking around.

Perhaps this is not the best way to introduce a new Head-Fi member (and I'm putting that lightly). Could you have been more polite and considerate?

Imagine venturing into an unknown area or subject with which you are unfamiliar, and someone commented to you as you did to this member. How would you feel if you wanted information on tax law and you ask a law librarian, and she responded the way you did? Sometimes too much information can be intimidating for people and not useful as for them.

I'm happy there were others who assisted him/her without being didactic.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jisc /img/forum/go_quote.gif but really, do you have to extract your CD to lossless format if your only playing it at portable devices? they maybe able to play the lossless format, but are they able to play it efficiently?

Yes. You can't extract a CD to lossy format, as the format on an audio CD is PCM (1411Kbps). But you can of course encoding this ripped stream to which format/codec you want, lossless or lossy...

Quote:

arent DAP only outputs it at 192KBPS?

Nope. As any device it decodes the stream to PCM (usually 1411Kbps) during playback.

 

[afobisme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jtevol1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Perhaps this is not the best way to introduce a new Head-Fi member (and I'm putting that lightly). Could you have been more polite and considerate? Imagine venturing into an unknown area or subject with which you are unfamiliar, and someone commented to you as you did to this member. How would you feel if you wanted information on tax law and you ask a law librarian, and she responded the way you did? Sometimes too much information can be intimidating for people and not useful as for them. I'm happy there were others who assisted him/her without being didactic.

yeah i agree, some people can be anal.. they must be from new york, or hate life

but neuo actually did help, he gave the guy a link to a source that would help him. he also wasn't 100% rude, maybe a little blunt though..

 

[Radagascar]

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 some near CD quality tracks on here. On another note,

How does everyone else go about getting the most of their MP3s?

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radagascar /img/forum/go_quote.gif How does everyone else go about getting the most of their MP3s?

There are a few measurement to perform, to get great sounding MP3 files.
To name the imo three most important ones:
1. Use a high quality MP3 encoder (LAME 3.97 is recommended).
2. Only encode from PCM streams only. Don't use a lossy source.
3. Encode to a bitrate which is transparent to your ears (160Kbps is transparent in ~9/10 cases. ABX if needed).

That should be it!

 

[TURBO]

Another vote for lossless. Since, I did it, never looked back again.

 

[bigshot]

I guess you could say that lossless gives you seemless sound.

See ya
Steve

 

[TURBO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif I guess you could say that lossless gives you seemless sound. See ya Steve

LOL. Correct.

 

[Low Fidelity]

there's a lot of considerations to all of this portability thing. Lossless is great, but A. does your mp3 player support it and B. Do you have enough room for more than two songs!

Also, everything between your ear and your mp3 plays a huge part in how good the music sounds. Even your ears do, grasshopper.

The quality of your headphones, the ambient noise around you when listening, the volume of the music, the quality of the format, this, that and whatnot its all mixed in there.

One of the things I love to do is read poster's signatures. The old timers who don't even have post counts anymore are the best to see what kind of gear they're using. Most, if not all the people here are pretty damned friendly so if you have a question, don't hesitate to PM someone for some more clarity in what they said.

And lastly, please try to be realistic about your budget. How dead are you going to turn out if your wife signs for unmarked packages after you've been prowling these boards.

As per your original questions....lossless is the best format, but i prefer a lossy 320 Kbps rip using Exact Audio Copy (freeware) + Lame 3.97 (freeware) because i have a finite amount of storage capacity to carry around with me. I use Media Monkey (freeware) to manage my library and my ipod.

Keep in mind, its a lot like photocopying. once you reduce it, you can't enlarge it back and get good detail.

I always rip from CDs but a lot of my elitist friends use FLAC. If I am found worthy enough to grab a copy, I covert flac to wav using dbpower amp (kinda not free) and then I use audacity (freeware) + Lame to covert to mp3.

A lot of people say you can or cant tell the difference in bit rates. You can. Honestly, you can. If you can't right now, you will in the future, young listener. The better quality your headphones are the more difference you can discern between the different bit rates and the more you listen, the sooner you'll develop your preferences.

Honestly, its all a long learning process. very similar to driving. Most people can drop it in D and go. How many more can drive a stick. How many of those know how to Heal and Toe? How many of those count and match their their revs?

 

[ButteBlues]

My recommendation: MP3 VBR -V0

Small file-size, but quality bitrates.

It's the de facto choice at a few private music trackers.

 

[bunsco]

can anyone here please tell me why nobody seems to use the v1 lame setting.
I've heard a majority of people suggesting the use of either v0 or v2 but rarely v1 - why is that?

 

[ButteBlues]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bunsco /img/forum/go_quote.gif can anyone here please tell me why nobody seems to use the v1 lame setting. I've heard a majority of people suggesting the use of either v0 or v2 but rarely v1 - why is that?

Pretty much the same reason most people prefer to use V0 instead of V2 -- the differences are generally not significant enough to warrant using anything besides V0.

It's generally argued that any difference in quality that might exist between V0 and anything better than V0 is indiscernible usually to the human ear anyway.

 

[bunsco]

anyone out there?

i ask because i tend to use v1 over v0 - kinda twisted logic but its my 'high' bit version of future proofing in terms of disk space.

 

[Night Surfer]

I use V1.
V2 is currently transparent to me, but I jumped to V1 as a "safety margin". Just to be sure.