[Xakepa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by flatspyder Xakepa how does that affect your enjoyment of music? Do you feel like you're missing a lot? I found a software signal generator online and with my M-audio fasttrack and Alessandro MS-1 I got up to about 16500 Hz comfortably. I dunno whether this is good or bad, not ideal testing conditions as I'm in University halls (much background noise) and I have open phones. -Oli

I don't feel like I'm missing smth, and in fact I can sqeeze myself to distinguish that "there's a pich" to about 15KHz, but my point was that q settings on the LAME VBR differ by how extended they are...and they are all very extended.

Besides, IMHO this discussion is off the point; when we talking digital, there's the DAC, sampling and resampling, and it often makes all the difference.

 

[Comfy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xakepa Guys, if you have access to a signal generator (common in any electronics shop) plug your cans, crank it up, and turn the freq vernier knob to see what is your upper hearing limit. I can't hear a thing above 13.5-13.7KHz regardless of volume level, and I'm starting my 30ties...your results may vary of course. Than go thru the LAME reference and see what the cut-off freq for your setting is. Than you'll know if you're lookng for a black cat in a dark room...

There isn't much stuff going on over 13,5kHz anyway, unless you listen to some dog whistle recordings or something.

I hear serious differences between lame 3.93.0 and 3.96 and cd, and the differences I hear don't happen solely in the treble region, but throughout the whole scale.

 

[keiron99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Comfy By basic iTunes setup I meant a setup that does not bypass the kmixer. If you are bypassing it and getting bit-perfect, then everything should be ok...

When I listen through my PC/Perpetual Technologies DAC into either my Dynaudio Contour 1.3mk2 speakers, or Stax SRMT1S/Lambda Pro Sigs, I can't tell a blind bit of difference between whether I'm playing through the optical out of my sound card (hence through kmixer) or through my Airport Express (bit perfect).

Honestly, some people's hearing abilities here absolutely stagger me!

 

[webzeb]

I file my CDs using Exact Audio Copy (properly configured

) and FLAC.

On my DAP (Creative Zen Micro), I use MP3s encoded with Lame --preset extreme.
Differences between --preset standard and --preset extreme is not always noticeable, but I see use of "extreme" as a precaution (as each time I upgraded my earbuds - currently I own Er6i - some new details and shortcomings appeared).

Fred

 

[li0n]

320 Lame, vbr on my lexar dap, would be vorbis though lexar don't support ogg meh

used to be 500 vorbis on computer though i realised i may as well switch to flac

 

[milkpowder]

Just discovered EAC.

I use Windows PCM converter to rip CD 44.1kHz 16bit stereo uncompressed wav.

Then I import into iTunes and convert to AIFF.

It's time consuming, but effective.

 

[curtain]

LAME 192 vs 320 is night and day for me, 320's are so much richer.

I don't bother with LAME unless I have to.

FLAC is 1st preference followed by oggs @ 7.

 

[Riordan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xakepa I don't feel like I'm missing smth, and in fact I can sqeeze myself to distinguish that "there's a pich" to about 15KHz, but my point was that q settings on the LAME VBR differ by how extended they are...and they are all very extended. Besides, IMHO this discussion is off the point; when we talking digital, there's the DAC, sampling and resampling, and it often makes all the difference.

do the q settings really only differ in their high frequency extension? as complex as psychoacoustic compression is, i doubt that.

 

[Xakepa]

No, it's not jus low-pass filtering. Here's what it says:

"Lowpass filtering based on the compression ratio. For high compression ratios, low pass filtering will improve the results. The exact amount of filtering needed depends on the music and personal preferences - the formula to decide how much lowpass filtering to use may need some tuning. At 256kbs, no filterings is done. At 128kbs, the lowpass filter is around 15.5khz."

Even at VBR V=0 usualy most of the frames are below 256, so there's a truncation - which people might claim to hear, if their hearing capabilities go that high

 

[Comfy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by keiron99 When I listen through my PC/Perpetual Technologies DAC into either my Dynaudio Contour 1.3mk2 speakers, or Stax SRMT1S/Lambda Pro Sigs, I can't tell a blind bit of difference between whether I'm playing through the optical out of my sound card (hence through kmixer) or through my Airport Express (bit perfect). Honestly, some people's hearing abilities here absolutely stagger me!

I hear a definite difference between standard iTunes through kmixer and Foobar2000 through ASIO. I use my E-MU 0404 soundcard, a Millett Hybrid amp and a pair of Grado HF-1 headphones.

I don't really care about what you hear or what you don't, but coming to a headphone forum to question other people's critical listening abilities seems quite absurd to me. Hope this helps.

 

[keiron99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Comfy I hear a definite difference between standard iTunes through kmixer and Foobar2000 through ASIO. I use my E-MU 0404 soundcard, a Millett Hybrid amp and a pair of Grado HF-1 headphones. I don't really care about what you hear or what you don't, but coming to a headphone forum to question other people's critical listening abilities seems quite absurd to me. Hope this helps.

Jeez mate, no need to get stroppy and sarcastic. My comment was absolutely genuine. No need for all the "disrespectful" stuff. For what it's worth, I have done blind tests, conducted on a UK forum. with samples of mp3, lossless and WAV files. I failed miserably. I am sincerely amazed at your extraordinary ability to hear what you proclaim to be "definite" and "serious" differences. I was going to say I'm frustrated I can't, but on second thoughts glad I can't. I'm obviously that much easier pleased!

 

[Comfy]

Ok, ok. I thought it was you who was being sarcastic.
It's really hard for me to believe that someone has a multithousand dollar headphone system and cannot differentiate between cd and mp3.

The differences that I here are "definite" and "serious" when I'm testing for differences. That is, with my reference recordings and focusing on slight nuances. Sometimes I run into differences that aren't just slight, and those are what I call definite differences.

I guess people are different, and hearing abilities are different too. Anyway, they don't call it psychoacoustics for nothing - if you don't wanna hear it, you won't. And viceversa.

And maybe a test at a forum isn't the best way to test your hearing ability.
Why don't you just rip your favorite track in a few different formats and take some time listening to those nuances. You won't notice them right away, but eventually you should be able to hear more detail, better separation and more natural timbres with the less lossy formats.

 

[webzeb]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Comfy Ok, ok. I thought it was you who was being sarcastic. It's really hard for me to believe that someone has a multithousand dollar headphone system and cannot differentiate between cd and mp3. The differences that I here are "definite" and "serious" when I'm testing for differences. That is, with my reference recordings and focusing on slight nuances. Sometimes I run into differences that aren't just slight, and those are what I call definite differences. I guess people are different, and hearing abilities are different too. Anyway, they don't call it psychoacoustics for nothing - if you don't wanna hear it, you won't. And viceversa. And maybe a test at a forum isn't the best way to test your hearing ability. Why don't you just rip your favorite track in a few different formats and take some time listening to those nuances. You won't notice them right away, but eventually you should be able to hear more detail, better separation and more natural timbres with the less lossy formats.

From my point of view (and as my hearing is what it is) the differences between a "good" MP3 encoding (Lame --preset extreme for example) and a LossLess one is subtle, most of time.

Lossy encoding (like MP3) are often betrayed by "PreEcho", but I they were correctly led they offer a great amount of details...even if they're based on a "Masking Effect".

Fred

 

[Skylab]

I am lucky I guess, I am 40 years old, and I can still hear the 19 kHz tone. But I'm sure that won't last...

 

[maxdriver]

I get eartired really quickly at lesser rates. I know it eats up lots of space on the hard drive, but if I can't feel the fun, the pop of the music then I don't want to listen.