I'm a little scared

[justintime_05]

Hi everyone
I recently just, for fun, took a particular song that I like and encoded it at every bitrate possible between 16kbps and 360kbps MP3 with iTunes. Now I know many say iTunes isn't nearly a good as EAC+LAME but iTunes was the quckest way possible for me to get this done. Though I'm a little sacred and I'll say why. I am currently using PX100 that I know for a fact have over 200 hours of burn in strait out of my laptop. I also know many people would frown at the fact that I'm using my laptop's headphone port. I'm sorry I know, but for financial reasons I just cannot afford buy better equipment. Though I couldn't help but notice as I made the transition from 96kbps 112kbps there was a noticeable change in the sound, though from 112kbps on up I couldn't tell one bit of difference from 112kbps from 160kbps to 360kbps to the WAV file that I encoded it all from. I currently encode everything thing that I have with EAC+LAME at the -V3 preset. I'm a little scared that I can't tell the difference between these higher bitrates. What I would like to know is why I can't. What is the weak link in the chain? Is it my PX100s? Or is it my laptop. I would think that anyone could be able to tell the difference between 112kbps and 160kbps no matter what the setup, but for some reason I couldn't. Any insight to this would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

 

[noah11]

I would guess it is a combination of your laptop and your px100s. The difference between mp3s at different bit rates definitely increases significantly as you move up the headphone ladder.
Over the pass 2 years I've gone through a fairly slow upgrade process. My first headphone purchase was a Sennheiser HD212, and at the time I thought it was the greatest thing in the world. Since then, I've gone through an SB Audigy2, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, Headsave Classic, and a few other headphones. My current rig consists of a pair of Sennheiser HD580s, Meier Audio HA-1 MKII, and an emu 0404. With each upgrade I definitely noticed an improvement. I also noticed that after awhile, as you start listening to various equipment, you start to get a feel for what sounds right and what doesn't--you start learning how instruments should sound and voices too. Just like you I use to not be able to tell the difference, but now I can spot a 160kpbs mp3 just about everytime, and higher bit rate mp3s a good percentage of the time.
I think my ears have gotten a lot more sensitive too. I've noticed myself listening at much lower volume levels then I use to due to harshness, and I notice noises that most others don't (like my roommate

).

By the way, I just have to share this with somebody. The biggest upgrade to my system has definitely been the HA-1 which I've only had for a few days. The difference between that and my Headsave Classic was like night and day, I'm totally in love with this amp. On that note, I sure hope my post doesn't send you down the path of upgraditis...even though once you join headfi, it's really inevitable.

 

[IronLion]

Quote:

Originally Posted by justintime_05 I would think that anyone could be able to tell the difference between 112kbps and 160kbps no matter what the setup, but for some reason I couldn't. Thanks!

I think that considering you are using your laptop's soundcard and PX100's, it is not at all surprising that you can't tell the difference between 112kbps and 160kbps. The difference between these two bitrates is not that large. If you couldn't tell the difference between, say a 92kbps file and a 320kbps then I think that would mean your laptop soundcard is really, really horrible. If you use an external DAC and a good amp, then you'd probably be able to notice slight differences between the 112kbps and 160kbps files, and with a headphone upgrade they would become more pronounced probably. I don't think its anything to get scared over, though...

Something you may want to keep in mind is that, considering you can't tell the difference between bitrates right now with your current setup, if you have any intention of upgrading it in the future I would suggest you give up the convenience of the small space taken up by mp3's and rip your CD's using EAC and FLAC so that when you eventually do have a headphone setup and ears that can distringuish bitrate rates you will already have your music there.

 

[Riku540]

What might be the case is that you might not know what to look for between the two. For me, artifacts are easiest to point out in percussion and vocal consonants. When I listen to dance/techno music, the constant hi-hats and cymbals sound sharp and crisp when encoded in lossless. In mp3, aac, and other lossy formats, they sound more blunt or even slurred when encoded poorly. Also, listen for small details like pick noise on an acoustic guitar. My advice is to try nitpicking a single detail in the music and compare with the others, instead of comparing the music as a whole in higher bitrates. Hope this helps.

 

[justintime_05]

So at this level, and also considering the future, what would be the best upgrade right now? A better source, an amp, or new headphones?
Thanks!

 

[IronLion]

Start at the source- get an external soundcard.

 

[justintime_05]

I've also heard other people talking of DACs and external sound cards. To my knowledge, and correct me if I'm wrong, that's just two different names for the same thing. If not, which is better to get a DAC or a sound card?

 

[Asmo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by justintime_05 I've also heard other people talking of DACs and external sound cards. To my knowledge, and correct me if I'm wrong, that's just two different names for the same thing. If not, which is better to get a DAC or a sound card?

A DAC would be better, you would need one that accepts USB input however to use with your laptop. Such as the microdac, or apogee. If you were to use a dac that required coax/optical digital inputs, then you'd need a soundcard, + a dac, which is not worth the hassle.

I'd recommend the microdac, it is only $299, and is easy to connect too. You _will_ need a headphone amp also, there are no dacs with good amps included, so then, you'll need a amp, and good headphones for that amp too... so its really hard to say where to start with this upgrade.

But, if you get a external soundcard, it will be able to drive your px100s for now, but then you'll just want to upgrade the soundcard later anyways.

What I would do is, drop about $1000 on amp,dac,headphones, and your set.

Or, spend $100 on a soundcard, and use what you got, you will only see minimal performance increase, you will eventually down the road need amp and better headphones, so I say get it all at once

Also, if all of your sound collection is in mp3, low bit rate, you are gonna have to re-rip it all to FLAC or lame/vbr.

 

[muckshot]

It was only when I first got a pair of Grados that I was really able to tell the difference between medium to higher bitrates... I also never had problems with audio CDs that I created with MP3s until I got the Grados. With the added clairity, I could hear all the compression artifacts and honestly I couldn;t stand listening to many of my old non-retail CDs because they sounded horrible. In the end I got rid of the Grados... they were TOO good for the source