[strahdswift]

I've been reading and reading lately about all these different kinds of headphones. Then I read one post that kinda made me think for a second. A good pair of headphones means squat if the source sucks right? So I am curious, at what level of headphone quality will I hit a wall? My music library consists of 3 thousand mp3s of various bitrates. How will this affect things? Will amplification help this any or just make it so I hear the crappyness louder?

My source would be a PC with the A710? Chaintech card or maybe something better.

I guess I am just curious what the people with the HD600s and 3000 dollar sources and such listen to. I also noticed a lot of people mention lossless mp3s. Do they just rip these from their music cds? I guess I am kinda clueless here, so any input would be awesome

 

[ayt999]

mp3's is a lossy format and there isn't a lossless mp3. if you want lossless, there's a lot of different formats you can use... flac, ape, apple lossless, lots of others. these take up a lot more space than ripping to mp3's though, a few hundred megabytes per album usually.

 

[Funk-O-Meter]

For that matter, it source quality goes all the way back to how the record was recorded and who recorded it. I wouldn't spend much time and money stressing about it. Get some good quality phones and call it a day. The audiophile desease has not cure but celibacy. Celibacy from reading about gear and auditioning new gear. Otherwise you'll never see the end of it. If you've got loads of bread it's a cool hobby. If not, the point of diminishing returns will come at you really quick. And to be honest, what since does it make to spend truck loads of money on equipment when your only getting %10 or %20 percent better sound.
If your getting %100 percent better sound....ducky. It shoudl be worth twice as much.

 

[iSleipnir]

For the most part, anything above 128kb/s will work fine. Almost all are unable to tell the difference between 320 and lossless. And the difference between 192 and 320 is ofter hard to discern for the average listener. (Hell, I'm still adapting my hearing. For me the more I listen the more I notice things) Anything at or below 128 with a good pair of headphones you will notice a bit of distortion or plain poor audio quality. An amplifier will only make those sound more apparaent but it will also make your good mp3's sound better. As for the chaintec, I'm pretty sure you need to use an amp with it to control the signal, but I'm not sure. I know that people often buy it for the cheap digital out it provides. Hope this helps.

 

[spyder187]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iSleipnir I know that people often buy it for the cheap digital out it provides.

That's exactly why I bought it and now I have a true source, haven't unwrapped the package of the Squeezebox 3 yet.

The AV710 I found works perfectly when you don't really care to spend much more. I bought it initially to hook up to a home theatre reciever and then to my speakers and right now it's doing just that, playing music out of my speakers.

For the moment it'll work well, but sometime in the future, you may consider going with an external DAC using the TOSlink out of the AV710.

 

[cheechoz]

There have been many discussions over the years on the quality of encoding your music! It started at 128kbs, but soon all discovered that it wa not very good quality. Many tests have been done since, and new formats have risen!

The one encoder, to continually improve with time, is the Lame MP3 encoder. Countless test where done over the years, both listening, and on paper, and it was determined that to reach transparency, you would need more than 128kbs!

Since you always have the option to encode in lossless, or even at 320kbs, that is theway you would rather go, but the point here is to get an optimal amount of compression, as to save file size. For this to be achived, and to also achive the optimal sound qualty, encoding in a high variable bit rate is best!

 

[Zorander]

Personally speaking, upgrading your headphones (or speakers) will allow you to get better sound even out of 128kbps source. Everything, incuding low-bitrate songs, will benefit from the upgrade. However, high bitrate songs, especially lossless, will show the greatest improvement while low-bitrate ones will go only so far.

HIHs. Cheers!

 

[m_memmory]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cheechoz Tthe point here is to get an optimal amount of compression, as to save file size.

Sorry if I don't quite understand what point your trying to make but surely the optimal amount of compression (and therefore space available) is only really any kind of point with portable DAP?

I mean hard drives for computers now are so cheap that lossless really is the best way to go (both in terms of knowing it's bit perfect compared to the CD and also ease of use of creating any kind of lossy files you might ever want for your portable) I had the problem of space recently and ended up thinking I should look around for another harddrive - ended up getting a new external USB harddrive at a price of £0.50 per Gigabyte!! (£160 for 320Gb) With harddrive space being that cheap surely the best possible quality is the only way to go for - saving the file size becomes a moot point.

 

[cheechoz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by m_memmory Sorry if I don't quite understand what point your trying to make but surely the optimal amount of compression (and therefore space available) is only really any kind of point with portable DAP?

The reason that you use the MP3 format, is to compress your music. If you didn't have to, than you would just save the files as a wave, as to get the best quality!

Surely hard drives have increased in size over the years, but that wasn't the case years ago, so an optimal ratio had to be achived!

 

[Comfy]

For me the point of diminishing returns regarding codecs comes at EAC + LAME with alt-preset-extreme. This produces variable bitrate MP3s at about 220Kbps, depending on the file.
With my gear I'm quite unable to tell this quality from lossless. And if I sometimes perceive a slight difference in a certain part of a certain song, it certainly ain't worth for me to re-rip my entire collection and to buy myself a bigger hard drive and a bigger DAP to fit my new, bigger files.

Then again, my setup ATM consists of an entry level sound card, an entry level DIY amp and a pair of mid-fi cans. If I had, say, a Lavry Black and an MPX3 and a few of the top contender cans, I might even consider going lossless...