[Costas]

Just how good are MP3 players today compared to Portable CDPs?

The MP3 player I am considering is an iPOD. I already have a Sony PCDP. It is the second from the top of the range model from 5 years ago.

What are the pros and cons of MP3 players compared to PCDPs?

Is there much difference in sound quality between MP3 players and PCDPs?

 

[blessingx]

To a certain extent you're asking two questions. One is format- MP3 versus Redbook. The other is hardware- MP3 players versus CD players (including some which play MP3 CDR's).

To the first, CD's will certainly sound better than any MP3's, but using the right encoder (LAME), a decent bitrate (--aps, --ape), and in a portable setting, you may not be able to tell any real difference. If you're considering an iPod you also have the option of MP4/AAC.

For players, this depends a great deal on the built-in amp or a line out. I don't know the CDP you're referring to, but the iPod (and Zen & NJB) have decent output and can power several phones quite well.

As for advantages of MP3 players... one is size and another is having a decent percent of your collection with you at all times.

 

[lindrone]

iPod's output is not as good as some of the PCDP out there, such as the Sony D-25S (my only real frame of reference anyway.. Although my roommate has a NAD that I never tested on), but it comes pretty close. I can say it gets probably 85 to 90% of the sound output... but there is a catch.

Catch - > You have to be using WAV or AIFF file on your iPod instead of MP3. I encoded all my MP3's at the highest VBR setting available in LAME (I think starting with something like 225kbps and ending in 320kbps... highest quality analyzation, takes almost 30 minutes to encode a CD), but I can still hear a very, very discernable difference in the quality of the sound.

I am using a Shure E5c with the iPod, which is probably more sensitive than most other headphones. There are plenty of headphones in which you may not hear a very discernable difference between MP3 and raw formats.

I opted to use my 15GB iPod to store nothing but WAV files. So far, I still have 4GB free, and has 220 songs in the iPod. Of course I'm not storing as many songs as I was before, but I rather listen to the few very good artist at the highest quality than having thousands of songs that's really not all that great.

 

[austonia]

lindrone

...what kind of battery life are you getting on that iPod..? if you play the .WAV and then the .MP3 of the same song, can you hear a difference? (not comparing CD to MP3, but the .WAV equivalent to .MP3). just curious.

 

[Andrew Pielet]

Isn't a WAV file lossless but MP3 compressed?

 

[lindrone]

That's precisely what I did. I transferred the same song in both a MP3 and a WAV version... there's a tremendous difference in how they sound. Once again, you need a pretty good headphone to expose the weakness of MP3. With the Shure E5c, it's like going from tape to CD's; testing with my Sony Streetstyle headphones, it makes no difference whatsoever.

Strangely enough, although I had the same concern about the battery life being shortened using WAV files, it doesn't seem to have impacted it all that much. I've spent two days using it on my regular commute to work, and listening to it at work when I've got a chance. It really doesn't seem to make much of a difference in battery life.

And.. to Andrew:

You are correct. A WAV file is basically a raw rip of whatever has been recorded on the CD. It's a 100% accurate transfer of exactly the same digital data that's been recorded on the CD. Hence if you're using a WAV file on the iPod, you're really just comparing the output of the iPod itself. Essentially the source is the same quality as a PCDP.

MP3 files, however, is a lossy compression format. MP3 encoders generally has 2 parts to them. One part encodes the data using standard MPEG algorithm and cuts down the size of the file... but most importantly, is all MP3 encoders has a "spectrum analyzer" that examines the original WAV file, and decides what data to omit.

The spectrum analyzer will dump whatever sound it deems not important. Such as low bass tones that it doesn't think most people will have equipment to reproduce. Any sound from left and right channel that might cancel each other out. High-end sound that, just like the bass, it deems that people won't be able to hear with their equipment.

However, these are exactly the sound that can be reproduced when you've got good audio equipments. Which is also why LAME is considered the best MP3 encoder, because the encoding to different bitrate part of the encoder isn't that different from any other MP3; but LAME has the best spectrum analyzer (and it's very, very slow compared to MP3 encoder that's built into many other softwares... but it's slow for a reason).

Even then, LAME still has to cut down a significant amount of data to get the file size down...

There are other "lossless" compression format for audio. Shorten (shn), FLAC, Monkey's Audio (ape) are some of them. My personal preference is Monkey's Audio for archiving my music. Shorten is a file format not really meant for encoding audio in the first place... rather adapted backward to be used with audio. FLAC is nice, but Monkey's Audio has more features (for example, lyrics can be a part of the Monkey's Audio "ID3 tag"...). Monkey's Audio also has the best compression ratio and the fastest encoding speed. BTW, the best "lossless" compression for audio is only around 60 to 50% of the original file size. Nothing like the 1 to 10 ratio that's usually achieved with MP3's... (at 128kbps or 160kbps).

Anyway, I hope I haven't said too much...

 

[blessingx]

Be aware that at least with my 1st gen iPod, gaps occur while refilling the buffer with AIFF's/WAV's. You can almost guess when it's going to occur based on the song file size and it's relationship to the iPods 32 megs of RAM (song is 64 megs, gap is in the center, 28 megs doesn't occur, etc.). Another here pointed that out, and I tested and found the same.

This whole discussion though is somewhat about using the MP3 or CDP as a portable or transportable device. As I mentioned, if you're in a "portable" setting with even slight environmental noises, it's difficult (with most phones) to hear better than --aps or 160-192 AAC.

BTW, agree with almost all lindrone said, but FLAC has one big advantage over Monkey's (especially when discussing iPods), it doesn't require Windows. Since we don't know the poster's OS, something to consider.

 

[lindrone]

You're right about that one.. No one's ported Monkey's Audio to any other platform. Even though the source code is available. I think when it first came out, the author was trying to license the codec. When he realized no one was interested in paying for a codec.. he just released it open source.

I don't think anyone's worked on it since August 2002 (and in truth, there's really not much you can do to improve it)... but no one's worked on porting it to other platforms either.. grr

For me, since I use isolation earphones (such as Ety, E2c, E5c.. s on, so forth)... even in noisy environments it makes a difference... because, well, I'm isolated from the noise

Not to mention, also any possible oncoming traffic.. lol.. You learn to really watch where you're going when you're using one of those headphones