[DGoreck]

Simple short: I can't tell a difference betwen 128, 192, FLAC, or CD all playing from the same system, outputing to either my Klipsch Image headphones, Sony MDR0v700's or the Klipsch Promedia 4.1's, worst yet, take the MP3's and put it on my iTocuh and using the headphones, same thing, I can't tell a difference, and I know I should hear a huge difference from 128 to 192 to original CD. Using Metallica Sad But True as a test track. My guess is something is going stray during the extraction from CD to where it gets encoded(mp3) and/or compressed(flac). I have a Supermicro SUPERMICRO H8DCE-O Motherboard, and have been using the built in audio, an AC97 chip. So I bought a Turtle Beach TBS-3300 Montego DDL sound card for the optical output, well that was a flop as I get IRQ conflicts, so still stuck with the built in audio chip.

I just started to get back into more fidelity since I just got the iTouch and the Klipsch Image headphones within past two weeks. So naturally, I wanted to get better quality MP3's, and thus wanted to get a lossless copy of the music CD's and a MP3 copy for putting on the iTouch.

So now my thinking is that realistically ripping shouldn't have much to do with the sound card....or does it? CD-ROM?

I've been using CDex to do most of my ripping, just started toying with EAC. I can take the CD and compress it to FLAC, or encode it to MP3 (LAME) at 192Kb, 128Kb, and 192-320VBR. Now I have 5 'versions' of the same song. I play it back over the sound card, and it all sound consistent the same coming out of each device I connect to.

One other thing I noticed is that I can have the output volume at 1% and get a noticeable hum/whitenoise across my headphones.

I 99.99% sure it isn't my hearing, I can tell the difference in quality between headsets, and speakers.

Any help/ideas?

thanks.

dan

 

[HFat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DGoreck /img/forum/go_quote.gif I know I should hear a huge difference from 128 to 192 to original CD.

How do you know that?
If you believe that merely because you've been told, you should upgrade your skepticism: you're not supposed to hear any differences. People who are trained or who simply have great hearing seem to be able to hear differences but I haven't heard any credible listener describe these differences as "huge"... but that's subjective of course.
Keep in mind that bitrates don't automatically translate into a certain sound quality level. How much is necessary to achieve transparency depends on the source material, the encoder, and the listener. No one disputes this, except for trolls and total fools.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DGoreck /img/forum/go_quote.gif I just started to get back into more fidelity since I just got the iTouch and the Klipsch Image headphones

I've never heard of these things. Do you know if they're any good? I don't think it's likely but that could be a problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DGoreck /img/forum/go_quote.gif I've been using CDex to do most of my ripping, just started toying with EAC.

There's little that could go wrong with EAC and FLAC or LAME. Does it say that there's been no errors?

 

[DGoreck]

HFat, thanks for the corrections. Ok, maybe my choice of words was not great as I didn't get to proof read this before I ran off into a series of meetings this morning. 'Huge' is not the word I was looking for. I guess what I was trying to say is that I should at least be able to hear subtle differences in certain material that won't be transparent when encoded at different rates. I have in the past heard differences between 128 and 192 tracks, but this was music that I did not encode myself, thus it wasn't transparent (correct?) to me (differences in encoder or source most likely?). Does that make sense/correct terminology used?

Maybe you right, maybe with the encoder I have achieved a level of transparency for the equipment I have. With my new Klipsch Image headphones I notice a level of noise even when things are not playing on the PC(not case in Ipod), which gets my mind thinking is the signal path getting degraded before the encoder in my PC as like I am hearing it on the output. The Images are to me is a huge improvement in terms of response, dynamics, and soundstage compared to my older headphones. I was expecting to be able to pick up more subtle differences now, which I have heard things in some content which I was previously missing. With that thinking I was expecting to hear a difference in bitrates, but wasn't and was thinking maybe I have a signal path issue prior to encoding with the equipment I'm using.

I'm also not saying the iTouch and Klipsch headphones are hifidelity. Just that they are a starting point for me to be able to use higher fquality sources, and be able to see if these remain transparent to me. Wrong choice of words again.

Still getting EAC setup, so all my current stuff was ripped with CDex/Lame. I've been looking it over, and going over a few guides on it and almost done setting it up.

 

[HFat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DGoreck /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have in the past heard differences between 128 and 192 tracks, but this was music that I did not encode myself, thus it wasn't transparent (correct?) to me (differences in encoder or source most likely?). Does that make sense/correct terminology used?

Sure, the terminology is alright.
First, if you don't know how the files have been encoded, everything is possible. MP3s became popular before the encoders were really mature and files encoded with old encoders might not sound too good.
Second, just because you heard differences doesn't mean you heard differences between the files: audio perception is not too reliable and memory even less (for most people anyway). You need a blind test to make sure you've interpreted what you've heard correctly... sometimes it's not practical but, in this case, it's easy enough with something like foobar's ABX tool. Of course, there's no point in going down that road if you don't hear any differences to being with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DGoreck /img/forum/go_quote.gif With my new Klipsch Image headphones I notice a level of noise even when things are not playing on the PC(not case in Ipod), which gets my mind thinking is the signal path getting degraded before the encoder in my PC as like I am hearing it on the output.

I doubt it very much... but you don't need to rely on anybody's guesses: take a file you've encoded that's noisy on your PC and move it on your DAP. If it's not noisy anymore and you still hear about the same amount of detail (or more), the noise does not come from the encoder. Logical enough?
Noisy sound cards are a common problem with PCs (interference, power issues and so on).

If you really wanted to be sure, you could try files someone else made with known-good software and hardware.
Sad But True's license is unfortunately a nasty one so, if you wanted to download that, you'd have to ask a friend.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DGoreck /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm also not saying the iTouch and Klipsch headphones are hifidelity.

And I'm not saying they aren't... just that I don't know the first thing about them.

 

[wangerin]

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