[Crackerman]

Hi everyone. I've been wanting to ask this for a while now but I wanted to make sure I was fairly educated before I did so as not to seem too much of a newbie.

I've had the Ultimate Ears triple.fi phones for a few months now and I love the sound, but for the life of me I can't work out what this one small little problem is.

Every now and then the phones seem to crackle. Its usually when the music becomes very intense; if there's suddenly a lot of bass or a lot of treble. Sometimes its barely noticeable, sometimes its completely distracting.

I read up about it and thought it might be clipping present on the CDs themselves. I thought maybe ripping my music at 320 would help and with some stuff it has, but its still there. Are there really that many of my albums that are so poorly produced as to suffer that much clipping? I'd hate the think there's a fault with the earphones but I keep worrying that I've bought the wrong kind for the music I listen to (mostly a lot of heavy rock the likes of Clutch and Kyuss).

I listen to the phones straight out of either my 5th gen iPod video or my Powerbook, so I was wondering if an amp might alleviate the problem if it isn't just bad production or is this just something I'll have to learn to live with.

 

[berniebennybernard]

Try normalizing the song to 89 decibels using MP3Gain.

 

[Dobro]

What you describe certainly sounds like clipping which would by definition would not be on your CD or in your MP3 file. Clipping is caused by your amp not having enough reserve power to drive your earphones when the sound becomes much louder or more intense like in a crescendo. If thats the case an amp would address the problem. Try listening to the music at lower volumes if the noise goes away it probably is clipping. It might be a connection problem but then it would be more random and not connected to the dynamics of the music playing.

 

[Crackerman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dobro /img/forum/go_quote.gif What you describe certainly sounds like clipping which would by definition would not be on your CD or in your MP3 file. Clipping is caused by your amp not having enough reserve power to drive your earphones when the sound becomes much louder or more intense like in a crescendo.

That's basically what I had assumed, that neither the iPod nor the Powerbook are driving the headphones probably. I hoped I'd avoid getting so into high-end stuff that I'd have to start looking at amps, but I guess its inevitable.

Now I know where "sorry about your wallet" comes from.

 

[The D]

The 5th gen iPod can drive the Triple.Fi fine, you are just hearing clipping from the songs (bloody hot cds are everywhere).

 

[Dobro]

I would experiment around and see if I could isolate the problem. You know, stuff like listening to the files on other systems to make sure it isn't the source material, try different earphones with your iPod and notebook (the original buds would work) and anything else you can think of . Hopefully some one who owns Ultimate Ears triple.fis will chime in and give some insight. It strikes me as odd that the Ultimate Ears would clip especially with the notebook which I would think have enough power. But then may be the UE's are harder to drive then I thought.

If you really do need an amp, a good cmoy amp should do the trick and you can get them for $50 or less.
Good luck!

 

[facelvega]

is your eq set to flat? Try that before anything else. Next, get another pair of headphones, any old thing, and see if it also happens with those.

 

[catscratch]

You could be hearing the artifacts left behind by hot mastering. Most popular modern rock suffers from this. In a nutshell, a CD's maximum volume level is fixed, so in order to make records louder, record companies have been using excessive dynamic range compression to bring average sound pressure level closer to the peak level. The problem is, when you do it excessively, a lot of peaks start to slam against the physical volume limitations of the CD medium, and are cut off, causing a very noticeable hard clipping distortion.

If this is the case, then there's not much you can really do about it. I haven't heard the triple.fi but upper-end canalphones are certainly resolving enough to pick up on hot mastering if it's there.

Google "loudness war" and you'll get a lot of information. Here's a starter:

Loudness war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Crackerman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by facelvega /img/forum/go_quote.gif is your eq set to flat? Try that before anything else. Next, get another pair of headphones, any old thing, and see if it also happens with those.

Yeah I don't touch any EQ settings anymore. I've noticed similar crackling sounds on a pair of Sennheiser CX300's as well, I tried them out on my iPod earlier.

Quote:

Originally Posted by catscratch /img/forum/go_quote.gif Loudness war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I read that in my quest to solve the problem, that's what lead me to believe it is clipping.

I think I just find it hard to believe that such an obvious and irritating fault in a recording is just accepted as the norm and that so many producers are prepared to sacrifice quality just to make the CD louder.

 

[eruditass]

does mp3gain/replaygain solve or alleviate any kind of hot mastering? i know it doesnt fix ultrasone's demo cd.

 

[facelvega]

sounds like either it's in the recordings or in the ipod. What you describe sounds so obvious that I really doubt it's the recording, the problem we'd be discussing there would be more of a slightly audible nuisance, regrettable because it didn't have to be there. What program did you use to rip the mp3s, and with what settings? Also, if trying somebody else's ipod doesn't do the trick, can you tell us a few widely-available tracks on which you hear the distortion, something that somebody here might also have on hand to test it on a different rig?

 

[gregorio]

This clipping could be a fault with the CD. There are one or two CDs out there with digital clipping. My money would be on you driving your amp too hard and getting distortion that way. It's very unlikely to be the IEMs if they are good quality.

Greg

 

[dcstep]

I think it's unlikely to be the CDs. It's most likely either your source or the IEMs. Find out by listening to the same track through another source. If it's clean, then the problem is your source. If it still distorts at the same point, then it's likely the IEMs. If it's the IEMs, then they'll do it with all sources and variety of songs.

I've got the Triple.fis and they don't do this to me.

Dave

 

[gregorio]

To answer your question; yes, unfortunately productions that poor do exist. It depends on the type of music you listen to. If it's classical for instance, you should never hear distortion or clipping from the CD. Underground music on the other hand, for example - some drum & bass, is often produced/mastered by those who don't have a clue and clipping and even distortion can be quite common. Of course, some producers actually use clipping deliberately as part of their productions, Moby for example. Heavy metal can cause problems too, as the genre has, to an extent, defined itself as being the loudest genre out there. This sometimes leads to several appliances of very heavy compression, topped off with a brickwall limiter. The levels are being driven so close to 0dB that it often causes distortion on consumer equipment which can handle transients peaks all day long but not continuos peaking. Careful here, under some circumstances an overloaded amp can produce levels many times higher than their stated maximum output. So make sure your amp is not turned up to or near it's maximum output level.

Do you listen to a lot of underground metal bands or is it big name bands, produced in quality commercial studios? If it's the former, it most likely is your CDs causing the problem and even with the latter there's still a chance.

Gregorio