[aphex]

Hi,

Came across this site a few days ago. Read some of the postings about the Etymotic ER4P headphones. Read some of the reviews on etymotic.com, registered on this site and now I have just orderd the headphones. Boy am I looking forward to recieving them in a few days time !!!

I have a few questions that I hope you can help me with in the meantime. I am going to use the ER4P's together with my brand new Apple 15GB iPod so I was wondering: What compression should I usefor encoding my MP3's as a minimum and what compression would you recommend in order to get the best of of my new headphones ?

Another thing - I listen to all kinds of music and I am also into a lot of electronic music (tecno, trance and so on) - Will I be able to use the ER4P's for electronic music also ?

Thanks in advance !

aphex, DK

 

[bralack42]

Well, regarding MP3 encoding, the answer is to use the best possible. I find that I personally can't tell the difference above 192kBps, and that's what I always encode to. If you want a wonderful guide on how to get great MP3s, try Chris Myden's.

 

[usc goose]

welcome to head-fi, use alt.preset.standard. (non standard greeting around here)

 

[Russ Arcuri]

You didn't mention whether you're running on a Mac or not. These are instructions for use with iTunes:

Pick a song from a well-recorded CD. It should have soft parts and loud parts, a variety of instruments for different sounds, and a wide-range of in-between.

Encode it once at 160/VBR (Highest quality), normal (not joint) stereo. Encode the same song with all the same settings except 192 instead of 160. Encode the same song a third time with all the same settings except 256 instead of 192.

Compare the three versions by plugging the etys into the iPod. Determine whether you can tell the difference or not.

Then go with whatever setting sounds best.

Some here will sneer because I didn't recommend higher bitrates or the LAME encoder. You can certainly give them a try if you want to. But I seriously doubt you're going to hear any benefit in a blind comparison.

 

[blessingx]

Use --alt-preset standard or --alt-preset fast standard, is the simple answer (using LAME encoder).

If you're on a Mac, you have a choice between AAC and MP3 (though I wouldn't use iTunes to encode MP3). One of my favorite Head-Fi members did a review recently over in the portable section.

 

[Textual Intercou]

I have a new 15 GB iPod with the Etys, and use 224 KB/s AAC

it works pretty well

 

[aphex]

Thanks for your time !

Sorry I forgot to mention the platform - I'm running a Macintosh PB G4 so all my encoding will be done in iTunes 4.

Do you have any coments on the thing about using the ER-4P's for electronic music ?

Thanks,
aphex, DK

 

[blessingx]

Let me state again (from above link) if you want to use AAC, iTunes is probably the way to go (though there are others), but for MP3 the LAME - iTunes app is much better (but slower) to take advantage of the LAME encoder over the old FhG one in iTunes.

Suggestions (from smallest size to highest quality):

Quicktime AAC 160 kps
LAME MP3 --alt-preset standard
LAME MP3 --alt-preset extreme

 

[KellDammit]

i'd heard somewhere that the itunes mp4 encoder is iffy too...could be total b.s. you may wanna search the apple forums on that one (me being a pc user...it's second-hand info at best). some of the other features specifically for the ipod are pretty tough to beat tho.
that being said, i encode mp4/aac@192k cbr using nero.
the difference to my ear between LAME --alt-preset standard and mp4 was night and day...TREBLE! (and a lot less mp3 "mud"). it's a minor hassle to do aac on pc, but i find it worth the extra time and trouble.

since you're using a mac, i'd suggest you do some a/b experiments (since you should be able to use either format without any difficulty), and let your ears decide.

 

[richard]

A test on HydrogenAudio found QT was the best mp4 encoder at 128k.

 

[KellDammit]

i think i read that too, so i bought QT (it wasn't too expensive, so why not?), encoded, and at the end of the day, was pretty annoyed.
if i remember correctly, there was a total lack of configurable settings for the conversion. either i couldn't do 192k at all, or the default encoder quality wasn't high enough, or somesuch. a much more minor hassle was having to rip with another program, then use qt to convert, rather than doing it all in one place. qt was supposed to be able to do this, but i couldn't get it to work.
i ended up getting nero. now, i can rip/encode at 64k-320k, cbr or vbr, mp2, 3, 4,you name it. you can also rip pure aac (minus the mp4 packaging). but more importantly, aside from the flexibility, the results just sounded better to me.
in the interests of fairness, tho, i will go back and take another look at qt and give the down & dirty specifics, if anyone's interested. mebbe post a couple of samples?? i really hate to sound like like i'm just arbitrarily bashing apple/qt...

kell

 

[wallijonn]

i feel that i can tell the difference in different bit rate encoders, especially in transients, high end, and midrange clarity; so I only record at 320br. I've used DEX with the LAME encoder with highest quality setting, eac, creative, media player 9, and a few others (and many weren't worth the $20 to $40 I paid for them).

just like pictures, it's better to encode at the highest quality possible. later on you can convert to a lower resolution.

PS,

any dvd players out there that can now do mp4?

 

[KellDammit]

ohh, there ya go, bringing it back on-topic. shame on you!
hehe.
excellent answer. the higher resolution, the better. you will notice the top end changing the most, as well as the sense of "air"...
now, seeing as it is an ipod, the quality may have to balance out against more practical issues, like disk space and battery life. for some, 320k encoding just takes up too much space (and would cause the ipod hd to spin nearly constantly...equalling about 2 hours battery life...heh), so sometimes it's just not viable.

i think apple recommends 4 minute songs encoded at up to 160k (aac or mp3), in order for the files to play nice with their buffering scheme, and prevent too much hd spinup...of course, lower bitrates work better.
i opted for 192k aac, as it seems to balance out the best for me.
personally, i would recommend 192k as a minimum, for mp3 or mp4. although the difference between 160k /192k aac isn't terribly pronounced...

kell

 

[aphex]

Hi Kell,

Thanks, I think I have made my mind up for iTunes Lame-encoder using --alt preset fast standard. That way it get the files in around 192kbps which I think is okay in filesize (which ofcourse i pretty important on my iPod) and the quality seems to be fine. Damn - now I have to encode my CD's once again

I had not thougt about the iPod having to work a lot harder with a higher quality MP3 - Now I just hope that there won't be that much difference in battery lifetime with 192 instead of 128kbps

Anyway, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Cheers,
aphex

 

[richard]

I'd encourage people to try blind testing - compare two different encodings to see which you believe is better using a testing method that does not allow you to know which is which. In my experience, if you tell someone one sample has a higher bit rate than another, they'll almost always say they prefer the higher bit rate, while in blind testing they are unable to determine which is the higher bit rate. Your experience may differ. But if disk space is an issue, it's worth testing to make sure you're not using too high or too low an encoding.

http://www.kikeg.arrakis.es/winabx/ has links to programs and info on testing.