[facelvega]

Simple question, what in your experience has the greater effect on sound quality, the DAC being used or the bitrate and encoding method of the files coming into that DAC?

I ask because I've noticed lately on a couple albums where I have copies both in 64kbps WMA and 192kbps LAME-encoded mp3, that although there is a quality difference between the files, there is a much bigger difference depending on what's doing the d/a conversion. As in the junky WMAs sound better on a good source than the good files do on a stock laptop soundcard. I'm just wondering if others have found the same, or if there is some range of opinion on this matter.

And though I haven't heard enough to really say, I'm guessing that the better the source, the easier to tell the difference between different grades of sound files.

 

[TzeYang]

very much like whether the source is more important, or the speakers/headphones are more important.

Let's put it this way, in my opinion:

File Quality > DAC = Resulting a less flawed sound.
DAC > File Quality = Revealing DACs means you hear more artifacts.

I would say both are as important and file quality has somewhat a greater impact for me in my experience.

 

[Kees]

In general both are equally important. You can't hear the qualities of either if the other one is failing in that regard.

Only thing I can say is: If you use a superior DAC and lousy source files it will make the lousy quality of the music files more obvious, but you will have none of the distortions of a bad DAC.

If you have superior source files and a bad DAC you will have very little advantages of the clean source, since most of it will be ruined by the DAC.
It is easier to start at the source: If the source file is lacking in quality the rest of the chain will never be able to compensate.

The impact of either depends on which one makes the most impact to your ears. Artifact and distortions you cant hear won't bother you (unless you let other people tell you what should bother you of course

).

 

[kipman725]

put rubbish in and you get rubbish out. try to use the highest posible bit-rate at all times.

for me anything less than a .wav rip of the cd is noticable and anything less than 320kb/s mp3 not very plesurable to listen to.

 

[Corrupt^]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kipman725 put rubbish in and you get rubbish out. try to use the highest posible bit-rate at all times. for me anything less than a .wav rip of the cd is noticable and anything less than 320kb/s mp3 not very plesurable to listen to.

Same here and mp3's seem to have harsher highs as where the wav files sound smooth as silk. (And I don't even have a dac lol)

 

[HFat]

It would depend on how bad those files are obviously.

But it seems that a lot of people here are either imagining artifacts and differences or have encoding issues. Stuff like using uncompressed files instead of lossless and "requiring" a 320k bitrate simply doesn't make sense.

Once you get past a certain quality of encoding, it doesn't matter really. Same thing with the DAC... I doubt most people (if anyone) could tell the difference between good DACs in a blind test unless something else is broken (jitter, power issues, whatever).

That said, if you've got enough room on your drives, there's nothing wrong with using lossless. It's overkill but at least you won't have to worry about encoders and bitrates anymore.

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kipman725 put rubbish in and you get rubbish out. try to use the highest posible bit-rate at all times. for me anything less than a .wav rip of the cd is noticable and anything less than 320kb/s mp3 not very plesurable to listen to.

Standard response to this (IMO bad) advice:

Quote:

Some here will say that you "must" use 320kbps CBR, or that "anything below X bitrate is crap." Treat these statements with a high degree of skepticism. Any recommendation that makes a categorical statement about what bitrate an individual should or should not use, without recognizing that different people have different sensitivities to encoding artifacts, is worthless. The same goes for any recommendation that is made with respect to bitrate (i.e., "128kbps is crap") without reference to the encoder used. By way of example, a 128kbps MP3 encoded with the Xing encoder in 1999 probably would be clearly distinguishable from the original source to a large percentage of listeners. On the other hand, an MP3 encoded with LAME 3.97b3 at the -V5 --vbr-new setting, which has a bitrate very close to that 128kbps Xing file, would be indistinguishable from the original to a large percentage of the population.

 

[pedxing]

Assuming you have the original material from like a CD, its easier to encode the files into a format that retains all or most of the fidelity. The codecs pretty much remove all of the variables out of the equation and it just comes down to file size versus quality. Assuming that one uses a codec that does not alters his or her perception of the fidelity of the music, the remaining variable is the hardware such as the headphone, amp, and DAC.

In my case, I would assume the DAC would have a greater impact on my setup. I still use the crappy audio output on my Dell laptop and I use low bit rate mp3s to save space. If I upgrade my soundcard, I will probably have to up the quality of my mp3s.

I guess what I am I trying to say is that both variables, the encoding of the audio files and the DAC, go hand-in-hand. If I had to really choose which one, I would say file format has a larger difference in perception, but I am bias because when I test various file formats, I use the same crappy soundcard.

 

[dknightd]

FWIW I can't tell the diference between 320 mp3 and lossless, but,
I can tell the difference between an M-Audio audiophile firewire
and a Benchmark DAC1.

Of course I could be wrong. It is easy to blind test music file formats.
It is not as easy to blind test a DAC so perhaps I'm fooling myself
(but I don't think so)

 

[blessingx]

It's both. Although we talk about garbage in, etc. a lot, there's no doubt a 128 AAC kbps file, FM radio, etc. still benefits from a better DAC.

Extremely low bitrates will sound worse on a good DAC as high bitrate rates won't sound better on a bad.

 

[Solude]

DAC by a country mile. MP3 files out of say a Tri-Vista 21 will be far more involving and musical than CD played through AC97 onboard laptop audio.

Heck I find even as low as 128k mp3 quite good. Not perfect but certainly gets the main music across. If you don't like the MP3, don't bother with the CD

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solude DAC by a country mile. MP3 files out of say a Tri-Vista 21 will be far more involving and musical than CD played through AC97 onboard laptop audio. Heck I find even as low as 128k mp3 quite good. Not perfect but certainly gets the main music across. If you don't like the MP3, don't bother with the CD

I agree with you in general. Certainly a better DAC makes well encoded lossy files sound better than an AC97 playing lossless. Of course if one is only going to listen to lossy files, spending bigtime on a DAC is a mite silly as well, since HDD space is a lot cheaper than a high-end DAC.

 

[Solude]

Didn't say it was wise but if my choices are MP3 scene standardized rips on the Tri-Vista or Stello or lossless on AC97 its not a hard choice.

That said if you can't afford the HD space, most PCs have these things called CD/DVD drives. I'm told they spin CDs

 

[Redo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solude Didn't say it was wise but if my choices are MP3 scene standardized rips on the Tri-Vista or Stello or lossless on AC97 its not a hard choice. That said if you can't afford the HD space, most PCs have these things called CD/DVD drives. I'm told they spin CDs

I'd rather use a $50 DVD player over a computer in that case...



Anyhow, with the newer LAME versions floating around, 128 to 192kbps mp3 sounds daammmned good. Sure, crappy compression equals crappy sounding music, but that's not the case with LAME nowadays. A good DAC will make a far more dramatic impact on the sound of your music. In fact, you really won't be able to hear the differences in compression without a nice dac around.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by facelvega Simple question, what in your experience has the greater effect on sound quality, the DAC being used or the bitrate and encoding method of the files coming into that DAC?

Speaking for Apple products (desktop, laptop and iPods) the encoding makes all the difference. The DAC built into Apples is already great souding and well suited for the task.

See ya
Steve