question about lossless musci

[mbnc]

I am new to mp3 players. When I hooked up my sons mp3 player to my home stereo system (earphone jack of mp3 player to phono in jack of receiver using a connector I bought at bestbuy) the sound is awful! It sounds muffled - way too much bass and no treble. If I record music in a lossless format (?FLAC) and play it back through the stereo will it sound correct?

[rovingcowboy]

mp3 players don't have enough power to do it that way.

you can do that by pluging it in to the computer which can boost the sound but the home unit needs more power to it.

i use an fm transmitter to send the sound to the stereo unit.
from the computer.
there are other ways of doing it but i don't know about them,
the ones that use them will tell you about them.

check out audo broadcasting in the search on this forum you will find my thread about the fm transmitter i use.

and some other threads by the others. the threads are about a year or two old if that helps in the search.

[mbnc]

The stereo receiver is an old marantz from my college days and it has plenty of power (? 80 watts per channel). Shouldn't the amplifier in the receiver be able to deliver the appropriate power to the signal going in through the phono input plugs? I though it sounded bad because of the mp3 lossy format being played through floor speakers? That's why I thought a lossless FLAC recording would deliver full range of sound. What do you think?

mp3 players don't have enough power to do it that way.

you can do that by pluging it in to the computer which can boost the sound but the home unit needs more power to it.

i use an fm transmitter to send the sound to the stereo unit.
from the computer.
there are other ways of doing it but i don't know about them,
the ones that use them will tell you about them.

check out audo broadcasting in the search on this forum you will find my thread about the fm transmitter i use.

and some other threads by the others. the threads are about a year or two old if that helps in the search.

[Steegy]

It sounds bad because you're using the Phono input. That is a special kind of input that receives high-trebbled sound by default (from the phonograph), so will adjust it for output by strongly reducing treble and adding bass.
(More info: Phono input and RIAA equalization)

You better use the input of "line in", "mic" or if necessary "radio", "tape", ... . MP3 players do have enough output power for this, you only need correct connectors (e.g. TRS to composite/RCA for the "tape input" I use at home).

The audio quality can depend on the output volume on the MP3 player. Try setting it very low, or much higher, to see if it improves.
Your MP3 player probably also has an equilizer built in, so you can set it to "Cut Bass" or "More Treble", or something similar.

[mbnc]

Thanks for the advice. I'll try switching to a tape monitor input. Do you think there'd we a significant difference in the sound if the files were FLAC instead of MP3?

[Peke]

Especially on high volume but it also depends on sound card and AMP/speaker output frequency range. I have Amp and speakers 20-22000Hz 8ohm Hi-Fi 4 system speakers.

Note: Phono input is on 3000Ohm/30mW and line-in/AUX/Video is 8-200Ohm(Mostly 8-32Ohm)/500mW. For Headphones output is 8-32Ohm/1-4W output.

[Guest]

I'll try switching to a tape monitor input. Do you think there'd we a significant difference in the sound if the files were FLAC instead of MP3?

Depends on which encoder and what settings were used to make the MP3s. If it was done well there won't be a significant difference.

[mbnc]

If I am putting my old vinyl LP albums onto MP3 format using a free download (audacity, audiograbber, media monkey) what are the mp3 settings I should use? Remember, I primarily play my music through a 20 years old stereo (not mp3 headphones).

My desire is to put my entire music collection onto an mp3 type player for portability - not because I am going to listen to it through mp3 type headphones. Someone told me that mp3 fiiles will NOT sound good through floor stereo speakers, even though they sound fine through headphones. That is why I was thinking FLAC lossless would be a better alternative.

Thanks for your help.

[Big_Berny]

@mbnc: You should use "preset standard". The developers and much testers created that preset which should sound transparent (not distinguishable from the original) in 99.9% of all cases. To prove this they made blind tests.
Preset standard uses variable bitrate (VBR). So more complex songs get a higher bitrate then less complex songs (extreme case: silence). The average bitrate is about 190kBit/s.

[Steegy]

If you're encoding in MP3, then choose a bitrate of at least 192kbit. For AAC, 128kbit is usually enough. If you really want the best sound, you obviously need to use higher bitrates, or even use a lossless format.

Don't stare yourself blind on how old the stereo is, how good the speakers are and how bad the headphones might be. This is not really important. The basics is that you have good quality digital music, so if you do play it on higher-quality audio equipment (for me, these include iPods, iRivers, ... with high quality earphones) you'll have nice quality.

Indeed, when you decide what quality you want, you best choose the preset of that quality. That can either be CBR or VBR. VBR is normally better, but less compatible (e.g. can't be played on older portable players).

[rovingcowboy]

same type of system i use.

20 year old or older. play analog sound it will sound better on the older stuff. digital was out 20 years ago but not in wide use.

really digital was out in the early to mid 1970's but the only one that used it then was some one that could afford it. he was Elvis presley. he put his recordings in digital equipment to get the best sound back then. and they still sound like new.

[mbnc]

OK........... so if I record my LP vinyl albums to MP3 format with variable bit rate of at least 192, and attach the MP3 player to the aux or tape monitor input on the back of my stereo and play through stereo floor speakers - will the sound be essentially indistinguishable from the original?

Or will it sound muddled because it is a lossy encoded format. Is there a consensus from you all whether I should encode in FLAC instead (does it take up that much more memory?). There are not too many players with a lot of memory (60 - 80 GB) that support FLAC (iaudio is one of the few I've found).

Also, which free downloadable recording software do you all like best.

[Steegy]

The MP3 format with variable bit rate of at least 192 will do the job just fine. If it doesn't, then probably the problem is with your audio system, and even using 9999kbit (if that were possible) wouldn't help.

FLAC is used by people who don't mind the much bigger file size, and who really really want music with almost no quality loss (but even with 192bit VBR MP3, you probably won't hear any quality loss). FLAC (and any other lossless music format) is less widely supported, and the real benefit of "lossless" sometimes makes me wonder.
However, it's THE format to re-encode into lossy formats, like mp3 for use on portable players. You can see FLAC as a high quality back storage format, that you always can go back to to get an original good quality copy.


To get back to what RovingCowboy said: you really don't have to care of the difference between analog and digital. If you have an analog audio system, then connect the analog output of your computer or portable player to the analog input of your sound system. That's all. The computer or portable player will take care of the digital to analog conversion, as these devices have been doing for years with high quality.
If you're using a 20-year old system, then I suppose we don't have to talk about optimum-quality wiring, HQ speakers, Digital SPDIF, External dedicated DAC, kernel streaming, ASIO. You don't have to understand any of these terms, because they are only used by people who really want the best quality, if they hear the difference or not

[Peke]

If you're using a 20-year old system, then I suppose we don't have to talk about optimum-quality wiring, HQ speakers, Digital SPDIF, External dedicated DAC, kernel streaming, ASIO. You don't have to understand any of these terms, because they are only used by people who really want the best quality, if they hear the difference or not

This will call a debate that I really do not wanna start.

[Al_G]

If I am putting my old vinyl LP albums onto MP3 format using a free download (audacity, audiograbber, media monkey) what are the mp3 settings I should use? Remember, I primarily play my music through a 20 years old stereo (not mp3 headphones).

Thanks for your help.

If you're going through the effort of digitizing your vinyl collection, use a lossless encoder such as FLAC and transcode for portable use. Chances are at some point in the future you will regret using whatever lossy encoder and settings you choose now and there will be no way to switch.

Do some more research before undertaking this task. HydrogenAudio.org is an excellent resource and this topic has been covered many times. If you are converting many albums, you should invest in a cleaning system for the vinyl.