ipod formats

Paul you contradict yourself.

On the one hand MP3 makes no difference and it sound the same as the original. On the other hand an iPod is not an audiophile piece of equipment.

Which is it to be?

Your argument has little basis, most of the information in music is thrown out with MP3, it sounds different it sounds like listening to radio, bass is truncated and treble is harsh and tissy, at volume MP3 can make you ears bleed. Its clearlt obvious and I would imagine with the right equipment measurable. If you consider MP3 to be so good why do other companies strive to come up with different mediums of compression?

Face it you are not into quality music replay, you can't tell a MP3 for gods sake.

 

MY GOD! This is the second time i've posted a simple question which has led to seemingly endless bickering! When I registered with ZG I recall reading something along the lines of:

"Dont be afraid to post, we are a bunch of 'friendly' helpful people here at Zerogain!"

All I wanted to know was whether I could use a higher quality format than MP3, and thats all.

Paul - It seems a lot of this nonsense is down to you. Your reply yesterday was a bit pathetic - you cant just assume what people use i.e. earphones, and then bang on about not being able to tell the difference. This is a hifi forum, so you cant expect people around here not to give a damn about sound quality, speaking of which, why are you here? You obviously don't.

 

yeah thanks for the helpful link

 

My suggestion - rip the same track in mp3, apple lossless and AIFF, put them all on the ipod and see which you prefer and then use that format in the future,

 

rockhopper, dont know if this repeats an answer, but here goes:

for the ipod itself, the simplest is to go with 128k aac's ripped directly with itunes, a higher rate obviously leads to higher quality, but for me i find 128 is good (and certainly better than 128 mp3).

for a music server solution, akin to julian's, i'd copy julian - go with eac extracting and flac encoding. the resultant files will be approx half the size of the original wavs.

you could go itunes 100% and use apple lossless as an alternative to flac. depends on how u solve the dual formats, assuming that's what u want, 1 for home system and 1 for the ipod.

alternatively, if u dont wish to permanently archive (to flac for example) then perhaps 192 aac would be a viable alternative / compromise.

 

thanks robert, I think your right, i'll have to experiment.

 

anex,
no problems, glat to be of help.

rh,
sorry to hijack your thread - i just dislike misinformation - unless i'm spewing it of course, then it's just dandy
cheers


julian

 

How is it misinformation? I accidently put wave files on my ipod when I first got it, I liked the sound but the battery kept dying. When I got home I had a look and found as I wasn't great with itunes I'd accidently copied the wave data over rather than compressing it. So I compressed to apple lossless, next day listening to the same track at work, it sounded disapointing. Not in an mp3 way but different so I went back to wave and ran it off the mains to stop the battery running out so quickly.

 

anex,

is misinformation. it simply is not true.

i would suggest that your experience points towards a problem with the i-pod. possibly the increased processor load of decoding alc vs straight wav causing interference in the audio circuitry due to poor shielding. either that or apple have knobbled alc to stay on the recordign industry's good side (unlikely though as i'm sure a bunch of americans would sue them for millions if that was the case).
cheers


julian.

 

Do I....?

Where did I actually say that MP3 is no different? Oh... thats right, I didn't. I have ALWAYS said that the difference is overexagerrated. Nobody ever listens, and nobody has ever proved me wrong, so why should I change my opinion just because the ZG sheep say so?

And yes, an iPOD is not an audiophile piece of equipment. Never intended to be. Which means, you are even less likely to discern the already tiny difference.

See, this is what I dont get. To me, and 99% of people out there, its fine, the bass is pretty much all there, and the treble is no harsher than the original. Assuming this is, you do it right - that is, using quality equipment, the right codecs and the right bitrates... but of course, the 128k crap you download off the net is just typical of all MP3's isn't it?

Why? Because there is still room for improvement. In fact, there are a number of LOSSY formats that are better than MP3, and trust me, you WONT be able to tell the difference. But again, you keep spouting telling me that it sounds like something it clearly doesnt (no bass, tinny), which is bollox, but you just seem to like the sound of your own voice (or in this case, the appearance of your own writing).

Yes I am. Its just I dont subscribe to the absolute bollox that gets posted on this forum at times.

I was only saying that the ipod (not an audiophile device), when used with cheap earphones (and like it or not, the E2C still count as cheap earphones - don't believe me? Go to headphone.com and see the $1000 earphones they have there), and being as it is a portable device, probably used on the move, where, with the best intentions in the world, your earphones still cannot block out ALL ambient noise, that I would hazard a guess that you would not be able to tell any difference.

If you want better then AAC or whatever it is... but I just cant understand why people would waste the chance to put their entire music collection on one because of some paranoia about sound quality.

And lets face it, a lot of you are EXTREMELY paranoid.

And I'm the one who smokes da herb, as you put it

Soo, debate is not allowed on a forum then, because it does not fit in with the sheep's point of view. Thank you for your assumption that I don't give a damn about sound quality, just because I might not be as loaded as you, or have fancy kit as you.

Not only is this place full of paranoid people, its full of arrogant snobs as well.

* PS I dont mean everyone here - but there clearly is a lot of people here who are pure snobs.

 

Paul. When you are backed into a corner the only argument you have is that we are snobs?

Give us a break.

Clearly though you are using pretty basic hifi, sorry I have no idea what you own, but you are saying that basically the bass is the same, and basically MP3s are as good as the original. That is what You are saying.

Equally all us snobs are deluded, because you cannot hear a significant difference. I can only assume therefore its down to the equipment you are using.

I contend, ney insist that MP3 sounds farking awful as a quality music replay medium. That does not make me a snob.

I used to own a Kenwood HIFI many moons ago, I thought it was the dogs danglies because on certain tracks the bass really boomed out. Upon getting my first naim equipment I was disappointed that some of that bass disappeared, but I knew immediately I was hearing a lot more music, things I had not heard before. At this stage a realised how much better vinyl was to CD.

Now with a very good Computer Hifi Source, I find that MP3 comes a very very distant third to CD which is a fair mile behind vinyl. I am utterly surprised that anyone would consider MP3 a viable serious music source. Sure as you point out it is fine on an iPod with headphones. Chances are you won't hear a terrific amount of difference, but through even a remotely decent hifi it sounds awful.

 

Its me who needs a break on this forum, nobody else. I am hardly backed into a corner either, in fact nobody still has come up with a good argument yet - either in this thread, or in the last several years for that matter. You lot are so entrenched in your views, that any view to the contrary is ridiculed straight away, because its the in thing on a hifi forum.

Clearly though you are using pretty basic hifi, sorry I have no idea what you own, but you are saying that basically the bass is the same, and basically MP3s are as good as the original. That is what You are saying.

Equally all us snobs are deluded, because you cannot hear a significant difference. I can only assume therefore its down to the equipment you are using.

I contend, ney insist that MP3 sounds farking awful as a quality music replay medium. That does not make me a snob.[/quote]

It doesnt make you a snob for sure. It does make you perhaps blissfully ignorant, or that the difference is exagerrated completely by you. This is a FACT, not an opinion. People (including audiophiles) have done many tests on many forae, and nobody denies there is a difference, but at some bitrates and music, the difference is inaudible. Yet you seem to think they are all sound absolutely awful when others (including audiophiles using expensive equipment) find them at times, all but indistinguishable.

Your views will never change, even though they are not true, so I'm done arguing with you about it.

You lot keep slagging my equipment because it does not cost £10000000000000. I guess that makes you feel good does it?

My main listening is done with an ANT Amber headphone amp and Beyer DT531 headphones, not the best on the market, but a LOT better than some of you clearly seem to think. But it doesnt cost thousands of pounds, so it must be crap

But FWIW, I have even conducted my own tests on equipment costing far more than mine, and if those people were honest, there wasn't this night and day difference you speak of. None of them got it 100% right in fact, but like you their opinion changed on the forums - I wonder why...

To be honest, I'm done with this forum. You can only have one opinion, and if it doesnt fit in with the clique, then you just get slagged off. I'm really getting bored with having the same pointless arguments with the same pointless people who never change their view, and are all holier than thou with it.

I can easily see why more people dont get into hifi, it will always be an anorak's hobby because it is full of arrogant anoraks now, who will just slag something off unless it costs at least 4 figures, and call people deaf because they dont subscribe to the same old horse **** that always gets spouted on here. I bet your one of those people who hears massive differences in racks, cables and all of that too... Well I've got news for you, I am interested in hifi regardless of what you think, which is why I have stuck around so long despite the abuse I get for my opinions on here, its just that not everyone is rich like you. I've also got some more news for you. Despite what you think, I've heard some very good hifi equipment, and for me, its not worth the extra and I suspect most people with any sense would probably agree - hence why this is a very niche market these days.

I often see threads in here whinging about why more people dont get into hifi or that its a dying hobby. Well, people like you are to blame, you scare people off with your "you've got to believe in this and buy that to be in my gang" kind of attitude.

Well bollocks to it. I've argued about it the last time on this forum. I've got better things to do than waste my time arguing with people who claim to hear things nobody else does. I suggest you get a life outside of hifi, because frankly, you just cant see the wood for the trees.

And just so you know, this isnt the usual "i'm leaving, please convince me to stay thread". I really am completely sick of the absolute ****e talked on these forums.

Have a good life.

 

I've plugged my iPod into my system and was very impressed...and that was with 320kbps MP3 - it's certainly a viable music source.

When some forum members here went to visit a certain other forum member with a £100K+ system they compared an iPod as a source to the system owner's £25K CD transport and DAC....and the owner of the system preferred the iPod every time when he didn't know which was which. Once he knew which was which he preferred his own £25K solution every time...funny that

Michael.

 

Paul.

F**K off then eh?

Pathetic.

 

gary - that is not acceptable. You've crossed this line recently on more than one occasion. Do NOT address other forum members that way.

 

Thats seriously serious.Why hasn't any magazine done something like this? The whole industry could come to a standstill.Maybe thats why,their advertising revenue would dry up.

But if a 200 quid digital Ipod can batter a 25K cdp then either the cdp is shyte or the HIFI industry is about to explode.

This means I should be able to join a library,but a Squueezebox thing and just never buy another CD again.

ps but obviously thats illegal so of course i would pay to download instead

 

Issac my apologies. I thought we were all adults here, this seemed like a good debate, it did not require a cry off from Paul, or my reply.

 

BTW I am who I am, if its not acceptable, ban me.