This compression thing

Good lossey compression is very, very good. A poor MP3 encoder or dubious digital cd-audio rip sounds horrible, even on an audigy and soundworks nearfield pc speakers, let alone esoteric pre/power kit.

The MP101 arrived today, I'm just finishing work and off to try it connected to my active bi-amped Linn Keilidh floorstanders, before I stuff it behind the telly in the living room.

This morning foobar2000 completed encoding my ape lossless albums down to 14GB of VBR MP3's, using LAME 3.90.3 --alt-preset standard which is reported to be about as good as it gets for MP3's at around 210Kbps (+/- 25Kbps)

cheers,
Rob.

 

Paul this is not an issue with not hearing the last 'ting' from the back room of a recording studio. The quality is drastically reduced when using the compression methods I have tried. How could it not be worse, I have thrown away at least half the information that was there.

I would like to point out at this point, than none of these methods of musi reproduction can hold a stick to the record deck, which is going no where!

 

Well without wanting to get embroiled in a big argument, which I am sure we'll both agree with, I am just a little confused about how on the one hand, my system "must not be revealing enough", and on the other hand, the quality is "drastically" reduced. Surely if the difference was that big then I'd be able to hear it on my system as well?

BTW, I am not disputing what YOU are hearing, but I am, in the vast majority of cases, barely able to hear ANY difference, let alone a drastic one.

My feeling is that there HAS to be a reason, but I dont know what that is, TBH.

 

paul,
my intent wasn't to start an argument (a discussion maybe) however in the past 'pc' audio hasn't been held in very high regard. now with respected manufacturers such as naim, linn, cyrus et al getting in on the act plus the explosion in wireless networking and new compatible network players it's starting to gather momentum.
certainly computer audio is now a much more friendly proposition withiout meters of cat 5 or contantly buzzing pc boxes cluttering up your living room. of course there were those willing to either put up with this - or invest in very expensive first generation wireless a or b kit and create their own silent pc boxes. nowadays you can network up your house with a couple of boxes and a saturday afternoon.
i can certainly see the attraction of having all my software on hard drive with the ability to play it non stop throughout the day. even more than most as i work from home.
i'm currently waiting for funds to allow me to purchase a squeezebox (and maybe a dac) so that i can get into the wonders of high bit rate mp3's, flac and other codecs through my hi-fi rather than through my crap pair of ross headphones i've used so far.
i think gary saying he dislikes compressed formats is a purely subjective statement (certainly as others have percieved little or no difference) also he, like myself is a fan of naim kit - this is known to sound a little different from the norm so that may also have a bearing on what he deems important. i'd rather hear everyones opinion on the subject, especially from those using streaming media devices.
hopefully this won't degenerate into an 'all computer audio is crap' debacle as has happened before.
cheers


julian

 

I may have missed something, are they / do they now have computer based products out now?

 

Linn and Cyrus certainly do. The Cyruslink server is a reworking of the Imerge Soundserver which is pretty good at music storage. It uses similar technology to the EAC ripping software, i.e. error correction through multi disc reads. It is very simple to use and will download the track info from the the net. It will stream to clients as well.

Onkyo is also another player in this area as well with net aware av receivers. The client player that Cyrus and Imerge use is derived from an Onkyo unit BTW. So there is a little bit of the Far East in British Hifi.

I'd prefer to use a PC and use something like the Slimdevices clients.

That's my thoughts.

 

Linn has the Kivor Index system but from what I can tell it's not really value for money. It's basically a PC in a nice case with some fancy bells and whilstles and it costs something ridiculous like £6K.

A PC with a remote client a-la Slim Devices would also be my preferred option if were going that way.

Michael.

 

naim liscenced the imerge software / hardware a while ago so presumably they are working on this. they also have a little known multi room amp the nap 6-30 (or something) although all their pre's and even their av amp is single zone only.
i'd also have to agree with the sentiments already expressed i.e. that a central server driving squeezebox like devices into local amps (or active speakers) would be my preferred option. certainly given the accessibility of wireless networking it makes it a bit of a no brainer really.
i think however that there will be a lot of resistence from the more usual audiophile in that anything wireless must inherrently be of a lesser quality than something running through umpty hundred poinds worth of interconnect (i'm not joining the dbt squd just saying that for network communication i doubt that the transmission method makes much difference as long as it has enough bandwidth)
cheers


julian

 

Nice dream Julian. Trouble is, the jury is still out on whether WiFi will continue to work when every household has it. I live in a detached some distance from my nearest computer-equipped neighbour and yet I am already having problems with wireless devices. It is quite likely that when every household tries to use its own WiFi network, the system is going to fall in a heap. Now if we all shared one big network, that might work better but I can't see that happening for privacy reasons.

 

chris,
don't p*ss on me chips mate. i'm in the first flush of enthusiasm with my new wireless network and so far have had no problems despite a microwave on the other side of the wall to the ap, a mobile phone not 1/2 a meter away when it's in it's cradle, ditto a cordless phone and a wireless tv transmitter for my kids tv at the other end of the room. i can even get an 'excellent' signal upstairs. i have seen similar sentiments expressed in the computer press. aparently wireless wans are bt's plan to get broadband to those in outlying areas. security isn't much of an issue really as it's just the same situation as having an internet connected pc. to whit - if someone is on the net without a firewall and virus protection they should perhaps get a clue.
isn't there a new 'standard' wireless - i ? comming out soon which is meant to aleviate some of the crosstalk issues?
cheers

julian

 

I'll believe it when I see it.

You shouldn't have any problem with the devices you mention because they all operate at other frequencies. Except the microwave and if that causes interference then it should be serviced pronto

I suspect the problems will start when your nearest neighbour gets WiFi too.

It's like driving a car, it only makes sense when nobody else has one. As soon as everybody wants to drive one, gridlock occurs.

Sorry to p*ss on your chips (I prefer salt myself). All I can say is good luck and enjoy it while you can.

 

Wireless networks are only secure if they have been set up properly. I installed one for a customer the end of last year and stumbled across their neighbour's wifi network and was able to connect to it and use their broadband connection.

In the City (of London that is) wifi is frowned upon for security reasons. As companies do not want theft of data crossing a wireless network, i.e. corporate espionage.

If you think of DECT cordless phones there are thousands of those installed in home and you can't pick up your neighbours calls. Why should wifi be any different.

I use a Netgear 802.11g wireless router at home with excellent results. The signal coverage is top notch and is without any external aerial boosting the coverage.

 

The bandwidth requirement for a DECT phone is much smaller than for WiFi. It's only about 32 kbps. Basically DECT has something like 10 radio frequencies each split into 24 time slots. A two-way link requires 2 time slots so that gives the phone about 120 channels to choose from. As each house typically will have only one or two devices and the range is only 300 metres, interference cannot occur in practice.

WiFi has 14 channels although not all are available in every country. These channels are 22 MHz wide and *overlap* each other so the prospect of interference is built in to the standard! There are only 3 channels which don't overlap. In a densely populated area there will be contention and there will be interference. This won't necessarily stop the networks from working but it will slow them down considerably.

WiFi is known to interfere with other non-WiFi devices operating in the 2.4 GHz band. This is particularly true for the lowest 3 channels. My keyboard and mouse would seem to be a good example but there are others and you'll find plenty of moans about this if you search on the net.

 

.....er.... put the £4k in the wrong place! doh!

 

ok, I agree with that technobear. The 2.4 GHz band is going to be swapped if not already. I know of people using wireless video senders in blocks of flats and controlling their neighbours television.

Once would hope that WiFi has measures built in so it will not fall over and work at slower speeds similar to the contention ratio on ADSL.

 

WiFi is more like Ethernet in that everybody pipes up, a collision occurs and then they all wait a random amount of time before piping up again so that hopefully they will not collide on the next attempt. Works well up to about 40% of the maximum theoretical speed of the network. Rapidly becomes like swimming through treacle after that. The less nodes you have (or the less that are trying to talk at one time), the greater %age of the bandwidth can be used without congestion. As more nodes join the party, collisions become too frequent and the whole thing slows to a crawl.

 

If I can remember rightly when I was at university the network topology of Token Ring worked better under higher load conditions and look what happened to that!

 

Token ring is a pain in the butt to implement and is vulnerable to breaks in the ring. The star topology of Ethernet is easy to build and more resilient to breaks. With the introduction of switches rather than hubs, the availability of an Ethernet network was greatly increased as data packets only go to those parts of the network that form part of the route from source to destination (with a hub, every packet goes to every client).