Distortion in Earbuds

Scottgman

Scottgman

Legend in Own Mind
Ok, so I got an MP3 player a couple months ago. I'm using the stock earbuds that came with the player-- so they are nothing special. Anyway, I've noticed that when I listen to my mixes on the MP3 player, there is lots of distortion-- mainly on the drum hits (e.g., snare). I'm real anal about clipping and I know the mixes I'm listening to don't have any overs. I've also compared raw mixes with limited versions-- thinking that I might have gotten a little heavy-handed with the L2. Doesn't matter. A raw mix with zero overs (and not very loud) and I still get distortion at certain parts (drum hits).

What is going on? I don't understand this at all. I would blame it on the cheapo earbuds, but the 300+ commercial recordings I've got on the player don't distort at all. Plus, my mixes don't distort when played back on my monitors, car stereo, or home stereo. Why are my mixes (with no clipping) causing distortion when listening through earbuds? This is really bothering me.
 
Hi, scottgman.

Have you got something else, like a pair of regular headphones you can plug into the player?
 
Yes, but that wouldn't explain anything. There is clearly something different about my mixes (they cause distortion) compared to the 300+ commercial recordings on the player (that don't cause distortion).

Like I said, I would blame it on the cheapo earbuds, but the cheapo earbuds are not causing the distortion... my mixes are (otherwise the 300+ other songs would exhibit the same distortion... and they don't).

Something is up with *my* mixes and I want to find out what.
 
apl said:
Maybe you've got some low frequency stuff that didn't get filtered.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines. For shits and giggles, I may try to high pass a mix at something stupid like 400HZ and see if that fixes the distortion problem.
 
"You can't get good bass response out of earbuds the size of a 10-year-old's nipples." - John Mayer

Seriously, check first to make sure that it's not a problem happening somewhere in your MP3 encoding process. Listen to the MP3 on a real playback system and see if there is a noticable problem with the bass. Compare that to a CDA (CD-R) or WAV playback of the same song on the same system. If there is a rather noticable difference in the bass response between the two versions, you have something flakey going on in the encoding. Make sure there is no EQ boost going into the encoding, for example. Try another WAV in the same encoder or the same wav in another encoder and see what happens.

If it doesn't appear to be in the encoding chain, then I'd guess you're probably either throwing too much sub-bass at it or you just happen to have something high-energy happening at a resonant frequency of your bud elements. Try shelving off sharply starting at 20Hz and then moving your way up by 10Hz at a time until you get rid of the breakup. If you have to go higher than, say, 70Hz or so, then you might want to try an attack the resonant with a parametric filter instead of a shelf, just so you're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

G.
 
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SouthSIDE Glen said:
"You can't get good bass response out of earbuds the size of a 10-year-old's nipples." - John Mayer
Click to expand...

Using that as a reference implies an intimacy I find disturbing. :eek:
 
Hey, I'm just quoting, don't kill the messenger. :) Talk to John Mayer about that...and start wondering just who's body he found a "wonderland" ;)

G.
 
Good info SouthsideGlenn. Thanks! I didn't even think about the encoding process. I usually use Sound Forge to make my MP3s. But I don't know anything about the different encoding options.
 
Hmmm...Sound Forge shouldn't present any obvious problems in that regard as long as you have the right bitrates and such set in th dialog box. Do the MP3s sound OK on other systems other than you SoundForge system and your MP3 player?

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Do the MP3s sound OK on other systems other than you SoundForge system and your MP3 player?

G.
Click to expand...

Good question. I guess I never really listen to MP3s except on this player. My car stereo plays all kinds of CDs (and MP3s). I usually burn my mixes onto a CD-RW for listening in the car. But, I burn those as wav files. I'll have to try one as an MP3.
 
what did you put as the ceiling on the waves L2 before you encoded to mp3? If it's not already you put it at -.3 Dbfs
 
prob to much LF energy.
but i wouldn't go the hi-pass route

first thing, put the eq on "flat" (in the player) if that solves the problem i *think* that may mean your rms is to high, even though your mixes sound no louder than any one elses........... and then back to lf problems.(just a guess)
i'd also just try a mix with less limiting.
I would try a different set of headphones though, just for the heck of it.
 
BRIEFCASEMANX said:
what did you put as the ceiling on the waves L2 before you encoded to mp3? If it's not already you put it at -.3 Dbfs
Click to expand...

Well, I thought it might the L2, but I tried listening to a mix that had no L2 (and no overs) and same result.
 
giraffe said:
prob to much LF energy.
but i wouldn't go the hi-pass route

first thing, put the eq on "flat" (in the player) if that solves the problem i *think* that may mean your rms is to high, even though your mixes sound no louder than any one elses........... and then back to lf problems.(just a guess)
i'd also just try a mix with less limiting.
I would try a different set of headphones though, just for the heck of it.
Click to expand...

I was going to try an extreme hi-pass to see if it was low frequency build-up causing the distortion.

I'm going to play with it over the weekend and see if I can figure something out. I just can't help but think this is a symptom of some other problem with my mixes and I want to identify that problem.
 
i've had this problem, you probably need some bass trapping
(and maby a pair of monitors with better bass responce?)
 
giraffe said:
i've had this problem, you probably need some bass trapping
(and maby a pair of monitors with better bass responce?)
Click to expand...
That's why I asked if it sounded OK on a system other than his project studio. If it does, then it's probably not a room problem, but rather a subsonic signal problem. If it sounds as bad as the buds do, then he might have a room problem. But that can't be diagnosed either way without a test on a different system.

G.
 
Scottgman said:
Well, I thought it might the L2, but I tried listening to a mix that had no L2 (and no overs) and same result.
Click to expand...

did you listen to the WAV mix or the MP3 mix? I believe encoding can add a tiny bit of volume which might put it into the red. The standard seems to be limit to -.3 DbFS ceiling. Was the unlimited version going above -.3 on it's peaks?
 
BRIEFCASEMANX said:
did you listen to the WAV mix or the MP3 mix? I believe encoding can add a tiny bit of volume which might put it into the red. The standard seems to be limit to -.3 DbFS ceiling. Was the unlimited version going above -.3 on it's peaks?
Click to expand...

I'll have to check to make for sure... but I don't believe any peak hit -.3 or above.

Anyway, I had a chance to mess with it a little last night. I bounced a mix and then encoded it into a .wma file. I then burned it to a CD-RW that will play in my car stereo. I also added that same file to my MP3 player. In the car, it sounded fine... I couldn't hear any audible distortion. However, that same file, played on my MP3 player is almost unlistenable due to the distortion.

I also noticed that the distortion is not coming on the drum hits-- it seems to be coming *between* the drum hits. This is really confusing.

Oh... I also took the same mix as above and applied a high-pass filter at 500hz to test the hypothesis that LF build-up was causing the distortion. Well, after listening on my MP3 player, there was no obvious change in the distortion (it didn't go away)-- so I don't think it's LF build-up.

I'm just confused. I don't understand why this is happening. I really hate the thought of people not being able to listen to my songs on iPODs and other portable MP3 players. Maybe it's something that a good mastering job will fix.

I still can't help but think this is a symptom of something wrong with my mixes. For instance, maybe this unidentified distortion is contributing mud to my mixes? If I could fix this problem (whatever it is), would my mixes sound better (even though I can only hear the distortion on the MP3 player)? :eek:
 
It definitely sounds like an MP3 encoding issue to me. What are the settings you're using when you encode the files? You might play around with different sample rates/bit depths (I'm not sure what you call the various MP3 encoding rates) to see if it makes any difference. Try making one at the highest quality/largest file size you can to see if that makes a difference.
 
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