fwrunner2017
New member
I'm not sure if this belongs here, or in the Computers/Digital recording forum, so please move it if it does not belong here:
I am a non-professional, but enjoy listening to my CD's and other purchased music (mostly iTunes) on my PC and my Android phone. I have always used the mp3 format, and over the years, have used some higher bit rates as they became available. Still, I like to keep file size down to manageable size, since my phone has only 32 Gigs of storage on the SD card.
Mainly, I rip my CD's to .wav format and keep the songs on my hard drive. For the iTunes songs, I burn the protected files to CD, then rip as unprotected .wav files.
With the wav files, I like to add limiting to make the music loud without clipping. I am using Audacity on a Windows 7 computer.
Once I have the sound I want, I export it to .mp3 format, with settings: Preset Standard 170-210 Kbps, Variable speed Fast, and channel mode to Joint Stereo.
Using the onboard sound system on my PC and a set of Sennheiser HD-497 phones (I have other, cheaper ones but they all produce the same result) I am unable to tell the difference between the original .wav file and the compressed .mp3 file.
I tried an experiment, creating successive generations of the same .mp3 file by encoding and saving, closing the file, re-opening, and repeating the encoding-saving process for up to 10 generations. So I have an mp3 of an mp3 of an mp3...
I started out with an uncompressed wav file. The songs were rock, R.E.M., Bryan Adams, and Green Day, all of which had high volume levels.
When I reach the 3rd generation of the mp3, I can hear a very slight difference. There appears to be a "swishy" sound on the high notes, especially with symbols.
At the 5th generation, the distortion becomes easily detectable, and at 10th generation (which I know is ridiculous), the sound is pretty much unbearable.
So, I'm reading up on the caveats of the mp3 format, and that it doesn't take a trained pro to detect the distortion on even a 1st generation mp3 encoded at even the highest bit rates using pretty much any encoder/decoder.
BTW: Audacity is using the Lame encoder. I don't know what iTunes uses, but it all sounds the same to my ears.
I am starting to wonder why I can't detect any difference between the original wav file and the mp3 until I've done three generations of encoding/decoding. I start to think that it is my computer's sound system that is the weak link, and not the mp3 encoding process I am using.
My system is an MSI P67A board with Realtek "High Definition" audio. I do not have a separate sound card.
I am listening to the music directly from the analog output of the computer using headphones.
Next I put the original CD from which I had ripped the songs into a Sony 5-CD changer and connected its analog output to my Onkyo receiver. These components are nothing special, but still I would say that they're better than the Realtek sound "card" on my computer.
Sure enough, there is a significant improvement in the playback I get directly off the CD on the home system as compared to the computer playing either the CD directly through the Realtek sound or from the ripped .wav or mp3 files on the hard drive.
The stand-alone sound system produces much crisper tones, sharper drum raps and all of that.
This leaves me wondering what I need to do if I want to have the same sound quality on my computer (forget about the phone - I realize I'm not going to get close on that device) as I do on the home stereo system.
I have no doubts that I will get cleaner sound from a dedicated sound card than I do from the built-in Realtek. I checked out one blog and found one card that comes highly recommended is the Asus Essence STX II. That card is selling for close to $200 on Amazon, but there are some not-so-good reviews as well.
I'm not stuck on any particular brand, so I am looking for someone to point me in the right direction for either a new or used card.
I don't want to spend more than $200 for sure, and would love to get something considerably better than the Realtek for around $100.
Considering that my best set of headphones are the Sennheiser HD-497, with other less expensive phones available to me, I don't want to spend more on the sound card than is appropriate considering my headphones. That said, I would not rule out upgrading the headphones as well - especially if I could get a good used pair.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I also have a set of Cervin Vega speakers that I rarely use, but are in perfect working condition. Thing is, I can't crank the audio in the house, so I listen only through headphones, while the speakers are beside my bed for playing "white noise" and other sleep inducing audio
I'm not expecting a silver bullet that will cost me under $200, but hopefully, I can make one or two reasonable investments and get a more enjoyable sound experience.
My main listening genre is Rock (not too much metal - mostly loud fast rock songs from R.E.M., Bryan Adams, Green Day, etc). But that is not to say I don't listen to real Classical music (Mozart, Beethoven, etc) when the mood strikes.
Thanks for your input.
FW
I am a non-professional, but enjoy listening to my CD's and other purchased music (mostly iTunes) on my PC and my Android phone. I have always used the mp3 format, and over the years, have used some higher bit rates as they became available. Still, I like to keep file size down to manageable size, since my phone has only 32 Gigs of storage on the SD card.
Mainly, I rip my CD's to .wav format and keep the songs on my hard drive. For the iTunes songs, I burn the protected files to CD, then rip as unprotected .wav files.
With the wav files, I like to add limiting to make the music loud without clipping. I am using Audacity on a Windows 7 computer.
Once I have the sound I want, I export it to .mp3 format, with settings: Preset Standard 170-210 Kbps, Variable speed Fast, and channel mode to Joint Stereo.
Using the onboard sound system on my PC and a set of Sennheiser HD-497 phones (I have other, cheaper ones but they all produce the same result) I am unable to tell the difference between the original .wav file and the compressed .mp3 file.
I tried an experiment, creating successive generations of the same .mp3 file by encoding and saving, closing the file, re-opening, and repeating the encoding-saving process for up to 10 generations. So I have an mp3 of an mp3 of an mp3...
I started out with an uncompressed wav file. The songs were rock, R.E.M., Bryan Adams, and Green Day, all of which had high volume levels.
When I reach the 3rd generation of the mp3, I can hear a very slight difference. There appears to be a "swishy" sound on the high notes, especially with symbols.
At the 5th generation, the distortion becomes easily detectable, and at 10th generation (which I know is ridiculous), the sound is pretty much unbearable.
So, I'm reading up on the caveats of the mp3 format, and that it doesn't take a trained pro to detect the distortion on even a 1st generation mp3 encoded at even the highest bit rates using pretty much any encoder/decoder.
BTW: Audacity is using the Lame encoder. I don't know what iTunes uses, but it all sounds the same to my ears.
I am starting to wonder why I can't detect any difference between the original wav file and the mp3 until I've done three generations of encoding/decoding. I start to think that it is my computer's sound system that is the weak link, and not the mp3 encoding process I am using.
My system is an MSI P67A board with Realtek "High Definition" audio. I do not have a separate sound card.
I am listening to the music directly from the analog output of the computer using headphones.
Next I put the original CD from which I had ripped the songs into a Sony 5-CD changer and connected its analog output to my Onkyo receiver. These components are nothing special, but still I would say that they're better than the Realtek sound "card" on my computer.
Sure enough, there is a significant improvement in the playback I get directly off the CD on the home system as compared to the computer playing either the CD directly through the Realtek sound or from the ripped .wav or mp3 files on the hard drive.
The stand-alone sound system produces much crisper tones, sharper drum raps and all of that.
This leaves me wondering what I need to do if I want to have the same sound quality on my computer (forget about the phone - I realize I'm not going to get close on that device) as I do on the home stereo system.
I have no doubts that I will get cleaner sound from a dedicated sound card than I do from the built-in Realtek. I checked out one blog and found one card that comes highly recommended is the Asus Essence STX II. That card is selling for close to $200 on Amazon, but there are some not-so-good reviews as well.
I'm not stuck on any particular brand, so I am looking for someone to point me in the right direction for either a new or used card.
I don't want to spend more than $200 for sure, and would love to get something considerably better than the Realtek for around $100.
Considering that my best set of headphones are the Sennheiser HD-497, with other less expensive phones available to me, I don't want to spend more on the sound card than is appropriate considering my headphones. That said, I would not rule out upgrading the headphones as well - especially if I could get a good used pair.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I also have a set of Cervin Vega speakers that I rarely use, but are in perfect working condition. Thing is, I can't crank the audio in the house, so I listen only through headphones, while the speakers are beside my bed for playing "white noise" and other sleep inducing audio
I'm not expecting a silver bullet that will cost me under $200, but hopefully, I can make one or two reasonable investments and get a more enjoyable sound experience.
My main listening genre is Rock (not too much metal - mostly loud fast rock songs from R.E.M., Bryan Adams, Green Day, etc). But that is not to say I don't listen to real Classical music (Mozart, Beethoven, etc) when the mood strikes.
Thanks for your input.
FW