Are there any limitations in using MP3 or MP4 files

kprhok

I just purchased a Harman Kardon Stereo Receiver and LSi9 Speakers in an attempt to improve the quality of sound in my music room , and have a question about downloaded music.

I plan to use my iTunes downloaded music on my laptop as my music library.

Should I be concerned about the Sound Card used in my laptop, or any other limitations that could degrade the sound quality. I hate to think I improved receiver and speakers but still have a limitation due to some kind of sound card limitation in range, etc.

Thoughts? and thank you!!

cokewithvanilla

I have had my Lsi 25's hooked up to my computer for a few years now. My computer has on board and creative sound. I do a SPDIF pass through to my preamp. I've used optical and coax. I am unable to tell the difference between either sound card. I've had them hooked up to a new media center pc I built (with on board sound) and I swear it sounds much better.

I've A/Bed it with a cd player and they sound real close... I think maybe the player is a bit more defined ((as compared to the creative/old on board.. haven't tried the media center)

Use FLAC/WMA Lossless/Apple Lossless... I wouldn't bother with lossy compression like MP3.

I believe if you use a digital connection and lossless audio, you will be satisfied.

Keep in mind to turn off all settings like "normalization" and other similar settings that mess with the sound. I dunno what apple calls them, but they probably have a cute name for it. Your biggest limitation might be what your OS does to the sound. You might wanna give ASIO4All a try.... it's free

Edit: if you're gonna spend some money on a sound card, check this one out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132005&cm_re=asus_xonar-_-29-132-005-_-Product

I can't say it will do any good, but you can tell me after you try it

quadzilla

Just a remark... apple lossless is still only 320 kb/s, same max bit rate as mp3. Flac is lossless, thus thus the ginormous files.

kprhok

Thanks for the prompt reply.

I'm not sure I fully understand the guidance provided due to my limited knowledge of audio/equipment terminology, but would you agree that if I am downloading iTunes from the iStore and if I have a high quality cable going from my laptop to my receiver, I don't have to be as concerned about the Sound Card that came with the laptop, probably a basic sound card. I don't know what kind of Sound Card is in my Dell Latitude laptop, but I could dig further if needed.

One final question... would it increase/make no difference to sound quality, etc if I burn my downloaded iTunes to CD and played the CD in my CD player instead of using a soundcard and cable from laptop to amp?

cnh

Simply put you want to have your music in standard Redbook format...not in any COMPRESSED option...even the highest compression won't do it. On good equipment you can ALWAYS tell the difference between a compressed computer file...especially an apple and a REAL CD. I don't use itunes..so I don't know what the download options are but if they are less than 1,411.. kbs/second that's NOT lossless. That's ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND ELEVEN KILOBYTES PER SECOND SO A LOT MORE THAN 320KBITES/SECOND!

cnh
cnh

Outfitter03

Sometimes the best way to get answers to what sounds best is a little experimentation. A lot is system dependent and also on your own ears and training at listening.

You asked which would sound better, connecting your laptop or playing a CD with the itunes copied to it. Give it a try and compare.

Personally I hear a big quality difference between playing a purchased CD and the MP3 formatted files. If you have any CDs with the same songs as you also have as MP3s, try listening to them side to side and see what you think. You may end up deciding to change the format of music you listen to. Compressed files are just that, compressed. Missing a lot of audio information. Really doesn't matter too much with ear buds but on a good stereo system the difference is usually noticeable.

Uncompressed or lossless formats are available for computers but take a lot of hard drive space. If you have a good size library you will want to utilize an external hard drive as your music library for your laptop.

cokewithvanilla

quadzilla wrote: »

Just a remark... apple lossless is still only 320 kb/s, same max bit rate as mp3. Flac is lossless, thus thus the ginormous files.

I don't believe that's true. All my apple lossless is way above 320.

cnh wrote: »

Simply put you want to have your music in standard Redbook format...not in any COMPRESSED option...even the highest compression won't do it. On good equipment you can ALWAYS tell the difference between a compressed computer file...especially an apple and a REAL CD. I don't use itunes..so I don't know what the download options are but if they are less than 1,411.. kbs/second that's NOT lossless. That's ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND ELEVEN KILOBYTES PER SECOND SO A LOT MORE THAN 320KBITES/SECOND!

cnh
cnh

I hope dBPoweramp isn't wrong.

jimbo1421

Which model receiver do you have? If it has any type of digital input I would use that. The question comes down to which device you want to use to make the digital to analog conversion. Speakers will only receive analog signals. Chances are your receiver has the best converter (if it has one at all), followed by your CD player. Your laptop is probably last. You can also buy a decent stand alone DAC for less than $100. You can buy much better ones for much more. The biggest limiting factor will be your choice of media, that is compressed iTunes downloads. I think that your LSi9s will reveal all their defects. Try ripping a CD at the iTunes bitrate (128kbps?) and a lossless method and compare these to the original CD.

My own best digital music system so far goes from CD > Power Mac G5 > iTunes Apple Lossless > Yamaha RX-V496 AVR (optical connection) > Polk Monitor 7. This arrangement uses the DAC in the AVR. MP3s in this set up have an exaggerated bass response which is probably intentional since they are meant to be played on tiny MP3 players.

Good luck

gimpod

cnh wrote: »

Simply put you want to have your music in standard Redbook format...not in any COMPRESSED option...even the highest compression won't do it. On good equipment you can ALWAYS tell the difference between a compressed computer file...especially an apple and a REAL CD. I don't use itunes..so I don't know what the download options are but if they are less than 1,411.. kbs/second that's NOT lossless. That's ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND ELEVEN KILOBYTES PER SECOND SO A LOT MORE THAN 320KBITES/SECOND!

cnh
cnh

I really hate to pop peoples bubbles but with computers,
a Kilo = 1024
kb = Kilobit, (8 bits make 1 byte)
KB = Kilobyte (1024 bytes or 8192 bits)

Just my 2 bits;) worth.

cokewithvanilla

gim54pod wrote: »

I really hate to pop peoples bubbles but with computers,
a Kilo = 1024
kb = Kilobit, (8 bits make 1 byte)
KB = Kilobyte (1024 bytes or 8192 bits)

Just my 2 bits;) worth.

People always confuse terms like that. When they buy a router that advertises 100mbps, they think they will get 100 MB file transfers and are pretty surprised when they get around 13.

Anyhow, my laptop has a digital mini jack on it. You would need a mini to rca adapter (little gold adapter available at radioshack for around 3 dollars) to utilize this (I do this for my Audigy2 ZS), but you can. Check to see if your laptop has this option. Or list he model, or that little number off the bottom that dell offers... or just list the sound card...

cfrizz

Nice post CWV.

Welcome to Club Polk Kprhok! CDs would most likely sound better then music through your laptop. However, a lot of it also depends on the quality of the original recording. This is true of cds as well. A poor quality recording is going to be poor no matter what it is being played back on.

I'm willing to settle for MAYBE detectable SQ loss through my mp3 player to have music playing all day long without my having to jump up & down to change cds. I am more focused on having music playing, not whether or not I can try to detect if something might be missing during playback.

And as CWV's post above, if you are getting a perfect copy then you aren't really losing anything. So hook up your laptop & enjoy.

cokewithvanilla

I thought I'd post a picture that explains probably the best way to run it:



As you can see, you are using lossless audio, digital connection and ASIO4ALL to try to eliminate any processing that Windows tries to do (and it does)

heres a screenshot



Winamp supports ASIO4ALL: www.winamp.com
ASIO4ALL: www.asio4all.com
Winamp ASIO plugin: http://www.winamp.com/plugin/asio-output-plugin/156466
Mini to RCA adapter available at RadioShack

you may not even notice the results from ASIO4ALL, so test with and without.

Face

cfrizz wrote: »

I'm willing to settle for MAYBE detectable SQ loss through my mp3 player to have music playing all day long without my having to jump up & down to change cds. I am more focused on having music playing, not whether or not I can try to detect if something might be missing during playback.

Just rip everything to your hard drive in a lossless format and you can have almost endless music without any less in sound quality. FYI, my current playlist is 2 weeks, 5 days, 4 hours, 42 minutes, and 4 seconds.

quadzilla

gim54pod wrote: »

I really hate to pop peoples bubbles but with computers,
a Kilo = 1024
kb = Kilobit, (8 bits make 1 byte)
KB = Kilobyte (1024 bytes or 8192 bits)

Just my 2 bits;) worth.

While technically correct, industry standards have actually moved to redefine kilobit as 1000 bits, kilobyte as 1000 bytes, etc. You can thank the hard drive manf. for that one. Now everyone is pretty much adopting that standard.

quadzilla

cokewithvanilla wrote: »

I don't believe that's true. All my apple lossless is way above 320.

Interesting. When I rip in iTunes using apple lossless, I get 320 kbps files and the files are about the same size as the mp3s apple calls "cd quality".

What I'd really like is for apple to support something like flac. Then I might actually not quite entirely hate their little walled garden.

cokewithvanilla

quadzilla wrote: »

Interesting. When I rip in iTunes using apple lossless, I get 320 kbps files and the files are about the same size as the mp3s apple calls "cd quality".

What I'd really like is for apple to support something like flac. Then I might actually not quite entirely hate their little walled garden.

Well, maybe that happens in itunes.. but itunes sucks I used Dbpoweramp to convert mine... and as you saw in the screenshots......

Flac is my favorite format, but it's kinda impractical... if you have Window Media Center, or WMP, without some serious tinkering you don't even get track length, let alone any other album info. I use WMA Lossless for my WMC, Apple Lossless for my phone, and FLAC for my other computers.... Oh well.

Face

cokewithvanilla wrote: »

Flac is my favorite format, but it's kinda impractical... if you have Window Media Center, or WMP, without some serious tinkering you don't even get track length, let alone any other album info. I use WMA Lossless for my WMC, Apple Lossless for my phone, and FLAC for my other computers.... Oh well.

I also use WMA Lossless due to the tagging and compatibility with my Zune HD.

reeltrouble1

fortunately itunes is now offering hi-rez for both apple and pc, you still have to worry about the soundcard and getting the usb, the best sound format is still SACD, but itunes may have just saved downloads, you will need a universal player if you choose to rip to a DVD

RT1

yepimonfire

cokewithvanilla wrote: »

I thought I'd post a picture that explains probably the best way to run it:



As you can see, you are using lossless audio, digital connection and ASIO4ALL to try to eliminate any processing that Windows tries to do (and it does)

heres a screenshot



Winamp supports ASIO4ALL: www.winamp.com
ASIO4ALL: www.asio4all.com
Winamp ASIO plugin: http://www.winamp.com/plugin/asio-output-plugin/156466
Mini to RCA adapter available at RadioShack

you may not even notice the results from ASIO4ALL, so test with and without.

i love your mess of cables and the receiver sitting half a**ed on there also flac is not the same bitrate as wav, it is about 25% less on average, WMA lossless usualy has the best compression ratios of all lossless encoders, i will prove this in one moment.

kprhok

Thanks everyone for the very detailed discussion on this subject. I see that I have a lot to learn. One reply suggested "simply rip everything to hard drive in lossless format..."

Is apple lossless something you download, purchase, etc?

Also, I have many songs already dowloaded (years). Do they have to remain in the same format (once downloaded, no way to increase quality?)

By the way, I've been a member for only one day, but this forum has already proven to be the best source of info I've ever used on tech issues of any type.

Thanks again!!

cokewithvanilla

yepimonfire wrote: »

i love your mess of cables and the receiver sitting half a**ed on there also flac is not the same bitrate as wav, it is about 25% less on average, WMA lossless usualy has the best compression ratios of all lossless encoders, i will prove this in one moment.

Haha, thanks. The GFa5800 sits on top my computer case, the dmc1 is on top an old end table I found in the attic (it sits at an angle cause the interconnects aren't long enough) and the 7270 is under it on a few 4x4's LOL

However, I think I disagree with your statement. Look up further in the post and check the bitrate comparison that I did between FLAC/WMA Lossless/Apple Lossless/WAV.... they were all the same (if dmpoweramp isn't lying)

yepimonfire

this is with FLAC on the best compression setting, it may only be a 1% difference, but it adds up, also it varies greatly depending on the material, i once got an enya album to compress at 50% using WMA.

yepimonfire

dude, dbpoweramps tag reader is wrong, i will show you

yepimonfire

This message is too short to post so im adding a random sentence. btw, that says 977kbps, on average.

cokewithvanilla

kprhok wrote: »

Is apple lossless something you download, purchase, etc?

Also, I have many songs already dowloaded (years). Do they have to remain in the same format (once downloaded, no way to increase quality?)

I believe when you download from itunes you can choose mp3 or apple lossless, I don't know if it costs more or something or if some music isnt available in lossless (I hate itunes).

As far as updating the quality of your songs... you're kinda screwed. They are what they are. Only thing you can do is use a creative interpretation of copyright laws and say "I bought the file, so that means I own the rights to it, therefore I can download it from a torrent site in a higher bitrate"

In the U.S., if you own it, you can download it.. I don't know how far that extends... like if it has to be the exact album, or same md5 hash.. idk.. but I like my loose interpretation

cokewithvanilla

yepimonfire wrote: »

dude, dbpoweramps tag reader is wrong, i will show you

My winamp reads that as well, so does W7... but whats to say that the bitrate reader on winamp is more accurate than Dbpoweramp?


From Flac Site:

How can I be sure FLAC is lossless?
How much testing has been done on FLAC?

First, FLAC is probably the only lossless compressor that has a published and comprehensive test suite. With the others you rely on the author's personal testing or the longevity of the program. But with FLAC you can download the whole test suite and run it on any version you like, or alter it to test your own data. The test suite checks every function in the API, as well as running many thousands of streams through an encode-decode-verify process, to test every nook and cranny of the system. Even on a fast machine the full test suite takes hours. The full test suite must pass on several platforms before a release is made.

Second, you can always use the -V option with flac (also supported by most GUI frontends) to verify while encoding. With this option, a decoder is run in parallel to the encoder and its output is compared against the original input. If a difference is found flac will stop with an error.

Finally, FLAC is used by many people and has been judged stable enough by many software and hardware makers to be incorporated into their products.

What is the lowest bitrate (or highest compression) achievable with FLAC?

With FLAC you do not specify a bitrate like with some lossy codecs. It's more like specifying a quality with Vorbis or MPC, except with FLAC the quality is always "lossless" and the resulting bitrate is roughly proportional to the amount of information in the original signal. You cannot control the bitrate much and the result can be from around 100% of the input rate (if you are encoding noise), down to almost 0 (encoding silence).

yepimonfire

kprhok wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the very detailed discussion on this subject. I see that I have a lot to learn. One reply suggested "simply rip everything to hard drive in lossless format..."

Is apple lossless something you download, purchase, etc?

Also, I have many songs already dowloaded (years). Do they have to remain in the same format (once downloaded, no way to increase quality?)

By the way, I've been a member for only one day, but this forum has already proven to be the best source of info I've ever used on tech issues of any type.

Thanks again!!

if you purchased them with itunes then your fine, 256kbps AAC is VERY good quality, i have an out of phase demonstration test that shows just the missing information, if you would like to see it. keep in mind this file is a wav file that is 74mb. if you chose not to listen to it, i will explain what it is. it is an occasional white noise pop, you hear absolutely no musical sounds in it whatsoever. now MP3 on the other hand is bad below 192kbps, if you got them from amazon, your running an ABR of 256, which is fine. if they are downloaded from something like (gasp!) limewire and they are crappy 128kbps files honestly i would delete them and buy the CDs, 128 is absolutely terrible, you lose highs, dynamics, transients, and low bass, not to mention the "sparkly" sound that is so unnatural, unless of course you prefer to listen to music inside of a tin can.:D http://www.mediafire.com/?r1snnd370tq0rcu

yepimonfire

cokewithvanilla wrote: »

My winamp reads that as well, so does W7... but whats to say that the bitrate reader on winamp is more accurate than Dbpoweramp?


From Flac Site:

How can I be sure FLAC is lossless?
How much testing has been done on FLAC?

First, FLAC is probably the only lossless compressor that has a published and comprehensive test suite. With the others you rely on the author's personal testing or the longevity of the program. But with FLAC you can download the whole test suite and run it on any version you like, or alter it to test your own data. The test suite checks every function in the API, as well as running many thousands of streams through an encode-decode-verify process, to test every nook and cranny of the system. Even on a fast machine the full test suite takes hours. The full test suite must pass on several platforms before a release is made.

Second, you can always use the -V option with flac (also supported by most GUI frontends) to verify while encoding. With this option, a decoder is run in parallel to the encoder and its output is compared against the original input. If a difference is found flac will stop with an error.

Finally, FLAC is used by many people and has been judged stable enough by many software and hardware makers to be incorporated into their products.

What is the lowest bitrate (or highest compression) achievable with FLAC?

With FLAC you do not specify a bitrate like with some lossy codecs. It's more like specifying a quality with Vorbis or MPC, except with FLAC the quality is always "lossless" and the resulting bitrate is roughly proportional to the amount of information in the original signal. You cannot control the bitrate much and the result can be from around 100% of the input rate (if you are encoding noise), down to almost 0 (encoding silence).

because anyone with basic computer knowledge knows if it has the sam bitrate it will be the same size file, i have done tests on FLAC to determine if it is lossless, what you do is compress a file to flac, then encode one to wav, then decompress the flac file to wav and do a bit to bit comparison, when i did this it said there were no bit differences, it is mathematically lossless.

cokewithvanilla

yepimonfire wrote: »

because anyone with basic computer knowledge knows if it has the sam bitrate it will be the same size file, i have done tests on FLAC to determine if it is lossless, what you do is compress a file to flac, then encode one to wav, then decompress the flac file to wav and do a bit to bit comparison, when i did this it said there were no bit differences, it is mathematically lossless.

Ok, I could be totally wrong here, but I thought that the idea of a compressed FLAC file was that it was decompressed when it was decoded.

This way, it can be "compressed" and maintain the same bitrate.

Again, I could be totally wrong.

Isn't what you just said showing that flac is lossess, or did I read something wrong?

yepimonfire

no your right, all compressed audio files must be decompressed before they can be DACed (right not a word but shut it) the difference between MP3 and FLAC is that FLAC decompresses to the exact same as a wav file, MP3 does not as it is lossy.

BlueFox

cokewithvanilla wrote: »

I believe when you download from itunes you can choose mp3 or apple lossless, I don't know if it costs more or something or if some music isnt available in lossless (I hate itunes).

No. Apple does not sell lossless files on iTunes. All files for sale are lossy.

I use Apple lossless for my iPod since I have a Wadia dock, which allows me to bypass the iPod $2.00 DAC. I use iTune software on my PC to copy the CD, and compress it into Apple lossless.

Apple lossless is a compression method to reduce the file size in order to save space. When the file is uncompressed it is bit for bit identical to the file on the CD. It gives an approximate 40-50% file size reduction compared to an uncompressed file. Think of it as allowing you to have twice as many songs stored in the same space.


Also, somebody above was thinking because an Apple lossless file size was close to an MP3 file size, the Apple lossless is the same as MP3.

That makes no sense. The file size is irrelevent. What matters is if all the bits are present and correct when the file is uncompressed. MP3 removes bits from the music. This information is lost, and can never be recovered. That is why it is a 'lossy' format.