Im not audiophile but still...

[xan K]

Anyone remember good ol' cassette players? they played a lot worse than songs at 128kbps and we were thrilled about them. how did that happened? LOL

[CrowdAds]

[MWP]

Ah, yes, but audiophiles were not using them were they

[atrax]

There is also this odd little thing called PROGRESS....

[ZenChick]

Actually, cassettes weren't really that bad - especially if you had a good deck, and recorded using HX-Pro headroom expansion. I was actually able to get some decent rips to MP3 off of some of my old cassettes.

[darogl]

Originally Posted by MWP

Ah, yes, but audiophiles were not using them were they

Well, yes and no. I'm not sure I qualify as an audiophile, but my setup back in the mid-70s was a TEAC reel to reel running through a Marantz preamp with a 700 watt Phase Linear power amp and some monster Cerwin Vega speakers. (Used to really crank on Robin Trower, Uriah Heep, Yes, & ZZ Top.)

In addition, I had a Sony 2251 turntable for getting the vinyl onto tape and a TEAC cassette deck also used to copy my albums so they didn't get played too much and start developing all those pops and crackles. (Still have the turntable although the rest is long gone.) The cassettes were played mostly in the car, but given my penchant for muscle cars at the time, I couldn't here them very well either. Tape hiss was a part of life and I guess I just learned to ignore it.

To these old ears, my ZVM and Super.fi's of today sound better than any of that stuff I spent $thousands$ on.

By the way, thanks MWP for the suggestion to turn off the equalizer. I've been playing around with settings on that ever since I got it without finding the sound I was looking for. I never thought to just turn it off. A flat sound from the ZVM with the coloring just from the Super.fi's turns out to be just to my taste.

[MWP]

Ah, reel-to-reel is a different story. The quality out of those could be a lot better than cassettes with good equipment.

With the EQ turned off, the ZVM does produce a flat freq response.
So if youve got good enough headphones/buds/canalphones (like you do darogl), there should be no need to turn the EQ on.

[ZenChick]

Well, now I'm curious to know what EQ settings would be needed to reproduce the flat response of turning the EQ off entirely.

I've done some playing around with my EQ, and I've noticed that a change in one band will affect the other bands, so it doesn't behave like a true, dedicated equalizer in that regard. Still, you can produce some very satisfactory results with it, but it just requires a bit more tweaking.

FWIW, I've found that if your music is normalized to well below clipping level, the equalizer settings have very little effect on other EQ bands. The phenomenon we're seeing may be due to the song already being close to clipping level, and the ZVM is smart enough to realize this, and makes other adjustments automatically to compensate when you take an EQ band beyond clipping.

[MWP]

Originally Posted by ZenChick

Well, now I'm curious to know what EQ settings would be needed to reproduce the flat response of turning the EQ off entirely.

Well thats what the 0 settings should do, but they dont.
I dont think you can set the EQ to give a non-EQ sound.

I've done some playing around with my EQ, and I've noticed that a change in one band will affect the other bands, so it doesn't behave like a true, dedicated equalizer in that regard...

Thats because its a "cheap" EQ.
It uses a small FFT, so its quite inaccurate.
For example, if you have all settings at 0, then modify one band, youll find it effect frequencies outside that band as well.
A lot of cheaper equipment with digital EQ's will do this.
This is why im quite disappointed as the ZVM is far from being cheap, and it does have the processing power to do better.

FWIW, I've found that if your music is normalized to well below clipping level, the equalizer settings have very little effect on other EQ bands. The phenomenon we're seeing may be due to the song already being close to clipping level, and the ZVM is smart enough to realize this, and makes other adjustments automatically to compensate when you take an EQ band beyond clipping.

I dont think so, i dont have any music that clips.

I would test this all out properly now, but my Vista PC just died.... grrrr.

[Genesius]

I was wondering lately if you guys can hear any difference in 128,160,192 or even the 320 quality of mp3 compresion(meaining comparing the same file of music in different quality compresions)

Yes....320k to 128k? Usually a difference. Personally, anything over 192k for a portable player is a waste...or at least its a decent compromise between "file size and fidelity."

I've worked in audio (production, broadcasting, studio recording and home theater)...and I usually can't hear any difference in quality comparing 128 and 192 file if encoded properly. I still believe that the biggest quality issue is having a good source from which you rip your mp3. Not all CDs are mixed/mastered to a particular standard. Most of the newer stuff is much hotter than it use to be. I'm listening to Earth, Wind & Fire right now as I type this and it sounds like an LP without the snap, crackle 'n pop....and that's a good thing. In a few minutes, I'll crank some Danko Jones (great rock a la AC/DC or Jet) and its just BUMPIN!! Both ripped from CD, same encoder and bit rate. One hot...one not.

In the end, its a matter of what your ears tell you....not your eyes. Regardless of a bit-rate or button or light or brand or graph (no slam on MWP...just sayin') you gotta go with the ears.

Am I wrong? :-o
Im really thinking about reducing my mp3 to 128 so I can have more space in my ZVM

The space difference would be neglible....though after 1000's of songs, it might give you some gains as far as storage goes.

Post any results or A/B comparisons. I'd love know what you find.

Cheers,
David

[klumsy bot]

if you choose to lower the bitrate you will lose a fair deal of sound quality; not because you are choosing a low bitrate, but because you are converting from one lossy format to another.

[MWP]

Originally Posted by Genesius

In the end, its a matter of what your ears tell you....not your eyes. Regardless of a bit-rate or button or light or brand or graph (no slam on MWP...just sayin') you gotta go with the ears.

No problem... because i can hear it.
The noise is very noticeable in quiet passages of music.