somewhatdamaged Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 There is a big difference in sound quality between a 320kbps MP3 and a FLAC. I encode all my MP3s with LAME 3.90.3 which is "supposed" to be the best. I don't know how an MP3 could be made to sound any better Perhaps you just need better speakers? I am personally comparing using an Asus Xonar D2X and Klipsch speakers on my PC, i don't have a mega expensive amplifier in the living room, but i would wager that a high end PC sound card can match most! As for Slim's comment regarding HDMI cables, i often chuckle myself when people say they have purchased £80 "Monster" HDMI cables! Pongo if you can't tell the difference between a 256kbps MP3 (which i would class as medium/high quality) then that's fair enough, some people just can't Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrie Stevens Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 A bit of trivia about HMV - the famous picture of the dog, captivated by sound of the phonograph was originally called "His Late Master's Voice". Even more trivia! I was at school with former HMV CEO Stuart Macallister who died about ten years ago aged 53. (If he had lived who knows?) He had a lot to do with bringing in the HMV self-service shops and Waterstones. (Now under threat) Looking at old prize days programmes he was not academic but won the Turner Award for Public Spirit. He was Head Boy but two years older than me. It was not a posh school. It was Moulsham Secondary School for Boys Princes Road, Chelmsford, Essex. (County town) Most boys left at 15 for apprenticeships but Stuart even at school had his own group, "The Roulettes". He had a couple of hits in the charts even back then and one day adopted the name "Lee Scott and the Roulettes" as the venue had limited alphabet letters to make up his name. I think he was in engineering with Volvo for a time and then used his pop-group to accesss HMV and worked his way up. Moulsham pioneered putting late developers who failed 11 and 13 plus through A Level GCE and University. I went theological. Sadly, Stuart never mentioned his humble school origins when rising through HMV. Probably not to his advantage. It was a basic school but the staff were great especially in music (not me!) and out of several who went "pro" there is Alan Danson (back room boy) who has his own website Barrie Stevens Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barrie Stevens Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 A bit of trivia about HMV - the famous picture of the dog, captivated by sound of the phonograph was originally called "His Late Master's Voice". Even more trivia! I was at school with former HMV CEO Stuart Macallister who died about ten years ago aged 53. (If he had lived who knows?) He had a lot to do with bringing in the HMV self-service shops and Waterstones. (Now under threat) Looking at old prize days programmes he was not academic but won the Turner Award for Public Spirit. He was Head Boy but two years older than me. It was not a posh school. It was Moulsham Secondary School for Boys Princes Road, Chelmsford, Essex. (County town) Most boys left at 15 for apprenticeships but Stuart even at school had his own group, "The Roulettes". He had a couple of hits in the charts even back then and one day adopted the name "Lee Scott and the Roulettes" as the venue had limited alphabet letters to make up his name. I think he was in engineering with Volvo for a time and then used his pop-group to accesss HMV and worked his way up. Moulsham pioneered putting late developers who failed 11 and 13 plus through A Level GCE and University. I went theological. Sadly, Stuart never mentioned his humble school origins when rising through HMV. Probably not to his advantage. It was a basic school but the staff were great especially in music (not me!) and out of several who went "pro" there is Alan Danson (back room boy) who has his own website Barrie Stevens Stuart played more on his (distant) conections with Newcastle rather than Chelmsford, Essex, but I can assure you that Keeper of Social History, Dot Beddenham, of the Chelmsford Museum, Oaklands Park, Moulsham Street, has a goodly file and that Stuart has in recent times been the subject of an exhibition as "local boy made good". Another Moulsham musical lad I recall is John Brennan for many years now an Australian. (Entertainment is John Brennan) He lived a few doors down from me in Juniper Drive, Chelmsford and his Dad sold Pink Paraffin off a van. He seems well known in Queensland. John B was a good long-distance runner. Can't shut them up can you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slim Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Perhaps you just need better speakers? I am personally comparing using an Asus Xonar D2X and Klipsch speakers on my PC, i don't have a mega expensive amplifier in the living room, but i would wager that a high end PC sound card can match most! That's the thing, it depends what you're playing it on and what the source is. Just because it's on CD doesn't mean it's high quality in the first place, particularly in this age where 'studio masters' are often samples on some guys laptop or something's been compressed to hell in the studio to make it 'loud'. You may want high quality listening to to your crooning in your living room, but not when you're out running with your ipod. My stuff's ripped to lame -v0 mostly, a good compromise between size, quality and portability to various media players. I listen to music on a good system at home in the living room, on the ps3/xbox360 in various different rooms, on a roku streamer, on my PC's and in the car. MP3 offers this kind of flexibility, where CD's or flac's don't. The size of my collection makes metadata invaluable too, I love smart playlists in particular. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cambon Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Uh-oh. Audiophile nonsense thread. These muppets will be telling us all to buy gold hdmi cables any second now. I guess you have a cheapie £2.99 job then? Are you sure it is working correctly? Are you sure every one of the 40 tiny connections are actually connected? If it is a budget one it may only have the basic data connections. The problem with cheap HDMI cables is the connections and plugs, also sometimes cheap internal wiring that snaps when bent. Ok, spending £80 on a Monster one is pretty pointless, but so is buying a cheap one. But if you are happy with it...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slim Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 I guess you have a cheapie £2.99 job then? Are you sure it is working correctly? Are you sure every one of the 40 tiny connections are actually connected? If it is a budget one it may only have the basic data connections. What would be the consequences of a non connected connector? The problem with cheap HDMI cables is the connections and plugs, also sometimes cheap internal wiring that snaps when bent. Ok, spending £80 on a Monster one is pretty pointless, but so is buying a cheap one. But if you are happy with it...... In the unlikely event that a 2 quid cable snaps, I can get another 2 quid cables. Coming from IT, the concept of cheap (eg sata) cables that reliably transfer much more data than hdmi isn't unusual. The gold plated nonsense is just to sell people that imagine they can hear and see better if they spend more money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
somewhatdamaged Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 If it's digital then it either works or it doesn't The only difference is in quality of build like you said, no point going too cheap if the build quality is absolutely shit. a £100 gold plated cable won't give a better picture than a "working as intended" £5.99 cable. As long as it's got the things you need (HDMI1.3 or 1.4) then that's all you need Slim, you're right, FLAC is not much use for portable. I use 320kbit MP3s for my ipod and FLACs for on my PC and media centre in my living room Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cambon Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 What would be the consequences of a non connected connector? Certain additional functions may not work. For example, if you put your TV in standby it should should automatically put your bluray in standby. Nothing particularly critical yet, but nice to have. Other ancilliary functions will and are coming along. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cambon Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 If it's digital then it either works or it doesn't Not all of the pins have digital finctions though, and the cable will actually work in a basic, acceptible form with around half of them connected up. Slim, you're right, FLAC is not much use for portable. I use 320kbit MP3s for my ipod and FLACs for on my PC and media centre in my living room Yes, FLAC is very good but most players cannot play them or resolve the data properly, as I said before. All MP3s sound poor to me. Up to 128 is not even worth mentioning. Even above that, the sound is two dimensional and tinny. Even connected to a better DA and vacuum tube pre-amp to try to add warmth and take away some of the tinnyness, you cannot get back the soundstage. This does not matter to most people, but it does to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terse Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Do any of you technophile bores happen to have any spare gramophone needles? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slim Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Certain additional functions may not work. For example, if you put your TV in standby it should should automatically put your bluray in standby. Nothing particularly critical yet, but nice to have. Other ancilliary functions will and are coming along. That's not correct though. It's a digital interface with sets of pins used for different data channels. A single pin isn't assigned a single function like the one described above, messages to downstream units are handled along the data bus, which will either work, or not. The quality of the cable won't really make a difference. Basic acceptable form with half the pins? What on earth are you on about? The only valid argument for high quality cables that I know of is if you want to extend the distances offered by the standard cables, but most of us don't want to do that. Vacuum tube pre-amp, lol! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arronc Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 If it's digital then it either works or it doesn't The only difference is in quality of build like you said, no point going too cheap if the build quality is absolutely shit. a £100 gold plated cable won't give a better picture than a "working as intended" £5.99 cable. As long as it's got the things you need (HDMI1.3 or 1.4) then that's all you need Not true : cheap cables will give you digital jitter. In audio, this means that because of corruption in the clock sync, you get a strange glassy sheen to digital audio with cheap cables. I dont know what effect would be viable in a picture which was experiencing jitter in the video sync, but I suspect it would look something like a overlayed noisey texture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slim Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 If it's digital then it either works or it doesn't The only difference is in quality of build like you said, no point going too cheap if the build quality is absolutely shit. a £100 gold plated cable won't give a better picture than a "working as intended" £5.99 cable. As long as it's got the things you need (HDMI1.3 or 1.4) then that's all you need Not true : cheap cables will give you digital jitter. In audio, this means that because of corruption in the clock sync, you get a strange glassy sheen to digital audio with cheap cables. I dont know what effect would be viable in a picture which was experiencing jitter in the video sync, but I suspect it would look something like a overlayed noisey texture. You're only ever going to see this in exceptional circumstances, like over ten meters or something. Pretty in depth research on this kind of thing: http://www.audioholi...testing-results "At lengths less than 4 meters you can just about use silly string (OK, not really) and get HDMI to pass at any current resolution" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pongo Posted January 7, 2011 Author Share Posted January 7, 2011 here we go .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matty Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 I can see where Cambon is coming from. I think the main issue is the majority people aren't aware of what 'good' audio sounds like these days, we have to a certain extent been 'dumbed down' by pop records and the way these are mastered & compressed in the studios. Many people listen to music online - this is rarely anywhere near as good as a decent quality FM signal, similiar issue here with the inferior audio quality of DAB radio and it's inherent reception problems thhat the Beeb seem to be wanting to ram down our throats, - if we don't know, or forget what 'good audio' sounds like, then we may have problems trying to find it in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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