Audio CD vs 320kbps mp3.. etc.,

[low_bass_makker]

Originally Posted by clipto333

LBM, two highly respected persons who know their stuff have said it. just name the person from whom you want to clarify. who are the other audiophiles? ok jb, navinji, b&t please can we have your comment on lbm's question? no offence bro.

None taken Sir.

I agree here that there is a difference in Audio CD and MP3, No doubt in that. but can they tell which one of the either is playing with listening to it.

[gunbir]

Originally Posted by navin

Sure Gunbir but would you pay more if your exisitng "CD only" could also play Mp3 or other formats. Remember the caeveat "without affecting the sound of the CD output".

No I wouldn't pay more. Not a single rupee actually. Our Panny Tube HU has MP3 but we've never really used anything other than ACDs on it. Never have never will.

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by navin

the arguemnt is that why dont MOST high end systems include Mp3

Because nothing comes for free!
A manufacturer like Wadia or M-L may not:
* see the need to invest for a market segment they are not focusing on (maybe a prejudice, but it is *their* choice)
* want to increase complexity, BOM cost and chances of failure, even though they could use a general purpose CPU to handle the codec & disk directory handling
* have the expertise or people to integrate the MP3 codec and the disk directory handling at the silicon level into their controller chip

Originally Posted by abhi182

Why should a 400K DVD player be any better than a PC ..any half decent Video card with HDMI support should technically be able to blow the 400K dvd player to oblivion

That would be too much generalization.
HDMI is an interface, not a guarantee of resolution - and you have not accounted for a high-resolution (1600x1200) display to complete your hypothetical PC. Cost of a "half-decent video card" rises exponentially after the medium-fi (1280x1024) PC display cards.
End-to-end HDTV is *costly*. And no, PCs are still no match for HDTV at 1024p - try HDTV material on a high-end PC monitor and you can see the difference; also, would you like a PC in the middle of your drawing room?

[abhi182]

HDMI is an interface, not a guarantee of resolution - and you have not accounted for a high-resolution (1600x1200) display to complete your hypothetical PC. Cost of a "half-decent video card" rises exponentially after the medium-fi (1280x1024) PC display cards.
End-to-end HDTV is *costly*. And no, PCs are still no match for HDTV at 1024p - try HDTV material on a high-end PC monitor and you can see the difference; also, would you like a PC in the middle of your drawing room?

DerAlte, this is not a hypothetical PC, it's alive & kicking in my house


Anyway, let us take the Display out of the discussion...
that 400k DVD player and the hypothetical PC can be connected to the same display (whether a tiny 26" LCD or a 106" Plasma)

So with the fair assumption that the same display would be used as the output device for the 400K DVD player and the PC....why should the output of a PC running even a puny 7600GT be not better than the 400k DVD player (connected to the same 1024p HDTV)

[santosh.s]

Originally Posted by abhi182

^^yup Santosh..you missing sumthng

You need a DAC to conver the digital data stream to analog output that can then be fed to the Amp...and the qiuality of this DAC is in fact perhaps more important than the quality of the Amps...

I didn't get you... I was NOT talking about differences in cheap versus good DACs or pre-amps or amps. Because I know there can be significant differences. I was only asking about "transport" (disk reading mechanism). And I guess our understanding is same- cheap CD player should be as good as fancy one as long as it is digitally connected (coax or optical SPDIF link, or HDMI) to rest of the system and is capable of reading disks without any data errors.

most people get bad audio from PCs because they use the low grade on-board sound output

BTW, there has been great improvement in the quality of "on-board" sound cards. They were indeed quite bad say 5-6 years back, but as of now they are far better.

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by abhi182

DerAlte, this is not a hypothetical PC, it's alive & kicking in my house
Anyway, let us take the Display out of the discussion...
Let us just assume the same display (whether a tiny 26" LCD or a 106" Plasma) would be used as the output device for the 400K DVD player and the PC
So why should the output of a PC running even a puny 7600GT be not better than the 400k DVD player?

Till the VDAC output stage the issues are the same: compression and decompression losses and "gains" (the subject of discussion of this thread), right? So the drive (error rate), codec and the VDAC matter: same logic as average versus high quality Audio CD players.

Beyond that, it is a comparison of the bit drawing rates on the display (this includes the transfer rate over HDMI and the speed of the final display buffer in the monitor). The best displays available now do it at 6-8ms, frame time is 20ms for non-interlace - still comparable. Screen size matters - becomes slower as screen size increases: longer conductors, more capacitance, lesser speed!

[zucchero]

lbm,in order to differenciate between the two,one needs to listen to the set up extinsively.even the so called'audiophiles' listen to the equipments for HOURS before comin to any conclusion.
we were only for 3-5 minutes in your car and you want us to hit the spot in the blind test!!!!!!!

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by Santhosh.S

BTW, there has been great improvement in the quality of "on-board" sound cards. They were indeed quite bad say 5-6 years back, but as of now they are far better.

True, but if you want your source to be as good or better than a dedicated Wadia/ NAD or any other good dedicated CDP, you can't compare the noisy onboard sound with the quality DACs and pre-amps on a dedicated CDP

To reach or better that level, you need to invest (not much in comparison though) on a quality DAC like a M-Audio Audiophile/Transit
External DACs sit outside the electrically noisy chassis of a PC cabinet and are typically USB connected to the PC

Thus if you are playing say a FLAC or a Wav (or a mp3 for that matter), your PC (sasta as many may percieve it to be in comparison ) acts as a digital streamer only....
This digital output (Bit-perfect as some call it) goes to the external DAC which converts it to a clean analog signal and feeds it o the amp....

Originally Posted by Santhosh.S

nd I guess our understanding is same- cheap CD player should be as good as fancy one as long as it is digitally connected (coax or optical SPDIF link, or HDMI) to rest of the system and is capable of reading disks without any data errors.

Yup..pretty much!
Better still, why not just rip the CD as a wav/FLAC onto your Hard drive and simply eliminate the data error/skipping problems altogether

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Till the VDAC output stage the issues are the same: compression and decompression losses and "gains" (the subject of discussion of this thread), right? So the drive (error rate), codec and the VDAC matter: same logic as average versus high quality Audio CD players.

Beyond that, it is a comparison of the bit drawing rates on the display (this includes the transfer rate over HDMI and the speed of the final display buffer in the monitor). The best displays available now do it at 6-8ms, frame time is 20ms for non-interlace - still comparable. Screen size matters - becomes slower as screen size increases: longer conductors, more capacitance, lesser speed!

Deralte, think you are missing out on my point...
What I am trying to get at is, everything else being the same (i.e. for the same display), a 400K DVD player would be no better than a simple mid-end PC

As for the VDAC, that is the reason why I talked of HDMI since HDMI takes away the whole VDAC part out of the equation from the Video player's side

Now a binary output from a million $ device would be the same as the binary output from a $200 box....wouldn't you agree? After all the million $ device can't beautify that binary output in any way and if it does, it is doing a bad job then

[abhi182]

lbm,in order to differenciate between the two,one needs to listen to the set up extinsively.even the so called'audiophiles' listen to the equipments for HOURS before comin to any conclusion.
we were only for 3-5 minutes in your car and you want us to hit the spot in the blind test!!!!!!!

Wouldn't my car journey come to an end in those few hours?
sorry, couldn't resist that

[santosh.s]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

So the drive (error rate)...... same logic as average versus high quality Audio CD players.

Do you mean to say that cheap drives will have unacceptable error rates in order to preserve the original quality? Remember, there is a certain theoretical limit on the "quality" of any digital record (which corresponds to each single bit being correctly read, in time). No system can ever cross that.

[abhi182]

^^exactly, and also, data reads from any half decent Hard disk drive (Or better still, a solid state drive) will have better error correction and lower error rates than the best quality optical drive

[moralfibre]

Very interesting discussion. I have had a demo in some audiophile cars which include Sam, Ajay, Shrivz and EVO6. When we auditioned Sam's Verna he played MP3's and I was satisfied with the output. I wouldn't have noticed difference if he started playing an ACD first. I have had the privilege to hear Ajay's Sierra + Palio + WagonR and he auditioned his setup using MP3 CD's and I found it equally great as Sam's Verna. Same goes with Shrivz setup as well as EVO's setup.

I didn't even know that EVO's car had an HX-D2 until I saw his Audi audio thread. Now I didn't know that the HX-D2 doesn't play MP3's but only ACD's before Gunbir mentioned it somewhere on this thread. I think I need to take an extended hearing to notice differences. The point I am trying to make is most equipment I was auditioned too was done on MP3's and they sounded satisfying enough for my listening tastes.

Since Navin mentioned that adding an MP3 feature in any of these high end HU's wouldn't make a difference in SQ right? So why wouldn't manufacturers add say around $50-100 to the existing prices and give it as a feature.

How many customers does the world of car audio in India get who ask for an exclusive test of equipment on original audio cd's only?

[rocksterraghu]

A very interesting discussion indeed. I had a great time going through this entire thread and would like to just put my opinions forward:

1. (A Marketer's point of view): There is a different segment of customers targeted every time a product is planned, with a strong research and their ways of listening understood, pretty much thoroughly. So, the marketers may have realized that people who would buy a true SQ HU, would only listen to Audio CDs since they are very very meticulous about SQ and would NEVER need MP3 playback. There may be other reasons like a survey would have made them understand that a customer wanting to buy a great SQ HU already has his big collection of Audio CD's that he has collected, preserved and cherished for years and would give a damn to MP3s (which may also mean that he can always afford to buy the original Audio CD's from the store like he buys peanuts). Marketers wouldn't want their segments overlapping too much, they would rather have different products for different segments and that would make their job an awful lot easier. The HU's made for this segment would be simply dedicated to the core activity that it does, plays music to a T. Period.

2. (An Audiophile's version) If I could afford a HU that was built to be one of the best for SQ, I would never bother to play MP3's on it. I would like to make the best use of the best product and it is as simple as that. Whether I can make out the difference or not when it is crowded is out of question, I would still love to play Audio CD's and wait for those quiet patches when I could switch to my favorite track and enjoy my music in the BEST possible manner.

IMHO.

[rubin2006]

I think wave audio is better but what mp3 offers is 90 % of the same quality with 100 % of mobility like its easier to download transfer and save
it offer more songs per storage device so it has its own benefits but it cannot be as good as the pure wave track