Car Audio Advice from the Audio Gurus: Use "Search thread" before posting a new Q!

[JayD]

Originally Posted by amit_mechengg

@ SAM Sir,
Believe me sir, i too think usb should sound clear. but cd produces sounds in all frequencies while usb omits the higher frequencies , the tweeters sound empty

How is that possible?/ AFAIK, the usb acts as only a storage medium. It does nothing to enhance or modify the sound.

[amit_mechengg]

Originally Posted by JayD

How is that possible?/ AFAIK, the usb acts as only a storage medium. It does nothing to enhance or modify the sound.

i mean to say that the HU which produces the sound through these mediums sounds differently with usb and CD

[speedzak]

Originally Posted by amit_mechengg

i mean to say that the HU which produces the sound through these mediums sounds differently with usb and CD

Are you saying that it sounds different in Audio CD? That is obvious. And I'm of the opinion that whatever external storage media you connect to your HU and whatever format you play, nothing can match a good quality Audio CD.
SACD, DVD-AUDIO etc.. umm umm! I'm not capable to speak of those.

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by hrsraghav

I would say the overall quality goes down, I can't say about bitrate, but it sounds like the track is not picking all the frequencies of music.

This can still be caused by #3 and 4 - do check if they are responsible

[praveen_v]

Originally Posted by amit_mechengg

i have the same song written on a disc and the same song copied to USB. yes i too observe the same thing. some frequencies, i think mostly the higher ones are lost as i feel lack in trebble and frequencies heard from tweeters.

Originally Posted by hrsraghav

I would say the overall quality goes down, I can't say about bitrate, but it sounds like the track is not picking all the frequencies of music.

Originally Posted by amit_mechengg

@ SAM Sir,
Believe me sir, i too think usb should sound clear. but cd produces sounds in all frequencies while usb omits the higher frequencies , the tweeters sound empty

How can it sound different?? CD or USB they just hold the data and it's the HU that does the decoding after reading the Binary data from the source. Now unless the HU uses two different decoders there is going to be NO difference in the sound output and it's unlikely that anyone will use different decoders for different sources. Just does not make any sense.

If at all there is any differnce then the USB source must sound better since the bit- errors while reading will be less in USB as compared to the CD.

Originally Posted by alto99

Pioneers normally have different memories for equalizers for different sources. Have you checked equalizer settings for CD and USB?.
There is also SLA (source level adjustment) check that also.

This seems to be a good suggestion. Check this out.

Also which USB drive are you using?? Good quality ones like Memorex, Corsair, lexar or cheap ones like Transcend, iBall etc??

Maybe if someone can try out playing the same song from USB drives of different make and report difference in Sound output(if any) will help in identifying the source of the problem

@Veb: I think you have a corsair drive. How is your CD/USB output for the same song?? Do you notice any difference??

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by speedzak

Are you saying that it sounds different in Audio CD? That is obvious.

No zak, read again.

Originally Posted by hrsraghav

The songs played from USB are not that good compared to the same songs of same bit rate from a CD (copied from same location).

Originally Posted by praveen_v

which USB drive are you using?? Good quality ones like Memorex, Corsair, lexar or cheap ones like Transcend, iBall etc??

Maybe if someone can try out playing the same song from USB drives of different make and report difference in Sound output(if any) will help in identifying the source of the problem

Praveen,
Transcend makes good quality memory, comparable to Kingston and Sandisk and Lexar, IMO.
BUT I can assure you - no brand of USB pendrive can deteriorate the sound. Impossible.

[vid6639]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Praveen,
Transcend makes good quality memory, comparable to Kingston and Sandisk and Lexar, IMO.
BUT I can assure you - no brand of USB pendrive can deteriorate the sound. Impossible.

What if one USB drive is an older USB 1.1 whereas the other is a USB 2.0 one. In which case the access rate may make a teeny weeny difference. Ofcourse this is assuming that the HU is USB2.0.

[praveen_v]

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Praveen,
Transcend makes good quality memory, comparable to Kingston and Sandisk and Lexar, IMO.
BUT I can assure you - no brand of USB pendrive can deteriorate the sound. Impossible.

I agree with you sam, there should be NO difference in sound output. Even I'm wondering how some are reporting this issue.

I beleive transcend has different versions of Drives (Jetfalsh and so on) maybe with different read/write speeds.

But the read/write speeds differ with each manufacturer i am sure.

Originally Posted by vid6639

What if one USB drive is an older USB 1.1 whereas the other is a USB 2.0 one. In which case the access rate may make a teeny weeny difference. Ofcourse this is assuming that the HU is USB2.0.

A usb 1.1 has a theoretical read speed of 12 Mbits per sec which equals to 10x reading from a cd (I just used google to take these values which I assume are reliable)
Now if a HU and USB are 2.0 compatible, then the CD will not stand a chance. The USB will simply trash it with it's read speed.

However if either the HU or the USB is 1.1, then the cd read spead comes into picture as i said earlier. But I strongly beleive that the PIO hu's and the USB are 2.0 compatible.

So it beats me as to why there is a difference in output

[amit_mechengg]

i think its the HU which decodes the binary data from either CD or USB. i dont thing the quality of usb drive used makes difference in the playing of the songs. but there is some difference as how the HU decodes from these sources of storage of media.

1. I have a pioneer HU 5050 model.
2. I have a mp3 disc burnt at 24X writing speed with some hindi songs, some are will good amount of treble.
3. I have a transcend 1 GB memory stick and also a 40 GB hitachi HDD which have same songs stored in them.
4. when i play a song stored on a cd then the tweeters on my JBL gto 937 play the high frequency sounds as well as trebble is more.
5. when i play the same song from USB i feel the tweeters are not producing much sound. also the treble is less. but there is very negligible difference in bass. the bass remains the same.
6. i can conclude from my observations that higher frequencies are lost somewhere in the process of conversion or reading of the data.

Navin Sir, Please creep in.

[greenhorn]

praveen, If my experiences with discmans are anything to go by, the read a chunk of data into a buffer, spin down, and then wait until the cached data is played before spinning up, reading , and spinning down again. So either way, i dont think it should make a difference.

[navin]

Originally Posted by praveen_v

So it beats me as to why there is a difference in output

The D-A converter is the weakest link.

[praveen_v]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

praveen, If my experiences with discmans are anything to go by, the read a chunk of data into a buffer, spin down, and then wait until the cached data is played before spinning up, reading , and spinning down again. So either way, i dont think it should make a difference.

Yes man, CD is slow. I agree. Theoretically it might match the USB 1.1 @ 10x but practically it will fall way behind.

Originally Posted by navin

The D-A converter is the weakest link.

But the CD is also digital. A bit read by the cd and by the USB are same so why the difference due to "source"??

Originally Posted by amit_mechengg

i think its the HU which decodes the binary data from either CD or USB. i dont thing the quality of usb drive used makes difference in the playing of the songs. but there is some difference as how the HU decodes from these sources of storage of media.

that's what I was saying. In a good design, everything from the read buffer to sound decoding to output should be same. only the method of filling the read buffers will vary depending on the source.

if a HU uses two different decoders for 2 different sources for the same file type, it is not a good design IMO. Only a waste of development time and cost.

If the HU

[hrsraghav]

Originally Posted by amit_mechengg

i think its the HU which decodes the binary data from either CD or USB. i dont thing the quality of usb drive used makes difference in the playing of the songs. but there is some difference as how the HU decodes from these sources of storage of media.

1. I have a pioneer HU 5050 model.
2. I have a mp3 disc burnt at 24X writing speed with some hindi songs, some are will good amount of treble.
3. I have a transcend 1 GB memory stick and also a 40 GB hitachi HDD which have same songs stored in them.
4. when i play a song stored on a cd then the tweeters on my JBL gto 937 play the high frequency sounds as well as trebble is more.
5. when i play the same song from USB i feel the tweeters are not producing much sound. also the treble is less. but there is very negligible difference in bass. the bass remains the same.
6. i can conclude from my observations that higher frequencies are lost somewhere in the process of conversion or reading of the data.

Navin Sir, Please creep in.

i too think it has to do with how HU is decoding from a CD and a USB.
Maybe HU has diff algorithms, electronics for decoding music from a USB compared to a CD.
Also USB interface is relatively new in HU, compared to a computer.
maybe the electronics in HU is primarily desgned for a CD, and the for a USB track decoding the electrmocs are not that refined right now(i mean in a HU, not in a computer)

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by vid6639

What if one USB drive is an older USB 1.1 whereas the other is a USB 2.0 one. In which case the access rate may make a teeny weeny difference. Ofcourse this is assuming that the HU is USB2.0.

But I repeat, data transfer rate cannot translate into poor audio quality. If the data transfer rate is slower than required, it will result in a skip (a data skip, if you will) it will NOT translate to poor sound quality.

[alto99]

Please guys check the equalizers and SLA on your Pioneers.
I had similar problems with cassette player and aux input. Though the sources were not exactly same, I could tweak the equalizers differently to bring out similar sound outputs.