Digital Music - Plain and Simple, What's the best way to do it for purity of sound?

[WifesPissed]

But what about the transport? MP3 goes out PCM over S/PDIF to the DAC. Some formats, such as DVDs go over AC-3. I think CD's (WAV?) go out PCM.

While DVD/CD's (through a standalone DVD/CD player) sound just great via S/PDIF, my MP3s via a media player in a windows PC via S/PDIF sounds like crap into the same DAC. A burned MP3 "data" disc sounds great from the standalone player but from the PC based media player is does not sound good. This is an ongoing puzzle for me.

I've looked into Dolby Digital Live but to send the MP3 via AC-3 but have not tried it nor am I certain this is a problem.

I can't answer your question, but I'm giving you rep for that screen name. Awesome.

SheepStar

Thanks, reality is great inspiration.

 

[rnatalli]

While DVD/CD's (through a standalone DVD/CD player) sound just great via S/PDIF, my MP3s via a media player in a windows PC via S/PDIF sounds like crap into the same DAC. A burned MP3 "data" disc sounds great from the standalone player but from the PC based media player is does not sound good. This is an ongoing puzzle for me.

What's the output setting of the CD/DVD player? Is it Raw Bitstream or something else? The answer will help narrow down the possibilities.

 

[WifesPissed]

What's the output setting of the CD/DVD player? Is it Raw Bitstream or something else? The answer will help narrow down the possibilities.

I will check later tonight. For generic purposes, what should it be and do pc based media players tend to output differently?

 

[808htfan]

...While DVD/CD's (through a standalone DVD/CD player) sound just great via S/PDIF, my MP3s via a media player in a windows PC via S/PDIF sounds like crap into the same DAC. A burned MP3 "data" disc sounds great from the standalone player but from the PC based media player is does not sound good. This is an ongoing puzzle for me....

Maybe the sound card in the PC resampled the signal to 48KHz or 96KHz or whatever and did a poor job? Some don't/can't output 44.1KHz, I think.

 

[sparky77]

As far as the format you use to encode your cd's to, mp3 at 320kbs or high quality vbr should work fine, nearly as well as flac, and save some hd space.

If your intent is to play music from a computer either form of spdif including toslink fiberoptic or coaxial will yield nearly identical results, depends on what soundcards are available to you. The spdif connection is capable of passing ac3 for as far as I know, and any basic HT reciever should do a good enough job decoding the digital signal unless you are gifted with "THE GOLDEN EARS."

I myself use Winamp for my music media player, though some websites claim there is a level of digital distortian involved with the volume control so the recommendation is to set it to full volume. I have my volume set at 33% and cant say I've ever heard any difference in the sound quality besides not overloading my homebuilt dac, which may be at fault.

If you would like tutorials on using the free program cdex for ripping cd's to lame mp3 or flac, I'm sure I could find the links for you.

 

[tbewick]

...What DAC (usually a pre-amp, such as a B&K, with S/PDIF)?

I'm under the impression that most modern DACs should have excellent performance. For guidance, you can look for frequency response, which should be around 20 Hz - 20 kHz, +/-0.5 dB, a dynamic range of around 90 dB, and good low-level linearity (for details on these tests, see the book below). Note that many manufacturers do not provide reliable test information on their products, so you should look for independent test data.

Dunn, J. (2003). "Measurement Techniques for Digital Audio", Audio Precision Application Note #5, Audio Precision.
http://ap.com/library/technotes.htm

 

[B3Nut]

But what about the transport? MP3 goes out PCM over S/PDIF to the DAC. Some formats, such as DVDs go over AC-3. I think CD's (WAV?) go out PCM.

While DVD/CD's (through a standalone DVD/CD player) sound just great via S/PDIF, my MP3s via a media player in a windows PC via S/PDIF sounds like crap into the same DAC. A burned MP3 "data" disc sounds great from the standalone player but from the PC based media player is does not sound good. This is an ongoing puzzle for me.QUOTE]


Check your sound card settings, Windows apparently likes to attempt to resample audio to 48KHz unless your driver lets you force it to stay at 16/44.1. On my Vista machine I had the option to lock it at 16/44.1, so I did. My XP machine has an M-Audio interface, and there are several rates at which it can be locked. I've read complaints about Windows's sample rate conversion, so you might want to look into that as the potential gotcha spot.

 

[bandphan]

With mp3 you will not notice a difference after 192kbs. Remember that Mp3 scores the lowest consistantly in bechmark test versus other lossy formats. Mps encoding at any rate is Not as good as flac. make sure the resolution is set to 16(not 8 or 16float or 32) Mp3 is a poor format in general. Tweaking your sound card settings, and optional players will help in sound improvement, but as stated most pc sound cards are ok, but have limitations.

 

[MDS]

Mp3 encoding at any rate is Not as good as flac.

But let's be fair. FLAC is simply a lossless data compression format and is therefore the original uncompressed wav after decoding. MP3 is a lossy perceptual coding format that performs data reduction by throwing out what its model deems to be inaudible. If the original was of poor sound quality the FLAC and MP3 will be equally bad.

 

[jcPanny]

Data transmission

There are the two critical steps for a digital audio source:
1. The source material and encoding/compression format.
2. The Digital to Analog (D/A) conversion stage.

It is irrelevant whether the digital data is transferred via digital optical, digital coax, or wireless between these two stages. This transmission does not effect the data or the sound quality.

Using the PC as a source speceifically you could use sound card with a bitperfect optical audio output. I bought a Chaintech card for <$30 for my PC. Connect this to a digital input on your receiver or pre-amp.
Alternately, if you have a low end receiver, you might get better results using an Analog output from an M-Audio or other quality PC sound card connected to an Analog input on the receiver.

More important than all these factors, however, is the quality of the speakers and to some extent, the quality of the amplification stage.

 

[WifesPissed]

There are the two critical steps for a digital audio source:
1. The source material and encoding/compression format.
2. The Digital to Analog (D/A) conversion stage.

It is irrelevant whether the digital data is transferred via digital optical, digital coax, or wireless between these two stages. This transmission does not effect the data or the sound quality.

Using the PC as a source speceifically you could use sound card with a bitperfect optical audio output. I bought a Chaintech card for <$30 for my PC. Connect this to a digital input on your receiver or pre-amp.
Alternately, if you have a low end receiver, you might get better results using an Analog output from an M-Audio or other quality PC sound card connected to an Analog input on the receiver.

More important than all these factors, however, is the quality of the speakers and to some extent, the quality of the amplification stage.

My setup is a B&K DD 5.1 preamp, Soundcraftsman MA5002 amp, and some vintage Infinity RS speakers. So my analog side should be able to handle anything the digital pushes out.

I will look into that bitperfect audio thing...

 

[Seth V]

Yes, what's your point? WAV can be compressed into FLAC, MP3, whatever. WAV is a raw format.

Curious as I am kind of new to FLAC. I used Exact Audio Copy and WinAmp to rip some CD's I wanted to convert to FLAC. I set the encoders to FLAC on both players, and after I converted the files to FLAC I checked them in their music file folders. The one I from EAC showed the music files as WAV and the one from WinAmp showed them as WinAmp Media Files.

Is this correct? or are the files supposed to show that they are .flac?

I'm a bit confused about this.

Thanks.

 

[OttoMatic]

The one I from EAC showed the music files as WAV and the one from WinAmp showed them as WinAmp Media Files.

They show up as .flac in Windows Explorer on my systems. I don't think the conversion to FLAC occurred. In EAC, did you choose the "rip to mp3" option (or use the "mp3" button)? Although it says "mp3" it really means "whatever encoder you have specified". So, you have to use that button to use your compression. Another thing: the FLAC encoding will lag behind the actual wav rip, sometimes by quite a bit. So you may see only wavs and temp files in there for a while, and then the flacs will complete. If you can rip a CD in a few minutes, your FLAC encoding may take, say, 30 minutes to fully complete (dependent on your PC's cababilities, of course).

 

[Seth V]

They show up as .flac in Windows Explorer on my systems. I don't think the conversion to FLAC occurred. In EAC, did you choose the "rip to mp3" option (or use the "mp3" button)? Although it says "mp3" it really means "whatever encoder you have specified". So, you have to use that button to use your compression. Another thing: the FLAC encoding will lag behind the actual wav rip, sometimes by quite a bit. So you may see only wavs and temp files in there for a while, and then the flacs will complete. If you can rip a CD in a few minutes, your FLAC encoding may take, say, 30 minutes to fully complete (dependent on your PC's cababilities, of course).

Good to know, thank you for the info.