question about SQ on media servers, ps3's, apple tv's, squeezeboxes, etc.

[mike c]

if I stream my music through wifi from say a 320kbps mp3 from my HD, does SQ suffer? I mean do the media servers downgrade the quality or can they stream even 1411kbps wav files with no music degradation?

 

[davidtwotrees]

I'm not sure what you mean by downgrade. When I rip a cd into my Escient Fireball, it asks me what bit rate I want to record at. I always chose 320 (the highest offered). Once the cd is on the hard drive at that bitrate, the only way to alter it would be to delete the file and rerip it at a lower rate.

If you are asking about sq.......I honestly can't tell the difference in two channel playback from a cd and my 320 rips........if there is a diff it is very minute. Now, the 120? kbps sounds terrible and is another story.....

 

[Davemcc]

I rip everything into my Fireball at 192K. I have yet to try the 320k option but I will soon to see if I can hear a difference. In terms of actual streaming, I've only streamed from my PC to PS3 and the SQ seemed very good, at least as good if not better than my 192K Fireball rips.

 

[MDS]

The act of streaming the music won't change the bitstream so from that perspective it will not be downgraded. However, it has to be streamed in real time so any interruptions could cause drop outs in the music. There will be zero problems with a wired connection but wi-fi can be prone to interference from cordless phones and the microwave (802.11b at least).

My laptop used to drop the connection every time the phone rang. Since I moved to 802.11g I haven't had any issues.

 

[mike c]

thanks guys.
im not talking about audiophile SQ, but resolution SQ. i thought media servers would dumb down the resolution of the songs to be able to stream the music fast. (kinda like movie previews in dumber and dumber resolution for those with slow internet connections)

 

[ParadigmDawg]

The SQ should not change as the streaming is bit for bit, the same as you produced the files. I use high bit WAV files and stream from my PS3 which sounds great but as mentioned above, there are some interuptions (planes flying over seem to cut the sound). When critical listening, I use an external hard drive to house and play all my music, for casual listening, I stream.

 

[mike c]

thanks. i started re-ripping my cd's yesterday to make sure i didn't miss any. when choosing between wav or 320, i chose 320kbps.

i also ordered a 500GB mybook from western digital since I realized when collecting my CD's that I would never exceed 500GB and even if I did in the future, I'd just get a second one.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

Why would you use 320? WAV bitrate is 1411kbps.

thanks. i started re-ripping my cd's yesterday to make sure i didn't miss any. when choosing between wav or 320, i chose 320kbps.

i also ordered a 500GB mybook from western digital since I realized when collecting my CD's that I would never exceed 500GB and even if I did in the future, I'd just get a second one.

 

[mike c]

right, i was looking at the filenames and thought wav doesn't really have an id3 tag available? did I assume correct?

 

[Warpdrv]

thanks. i started re-ripping my cd's yesterday to make sure i didn't miss any. when choosing between wav or 320, i chose 320kbps.

i also ordered a 500GB mybook from western digital since I realized when collecting my CD's that I would never exceed 500GB and even if I did in the future, I'd just get a second one.

Hey mike you might want to cancel that order on the Mybook thing... and do some reading before its too late....

I have read they have some serious problems over the network and bandwidth is a major problem... I chose to go a different route... I ended up with a DLink http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=509 and stuffed a couple of terabyte each drives in it... streaming is flawless...

With 2 500gig drives, you could probably be in the same price range...

 

[mike c]

Hey mike you might want to cancel that order on the Mybook thing... and do some reading before its too late....

I have read they have some serious problems over the network and bandwidth is a major problem... I chose to go a different route... I ended up with a DLink http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=509 and stuffed a couple of terabyte each drives in it... streaming is flawless...

With 2 500gig drives, you could probably be in the same price range...

uh oh. my order should arrive on monday. my bro ordered the my book essential a few weeks ago. the one i ordered is the studio edition (just because I like silver)

will do some reading though. thanks for the heads up.

 

[gus6464]

I stream uncompressed wav, apple lossless, aiff, and mp3s through my wireless network with my airport express and I get no dropouts or degradation of quality whatsoever. You would be surprised at how much of an easy load it is to stream music over a network. Any good router like the linksys WRT54G will suffice.

 

[Warpdrv]

uh oh. my order should arrive on monday. my bro ordered the my book essential a few weeks ago. the one i ordered is the studio edition (just because I like silver)

will do some reading though. thanks for the heads up.

I hope I am wrong... Maybe it was just the difficulty of streaming movies, and music won't be an issue... I don't like to throw wrenches into the mix like that, but I have read issues of the MyBooks and thought you should at least be aware...

 

[Warpdrv]

I stream uncompressed wav, apple lossless, aiff, and mp3s through my wireless network with my airport express and I get no dropouts or degradation of quality whatsoever. You would be surprised at how much of an easy load it is to stream music over a network. Any good router like the linksys WRT54G will suffice.

Agree, streaming music is not very taxing on a wireless network, but that wasn't
the issue I was warning about... it was the MyBook that presents issues, throughput is problematic.