iPod Sound Quality on Home Theaters???

[DBlackGT]

I just upgraded my whole HT. I got a Onkyo 805 and Klipsch Icon WF-35 towers and the matching Icon WC-24 Center. I upgraded from Polk Audio RTi A1 Bookshelves and the Polk Audio CSi A4 Center and from a Yamaha RX-V2500 Receiver.

On my ipod most of my songs that I purchase from itunes are encoded at 128kbps (some are 256kbps) and the songs I import from my cd's I rip at 320kbps. But now after I upgraded all my gear it seems as if the songs I bought from itunes and even some of the cd's i've ripped sounds horrible. Theres static and cracks in voices and so on. Not on every song but a lot.

So my question is once you get to a certain level/quality of speakers (not saying mine are top of the line but one of my klipsch towers cost almost twice as much as my whole polk setup so its definitely a step up) is encoding or ripping at 128kbps just out of the question? Or is it something setup wrong/have the wrong DSP on?

Or

Should I just actually buy the CD with the songs that I want on it? Or is there a place that has high quality music downloads? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Derek

[ixlegitballinxl]

try mp3gain, u can adjust the mp3 files db, etc

[DBlackGT]

so would this program be comparable to what an upconvert dvd player does for dvds?

[DBlackGT]

bummer. the whole time i was waiting for my speakers to get delivered I was so excited to listen to a few of my favorite songs in excellent audio. But now I guess i'll have to try and find some good quality CD's, dvd concerts, or some SACD's.

[richteer]

Originally Posted by DBlackGT

On my ipod most of my songs that I purchase from itunes are encoded at 128kbps (some are 256kbps) and the songs I import from my cd's I rip at 320kbps. But now after I upgraded all my gear it seems as if the songs I bought from itunes and even some of the cd's i've ripped sounds horrible. Theres static and cracks in voices and so on. Not on every song but a lot.

Not surprising. You'r enow hearing the MP3s in all their shitty glory.

Should I just actually buy the CD with the songs that I want on it?

If you want half-decent sound quality, yes.

[richteer]

Originally Posted by TObject

I guess that serious audiophiles were supposed to move to SACDs or DVD-As.

Nah, serious audiophiles stuck with vinyl. :-)

[TObject]

The problem is that as far as mastering dynamic range goes even CDs, these days, are optimized for low quality listening devices such as portable players and computer speakers. There was a good article about this in the Rolling Stone Magazine some time back.

I guess that serious audiophiles were supposed to move to SACDs or DVD-As.

[Chevypower]

Use an iPod 80Gb or 160Gb Classic, buy the CDs, rip them in to iTunes in Lossless or WAV, and re-rip your CDs in either of those formats too. in Lossless, a full CD album will be about 300MB, and about 600-700MB in full WAV. Be sure to have a digital connection from your iPod to your sound system and car stereo. This will sound as good as the original CDs, and you won't risk scratching them!

[Kaldaim]

How are you connecting your iPod to your receiver? You should be using a line-out dock to RCA (similar to this pic stolen from google image search http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...dio/bgrca2.jpg )

If you use the headphone out or a radio transmitter you are seriously degrading the quality of your tunes.

[DBlackGT]

Originally Posted by Kaldaim

How are you connecting your iPod to your receiver? You should be using a line-out dock to RCA (similar to this pic stolen from google image search http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...dio/bgrca2.jpg )

If you use the headphone out or a radio transmitter you are seriously degrading the quality of your tunes.

Ya where can I get one of those? I have never even seen that. Ive only seen the ones that for audio and video combined. Also how expensive is that cord compared to the combined audio/video one? Thanks

[DBlackGT]

Originally Posted by Chevypower

Use an iPod 80Gb or 160Gb Classic, buy the CDs, rip them in to iTunes in Lossless or WAV, and re-rip your CDs in either of those formats too. in Lossless, a full CD album will be about 300MB, and about 600-700MB in full WAV. Be sure to have a digital connection from your iPod to your sound system and car stereo. This will sound as good as the original CDs, and you won't risk scratching them!

I see. That sounds like a great idea. I have a 60GB now, but I am only concered about a few CD's sounding great not all. So this would work, I'll have to try it out. Thanks

[DBlackGT]

Originally Posted by Chevypower

Use an iPod 80Gb or 160Gb Classic, buy the CDs, rip them in to iTunes in Lossless or WAV, and re-rip your CDs in either of those formats too. in Lossless, a full CD album will be about 300MB, and about 600-700MB in full WAV. Be sure to have a digital connection from your iPod to your sound system and car stereo. This will sound as good as the original CDs, and you won't risk scratching them!

Also what about ripping in loseless or WAV and keeping them on my computer hard drive and streaming it to my PS3. Would I be losing a lot of sond qulity that way?

[Chevypower]

that would be fine i think, though, the only thing i would be worried about is the PS3 accepting a lossless file, but try it, see if it works, if not, stick with Wav 44,100khz. To give you an idea, I ripped all of mine and my wifes CD collection, in Apple Lossless, and it came up to about 50GB all up, and we have about 150 CDs between us, or to be more exact iTunes says i have 2202 songs, used 49GB, though some songs are mp3s (downloads), some are AAC iTunes, and some are WAV. But the majority are in Lossless. The only downside to lossless, it's it's not universal. But our editing programs take lossless, (iMovie, Final Cut Studio) so it suits me just fine. I could still fit about 500 of my songs on my 16GB iPhone too, only taking up about 10GB. Also when you buy CDs and rip them this way, not only do you get better quality, you also are free of DRM. My brother-in-law can't pull his iTunes bought music directly in to Final Cut, but he can bring them in to iMovie. I think buying CDs and ripping them in to iTunes gives you the best of everything.

You will only lose sound quality, if you have converted or transcoded a few times. Copying to MP4, then back to MP3, back to WAV etc. copying and streaming the native files without converting them won't affect quality.

[Kaldaim]

You can get something cheap like this that will do the trick for mp3 files http://www.superwarehouse.com/p.cfm?...GoogleShopping

But if you're planning on ripping your library to apple lossless you might want to get something higher-end like http://cgi.ebay.com/HIGH-END-iPOD-LI...d=p3286.c0.m14


I would recommend you try the product in that first link. That might be more than enough for you

[DBlackGT]

Originally Posted by Chevypower

that would be fine i think, though, the only thing i would be worried about is the PS3 accepting a lossless file, but try it, see if it works, if not, stick with Wav 44,100khz. To give you an idea, I ripped all of mine and my wifes CD collection, in Apple Lossless, and it came up to about 50GB all up, and we have about 150 CDs between us, or to be more exact iTunes says i have 2202 songs, used 49GB, though some songs are mp3s (downloads), some are AAC iTunes, and some are WAV. But the majority are in Lossless. The only downside to lossless, it's it's not universal. But our editing programs take lossless, (iMovie, Final Cut Studio) so it suits me just fine. I could still fit about 500 of my songs on my 16GB iPhone too, only taking up about 10GB. Also when you buy CDs and rip them this way, not only do you get better quality, you also are free of DRM. My brother-in-law can't pull his iTunes bought music directly in to Final Cut, but he can bring them in to iMovie. I think buying CDs and ripping them in to iTunes gives you the best of everything.

You will only lose sound quality, if you have converted or transcoded a few times. Copying to MP4, then back to MP3, back to WAV etc. copying and streaming the native files without converting them won't affect quality.

Wow, cool. Thank you. Im pretty good with computers so all this shouldnt be a problem I just never took the time to encode at a loseless or WAV file because I could honestly not justify taking up that much space for something that didnt sound that different on my home theater. But now since I upgraded all my stuff, it should be the world of a difference. Thanks again

[DBlackGT]

Originally Posted by Kaldaim

You can get something cheap like this that will do the trick for mp3 files http://www.superwarehouse.com/p.cfm?...GoogleShopping

But if you're planning on ripping your library to apple lossless you might want to get something higher-end like http://cgi.ebay.com/HIGH-END-iPOD-LI...d=p3286.c0.m14


I would recommend you try the product in that first link. That might be more than enough for you

Haha ya I think I will. $104 sounds like a lot for a iPod cable but who knows on some systems it may seem like too little. Thanks again for your links and info

[Kaldaim]

You might want to try a better connection before you re-rip your entire collection.

[Chevypower]

actually your receiver might have a direct digital iPod dock/connector, so you won't have to go through an analog connection. Some even go through USB. It's worth thinking about getting a receiver that does it, if yours doesn't do it. Even cheap ones are doing it these days.

[DBlackGT]

Originally Posted by Kaldaim

You might want to try a better connection before you re-rip your entire collection.

Ya I will.

Also this may sound stupid but just checking...playing the CD itself is the best sound right? Because If I am going to re-rip all my CD's and buy another cord the opportunity cost of just buying a 300 disc cd changer might be easier, right? Opinions would help, thanks.

[The Matador]

I don't know if you've tried changing the audio level on you ipod yet, but I find that if the ipod is at full volume it has the crackle. I usually put the ipod volume around 75% then adjust the master volume on my reciever from there.