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What do people use to play Mp3's?

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Oh crud, you mean there is a way to play MP3's? I was just collecting them. And let me be the first to say- Napster have no chance to survive make your time.
 
How can people even attempt to listen mp3s with WMP 6.4??? I mean, that is the biggest PoS ever. THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE AN EQUALIZER!!!

I use winamp with my own EQ filter. Its good enough for my current soundcard/speakers, althoug I guess I should get MAD when I get a Live! +ACS56
 
I use an old *.MP3 Player on my PC that was developed as a multi-OS MP3 player: MaPlay 1.A. It was one of the first MP3 players out there; I've been using it since 1996.

On the go, I use my MP3/CD player, the Lenoxx 786.
 
i tried winamp + MAD + DFX and i still find audioactive better for my taste. maybe i should try more songs for valid comparison.,.
 
MAD + DFX on winamp is pretty sweet. My 96 kbps buffet mp3's get a huge quality boost.

Most of my mp3's are encoded at 192 kbps, but I can still hear a diff.
 
been there done that, audioactive for me. taz, would you take your time trying out audioactive? IMO it sounds better than winamp/MAD/dfx, but that could be jsut me
 
Does the mad decoder get rid of skips? Using Winamp 2.65 w/ Win2K Pro and my MP3's skip, something like once every 30 seconds. Running w/ DX7 right now, thinking of going to DX8a since it doesn't look like a DX prob. I've tried tweaking my buffer settings too and caching the entire song, no go.
 


<< been there done that, audioactive for me. taz, would you take your time trying out audioactive? IMO it sounds better than winamp/MAD/dfx, but that could be jsut me >>


You bet. I'll download right now.
 
Taz,

Let me know what you feel regarding Audioactive. I am not at home right now so I can't listen objectively (laptop speakers at work!) and am curious as to your thoughts. You and I generally agree on these things.

dm
 
Okay I just tested it and I must say my findings are not good. Going from the Winamp with the plugins to Audioactive was like going from vinyl to AM radio. The bass was hugely pronounced, flabby and slow. The midrange was okay but rather recalcitrant. And as for the highs if there had been any I could comment on them. It's almost like evrything above 7K was completely shelved and closed in. I also found the soundstage collapsed rather dramatically. The Winamp just appears more accurate and palpable. A worthy experiment but I will not be switching. YMMV.
 
DFX fidelity option generates tons of 'hiss' or 'jitter' on my setup. could it be that my shotty opal50's aint up to the standards? beats me 🙁
 
&quot;Yep. I have a JVC receiver and pretty damn decent speakers hooked up to my computer and without these enhancements, my speakers really show that MP3s are waaaaaaaay less than CD quality.&quot;

Might just be me, but I think your MP3 files probably aren't high enough bit rate, the original encoding really sucks, or else your hardware just isn't up to par. This may be especially true if you're using the analogue outputs of your sound card. Even the SB Live! Platinum's analogue output is nowhere near the quality of any of my better stereo equipment. Using the digital output on that card vs. the analogue output is like night and day.

I encode all my own MP3s. I have found that I cannot RELIABLY differentiate the original CD from an MP3 encoded at the maximum quality settings (Audioactive CBR 256 or Xing VBR up to 320), played either using Winamp (without MAD) through an SB AWE 64 Gold and SB Live! Platinum via digital output or using an Apex MP3/DVD player again via digital output. They are hooked up to a Kenwood 1080VR with digital input and compared directly against the original CD using my RCA DVD player, hooked up via an optical digital output, and output to Paradigm Monitor 7 tower speakers.

I can even flip back and forth from the original CD and the MP3, because I can start them simultaneously on two different players for comparison's sake. They all sound about the same to me. I even tried the supposedly crappy Xing player, and it sounded fine to me.

But, I will try that MAD plug-in and see if it makes a difference.

Now, encoding is a different story. At the max settings, all of the main encoders sound pretty good for most stuff. But at 128 Kbps CBR, Xing truly sucks. However, I still use Xing's AudioCatalyst at the max setting simply because it's so simple to use. I have tried Lame and Blade but they are a pain to use, so I don't use them.
 


<< I cannot RELIABLY differentiate the original CD from an MP3 encoded at the maximum quality settings (Audioactive CBR 256 or Xing VBR up to 320), played either using Winamp (without MAD) through an SB AWE 64 Gold and SB Live! Platinum via digital output or using an Apex MP3/DVD player again via digital output. They are hooked up to a Kenwood 1080VR with digital input and compared directly against the original CD using my RCA DVD player, hooked up via an optical digital output, and output to Paradigm Monitor 7 tower speakers >>



If you're using Xing at 320 kbps you're doing two things. You are lowering the quality of your original CD recording, and you are wasting disk space. Xing's encoding is horrible in the high frequencies, try listening to a signal sweep with xing even at 320, your sound gets mutilated! It simply can't encode properly. The better encoders can encode 256kbps mp3's without a detectable loss in quality from the original CD source. I've done the exact same tests you've done and have made some interesting findings.



<< I have tried Lame and Blade but they are a pain to use, so I don't use them. >>



Have you tried using RazorLAME or Extract Audio Copy?

EAC is the best cd ripper available. It can integrate directly with LAME and do on-the-fly encoding once you've ripped the track. If you already have the WAVs, RazorLAME is a front end for LAME which will do batch processing if you want to do multiple CDs of encoding at once.

LAME and EAC will warrant the best quality possible. I highly suggest reading The r3mix Files for an AWESOME analysis regarding CD quality mp3's, you'll be quite surprised at what you might find. I've found this to be the most unbiased/best reading regarding mp3 quality on the internet. He uses actual facts and analyzations to come up with his results. Definitely worth reading.

dm
 
I don't encode at 320. I encode at VBR up to 320, which usually ends up averaging about at 190.

I am aware of that r3mix website, and have actually had a bit of correspondence with one guy there (a year ago) if I remember correctly. Measured tests are VERY useful, but in the end, it is my ears that are the most important to me. The point is I don't listen to signal sweeps so it's not very relevant. After all, MP3 is a convenience format for me - I do own all the original CDs after all. I did say though that Xing is as good for most stuff. I don't make any claims that it's perfect - just fast and convenient.

As for the other software, I'll check them out. RazorLAME doesn't look like it would suit my needs, but EAC looks interesting now. I had checked it out a long time ago, but back then it was not as flexible as AudioCatalyst 2.1.

By the way, with the best settings, how fast can you encode with EAC? With my Celeron 880, I can encode at about 12X on the fly with my best drive, or about 14X with my other one. Speed of encoding is of high importance to me, since I have several hundred CDs that I'll need to encode.

What I have discovered though, the original CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive is an important a choice as the actual MP3 encoding software.

After testing several, my best one is still my Panasonic CR-584B drive - no &quot;jitter&quot; correction software or extra jitter-correction hardware (in some Plextors) required, and is still better than many drives (like the Pioneer 104S) which are supposedly top notch drives.
 


<< By the way, with the best settings, how fast can you encode with EAC? >>



With my Kenwood 72x drive I can rip at about 16x, then I have to encode after that, I think I average 8-10x overall (LAME also has MMX extensions to make it faster now since I noticed that you have a Celeron) but the quality trade-off is worth it. I generally use LAME's VBR (Xing's sounds terrible to me) from 128-320 joint stereo and average 155-190kbps. The new routines in some of the later versions of LAME (Such as 3.87) make it probably the best VBR encoder out there. Definitely give EAC a try. It's definitely the best ripper available.

dm
 
i am a bit off topic here, but does anyone here have any experience with pioneer vsx453 and opal50s by any chance? any way to tweak them up?
 
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