General Forum

Re: iTunes, Airport, Direct....and my new BL2

mfirst — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 11:17:29 GMT

listen to a little of everything.

dont use the lineout for much.

-michael

Re: iTunes, Airport, Direct....and my new BL2

jk1002 — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 11:02:56 GMT

I use Itunes AAC at 192. I gave up on the line out on my macs, both powerbook and imac sound horrible with my beolab 2 and 3.

It's OK though through Airport Express.

The 192 was a compromise for casual listening so that I could fit enough tunes on my Ipod. If I would restart today, I would probably use a higher rate.

What sort of music are you listening to? That may also have an impact.

Cheers

Re: iTunes, Airport, Direct....and my new BL2

soundproof — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:43:25 GMT

No - it's not. The problem is clearer now.

The CDs you are playing are being converted from their full bitrate, which I believe is about 1411kb/s, you're comparing that with mp3 which can be encoded from 128kb/s and up. They will sound different, and should. As you increase compression, you'll lose details, reduce the dynamic range, etc.

There are a few possible solutions, but given the high quality of the equipment you are playing through, I would recommend that you either accept that it will reveal these differences, or else work to eliminate them.

1. Ensure that you have at least 320kb/s set as your compression rate when transferring CDs to iTunes. Preferably use lossless encoding - this will give you smaller files that contain all the information on your CDs.

2. Consider using a stand-alone DAC between your AE and the BS9000. The DAC can convert the optical Toslink output from the AE to an analog signal that you feed to the AUX on your BS9000.

The sound cards in both the Mac and the AE are not very good, and do not convert to audiophile standard.

Make sure that you have Equalizer and all sound enhancers switched off in your Mac/iTunes -- if you have any EQ effects set you'll degrade the signal further.

Re: iTunes, Airport, Direct....and my new BL2

mfirst — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:39:55 GMT

Thank you Peter - interesting on the differences at the high end with 128 vs 160 (and greater). It was hard to tell, but most of my encoding is with iTunes - any thoughts on that?

-michael

Re: iTunes, Airport, Direct....and my new BL2

mfirst — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:35:46 GMT

I typically will play iTunes through an Airport express which is connected to the Aux input on my BS3200.

My MP3 are encoded at all different rates.

Is the mini-jack (i.e. Powerbook soundcard) any better?

-michael

Re: iTunes, Airport, Direct....and my new BL2

soundproof — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:08:01 GMT

How are you set up?

Are you playing with a standard minijack out from the airport (wire) to the AUX in or similar on your B&O?

Describe the setup.

Re: iTunes, Airport, Direct....and my new BL2

Peter — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:06:03 GMT

I suppose it depends on your encoder, but low frequencies are not usually the problem, rather it is high frequencies. However I would try recording at varying compressions and at lossless and see if you can tell them apart when double blind. What is your CD source? Could it be the soundcard on your Mac?

See here for a paper on MP3 frequency response.

iTunes, Airport, Direct....and my new BL2

mfirst — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:28:49 GMT

Since I got my new BL2 I have really been enjoying the "feel" of my music. However - when I play directly from CD is sounds much fuller than when I use iTunes with or without (direct connect from Powerbook) my airport. These are all MP3 of various encoding rates. Does anyone know the frequency response of itunes or mp3? Am I just loosing (not transmitting or encoding) the lower frequencies that the BL2 would normally play. I tried search for these answer, but to little avail.

-michael