Linux Based Stereo Components 57
davidu writes "MP3.com has a really cool interview with Joseph Mesterhazy, the creator of the LCDAT Linux-based MP3 player. If you haven't seen it, it is extremely cool. The interview also talks about how open standards make projects like this easier. This is is one of the first, not vapor, stereo quality, MP3 players out there, and it runs Linux!
" I wonder how many of us have duct taped perl scripts together
for our MP3 playing.
Re:Not Empeg. I want CD not HD. (Score:1)
>A CD/DVD drive is a safer and cheaper solution.
Don't hold your breath waiting for this to happen.
The designer of the empeg said that he had considered a cdrom drive during the design of the empeg. He ruled it out because car cd components don't have data capability (so they can't read CDROM) and CDROM components aren't engineered ruggedly enough for in car usage. The are rather flimsy designs suitable only for stable desktop use.
Re:just adding to the fray (Score:1)
Re:Quality of MP3 is not the whole point (Score:1)
Certainly a true statement. Of course, this reminds me of my theory about that "girls don't care about important things." When was the last time you heard a girl say, :)
"Sure, the iMac has nice colors, but this Dell has 256 MB of RAM!" or "I just brought my Conrad-Johnson amp home; I found the bass on the Krell to be too
muddy."?
For God's sake, should you ever find a supply of these women, let me know!!! :)
Also, fwiw, I think that there are quite a number of audiophiles who might beinterested in this kind of equipment for convienience sake; notably, audiophiles that tend to leave music playing in the backgroud when they're not doing some serious listening. Of course, when the urge to really *listen* to some music comes, off go the digitally compressed tunes, and out comes the vinyl, or HDCD, or 30IPS tape, or what have you.
BTW, I would guess that much of the degridation you see in sound qualities for MP3s is due to loss of timing information. This is why it's quite easy to tell the difference between CD and analog on a good system. I wonder if anyone has taken any measurements.
Now if only they'd gone with the Sony system instead of AC3 for DVDs... maybe we would have found out how good music that's been lossily compressed could sound :/
Re:Quality of MP3 is not the whole point (Score:1)
Certainly a true statement. Of course, this reminds me of my theory about that "girls don't care about important things." When was the last time you heard a girl say, "Sure, the iMac has nice colors, but this Dell has 256 MB of RAM!" or "I just brought my Conrad-Johnson amp home; I found the bass on the Krell to be too muddy."? :)
For God's sake, should you ever find a supply of these women, let me know!!! :)
Also, fwiw, I think that there are quite a number of audiophiles who might beinterested in this kind of equipment for convienience sake; notably, audiophiles that tend to leave music playing in the backgroud when they're not doing some serious listening. Of course, when the urge to really *listen* to some music comes, off go the digitally compressed tunes, and out comes the vinyl, or HDCD, or 30IPS tape, or what have you.
BTW, I would guess that much of the degridation you see in sound qualities for MP3s is due to loss of timing information. This is why it's quite easy to tell the difference between CD and analog on a good system. I wonder if anyone has taken any measurements.
Now if only they'd gone with the Sony system instead of AC3 for DVDs... maybe we would have found out how good music that's been lossily compressed could sound :/
Re:Quality of MP3 is not the whole point (Score:1)
Certainly a true statement. Of course, this reminds me of my theory about that "girls don't care about important things." When was the last time you heard a girl say, "Sure, the iMac has nice colors, but this Dell has 256 MB of RAM!" or "I just brought my Conrad-Johnson amp home; I found the bass on the Krell to be too muddy."? :)
For God's sake, should you ever find a supply of these women, let me know!!! :)
Also, fwiw, I think that there are quite a number of audiophiles who might be interested in this kind of equipment for convenience sake; notably, audiophiles that tend to leave music playing in the background when they're not doing some serious listening. Of course, when the urge to really *listen* to some music comes, off go the digitally compressed tunes, and out comes the vinyl, or HDCD, or 30IPS tape, or what have you.
BTW, I would guess that much of the degradation you see in sound qualities for MP3s is due to loss of timing information. This is why it's quite easy to tell the difference between CD and analog on a good system. I wonder if anyone has taken any measurements.
Now if only they'd gone with the Sony system instead of AC3 for DVDs... maybe we would have found out how good music that's been lossily compressed could sound :/
just adding to the fray (Score:3)
The phenomenon is almost equivilant to the difference between newsprint advertisements and a painting (not in quality, but in terms of perception). With the newsprint, the picture is actually made up of tiny dots which, when viewed from afar, blend together to make a seamless looking picture, even though there are gaps if you look up close. Mp3s use the same principle, only with sound. Say you have a sound with a frequency of 80hertz at 60decibels; because of how our hearing works, that sound being played will mask out sounds around it. So for instance, if you had that sound playing, and suddenly you played a frequency of 75hertz at 30decibels, there would be no audible difference (note: these are numbers I'm making up to illustrate the general idea. I don't know the actual mathematics of it).
What mp3s do is allocate a certain amount of space (128kilobytes/sec or 256kilobytes/sec), break down a second of music into a number of frames (usually 44.1) and then for each frame looks at what the frequencies are, and gradually and more agressively gets rid of the sound that is most likely to next be masked.
The problem that can arise with this fixed bitrate encoding is that the encoder is not making an overall judgement based on what the quality of each frame should be, it merely knows how much it MUST cut out of each second of music. The solution to this is VBR or variable bitrate encoding, which has not been very widely accepted as far as I've seen. The difference with this style of ecoding is that you specify to the encoding program a quality level to set the song, and then it will go through each frame and cut only enough sound to fit your preference for sound quality, not some arbitrary number.
Anyhow, I think that's enough of me rambling. Hopefully someone found that at least slightly informative and interesting.
Paelon
Recommendation? (Score:1)
Living in a small house allows me to connect the PC to the stereo, but the sound quality is rather poor.
I was going to buy a seperate DAC, but I can only justify the expense if I can find a sound card that outputs digitally (either coax or optical)
Excuse the PC/soundcard ignorance, but living on Planet Linux for the past couple of years means that I don't really know what's available nowadays.
MP3s are poor quality (Score:1)
There are other formats out there that are MUCH better vqf [vqf.com] is one of my favorites, too bad there is no linux player
Spyky
MiniDisc vs. MP3 vs. CD (Score:3)
I used to work at a high-end stereo shop, and we sold everything from Sony cheapo stuff to Sony ES to Denon and up. I got the chance to play around with an MD versus a CD. After some rigging, I was able to switch to and from the MD and CD, and I had the exact same music playing simultaneously. On cheaper speakers ($300/pr) it wasn't real easy to tell the difference, however on more expensive speakers ($1800/pr) the difference was night and day. Compared to the CD, the MD was a little shrill, and the base was a little "boomier". All in all, the MD would probably sound better in a car than a CD, simply because a car stereo usually doesn't reproduce quality highs and lows (mids are good tho
Anywaze, on to MP3. From what I read about the compression technologies, it seems like the MD and MP3 algorithims are similar, but MP3 is designed to run at 128K/s to 256K/s data streams, where MD's are about 512K/s. (Correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a few years) I'd bet that an MD compared to an MP3 in a car would sound identical, but on a quality home system the difference would be night and day. Now say we got a better MP3 player (XAudio extensions anyone?) that supported a mic-feedback EQ so the system could be tuned, it'd probably sound damn good -- especially for the price!
Just my $.02.
Re:Recommendation? TB Fiji (Score:1)
Re:quality not up to par -- are you nuts? (Score:1)
B&O audio components....
Bose 901's, 601's and 301's ($1600,$800,$500 repectively)
CD's and Mp3's sound the same on the normal enjoyment level...
Now, If I sit down and listen closely, being extremely picky and anal... I can hear the swiching and bit artifacts..
Final conclusion... dont use mp-3 if you are anal-retentive... the type that can tell that a record was played once already or that a current diamond cartridge has been used more than 10 times, use bi-wire to the speakers that is 50 conductor ribbon 00 gague to enhance the sound.
If you cant tell the difference between lamp cord or $100.00 a foot audio speaker cable (99.9% of all humans) then mp-3's will sound perfect to you
There is one thing on this planet I cannot stand... an audiophile...
Re:It IS vapor (Score:1)
The site says that it is not a commercial product, but rather a build-one-yourself-from-these-specs type of thing.
It seems to me that for a product to be vapor it has to be commercial and not shipping. As Joe's office-mate I can assure you that the player is quite solid, nothing gaseous about it.
Re:one problem with mp3s (Score:1)
Paelon
SDMI is dead. (Score:1)
They haven't yet realized that audio hardware is as dead as physical audio media.
The only Hi-fi equipment that will exist 10 years from now are amps, speakers, and headphones.
-bonkydog
Re:just adding to the fray (Score:1)
But yeah, in the original post I mixed up bits and bytes and all. For all who care: CD audio is exactly 1408 BITS per second, or 176 BYTES per second. It also appears that if you take the bits per second (1408) divide by number of channels (1408 / 2 = 704), and divide by the refresh rate (704 / 44 = 16), you'll get 16 which is why you commonly refer to cd audio as 16bit/44khz wheras DVD is 22bit/(i forget the refresh exactly, either 44 or 76 I believe). Fun with cd audio stats.
Paelon
Re:Quality of MP3 is not the whole point (Score:1)
In short, for me [the audio quality issue] isn't one.
But for many it is. Sure, some people moved from cassette to CD because there's no rewinding, etc. But sound quality is the real selling point. (Yes, I'm aware that many audiophiles use their turntables instead of their digital equipment quite frequently).
In the interview I stated I built this machine to replace my *analog* equipment. I don't think anyone can argue that a 256kb/s MP3 (on a digital output) sounds worse than a cassette tape. Perhaps if you bought a $1000 tape deck, but if this is the case I am sure you could care less about MP3.
Good point, but I feel that such a device is mostly competing for market share against CD-Rs and the like. But I'd still say a good turntable will sound better than a 256 kbps MP3. Of course, to whom it will sound better is a very (!) small minority... and like you said, those folks could care less about MP3.
Yes, if you listen for it, you can hear the compression of the audio. Especially in the rear channels if you place your receiver in a surround mode
Why anybody would put an audio track designed for 2-channel listening into surround mode is beyond me. In two channel mode, can put you "there," where the sound doesn't appear to be coming from a couple of speakers. When fed into more than 2 channels, all imaging and soundstage qualities disappear. Of course, (reversing what you said above), the people who care about MP3 don't care.
As far as I am concerned it sounds *close* enough to a CD, that I don't mind if there is a little swishy-ness in the cymbals. The advantages of having all my music at at the touch of a button far outweigh this.
For me, the convenience advantages don't outweigh the sonic disadvantages. But then again, I place more emphasis on how my amp sounds than how many watts I can claim it's rated at. (Dude, my new Sony pumps out 200x5!) It's also the reason I have a single-disc CD player rather than a two million disc changer - better sound quality.
It is all a matter of personal preference
Certainly a true statement. Of course, this reminds me of my theory about that "girls don't care about important things." When was the last time you heard a girl say, "Sure, the iMac has nice colors, but this Dell has 256 MB of RAM!" or "I just brought my Conrad-Johnson amp home; I found the bass on the Krell to be too muddy."?
Please excuse my generalizations, I mean it only in jest. And Joe, if you want to send me an LCDAT and prove me wrong about sound quality, please do.
-Drew Boyles-
dboyles@resnet.gatech.edu
Re:just adding to the fray (Score:1)
Mobile Versions? (Score:1)
Using a serial connection to (slowly) upload a set of songs is not for me...
Duct tape... (Score:1)
I wonder how many of us have duct taped perl scripts together for our MP3 playing.
Guilty as charged. I spend most of my time in the X Window System, but running xTerms (or their equivalent). It's much easier to control my MP3 listening from a cobbled together Perl script than to switch to the mouse and manipulate a GUI player, then switch back to a keyboard and resume work...
I thought I was the only person silly enough to do this...
Of course *we* knew already (Score:3)
one problem with mp3s (Score:1)
- Rainy
Re:one problem with mp3s (Score:1)
Re:Mobile Versions? (Score:1)
Re:one problem with mp3s (Score:1)
It IS vapor (Score:1)
You want something way cool that is NOT vapor? The empeg car [empeg.com].
This thing makes me salivate. A removable in-dash MP3 player. Connect it to your PC to download music, create playlists, etc. Put it back in your car and use the remote to select your song/playlist. Store 476 hours of music on it (that's three weeks straight without a repeat). It has an awesome LED GUI including real-time visuals. And, it runs Linux. If you know a little Python, you can create your own custom GUI for it!
Re:one problem with mp3s (Score:2)
At home? They're tolerable, but no comparison really to the quality from a CD played in my DVD player (which outputs digitally to the receiver).
In my car? Not a chance. If I'm driving on the highway or something, I won't notice the quality as much, but on side streets there's not enough road noise to mask it. Drives me crazy.
Try saying that on rec.audio.car though and see how quickly you get flamed.
Am I the only one who actually bought an empeg? (Score:2)
I submitted an article last week about how they're shipping unit now, but it was
The empeg car player is *not* vapourware.
Re:quality not up to par (Score:1)
I've gotten around the latter problem by encoding everything VBR. I achieve a *miniumum* level of 128kbps, but when there is a quiet part to the music I've seen it hit ~376kbps if I'm not mistaken to keep the quality up.
I use LAME, BTW. It seems to me that the encoder is the problem if you're hearing artifacts of encoding.
I won't step out and say there is no difference, but with what I listen to and with what I listen to them through I haven't found anything that would make me want to cringe. At the *very* worst, it sounds like listening to a perfectly tuned FM stereo radio. At best, I can't tell the difference from the CD I cut it from.
Re:one problem with mp3s (Score:1)
Re:one problem with mp3s - yes and no (Score:1)
There are a few things you can do to improve mp3 playback. The site said it used a SPDIF connector on the sound card / motherboard with a TOSLINK adaptor to a reciever. If you use the analog link, you're more likely to get noise as analog electronics and DACS in sound cards are pretty cheap.
Another is to max the bitrate. I thought 512k rates were possible, but I never tried. There are also better encoders available. I'd say which ones, but I really don't remember. Some encoders do better than others.
But if you already believe that CDs are crap, then you're screwed, as entropy dictates any transfer will only be as good as the source, no better, and likely worse, and I guess there are enough people that believe MP3s are crap at any rate, so I can't help on that.
quality not up to par (Score:1)
-Drew Boyles-
dboyles@resnet.gatech.edu
Quality of MP3 is not the whole point (Score:4)
In short, for me it isn't one.
In the interview I stated I built this machine to replace my *analog* equipment. I don't think anyone can argue that a 256kb/s MP3 (on a digital output) sounds worse than a cassette tape. Perhaps if you bought a $1000 tape deck, but if this is the case I am sure you could care less about MP3.
Yes, if you listen for it, you can hear the compression of the audio. Especially in the rear channels if you place your receiver in a surround mode. If this distracts you to the point you cannot listen to the audio, fine. Don't use MP3. I encoded most of my MP3 at 160kb/s, and my classical music and ambient music at 256kb/s. As far as I am concerned it sounds *close* enough to a CD, that I don't mind if there is a little swishy-ness in the cymbals. The advantages of having all my music at at the touch of a button far outweigh this.
How many people do you know record TV shows at SLP speed on their VCR? Probably a lot. For them the advantage of being able to record 6 hours of video on a 2 hour (SP) tape makes up for the loss in video/audio quality.
It is all a matter of personal preference.
Re:one problem with mp3s (Score:2)
When car audio is good, its *good*. But most people who think they've got something good have never heard a $20k set of speakers, much less a $250k set of speakers.
Duct-tape (Score:1)
Hmm, I guess I qualify as one of those duct-tape people. ;).
I've got a cgi script (in perl of course), running on Apache, that gives me a nice listing of my songs and lets me pick the ones I want. Also it plays random songs and a kind of "radio"-streaming (it just streams random songs after each other. Currently I'm thinking of implementing song-titles via festival. All the hooks are there, I just need some time to implement it
Anyways, these things are really neat, I especially like those empeg car players.... now if I just had a car ;). -- sdt
Re:one problem with mp3s (Score:1)
Try saying that you've got a car stereo that sounds good in rec.audio.opinion or rec.audio.high-end and see how quickly you get flamed.
-Drew Boyles-
dboyles@resnet.gatech.edu
Re:one problem with mp3s (Score:1)
Somehow I think some people wouldn't mind the loss of quality in their cars. Cars w/ tainted windows, hydrolics and subwoofers come to mind. When was the last time you heard Pavarotti coming from the windows?
I think MP3's are usefull. Obviously, sinc eI can sit ay my computer and listen to any of my cd's. And they sound good. But not perfect. That brings me to the issue of minidiscs (I know I know, offtopic) Does anyone here know if the quality is the same as to CD's? It sounds like it..... Does it depend on thje encoder version?
Re:Recommendation? (Score:2)
Bitrate not the whole story (Score:1)