Being a FIRM believer in the fact that MP3s sound like crap and are all that is wrong with music these days. I must say I am absolutly BLOWN AWAY by how good the 990 makes them sound. Just hooked up the USB cord to the laptop and WOW WOW WOW!!! If anyone out there has not done this yet DO IT!! Now this does not mean that I would use it for critical listning but it is very neat to play with. I am falling in love with this unit more every minute. Now if I could just solve my sub trim issue I would be happy as a tornado in a trailer park.

MP3s are all that is wrong with music these days? How wonderful.

I regularly use my system to play mp3's off my laptop or even my iPod Video. I'm still experimenting with using a PC to play CD files. I have most of my CD's copied to a pair of 250GB hard drives. The laptop holds the mp3's. Yes, everything is backed up. Ripping all those discs was a lot of work! I'm looking into the Logitech wireless music system as the simplest way to get the CD music files from my desktop in the upstairs office down to the 990 in the living room.

No doubt the Golden Eared listeners would criticize this setup, claiming only the original CD played on a high end CD player could possibly produce the purest music. Listening to anything else would be heresy.

While puttering around the house or when having company for the evening there's nothing like having a nice playlist going for several hours with no attention from me. Music is, after all, entertainment. A PC or an iPod can do a wonderful job of orchestrating that entertainment. And if someone has a special request that PC can find the song and get it playing quick as a wink. No fumbling around with CD's. Gotta love it!

What is your sub trim issue? Maybe gonk will find this thread.

I cannot tell you the last time I bought a cd that sounded good. The mastering on anything released today is made to sound good on an Ipod and thats about it. It is compressed to all hell and I think it sounds like crap. Mp3s and digital music have lowered peoples standards for what sounds good. Thats my opinion

Frankly, most of the music that's produced today isn't all that musical. Maybe I'm just an old fogey. When I listen to 50's and 60's music I hear people who can sing. When I listen to music created today I hear people who can whine and take advantage of studio trickery. It's mostly crap.

Try listening to classical music. It's been around for centuries for a reason. Spend some time with Tchaikovsky and Beethoven and Mozart. You certainly won't be subjected to compression.

It helps my blood pressure, too.

BobZ,

I use a Linksys Music Bridge to play my music stored on my PC on my 990-based HT. The MB also has the advantage of connecting to my 990 with a digital optical cable. My music is ripped to FLAC (Free Lossless Access Codec) format using dbPowerAMP which also has a nice player, library function, and file converter. Unlike the Apple Airport Express the Music Bridge routes all audio from the PC so I can use dbPowerAMP, iTunes, or MusicMatch if I choose.

While a CD still sounds the best (as good as a CD will sound), FLAC files played using dbPowerAMP via the MB sound pretty good. As you have noted, the ability to make up a playlist is also a significant benefit.

I think MP3's have their place, being extremely portable, I listen to my ipod in the car all the time, however I agree that it has lowered the standards of this generation as far as the way music is reproduced.
That is really one reason I am dissapointed about sacd and dvd-audio, or should I say, the lack of studio support. These mediums sound fantastic and if it wasn't for their paranoia and infighting it could have shown a generation how good music could sound when done right, instead it is a niche market. Oh well.

My Acura came equipped with dvd-audio. And that was 3 years ago! I listened to the demo disc in the car and thought...wow, that sounds really great.
And then life took over and I forgot all about it. Until today. Now that I have something (my new Oppo) that will play that demo disc on my home equipment I may be in for a real treat.

AvFan, you've given me some new ideas to look into. Thanks. So much to do...so little time...

Hmm...now I won't be able to sleep until I find that demo dvd-audio disc and give it a spin.

OhMyGawd!!!
It all comes back to me now. When I first played that demo disc in my '04 TL I was impressed. So I visited several music stores in search of DVD-Audio. Zip. Nada. Nuttin'. And so I forgot about it.

This morning I located the DVD in the garage and went through the demo and then started playing the music. My opening statement says it all.

Some coworkers are stopping over a bit later to check out the Oppo on my SXRD 60" Sony. When they hear this DVD-Audio disc they are not going to want to leave.

I have to forget everything else and go listen some more...and then find more of these discs...

A bit off topic but the Acura salesman used that DVD-A demo disk when I test drove a TL in '04; very cool! I'm still convinced that the TL has the best car audio. The audio, 270hp and other great features convinced me to buy the TL. The Eagles, Hotel California DVD-A sounds terrific while cruising at 80mph! That Acura demo disc will also sound great on your home system using the 990. Enjoy!

Hello AvFan,

I received an Acura demo disk as well when I purchased my 2005 Acura RL. Even though I liked the TL better, I have such a terribly steep driveway, that I needed an all wheel drive. I think that I will take your advice and find the demo disk and listen to it on my system today.

GMTA!
I believe there is no better car for the money than the TL. I test drove about 15 cars before buying mine, some $15k more. It wasn't even close; the TL was the clear winner.
Did you get the Nav? Even 3 years later it's the best navigation system I've seen.
My friends never know what to get me for gifts. I tell them...please don't spend your money. I have the things I need. Not any longer. Get me DVD-Audio discs!

Back towards the orignial post...I recently purchased a NYKO cable that connects my iPod to my 990 via the iPods dock connector versus the headphone jack. The cable has left and right RCA connections that I use at the 990. This results in a line connection (e.g. iPod volume and EQ are not applied). The result is that the iPod is the DAC with 990 processing layered on top. My order of listening preference is:

1) original CD closely followed by
2) FLAC files to the 990 via the linksys music bridge
3) and way down the list, the iPod playing mp3s.

I imagine the sound quality of the direct connection between a laptop and the 990 as Davin originally described would be better or near #2 above depending upon the file format used to store music on the PC. If you have enough hard drive space I recommend one of the lossless codecs versus mp3 for use in the house. Besides sounding better when played back using the PC burned CDs will be indistiguishable from the original CD.

I have not tried it but I understand the iPod will play Apple lossless format, but the number of songs on the iPod would be significantly reduced. Using Apple lossless on the iPod would probably improve the sound when connected to the 990.

I try to use a high bit rate when ripping to mp3, no less than 192kbs. For classical and more serious listening I use 256kbs. A significant amount of testing has been done at different mp3 bit rates. At 256kbs it is impossible to tell whether you are playing an mp3 or the orginal cd file.
I realize many people will claim they can hear a difference. I'm fortunate to not be one of those people.

I've played around with MP3 off and on for 10 years now, using different encoders and bit rates. I've used WinAmp, iTunes, a CD-based portable player, an iPod, and my VW's CD player (which reads MP3's off CD-R) to play my MP3's along with probably a couple other things that I'm forgetting about. Most recently, I've set up a little Roku Labs SoundBridge M500 in the main system, which I did mainly so we could conveniently have music going while playing with our daughter (instead of having the TV on).

When listening through PC speakers (at least the cheapo ones I have) or mediocre headphones with a PC or portable MP3 player as the source, I find that 192kbps to 256kbps is going to be indistinguishable from the original CD: the rest of the signal path yields so many other sonic compromises that the lossy compression just blends in. Likewise, the stock car audio system doesn't really sound particularly different with reasonably high bit-rate MP3 than it does with CD's. Even at 256kbps, though, I have been able to tell a difference from the original CD when playing through the 990 via the SB500. The differences certainly weren't drastic, but they were there if you listened for them.

Bottom line: If I am sitting down to just listen to some music on the system, I will pull the CD off the shelf and toss it in. I could set up a media server that would let me store my music library in a lossless format (FLAC or simply WAV) and probably be content to use that instead of the original CD's, but the cost (mainly associated with a reasonably reliable drive array to store that much data without risk of a single drive failure wiping it out) is still too high for me to justify it, although I definitely see the attraction and why plenty of other folks have done this. More often than not, though, I use the Roku SB500 and the music is in the background while we're doing other things - for those instances, the damage done by lossy compression is a non-issue.

I have to agree with Gonk, I re-ripped most of my CD's over the last few months using Winamp, High Quality settings at 256kps Bit rate. I'm streaming the Audio from my PC, through my XBox 360 to the 990. This allows me to scroll through 7,000 plus MP3's so It's a great feature but I can tell the difference between the CD and the MP3's. For serious musice sessions I go to the CD, background or party music I stream through the XBox. I have been thinking about re-ripping everything at 320kbps, anyone tried that ?

Maybe you'll find this interesting...

http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/gb/index.html

http://www.mp3-converter.com/bitrates.htm

Perhaps my old eardrums no longer perceive fine detail. The eyeballs certainly don't. Except for 'screen door' effect. Yuck.

Has anyone experimented with VBR (variable bit rate) mp3? I was considering transferring some music for car or casual listening at 192K or 256K, but VBR has piqued my interest. A co-worker tried a few transfers with VBR but then has experienced playback issues. Also, because so much of his music is not filled with ‘simple or quiet’ passages, he felt like he really didn’t save any storage space. In the end he went back to a constant rate. Experience and opinions?

I seem to recall hearing that there can be playback compatibility problems with VBR (some players - both software and hardware - not supporting it), but I haven't ever looked into it closely since I've always encoded at CBR.

Like Gonk, I'm using the Soundbridge (M1000 - actually have a couple of them, one for the 990, another for a Tivoli Model 3 in the bedroom). I am storing the MP3s at 320kbps on a 500gb external drive on my PC (those drives get cheaper every time I look, it seems). At that bitrate, I've got around 15,800 songs crammed into 138gb, and with an optical hook-up to the 990, I'm hard pressed to hear much of a difference between those files and CDs played on my Harmon Kardon FL 8380 (also an optical hook-up, or maybe coaxial, haven't looked back there in a while). Then again, I've spent too many years listening to loud rock and roll, and so perhaps I'm not the best judge. For casual listening and for sheer convenience (especially for entertaining), however, I'm kind of hooked on the Soundbridge.

Has anyone compared the Soundbridge to the Logitech DJ system? I've seen mixed reviews on the Logitech, mostly interference problems with things like microwave ovens and such. How's the overall performance on the Soundbridge? How would you rate it overall?

I'd like to add that for me one the high points of my purchase of the 990 has been the wealth of information available in this forum. So many forums out there are full of bad information and bickering. This site is an absolute joy. I want to extend my kudos to everyone who participates here.

Glad to have you around, Bob.

I compiled some notes about the SoundBridge last summer. The analog output is pretty decent, but I prefer the digital output (especially with the 990). The software support wasn't as smooth as I'd have liked, but Firefly has been improving as of late (I had to switch back to it after upgrading iTunes to v.7 before finding out that the SoundBridge doesn't work with iTunes 7). The Logitech DJ looks like it'd have a smoother user interface than the SoundBridge thanks to the handheld controller/display unit, but I don't know what the sound quality might be like (if the data goes through the handheld unit and gets re-broadcast at 2.4GHz I'd feel a bit dubious about it) and it appears to lack a digital audio output. Logitech also now owns Slim Devices - their SqueezeBox is one of the more popular media players online, although I think the Transporter is a poster child for over-priced.

If I want to purchase a Roku SoundBridge, but it doesn't work with iTunes 7, what would you suggest?

AARONMADLER, in fact the Soundbridge will work with iTunes 7, you just need to install Firefly server to manage your libraries. All instructions and downloads are on the www.rokulabs.com site. I've actually found Firefly to be a lot quicker than iTunes itself; my Soundbridge would often hang if I tried to browse all 15K songs but with Firefly it just zips right through them.

NRBQLou is correct. When I first set up my SoundBridge, I had problems with Firefly - it wouldn't sync up with my iTunes playlists and creating playlists in Firefly was cumbersome (in fact I couldn't get it to work). When I installed iTunes 7 and could no longer rely solely on iTunes, I installed a newer version of Firefly and it synced up with iTunes immediately.

I was just reading how they found a way to play Pandora over the Roku!
http://forums.rokulabs.com/viewtopic.php?t=5283&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Also, with Comcast you recieve a free subscription to Rhapsody Radio. This streams CD quality music. Jim

Hello,
You can get Airfoil to play any sound from your computer through the Airport Express. It works well. You can use it to play the Sirius stream through your stereo at a higher bitrate (if you get the upgrade from sirius) than I think the actual sat device gets.

What is everyone using to store mp3's? (what type of disks)

I like the idea of a RAID5 NAS type of setup for storing MP3's and other media, but I don't actually have anything that sophisticated - just have them in a folder on my PC, with most of them backed up on DVD-R or on another hard drive.

Just to add my 2 cents to the discussion. I recently purchased a Slim Devices Squeezebox. I had previously ripped all my CDs to 192K for my 3g iPod but after a lot of investigation, I decided to rerip every to flac (about 300G and counting). I run it out he coax digital into my 990. All I can say is WOW. I love it. Great device.

So I decided to do a little experiment. I now had all the songs in 3 formats, MP3, flac, and CD (some I also have the LP but that another story). I played the MP3 through the squeezebox, and A/B through the 990 the CD version, also digital coax in from my Marantz CD67SE. I could easily hear a difference, especially the soundstage and depth, but also the MP3 just sounded compressed in the dynamics. Then I compared the flac through the squeezebox to the CD. No difference that I could hear on any music format.

The gist of this is, for me at any rate, mp3 are fine for my iPod and headphones (senhiesers px100), but for the main system the flacs are great and you can't beat the convenience.

BTW I am hardwired ethernet, I am not using the wireless portion of the squeezebox.
I think devices like this (they also have an audiophile version called transporter for $2Gs!) [edit: sorry gonk I just saw you already mentioned this] are only going to get better, aa will the lossless codecs. Makes things likes jitter almost a non issue.

Now to back up all that music.....

Reading through the full thread and I think it is great so far. A couple things made me want to comment.

I believe that the mp3 quality conversations, while interesting, are very soon to become outdated. The storage capacity of current and future portable audio devices will be large enough to allow one to use lossless formats. An 80GB(current iPod) would hold at least 5000 lossless songs. And this is 80GBs now. In a year this will seem like nothing. So throw off your mp3 shackles and start ripping everything in a lossless format and organizing it in iTunes. I don't own an iPod YET. I am waiting until I have all my music in iTunes and orgainized. I figure the price will drop by the time I am done and it will be a reward.

Plus you can make cumulative backups to DVD with iTunes.

As for connections from iPod to receiver I would recommend researching cables that use the line out from the apple connector straight to RCA cables. I have read that the wiring in the iPod dock is sketchy and of poor quality. Doing it this way you do lose the charging ability though.

I do have a question for the people using USB cables from PC to 990 or 2150. Does the USB cable act as a line out. Is it being processed by your sound cards? I don't really understand the function of this setup so I would appreciate any knowledge.

I'd recommend at least a little caution or careful planning before deciding which lossless format to rip to. The one drawback to using iTunes to produce lossless files is that playback of AAC lossless files is not widely supported - you can play them in iTunes, on your iPod, and through an AppleTV appliance, but everything else will be hit and miss. Likewise, FLAC is not supported by all players.

When using USB to the 990 or the 2150, the sound card isn't in the signal path. The 990 actually acts as a giant USB sound card.

Good point gonk. I chose flac for some of the reasons you stated, AAC not widely supported. Also while I have an iPod and have used iTunes, I'm not a fan.
Just to give a clear picture why I chose flac:
- Mediamonkey, winamp, squeezebox all support it
- the codec is opensource, improvements are still being made
- The tools are improving, and getting more plentiful. I use EAC to rip my CDs with an Autoflac plugin.
- No loss in quality of the data
- more an more devices are supporting it
- You can convert back to a wav or any other format without degredation of the original.
- with cue sheets you can reburn a true copy of the orginal CD

Most of all, it save up to 40% space while preserving the quality of the music.

Curriegroh brings up a good point. Storage capacities are increasing rapidly. The video iPod was created to store videos but hardly anyone I know uses it for that. We use it to store uncompressed audio. No doubt some people have 10,000 songs to store. I don't know anyone like that. My iPod has a mix of nearly 3,000. It would take over two weeks to listen to everything one time...if I listened my entire waking hours.

I have a difficult time understanding the bad rap given to portable music devices no matter what format of music saving they use. Although some brand these devices as antisocial I don't feel the desire to be social when I'm traveling. Music makes the time fly when I'm flying. A 9 hour trip to Europe whizzes by. A 14 flight to Shanghai is much more tolerable when I can soothe my soul with music from an mp3 player. I'm one of those people that waited to get one until the storage capacity was large enough to rip music at higher bit rates. I regret that when I think back to how many flight delays I suffered through when I could have had some respite at 192kbps. A lot of us grew up listening to surface noise and tape hiss. What's a little compression when you're sitting in queue on the tarmac for 3 or 4 hours? Plus the fact you're probably using $80 ear buds instead of your high end speakers?
And as stated previously, for listening while puttering around the house the compressed format...whichever one is used...is good enough for me.

Today you can buy a hard disk that will store the uncompressed content of 1000 CD's for less than $300. Buy another to back up the first. You now have a huge music library available without ever opening a jewel case. You can create play lists for any occasion. For someone who remembers 78RPM records it's a dream come true.

Now...how do we get SACD's and DVD-A discs on that computer...hmmm...

I agree that vilifying MP3 is excessive. As with most technologies, it has its place. I've used MP3's at work for years now to try to drown out the horrible muzak - the original CD's won't sound any better on $15 computer speakers fed from a cheap sound card, and it eliminates the need to bring CD's in to work.

At least some of the ire directed toward lossy audio compression algorithms seems to be a reaction to the way the general public has embraced the MP3 and the iPod - it's a reasonable solution for music portability (certainly no worse than any other previous portable technology, considering the quality associated with portable CD players or - gulp - our old friend the cassette), but it simply isn't the equal of other technologies for quality. The notion of people misunderstanding MP3 and considering it an equal substitute for CD (or even worse, for newer technologies like DVD-A, SACD, and the lossless TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio formats) will inevitably cause the audio enthusiast to cringe - and may lead to severe convulsions for audiophiles.

I chose to use FLAC for the same reasons stated by gband. Two reasons stand out though. 1) I can certainly tell FLAC music sounds better than mp3s at 192kbs when played on my HT gear and 2) I can create burned CDs that are the same quality as the original. However, I really like my iPod for air travel, when I'm doing yard work, on backpacking trips or plugged in to my old Kenwood receiver in my garage when I'm woodworking. In those listening environments the iPod playing mp3s is awesome. I've gone so far as to duplicate my FLAC library in mp3 for easy transfer to my iPod using iTunes. I'm a supporter of mp3, however for me its all about enjoying music with a technology that is appropriate for the location. To paraphrase Dirty Harry: "A codec has to know its limitations".

- That's beautiful.

AvFan
I'll drink to that!

BobZoom
I agree, the flights to Europe were much more tolerable since my iPod.

BTW while I have Flac for my Squeeze Box, its 192K MP3 at work, in the car, iPod, etc. Just too convenient and the sound is good enough, even through PA speakers.