Bit more on hi fi

[David Johnson]

I posted awhile back on how I was unhappy with the crap sound coming out of my iphone when I played my faves. In the meantime I have been looking into the whole thing of high fidelity music.

This is what I have found. Hope it might be of use/interest to some, whilst to others it is probably basic stuff.

1. Apple in ear phones that come with the iphone, together with the standard mp3s are a dreadful combination. However, I reckon the iphone 4 which I have is a surprisingly good portable music player. Err. how come?
2. A lot better is to import your CDs into iTunes in a different format from the standard AAC format which is heavily compressed and loses a lot of detail. I ripped my CDs into ALE format which is Apple Lossless.
3. Apple Lossless format is on a level with CD level of detail. The only disadvantage is that an album in ALE format takes up a lot more space.
4. Replacing the Apple in ear phones improves the overall sound enormously. I bought a pair of AKG K550 headphones, mainly for home use, but I have tried them out and about with the iphone and they have been a revelation. Fantastic headphones.
5. Playing the iphone through a HI FI using a Y cable connected to the amp shows off the iphone potential to good effect. Pretty much like CD quality.
6. LPs v. CDs. Some swear that vinyl LPS sound better than CDs. Some swear the opposite. What is beyond doubt is that a crap recording on a CD sounds worse than an LP version from a master and vice versa.
7. Nothing to do with the sound but there is something different about vinyl with the whole thing of handling a gatefold sleeve, large, heavy piece of 180gm vinyl etc. Personally, if you can get an lp made from a master tape than I prefer that to a CD even though you have got the hassle of keeping vinyl clean so that the number of clicks and hisses are down to a minimum. Increasingly I find CD production getting involved in what is often referred to as volume wars where the CDs of today sound a lot louder than CDs in the past because some people seem to eguate loudness with quality. The loudness actually tends to result from a reduction in quality rather than an improvement.
8. If you are the sort of person that likes being a member of a secret society than vinyl is for you. Vinyl is much more prevalent now than it was a few years ago when I first got shot of my record deck because the only thing available was dance stuff. I recently bought a vinyl copy of a Charlie Mingus recording. On the sleeve it was described as mixed from the original three track tapes on an original Presto tube tape recorder!! I will have to nip into HMV and ask that question about some of the CDs I've bought.
9. Finally there is the hype about 96Khz and 192Khz studio quality digital sound which companies like Sony are pushing as part of a new range of Sony Walkmans and digital streamers. Neil Young with his usual enthusiasm is fronting a Pono player which is a toblerone shaped portable music player due to ship in spring which will play this 96 and 192 KHz music. Personally I am waiting to be convinced by that. I suspect you would probably need the hearing of next door's dog to get the benefit from a 192 recording. We will see.

[fatmick]

David, good music doesnt require this amount of editing/detail etc.

[David Johnson]

Why not? Are you saying that the millions of people who have hi fi systems have wasted their money?

[Arginald Valleywater]

Sorry to rain on your parade but playing stuff through Ipod docks etc ain't hifi. We have one of the best HiFi shops in the UK in my city...you could spend ?100k in 10 mins. They could run you up a stonker of a system (amp, speakers, CD player and cables) for no more than ?1500. Apple are the masters of getting everyone to assume all their products are the dogs cojones. They are not. No self respecting hifi buff I know would be seen dead using an Apple product. Go for Marantz or similar brands and your ears will love you.
PS as a Carlisle fan I feel Blackpool's pain!

[Essex Lad]

I'm saying that millions of people who have hi-fis can't tell much difference unless they listen to music through headphones. Same with video players/DVD ? all much of a muchness. Unless, as Mr Valleywater says, you spend a fortune...

[David Johnson]

"Sorry to rain on your parade but playing stuff through Ipod docks etc ain't hifi"

I'm not saying that. I am explaining how to get a better sound out of an iphone which to my ears sounds crap with standard ear phones.

As for Blackpool - the inevitable result of owners with deep pockets and short arms. I can easily see Blackpool in the COnference in a few years time.

[David Johnson]

"saying that millions of people who have hi-fis can't tell much difference unless they listen to music through headphones"

It depends what the headphones you are listening to are connected to.

[Sam Slater]

1. Rip your CDs in to .mp3s for listening to music on the go (on your phone etc). ALEC files will just take up space and the difference in quality on a phone isn't worth it. Also, .mp3s are widely accepted by all players. You can plug your phone into a dock, mini system or TV at a friends and have instant access to your music. It's not always so with AAC or ALAC.

2. If you want to listen to digital files on a desktop PC with decent soundcard/speakers, or listen through your amplifier using a DAC then consider FLAC rather than ALAC for lossless compression. FLAC, like .mp3 is a little more widely accepted and slightly smaller files.

3. Use EAC for ripping CDs. It's takes a little more setting up than iTunes or MediaMonkey but it's what most audiophiles use and I've used it since 2006ish. Much better for trying to iron out any disk errors (though slower). Itunes usually either fails on an error or totally ignores the error leaving your music compromised.

4. Use a different player to iTunes. You might have to do a little extra work in tagging your albums and file organisation, but that extra work means more control of how your music is catalogued.

A few links:

For ripping: EAC

A 'how to' on setting up EAC: EAC Setup Guide (It's a little out of date but still pretty much the same in the latest version of EAC).

For tagging: TagScanner Always used it. EAC has tagging databases built in but it's via user contributions and not always accurate. I'm a bit OCD over tags and album art so ignore it if you're not that fussy.

Music Player for PC: MusicBee More of a personal choice than the 'best' but I like the layout and it's quicker than iTunes and other fully-fledged music players. Has scrobbling too which I like.

All a bit of a pain in the arse, but you only have to set it up once and take a weekend off to rip all your music! Hell......if you care enough to spend a few hundred quid on some headphones you care enough to rip your music properly, right? Right.

[David Johnson]

Thank you for your detailed and very useful reply.

Personally, I think I can tell the difference between standard MP3s in iTunes and ALAC files. Maybe I am kidding myself. As for FLAC, my understanding is that it is not supported by Apple IOS for syncing etc but you can use it provided you have various apps which can cope with those limitations and fill the gaps. I don't plan to use a DAC certainly in the near future.

My ALAC files on my iphone play through anything I have tried so far. Concerning error correction when you rip your CDs into ALAC format in iTunes you have an option to use error correction to avoid disk errors but as you rightly say this does take a fair bit more time.

As for spending a few hundred quid on a pair of headphones, my AKG 550's cost ?99.99 from RIcher Sounds but as you suggest when they first started retailing in the UK I think they were over ?250. A bit bulky for portable use, but I find myself using them a lot at home at night. They have been a revelation, both with my iphone out and about and on the home stereo.

I think they may have stopped the production of them at AKG. I was told that the Y40, Y50 etc were the replacements. However, the new AKG phones contain the, for me anyway, dreaded words "lifestyle", "enhanced bass". It would only be worse if they had "Beats" and "Dr Dre" written on them!!

Thanks for your time and input.

[fatmick]

I was down your way three weekends ago and had 4 days of fantastic live music! Will be back next year! Assuming I get through the border controls!