RNS315

[honnyfez]

Jeeeez am I getting hacked off with this unit.

I got my 2nd Scirocco yesterday with the RNS315 that Ive never had before. I noticed that the sound was pretty poor (but then I had dynaudio before) and I was playing mainly MP3 files from the SD card.

A mate told me to try some CDs as the source quality will be much better, and it was. So I decided to set about getting the best digital recording I could rip from CD to play through the AUX (on a mem stick). So I can have a load of songs and partly as the RNS315 only has 1 CD whereas my previous head unit (think it was the RCD510) had a 6 disc changer.

I wasnt too sure what was the best quality I could get so I recorded the same song 3 times in

WAV lossless 1411kbps
WMA lossless 470-940 kbps and
MP3 320 kbps

I copied the three files to a mem stick but to make sure I knew which one was which I prefixed the filenames with WLL,WMA and MP3

So I get in the car, plug the stick in the aux and the track plays. The sound quality is pretty good, much better than the files I had on the SD card. But the head unit is cleverly reading the song and artist data so it just tells me that only 1 of the three tracks is working but I don't know which.

So then I have to go back in the house and individually write each of the three formats to the stick one at a time and take em out to the car.

First WAV lossless - car tells me no media is present
next WMA lossless - car tells me no media is present
So I think well, ok I can get good quality out of smaller MP3 files, so I try the MP3

Car tells me - no media (WHAT!!!!)

Then after a while...it finds it but the filename is the prefixed (its not reading the artist and track data) one so its NOT the file it was reading when all 3 tracks were on the stick and the quality isnt as good.

WTF. I thought we lived in the 21 Century here. Surely stuff like this should be stratghtforward?

Just seems completely random to me. Ive all but given up.

And another thing...why isnt the RNS315 or the head unit I had before capable of reading the track title from a CD? When youve got a 6 disc changer it very helpfully tells you you've got Discs 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 in and you can play Tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc.. Surely it can read the track names and artist off the disc?

[char]

It depends how you ripped the CDs in the first place and what version of id3 tags were added. You can use a tagging program like mp3tag (windows) to look at and be able to change the metadata detail inside the files, and that metadata is read to present the details on the head unit screen.
(For ripping in the first place use something like dbpoweramp (windows).)

It could be that the tracks have multiple id3tags or tags of version v2.4 or 2.5 and maybe the head unit cant ready this version of meta data.

You can use a large hard disk and plug that into the head unit, instead of the stick and CDs. Stick with just tags of type; ID3v2.3 remove everything newer and everything older than that (mp3tag can do this for you automatically).

I have over 19k tracks available this way with all the track/album details and it reads them fine, albeit on the old model of head unit.

For the CDs, are they Enhanced CDs or just standard ones? If they are standard they wont have the artist data to read in the first place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_CD" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cheers

[honnyfez]

Hey thanks Char

All sounds very technical. If you've got 19k tracks you obviously know what you are doing.

I use an old version of Windows Media Player to rip the CDs. The ones I ripped we're all bought but most of them were circa 10 years old or more.

In the end I ripped a few CDs to MP3 at 320 and put them on a 16mb stick.

I think part of the problem is that it takes the head unit a while to read them in but now it seems to play them all and display the track title and artist from the metadata.

After viewing some other discussions about levels of bass, mid and treble I messed about with the settings. I also found that the front/rear split makes quite a noticeable difference to the levels and not just the 'direction' of sound.

At the end of the day i know I'm not going to get as good a sound as I had with Dynaudio but I just wanted to get the best I could out of the standard speakers and amp.

I also think that after a few hours of playback the Lund is now richer. I have heard that amps and speakers do take time to 'bed in' or 'warm up' so maybe the sound quality is still actually improving.

The RNS315 is actually growing on me in functionality too. At first I found it diddly but as I get used to it and now I have the MFW to control it also it's growing on me.

I'm going to rip some more CDs and start using folders and I'll check out your advice...I appreciate your reply.

Cheers.