CD Quality

[SteveGT]

What is the best way to get any of the more handy mediums to play at CD quality? Notice the difference with my i-pod.

[ashley1407]

Your post doesn't make sense. If you are after an better quality audio, it has more to do with how the file has been ripped to the cd in the first place. However, the higher the quality, the bigger the file.

[SteveGT]

Sorry.

What I really meant to say was: the CD quality I get on my system is noticeably higher than that through my i-pod. Without starting again with my i-pod as there are hundreds of cd's on it, can you record to cd quality onto the hard drive or by using a USB card easliy?

I have tried to record onto two seperate SD cards today and card was not accepted. Could be what I'm doing at computer!

[ashley1407]

It could be to do with how iTunes compresses the audio files. Try Googling for "itunes cd rip quality" or something along those lines. You will probably have to re-rip your CD's though

[maisbitt]

You'll have to recode all your rips at the highest bitrate MP3 you can live with. This is fine if you created all your MP3s and AACs from a CD, but if you downloaded the files, you're stuck with the bitrate you downloaded them at. If you're an audio connoisseur, you'll probably want 256kb or 384kb bitrate - hardly compressed at all. If you're prepared to dedicate a minimum of 200Mb storage space per album then this is the way to go.

If you really do have 100's of CDs on your Ipod, then you're not going to be able to fit anywhere near that number on at a higher bitrate. at 384kb, you'll be lucky to get 8 or 9 albums on a 2Gb SD card.

As for your SD card, if your Ipod is set to encode in AAC, and the files on the card are ripped from itunes as AAC, the head unit might not (probably not, I don't think AAC is supported - MP3 and Windows only?) accept these as a direct read from the SD card, you'll have to get itunes to convert them to MP3. Your Ipod works with AACs through the head unit because the Ipod is decoding them and outputting uncoded audio through the head unit.

[SteveGT]

Thanks for your help.

Have recorded some albums using Windows Media Player at full 320 quality onto a new Memory Card and transferred them to the HD in the car. In my opinion it is noticeably better than i-pod quality. This is going to take up quite a bit of memory space, but just have to be selective!

Tried recording as a wma file through WMP, which would have same quality but less space and Hard Drive read the artist and title but couldn't play the music.

Cheers

[jonallen628]

Why not connect a USB memory stick to the MDI? 16GB USB stick is about £15. You can get 100+ albums on at variable bit rate which is the best quality file the headunit will decode. The best sound quality is only achievable with an ipod and files in a loslless format. Files of this type cannot be played from storage media as the headunit cannot decode this format. If you connect an ipod however this does the decoding work on behalf of the headunit so lossless files will play.

[mo1315]

The best sound quality is only achievable with an ipod and files in a loslless format. this format.

Not exactly true. When playing through an ipod in the roc the sound quality is dependent on a number of things including the DAC within the ipod. Ipods are well known to have poor quality DACs (have a listen to the same mp3 file on a sony mp3 player for example and you'll see what I mean) Later generation ipods are better but earlier ones are terrible for sound quality. If you want the best results from your existing mp3 files, save them onto a USB stick or memory card. This means the on board DACs within the HU will convert the file into analogue sound & this is certainly better than the quality of DAC in your ipod.
I have all of my music on a 16gb stick now and am pleased with the results. Of course no compressed file will ever sound as good as an original cd. Good job the HU in the roc can play those too!

[maddogdave]

The media in will play ipod m4a files. Mine are mostly 320kbps and do sound better from a memory stick than an ipod. I thought I might have to re rip my CD's to MP3 but only need to do this if I want to play them via the SD card or on the CD changer. And using a memory stick means it can be left in the car. Can't squeeze all my music onto a stick, but a couple of sticks and swap them over every now and again is enough for most music. Haven't tried lossless format so can't coment as to whether the additional file size verses quality is noticable or worthwhile. Others have tried hard disks but you need one small enough to fit and that doesn't pull too much power from the USB for it to work correctly. There's other posts about this on the forum so worth searching.

[Jacktherat]

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[pishpashposh]

could be audio settings on the computer that created the files or in the application that ripped the files. it could also be the ipod itself as they arent well known for sound quality, other makes offer much better quality but then poor quality speakers or headphones can hide that. i remember the gadget show not too long ago got jamie cullum to test some mp3 players (the new nano was one of them) and he played them through studio speakers. the ipod sounded awful compared to the iriver that what part of the test group.