Whats the best format besides FLAC to put music on Sansa Fuze?

MP3 players Sansa Fuze
21

@donp wrote:

@fuze_owner_gb wrote:

 

If you want to take a few minutes for an interesting read, I would recommend looking at the following article.  It is a good overview of the decline of High Fidelity, mainly brought on by the introduction of the MP3:

 

Death of High Fidelity

 Nothing to do with mp3’s.  It was happening way before that.  It is/was to get attention, spinning the dial on that AM radio until you hear some music, and you will hear the loudest music first and that station gets the ratings.

Now, the assumtion is that if you are home (like maybe in a good listening environment) you are more likely watching a video than listening to albums.  Music is for cars or background while you’re surfing the net with a computer fan hissing nearby.  Anything quieter than the road noise or computer fan doesn’t get heard, so they compress the dynamic range.  Doesn’t help to have producers whose ears were long since blasted out at rock concerts.

 But if you look around you can still get “old school” recordings with a large dynamic range.  “Best of Kodo” has a track with about a minute of music below -70dB, then crescendos up to full scale.  It all comes through fine on a compressed file, but not near a computer fan or in the car.  You might even need to turn of that fridge in the other room.

 

Message Edited by donp on 03-10-2009 03:41 PM

Actually, the awful state of recorded music works to my advantage…  I’ve gotten some pretty good money from re-engineering releases that were screwed up by the original producers.

22

@fuze_owner_gb wrote:

@donp wrote:

@fuze_owner_gb wrote:

 

If you want to take a few minutes for an interesting read, I would recommend looking at the following article.  It is a good overview of the decline of High Fidelity, mainly brought on by the introduction of the MP3:

 

Death of High Fidelity

 Nothing to do with mp3’s.  It was happening way before that.  It is/was to get attention, spinning the dial on that AM radio until you hear some music, and you will hear the loudest music first and that station gets the ratings.

Now, the assumtion is that if you are home (like maybe in a good listening environment) you are more likely watching a video than listening to albums.  Music is for cars or background while you’re surfing the net with a computer fan hissing nearby.  Anything quieter than the road noise or computer fan doesn’t get heard, so they compress the dynamic range.  Doesn’t help to have producers whose ears were long since blasted out at rock concerts.

 But if you look around you can still get “old school” recordings with a large dynamic range.  “Best of Kodo” has a track with about a minute of music below -70dB, then crescendos up to full scale.  It all comes through fine on a compressed file, but not near a computer fan or in the car.  You might even need to turn of that fridge in the other room.

 

Message Edited by donp on 03-10-2009 03:41 PM

Actually, the awful state of recorded music works to my advantage…  I’ve gotten some pretty good money from re-engineering releases that were screwed up by the original producers.

As some one who has done his share of prodution but never been a producer, and as an audiophile, It bugs the life out of me when a producer tells me to do something that I know will sound bad and that I can hear sounds bad, but the producer cant hear. The other thing I love is when I get a piece to master and the recording sounds bad, because the producers and techs didnt tell the band how to set up and use equiptment, or the producer was ignorant and couldnt do their job. Its hard to explain with out giving names and albums, but I have spent hundreds of hours cleaning up messes made by bad producers where the outcome is something I feel isnt worthy of human listening. A funny story, I almost got fired once because I went in and re-recorded a couple of guitar and drum parts on a certain album just because the origionals sounded like they were played thru 2 feet of cloth and were muffled beyond belief. I do have a few albums that I have purchaced where I can hear the poor production problems(I would never have let that stuff fly) but in these cases it works.

23

As -GB will no doubt agree, the death knell for mass market fidelity sounded when cheap CD mastering equipment hit the floor.  Well, actually, it was happening before that.  I remember when a CD scriber cost $60,000.

I can listen to an Atlantic / ATCO LP from years back, almost any one of them from the 70s-80s, and I can hear the nasty sound even if I’m listening while shaving, the old Norelco buzzing along my cheek.  What were they thinking at the console??  There were some awesome artists and perrformances, scribed down into absolute ■■■■.

I pray the masters are resurrected, hopefully the multi-track 1-inch and maybe 2-inch tapes.  I don’t know if the final two-track masters sound worth a fart, but I’m sure you know what I mean.

I’ve had the privelege of spooling a few masters on my home RT-909, and on the B77 before that, what a difference.  Those engineers really did some nice work.

Digital has been both a curse, and a blessing, as some recordings take advantage of the available resolution, and others simply compress it to death and watch the input level blaze the console display.

I have had some decent results using the old dbx 4bx to “unsqueeze” the signal a bit, tweaking the expander thresholds and attack a bit until it sounds passable.

To make it obvious, if you’ve heard what the original can sound like through the monitors as I have, comparing against the studio acoustics, uncompressed digital can be a treat for the ears.

And yes, the wee Fuze does an excellent job of playback!  As for mp3, it’s wonderful for some company while I hustle about.  When it’s time to curl up in a comfy chair, high resolution is the prescription.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

24

Thx to the contributors … quite an insight … btw: I use sennheiser cans and shure earbuds … I’m quite happy :wink:

25

@neutron_bob wrote:

As -GB will no doubt agree, the death knell for mass market fidelity sounded when cheap CD mastering equipment hit the floor.  Well, actually, it was happening before that.  I remember when a CD scriber cost $60,000.

 

I can listen to an Atlantic / ATCO LP from years back, almost any one of them from the 70s-80s, and I can hear the nasty sound even if I’m listening while shaving, the old Norelco buzzing along my cheek.  What were they thinking at the console??  There were some awesome artists and perrformances, scribed down into absolute ■■■■.

 

I pray the masters are resurrected, hopefully the multi-track 1-inch and maybe 2-inch tapes.  I don’t know if the final two-track masters sound worth a fart, but I’m sure you know what I mean.

 

I’ve had the privelege of spooling a few masters on my home RT-909, and on the B77 before that, what a difference.  Those engineers really did some nice work.

 

Digital has been both a curse, and a blessing, as some recordings take advantage of the available resolution, and others simply compress it to death and watch the input level blaze the console display.

 

I have had some decent results using the old dbx 4bx to “unsqueeze” the signal a bit, tweaking the expander thresholds and attack a bit until it sounds passable.

 

To make it obvious, if you’ve heard what the original can sound like through the monitors as I have, comparing against the studio acoustics, uncompressed digital can be a treat for the ears.

 

And yes, the wee Fuze does an excellent job of playback!  As for mp3, it’s wonderful for some company while I hustle about.  When it’s time to curl up in a comfy chair, high resolution is the prescription.

 

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

 

 

Yup…

Actually, analog masters are easier to restore than a highly compressed, poorly mastered digital.  Luckily, most of my work involves pre-digital masters.  With a bit of care, and the right software, it is amazing what kind of wonderful sound you can get out of even poorly mastered originals.

26

You have to keep in mind that anyone new to this is not going to be remastering CD’s and riping terrabytes of data to FLAC.

mp3 at 192 is a perfect entry point and may be shared with almost anyone (other than iPod users who are just, well…OK, never mind…)

I do rip at higher rates for good jazz and classical.

Plus, the Fuze is only an 8 gig machine.  That is going to get filled VERY fast with FLAC files!

27

@blackdog_sansa wrote:

You have to keep in mind that anyone new to this is not going to be remastering CD’s and riping terrabytes of data to FLAC.

mp3 at 192 is a perfect entry point and may be shared with almost anyone 

I wouldn’t recommend constant bitrate to anyone without some compelling reason like an antique player that won’t take vbr.  Again, not all mp3 encoders are equal, so it makes no sense to specify a bit rate without also indicating the encoder.  There’s been a LOT of progress in the last 10 years, or even the last couple of years, and not all encoders are getting the benefit.  Similarly, if you haven’t updated your perception of what an up-to-date encoder can do with it’s ration of bits…

 

28

@blackdog_sansa wrote:

You have to keep in mind that anyone new to this is not going to be remastering CD’s and riping terrabytes of data to FLAC.

mp3 at 192 is a perfect entry point and may be shared with almost anyone (other than iPod users who are just, well…OK, never mind…)

I do rip at higher rates for good jazz and classical.

Plus, the Fuze is only an 8 gig machine.  That is going to get filled VERY fast with FLAC files!

I don’t know about that…:wink:

My brother is 60 years old and just got his first portable music player last year.  While he isn’t an audio professional, he has a good ear and wants the best possible sound.  So, I spent a few days with him showing the “audio ropes”.  I also demonstrated the basics of correcting poorly produced CDs, among other things.  Within this past year he has ripped his entire collection, corrected any poorly produced CDs and converted everything to FLAC.  He doesn’t use the FLAC files on his portable, but as a way to store his collection… (probably similar to what ‘Skinjob’ does).  Then he converts the files of his choosing to be placed on his portable, using an encoder that sounds best to him.

Saying mp3 at 192kbps is a perfect entry point is like saying that everyone should wear black shoes.  It is unacceptable to me and is unacceptable to my brother, but every individual has different hearing capabilities.  The only way to find what is acceptable to you is to experiment with various encoders and sampling rates.  Your ears will quickly tell you what is best for your ears. 

29

OK, fair enough.

I guess part of it too is how much time you have to devote to this.

What your brother and you did sounds like a lot of time, plus the additional encoder software cost and effort.

I consider myself to be a bit above average ability technically, certainly not an expert, but not a moron.

And I would have been truly daunted at what you have outlined when I started.

Now, I may not be technically so afraid but now (with a very hectic kid-and-work-centered schedule ) I just don’t have the time or energy.  OR much cash for additional software or external hard drives.

I’m used to most people’s eyes glazing over when trying to explain even the basics of mp3 players, how to get music downloaded and ripped, etc.  Even with only a 10 minute conversation most people are at the limit of their attention span.  (or maybe I’m jsut incredibly boring!)

I’d say your brother has a much greater technical capacity and willingness to devote attention to this than the average person.

That’s all.

I do miss my single days when I would have devoted great amounts of time to this.

And, there’s always the simple CD player in the home stereo or car as well…which still works great.

30

@blackdog_sansa wrote:

OK, fair enough.

I guess part of it too is how much time you have to devote to this.

What your brother and you did sounds like a lot of time, plus the additional encoder software cost and effort.

 

I consider myself to be a bit above average ability technically, certainly not an expert, but not a moron.

And I would have been truly daunted at what you have outlined when I started.

 

Now, I may not be technically so afraid but now (with a very hectic kid-and-work-centered schedule ) I just don’t have the time or energy.  OR much cash for additional software or external hard drives.

 

I’m used to most people’s eyes glazing over when trying to explain even the basics of mp3 players, how to get music downloaded and ripped, etc.  Even with only a 10 minute conversation most people are at the limit of their attention span.  (or maybe I’m jsut incredibly boring!)

I’d say your brother has a much greater technical capacity and willingness to devote attention to this than the average person.

 

That’s all.

I do miss my single days when I would have devoted great amounts of time to this.

And, there’s always the simple CD player in the home stereo or car as well…which still works great.

Exactly.  Anything can be accomplished, given enough time.  I realize in this hectic world, that many people don’t have time to do the type of procedures I routinely do with my audio files.

Each person has to determine how much time they are willing to spend (as well as $$) to devote to audio.

31

WOW lot’s of info here, I do appreaciate it very much and will experiment as most have said.

Now I did convert and upload a few albums on my Sansa in the FLAC format. And it sounds great. I can hear a big difference between the mp3 and FLAC formats.

Also I dont have cheap IEM Im using Shure SE530’s so they also help to make the difference too.

I ran sound for bands back in the 80’s, and  played any brass instrument (mostly tuba, baratone, trombone) in an 89 piece orchestra band when in school too, so I tend to like my recordings to be on the good or best side. I think this all contributed to the ear that I have whether good or bad! LOL Im not involved at all in the music industry at all and havent been for quite sometime but still I think once you are exposed to an environment where you have to be able to hear the small intricacies of music you never lose that,even when not being exposed to the environment for a long period of time.

 Im just not too pc literate so thats why I aksed what everyone was using and most importantly what the settings should be, kind of a tutorial.

Thanks for all the responses, this is a great forum to get info from. I know alot of you have porbably answered the same questions over and over and I appreciate your answering my questions

32

@fixit5561 wrote:

WOW lot’s of info here, I do appreaciate it very much and will experiment as most have said.

 

Now I did convert and upload a few albums on my Sansa in the FLAC format. And it sounds great. I can hear a big difference between the mp3 and FLAC formats.

 

Also I dont have cheap IEM Im using Shure SE530’s so they also help to make the difference too.

 

I ran sound for bands back in the 80’s, and  played any brass instrument (mostly tuba, baratone, trombone) in an 89 piece orchestra band when in school too, so I tend to like my recordings to be on the good or best side. I think this all contributed to the ear that I have whether good or bad! LOL Im not involved at all in the music industry at all and havent been for quite sometime but still I think once you are exposed to an environment where you have to be able to hear the small intricacies of music you never lose that,even when not being exposed to the environment for a long period of time.

 

 Im just not too pc literate so thats why I aksed what everyone was using and most importantly what the settings should be, kind of a tutorial.

 

Thanks for all the responses, this is a great forum to get info from. I know alot of you have porbably answered the same questions over and over and I appreciate your answering my questions

Whoa! You’ve got SE530’s? Then you can definitely hear the added goodness of FLAC.

33

Put it this way with FLAC,  you dont have to ask the question “Is there any way to make this thing sound better”.  It does not get better unless you go to the 24 bit 96 Khz stuff.

All lossy codecs will alter the music to some extent.  And especially the transients.  320K cannot compete with 960K  bitrate from Flac.