[mal2pool]

`Anyone know if you can buy an mp3 player that sounds as good as a top of the range turntable or cd. `Looking for hifi sound, full bodied.
`I want to hear all the midrange and have a stronger bass and better vocals. `All the ones i've tried sound the same.

i play music on my tablet and usb stick through amplifier, sounds okay but not as good as my old hifi did., sound is not as strong.

[skinj]

You may well be opening up a huge can of worms with this one!
People still argue over vinyl sounding better than CD without going down this route.
The problem you are likely to face is that mp3, historically was used as a portable music format. The major benefit of mp3 was that you could get many more songs on your device than on a single CD & the device itself was a lot smaller too. The sound quality of mp3 from the start was nowhere near CD quality but the convenience outweighed this factor.
The players themselves & the ripping software/hardware have got better since mp3 players started to appear whilst at the same time storage space has grown allowing people to use higher bit-rate mp3 (or other file formats too) ripping to increase the sound quality again.
This said however, the likelihood is that is you play mp3 files on a very good HiFi and then compare them to the same tracks on CD, the CD will probably still sound better, simply because there is less compression.
Also bear in mind that playing mp3 on a tablet into your amp means you are using the tablet as the audio source. Although the tablet can do this, it is not its main purpose in life which is one reason why the sound is not as good. Also if you are using the headphone socket on the tablet to transfer the sound this will have an impact too.
A good way around the issue might be to get a streaming device such as the Sonos Connect. This plugs in to the amplifier to supply the audio source & as it's designed to do this specifically should sound better than running from a tablet. Also these devices often allow you to play files such as FLAC that should provide a much better sound quality than mp3.

[koantemplation]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mal2pool

`Anyone know if you can buy an mp3 player that sounds as good as a top of the range turntable or cd. `Looking for hifi sound, full bodied.
`I want to hear all the midrange and have a stronger bass and better vocals. `All the ones i've tried sound the same.

i play music on my tablet and usb stick through amplifier, sounds okay but not as good as my old hifi did., sound is not as strong.

I'd recommend the Fiio X5ii. It is great with hi-res FLACs and ISOs, but it will depend on what head phones you use with it.

[gomezz]

My Sansa Clip+ can play FLAC as well as MP3 and a myriad other formats but as FLAC versions are so big I play those through my h-fi from my old laptop instead and play the MP3 version through headphones or car stereo from the Clip+ when out and about.

[anthony david]

What was your old HiFi, that I assume you got rid of, and what are you using now? What mp3 bit rate are you using? Without lots more information it is not possible to answer your question.

[mooghead]

I found a very interesting web 'quiz' recently which played sound clips at various levels of compression and its ridiculous how little difference their is (though I admit I was listening through laptop speakers and not through a hi fi or my decent in ear headphones), I will see if I can find it and post the link. I think a lot of it is a placebo effect to be honest. People get told that vinyl is 'warmer' or 'better' and just agree for the sake of it.

[mooghead]

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecor...-audio-quality

Don't say I don't do nowt for you x

[mal2pool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by anthony david

What was your old HiFi, that I assume you got rid of, and what are you using now? What mp3 bit rate are you using? Without lots more information it is not possible to answer your question.

was a seperates system, top of the range hitachi,wish i had kept it now. might try and expensive mp3 player like the fiio mentioned above or this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2219725512...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

probably never sound the same as traditonal amp/turntable combo

[jenzie]

buy a stereo system

[mal2pool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jenzie

buy a stereo system

i bought one...roksan kandy amp and cd but still didnt have the depth and midrange and power of my old stereo

hoping with a better mp3 player that will bring out more detail in the music

[gomezz]

I suspect that you need a device to store your music digitally (in a suitable format, which means *not* mp3) and which allows you to play it back through a sound system that either has built in or allows the use of a good quality DAC which is the thing which is critical to converting the digital recording back to an analogue signal to feed the amp and speakers. The DAC circuitry built into any portable device is not going to be anywhere near the quality of a dedicated DAC device.

[Chris Frost]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mal2pool

i bought one...roksan kandy amp and cd but still didnt have the depth and midrange and power of my old stereo

hoping with a better mp3 player that will bring out more detail in the music

I'm sorry... did you really just say that a Roksan Kandy amp and (Roksan??) CD player didn't sound as good as your old Hitachi stereo?

(a) Hitachi is nowhere near high-end in Hi-Fi terms. Don't get me wrong, they made some nice music centres in the 70's and early 80's when those things were in fashion, but the speakers were usually a weak point and the main system could be shown a clean pair of heels with Dual or Thorens turntable and Leak amp or Pioneer receiver.

(b) Roksan makes some of the finest Hi-Fi amps in the £500-£2000 integrateds market.


Sound signatures do change with different eras. CD brought with it a sharper sound that jarred against the more mellow tone of 70's/80's vinyl and cassette until the engineers learned how to master for the newer format. Even so, a good 70's/80's system would still make a decent fist of modern music because quality wins through. The first time I heard a decent suspended chassis turntable (Ariston RD80 Superior/SME3009/Ortofon) in to a Pioneer receiver and KEF Concord IV's was a jaw dropping moment. I too remember listening to a Hitachi music centre and it was nothing like as good. The industry's next move in to vertical stack systems in cabinets at first and then later as stand-alone shelf systems was, IMO, a backwards step in fidelity and the gap between proper separates systems and mass-market stereo systems has continued to widen ever since.

If your Roksan amp partnered with an as yet unnamed CD player and speakers isn't working well for you then trying to "fix" it with a poorer quality source really isn't the correct answer. What gear do you own and how did you come by purchasing it?

[gds1972]

Is your new amp and cd player hooked up to your original speakers or have you changed them as well?

[SnrDev]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mooghead

I found a very interesting web 'quiz' recently which played sound clips at various levels of compression and its ridiculous how little difference their is (though I admit I was listening through laptop speakers and not through a hi fi or my decent in ear headphones), I will see if I can find it and post the link. I think a lot of it is a placebo effect to be honest. People get told that vinyl is 'warmer' or 'better' and just agree for the sake of it.

You can't seriously expect to hear a difference on laptop spkrs, nor through a pair of normal h/phones.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mooghead

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecor...-audio-quality

Don't say I don't do nowt for you x

But this sort of test exactly illustrates OP's question. You link to a web site that I look at on my iPad. I can listen to each sample through the inbuilt spkr which proves absolutely nothing, or I can play through the iPad's on-board DAC which has deconstructed the files and passed them through its lousy amp into my quite good phones. Or I can bluetooth it from the iPad through the streamer into my hifi, which is still 4 steps (DAC, pre-amp, bt, streamer) to get it to the hi-fi. I could go through the hassle of saving each file locally and feeding it straight into the streamer, but it wouldn't prove much. I got 4 right btw, if you believe that there's a difference between a WAV & a 320k MP3 file, which there isn't in real terms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gomezz

I suspect that you need a device to store your music digitally (in a suitable format, which means *not* mp3) and which allows you to play it back through a sound system that either has built in or allows the use of a good quality DAC which is the thing which is critical to converting the digital recording back to an analogue signal to feed the amp and speakers. The DAC circuitry built into any portable device is not going to be anywhere near the quality of a dedicated DAC device.

MP3 is fine. 192k gives pretty good rendering, 320k is virtually indistinguishable from FLAC or the original CD, unless you listen on an oscilloscope. I prefer speakers.

OP - you're not going to find what you want in a run of the mill MP3 player. The basic economics of it make it unlikely that you'll find comparable electronics - DAC, error correction, pre-amp, sound shaping - in an MP3 player, that comes close to matching a 'top of the range' CD player. Nor will it be as good as a decent turntable at digging out the sound.

You haven't given an idea of budget but you're hinting at something half-decent, so your best bet is to save your MP3 files in as high a quality as possible, which means 320k. Storage is cheap as chips these days so there's no reason not to. Save them on a NAS drive attached to your home network, and investigate audio streamers. Cambridge Audio know a thing or two about streaming audio - look at their Stream Magic 6, which does a nifty job of being a pretty good DAC and a pretty good streamer. A few other companies make good streamers; CA do a good balance of cost & quality. That's the sort of thing you need to get a good sound out of your MP3s. I use mine into Naim amps into PMC speakers, in parallel with a Naim CD player. It's pretty good, and there's virtually nothing between a good CD on the player and the same track either as a FLAC or 320k mp3 through the CA SM6. The biggest difference is the quality of the original mastering - some CDs are crap whatever you play them on and can't be rescued.

A good quality streamer playing files directly off your storage will give infinitely better results than taking the same audio files through a cheap & cheerful DAC, a lousy pre-amp and out through the headphone socket. You should also find that the streamer can be controlled from your iPad, iPhone or Android device too, to allow more sitting in your comfy seat in the right place with a glass of red, enjoying it all at its best.

[mal2pool]

i've a denon ceol and stream from there, also plays mp3s and i can hook a cd but the quality all sounds the same, no real difference i can hear between mp3s and streaming, a little better but not much.

[diablo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Frost

I'm sorry... did you really just say that a Roksan Kandy amp and (Roksan??) CD player didn't sound as good as your old Hitachi stereo?

(a) Hitachi is nowhere near high-end in Hi-Fi terms. Don't get me wrong, they made some nice music centres in the 70's and early 80's when those things were in fashion, but the speakers were usually a weak point and the main system could be shown a clean pair of heels with Dual or Thorens turntable and Leak amp or Pioneer receiver.

(b) Roksan makes some of the finest Hi-Fi amps in the £500-£2000 integrateds market.

Roksan Kandy are fine amps for the money but old music centres often had a fuller midrange than separates, that might be what the OP is missing.

One of my systems is totally flat HK amp paired with some old Castle Conway IIIs which are quite 'warm'. The other main one plays through some very clinical XTZ speakers but does so through an Anthem MRX500 - which as AV amps go is rather warm sounding. Both systems have a sound which although they may not be totally accurate is the type of sound I prefer.

I would suggest that the OP installs foobar 2000 on his tablet (if possible) or some other software which has a graphic equaliser built in. Then adjust the levels at various frequencies to see what settings suit his ears.

Then buy speakers which match those settings. Easier said than done though.

[jmclaugh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mal2pool

`Anyone know if you can buy an mp3 player that sounds as good as a top of the range turntable or cd. `Looking for hifi sound, full bodied.
`I want to hear all the midrange and have a stronger bass and better vocals. `All the ones i've tried sound the same.

i play music on my tablet and usb stick through amplifier, sounds okay but not as good as my old hifi did., sound is not as strong.

If you are asking if a piece of music stored as an MP3 file and played via an MP3 player through a hi-fi system will sound as good as the same piece of music on a vinyl record played on top of the range turntable or a CD played on a top of the range CD player the answer is no it won't.

[SnrDev]

Actually it will. My 320k mp3 files sound as good as the equivalent FLAC files, which are as good as the source cd track. I listen on a very good system; mp3 files can be and usually are brilliant quality, if they're from a well-mastered sourrce. I use mp3s for selecting individual pieces via the ipad to play through the streamer, and the cd player for listening to a full cd. Convenience is the abitrator, not sound quality.

OP you won't find a £50 mp3 player that matches a top of the tree cd player in the same way that you wouldn't expect a portable cd player to match a decent fixed unit, but you will find plenty of choice of units that play mp3 files as well as a cd player will.

[anthony david]

You can pay a lot for digital players. This months HiFi world may interest you if you want the best and are prepared to pay for it.

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/hifi_wo...2016_large.jpg

[barbeler]

I can imagine some of the really dedicated hi-fi enthusiasts from the 1970s frothing at the mouth at some of the comments on here

[SnrDev]

What an odd thing to say. As a 70s hi-fi buff (but in a better position now) give me modern hifi anyday. Easily portable source material, no worries about wow & flutter, scratched vinyl, worn styli or poor quality cassettes; we have reliable electronics, nicer looking gear. And absolutely wonderful sounds.

[barbeler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnrDev

What an odd thing to say. As a 70s hi-fi buff (but in a better position now) give me modern hifi anyday. Easily portable source material, no worries about wow & flutter, scratched vinyl, worn styli or poor quality cassettes; we have reliable electronics, nicer looking gear. And absolutely wonderful sounds.

A true hi-fi buff would never have any of those, but especially the cassettes.

[Spruce]

Quote:

Originally Posted by barbeler

A true hi-fi buff would never have any of those, but especially the cassettes.

Don't venture into Tapeheads.net and say that barbeler.

[pavier]

There was a Gadget Show segment on the subject of FLAC v mp3, trailer here

http://gadgetshow.channel5.com/news/...st-flac-vs-mp3

and the full version is available from 5 on demand, series 22 episode 3.

They did blind tests with a group of listeners using high end equipment and various compressions of mp3 and FLAC.
End result? Couldn't tell the difference and FLAC was a waste of money.
No doubt those who have spent a lot of money on FLAC equipment and music files will pour scorn on the results but I'll take blind test results from the real world over theoretical results based on maths any day.

[anthony david]

If the o/p could give us the source of his mp3's (home made or purchased) and the bit rate it would be helpful. I don't think he is in to Hi Res/FLAC etc though I may be wrong.