marco1;152687 Wrote: > I realise that the DAC in SB3 is not going to be as good as my CD player
Actually that's probably not the case unless your CD player costs over $500. What's more likely happened is that the Squeezebox and your stereo system are more revealing than your computer audio setup and you suddenly are aware of the shortcomings of 128 kbps compressed, streamed audio. > but how do the internet radio streams that are sent to a DAC compare > with what a CD transport would send, that is, if the Internet radio is > streamed at 128KBps, what will the CD transport 'stream' it at?? "CD quality" is a fuzzy term marketers use because it can mean anything. A standard CD contains data encoded at 1440 kilobits per second. So when you hear a 128 kbps stream, it cannot possibly be comparable to "CD quality" at 1440 kbps as over 90% of the bits have been discarded. True "CD quality" is either achieved with WAV playback, which is both lossless and uncompressed at 1440 kbps, or lossless compressed like FLAC at around 1000 kbps. With a lossy format like MP3, you've lost data which you may be able to perceive. It's harder to notice at higher bitrates like 320 kbps or 256 kbps than at lower bitrates like 128 kbps. So, try ripping a CD or two into WAV or FLAC, see here: http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?BeginnersGuideToRipping WAV or FLAC should be comparable to sound coming out of your CD player. Most people find that the Squeezebox is better. But if it still sounds bad to you, come back here because something is wrong. -- Mark Lanctot ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mark Lanctot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2071 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=29416 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
