update: i just did some reading of the entire thread (9 pages!?) and noticed new (music!) test samples from dcolak.
i downloadad and listened to them and i am SHOCKED. i can hear a SEVERE background noise, which is modulated by the music. my GF can hear it too and she does not have audiophile ears. >sample 1: clean+clear >sample 2: VERY audible noise floor (like a hiss), modulated by the music >sample 3: same as 2, but also seems to include clicks (may be due to the sampler/ripper you used) >sample 4: clean+clear this is more or less the same for all music pieces. i found especially "aint no sunshine" terrible. at around ~8sec in to the song, she sings "..its not warm...", where the artifact is fully obvious. for good measure, i tested the MP3 on my iRiver player with headphones and there were no audible artifacts, so the file seems to be OK. we have never noticed this before and (as i mentioned above) we have A LOT of MP3s, many of them at fairly high bitrates. now that i knew what to look for, i tried to find MP3s in our collection which show the same behaviour - and found some! however: i can only hear the artifact if the track is quiet and the volume is turned WAY up. but honestly: since i didnt go through the trouble of listening to the originals on CD i am not even sure if i am autosuggesting to myself or if the hiss is in the original recording. only the fact that the noise is clearly modulated suggests to me that i am hearing the artifact you guys discovered. thanks for the workaround, sikahr. i am not sure if that is an option for us, since transcoding means no more FFW/REW, and my GF needs to have that. she already resents the fact that i prefer vorbis for my CDs which does not allow FFW/REW either. ;-) -- dcote ------------------------------------------------------------------------ dcote's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9701 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=40409 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
