MP3 vs CD in the car

[jcb]

i always find the audio quality of MP3 is not as good as CD due to the compresison. Can you tell the difference in the car between the SD card and the CD player ??

[browellm]

i always find the audio quality of MP3 is not as good as CD due to the compresison. Can you tell the difference in the car between the SD card and the CD player ??

Personally, no. I record my mp3's at 224kb/s VBR.

[tomtom20]

I don't think so. I encode my tracks at 192kbs. Audi in the manual recommend not to encode under 160kbs. Though honestly, in a car with the rumble of the road I don't think you could really tell the difference between a CD and an MP3 encoded at 160kps. At the end of the day, almsot everyone these days owns an MP3 player/iPod and manages there tracks digitally. Meaning to me at least, I will not be using the cars CD player and messing about with CD's when I can have a few small SD cards taking up less space.

As an aside, to learn more about compression and hear the differences between them I found this link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...userlocale=809

[jcb]

shame they used crappy music to demonstrate the different bit rates !!!

i have encoded all my Cds to mp3 at 128kbps -i did this some time ago and catn be ***** to re-sample. i am sure it will be OK for in the car. I cant bear to listed to MP3 in th ehouse through my expensive hi-fi as it sounds flat and lifeless. I guess the fact that i will not be throwing CDs all round the car is a hug bonus. one 4GB SD card shoudl cover most of my needs (see other thread about successful use of 4GB card by another driver).

[digigriffin]

I have used an iPod since the first week they were ever shipped in to the UK.

I connected this up to my hi-fi at home and this really showed what was missing in the sound when compared to a CD.

So there is definately a lot removed from the sound when making an MP3 even at best quality.

I sampled all my MP3's for the SD card at the highest data rate possible as I was going to be using them instead of the CD player.

I was suprised how good the SD card sounded.

Then I found with the 2GB size I could not get as much on the card as I wanted.

So I re-imported this time at 192kbs with vbr.
I can still find no fault with the sound from the SD card.
CD's played do not sound discernably better.

So I am very happy to use MP3's and SD card rather than CD now.

I think it all comes down to the quality of the kit you are playing it on.
If I had the B&O then maybe I could tell the difference?

Also most CD's do not have track information on them they just say track 1, track 2, etc.

Ok if you rip the CD you can add this text to the disc.

For me SD wins hands down.

[jcb]

and of course you can burn some MP3's onto a Cd and pop that in the Cd slot permanently to add a little more music capacity to the car !

[AndyH123]

Haven't done any serious A - B comparisons in my B&O equipped A4, but I'm thinking mp3's played via iPod / AMI sound ever so slightly better than the same mp3 via CD.

192 .wma is my usual minimum (SO glad the CD handles .wma!) so haven't tried anything lower. I've played a mixture of 192 and 320 .mp3s via CD, don't have a problem with either, wouldn't even say 320 is noticeably different and I'm normally pretty fussy about these kind of things.

[John140]

i always find the audio quality of MP3 is not as good as CD due to the compresison. Can you tell the difference in the car between the SD card and the CD player ??

I think if you can significantly tell the difference then you have some music encoded at low bit-rates. Sure old 128Kbps tracks will run out of steam at the higher frequencies, but if you encode at 192K MP3 or 96K MP3Pro or greater, I would defy you to tell the difference especially in a car.

[MackemMan]

I have used an iPod since the first week they were ever shipped in to the UK.

Then I found with the 2GB size I could not get as much on the card as I wanted.

Read all the new posts about 4gb SD cards. I have got 84 albums on a single card.

[chelseaA8]

i have an A4 just ordered and i have been told in order to have the mp3 i would need sat nav is this correct?