New System, Bass weak when not cd?

[Diagmato]

A couple weeks ago, I fitted:

Dual 12" Kenwood Sub
Sony Xplod CDX-GT300S head unit
Kicker 200.2 (roughly) amp

It all works great! Bass works perfect, and the sound quality is incredible - unless you are not listening to an 'official' cd.

If I connect the Ipod, either through the Aux connection, or the special Ipod connector/controller, the bass sounds incredibly bad. It drowns out the music, even on the lowest setting. It also feels as if the bass has slowed down in this situation - even the subs themselves seem to vibrate noticably slower than from a 'proper' cd.

If I put in a CD which Ive paid for (not one ive burnt myself), then it all sounds just perfect.

Trying the CD's in a friends car, the sound is perfect. Just, the bass is awful in mine with them.

A friend said it was probably just my taste in music, but the same track from a CD came out just as bad when copied to another CD, or to the ipod. These sounded great in other cars.

Ive always copied tracks as 256-bit MP3's - again, these seem fine in friends cars, but in mine, the bass just sucks.

Any ideas?

 

[Luke M]

when using the ipod do you use the headphone socket?

i thought burning audio at 190 was the best for SQ?

 

[chaos]

It could be possible that the HU just doesn't like CD-Rs. Is it an old unit?

 

[beau]

in headunits iv had, proper cd's have always sounded a noticably louder than the copys, i dont see why, but a copy costs me about 15p, a proper one £10+ so i think i can live with the slightly quiester sound, so il stick with the copys

 

[paulbfd]

That's why I avoid MPscreech, iPlops, USB etc and have a headunit that will only play original CDs.

 

[Diagmato]

The Ipod has been connected both through the headphone socket, and the Ipod connector - sound quality hasnt changed .

In theory, a copied CD should play fine, as long as the files arent copied to PC as anything but lossless formats (wav, flac) - if theyre copied directly from another CD, it should have the same quality (the 0's and 1's of the CD surface should be exactly the same).

The head unit - made last year, I think. It plays cd rewritable's and mp3 cd's too.

On a side note - Halfords charged me £179 for that head unit, whereas its only £82.99?!? It came with the Ipod connector (£32) but dang, that was a rip-off.


I have so much music on that Ipod, but its a shame if I can only listen to original CD's - especially when it works nicely on friends cars .

 

[Top Shotta]

sounds like you are loosing the quailty when copying from orginal cd or from downloads, if you rip an orginal cd to mp3 you will loose alot of the quailty as it has to compress the coding, and you loose alot of the higher and lower frequency. Ways round this would to get a big harddrive and ripp all your of your orginal music to full size WMA. This will mean you wont loose hardly any quailty. if that make sence

 

[smokeyjoe03]

I don't know how your copying your CD's, but I use Nero, burn CD-Rs at 48x speed in MP3 format and it sounds perfect. However I have played normal audio CD's that I have copied MP3's onto and it sounded shoddy. Using MP3 disks means about 150 tracks per disc and pure sound quality.

As for your i-pod, change the bass and treble settings on the I-pod itself and see if it makes a difference.

 

[paulbfd]

Using MP3 disks means about 150 tracks per disc and pure sound quality.

But not as good as CD.

 

[Diagmato]

The problem doesnt seem to be the quality of the tracks, as they play just perfect in friends cars - im beginning to wonder whether it is to do with the hardware itself - the head unit, perhaps.


With the track quality - unless you are burning .wav files to a CD, as a music CD, the track has lost some quality (if you are not directly copying CD to CD).

Windows Media Player, if selected, defaults to ripping MP3's as 128kbps - it will sound ok on a PC, or so, but this is to preserve file space. 256kbps is a very good quality mp3, but if you have loads of hard drive to spare, then 320kbps is a good go.

WMA isnt bad, but there are options to this - its highest setting is apparently lossless.

.ogg is my favourite, but its not well supported - it compresses better than MP3, but preserves much more quality.

The CD itself really should not be a problem - the data surface of the disc is covered in very tiny dents representing 0's and 1's - a copied CD should be exactly the same as the original.

(I used to play around with audio on the PC - mixing certain tracks into one big remix (just for personal use)).


With the Ipod, ive tried all different settings for the bass, etc - it increases the volume of the bass, but it still booms out far slower than it should.

 

[smokeyjoe03]

But not as good as CD.

Better value for money and sounds just as nice if you buy decent disks (not 500 for £5 ones) Also MP3 disks tend not to skip as much as the origionals which could be (linking back to topic) like Diamato says: It could all come down to the hardware.

 

[volxstu]

Dunno how its done but when you copy CD's you can Turn the DB up a bit when recording so it will play more bass

 

[paulbfd]

Better value for money and sounds just as nice if you buy decent disks (not 500 for £5 ones)

Better value yes, but doesn't sound just as nice, trust me. It might on an average system.

 

[Ozzie1989]

I have a Pioneer unit with the IPod interface and I have no problems with bass or sound quality, sounds just like the CD's the tracks came off...

Must surely be headunit??

 

[beau]

Dunno how its done but when you copy CD's you can Turn the DB up a bit when recording so it will play more bass

really? i wana know how lol

 

[fenton_jd]

Normal CD tracks are usually around the 1,100kbps mark I think.

"standard" Mp3 quality is just 128kbps.

 

[smokeyjoe03]

MP3 just filters out all of sounds that are out of the range of hearing for humans. This means the sound quality is identical as nothing noticable is removed, it just makes more space as all the unnecessary stuff is filtered out.

 

[Jamie]

ive noticed that my home made CD's sound much poorer than any recent one which ive paid money for.

 

[Ozzie1989]

As has been mentioned, good quality discs, and music at a bit rate of AT LEAST 512k will sound near enough as good as a normal CD. For the ultimate quality a bit rate of 700+ is better for people with perfect sounding systems

 

[OzMoSiS]

WOW! 512kbps - 700kbps, haow many mp3s are you going to get onto a cd then? 4, 5?

i always rip or burn at 192kbps, i have found this to be the optimum rate, space wise and quality wise.

as long as the original song your burning onto the cd was ripped/recorded at 192kbps you should be ok. i have found no difference in using 224kbps or higher. the higher you go the more hissing and imperfections you are likely to get

i used benq audio master cds, which are very good, although the stupid standard blaupunkt cd changer in my stilo doesnt like them......but it doesnt like anything else anyway

weve turned the thread into an mp3 debate now lol.

original issue, polarity problem or something up with the head unit