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Lack of BASS while playing itunes on my new HT setup. HELP! - Page 2

post #31 of 47
1/22/13 at 7:58pm
When you're playing digital source material, it has to be converted to analog somewhere. If you connect the source device to your receiver digitally (HDMI, optical, or digital coax), your receiver does the conversion. If you make the connection via analog audio cables, your source device does the conversion.

The only reason to use an external DAC in between (analog from source to DAC, digital from DAC to receiver) is if the DAC does the conversion better than both the receiver and the source. (Or if your source has only digital outputs and your receiver/amp has only analog inputs.)
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post #32 of 47
1/23/13 at 6:08am
I'm an old fashioned audiophile who still believes in analogue, although I don't do vinyl and use Radio Shack speaker wire. I have two systems.....one HT 5.1 setup, using a NAD T-175 HD pre-pro, and a McIntosh 7205 for 5 channel power....which includes an Oppo Blu-Ray/SACD player. I guess I'd call that my "digital" setup....the Oppo runs into the NAD through HDMI. However, even though the Oppo is known to be a superior sounding unit for CD's and SACD's with its Sabre DAC, that system's doesn't compare to my two-channel analogue setup which is all McIntosh except for the speakers. For convenience, most of what I listen to on the two-channel system is through my Apple desktop computer....Pandora and I-tunes, connected through the inexpensive Musical Fidelity V-Dac. The speakers in both systems are comparable, by the way, and ultimately what signal drive all speakers? Analogue!
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post #33 of 47
1/23/13 at 6:14am
Excellent point jtbell, and not all DAC's are created equal. The reason I responded to Sealteam with my input was I was concerned he was hearing the compressed, thin sound of MP3 before a proper conversion to analogue.
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post #34 of 47
1/23/13 at 7:37am
Before anyone else can, please allow me to call b.s. on myself:

1. By connecting my Oppo to the NAD through HDMI, I am bypassing the Oppo's internal DAC, which may be superior.......connecting the Oppo to the NAD through analogue outputs is something I will experiment with to see there's any improvement in my multi channel system.

2. I note that the way I'm using the two-channel system (by lazily using my computer as a source), it's not technically "analogue" even though my Mac preamp has only analogue connections.

Also, allow me to apologize for wading into the morass which is the argument about analogue vs. digital. There's a permanent thread on Audiogon labeled "When will digital capture the soul of mucic?" with nearly 700 responses.......nearly all say "never." Of course these are guys arguing that vinyl is the only way to go, while spending unbelievable amounts on speaker wire and interconnects. LOL
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post #35 of 47
1/23/13 at 7:56am
I have tried my Oppo BDP-83 through analog and HDMI. I can't tell any difference. The usual rejoinder is that my system/ears are just not good enough. IDK, they're good enough for me. Or maybe my wires aren't good enough. smile.gif
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post #36 of 47
1/23/13 at 8:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sealteamz6 View Post

Espo77, I appreciate your input, however I have made it quite clear that the quality of the audio files I am listening to is not the issue. My Itunes files are 320MP3. Youtube streams at 128MP3. It doesnt make sense I have no bass with itunes but bass with youtube. But it seems setting my speakers to small has fixed the issue I was having. On a side note, audiophilies can go on and on about mp3 being bad and lossless being the way to go but I have always been into great sound and quality gear and always been satisfied with MP3. Not to mention I barely notice any difference with Lossless versus MP3 and if im not mistaken many tests have shown that the difference is quite small. Obviously lossless is better but MP3 is not going to just give out no bass. my problem wasnt compressed bass, it was a lack of it. Now that I set my speakers to small I seem to be getting good bass from my subs while playing my music on itunes. I may be new to this compared to most of you, but I made sure it wasnt the audio quality considering I was getting the exact same sound (a lack of bass) playing a lossless file


Picked up from Stereophile:
"MP3 files are smaller in size because music is discarded...Less Bits=Less Music...It doesn't make sense to spend "audiophile grade money" on equipment and use MP3 as your main source of music. MP3's do not offer sufficient audio quality for serious music listening." I realize that you are happy going with the higher Itunes 320MP3 and YouTube's 128MP3.
Also, I'm not cutting down your choice in music, and there's nothing that gets me going as much as a great A/C D/C song, ZZ Top, Zeppelin...but the hard rock and metal might not make it on someone's demo disc as a reference for fidelity.
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post #37 of 47
1/23/13 at 9:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by eddie123 View Post

Excellent point jtbell, and not all DAC's are created equal. The reason I responded to Sealteam with my input was I was concerned he was hearing the compressed, thin sound of MP3 before a proper conversion to analogue.

Of course all DACs are not created equal, but that doesn't mean that they all actually sound different, or that there is any shortage of good-sounding ones. By good-sounding DAC I mean a DAC that is capable of converting digital data into sound that is an accurate representation of the original recording.
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post #38 of 47
1/23/13 at 9:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Espo77 View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by sealteamz6 View Post

Espo77, I appreciate your input, however I have made it quite clear that the quality of the audio files I am listening to is not the issue. My Itunes files are 320MP3. Youtube streams at 128MP3. It doesnt make sense I have no bass with itunes but bass with youtube. But it seems setting my speakers to small has fixed the issue I was having. On a side note, audiophilies can go on and on about mp3 being bad and lossless being the way to go but I have always been into great sound and quality gear and always been satisfied with MP3. Not to mention I barely notice any difference with Lossless versus MP3 and if im not mistaken many tests have shown that the difference is quite small. Obviously lossless is better but MP3 is not going to just give out no bass. my problem wasnt compressed bass, it was a lack of it. Now that I set my speakers to small I seem to be getting good bass from my subs while playing my music on itunes. I may be new to this compared to most of you, but I made sure it wasnt the audio quality considering I was getting the exact same sound (a lack of bass) playing a lossless file


Picked up from Stereophile:
"MP3 files are smaller in size because music is discarded...Less Bits=Less Music...It doesn't make sense to spend "audiophile grade money" on equipment and use MP3 as your main source of music. MP3's do not offer sufficient audio quality for serious music listening." I realize that you are happy going with the higher Itunes 320MP3 and YouTube's 128MP3.
Also, I'm not cutting down your choice in music, and there's nothing that gets me going as much as a great A/C D/C song, ZZ Top, Zeppelin...but the hard rock and metal might not make it on someone's demo disc as a reference for fidelity.

Taking everything written in Stereophiile as being the gospel truth is like flunking an IQ test.

Let's give the first sentence above a "sniff test".

Does Less Bits=Less Music?

What about lossless compressed files? They have less bits because mathematically redundant bits have been removed, but they can be instantly and easily converted back into their original redundancy-filled selves. Do they contain less music? Of course not, because 100% of the original music, 100% of the original information is preserved and can be reconstituted at will.

I may even be able to find another Stereophile article that agrees with me! ;-)

Stereophile is just a journal of opinion, and there is no rule that says that all of the opinions it publishes have to exactly agree. I've personally discussed this matter with the editor, John Atkinson and I rather suspect that as much pain as it would cause him, he'd be forced to agree with me about this point.
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post #39 of 47
1/23/13 at 9:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by arnyk View Post

Taking everything written in Stereophiile as being the gospel truth is like flunking an IQ test.

Let's give the first sentence above a "sniff test".

Does Less Bits=Less Music?

What about lossless compressed files? They have less bits because mathematically redundant bits have been removed, but they can be instantly and easily converted back into their original redundancy-filled selves. Do they contain less music? Of course not, because 100% of the original music, 100% of the original information is preserved and can be reconstituted at will.

I may even be able to find another Stereophile article that agrees with me! ;-)

Stereophile is just a journal of opinion, and there is no rule that says that all of the opinions it publishes have to exactly agree. I've personally discussed this matter with the editor, John Atkinson and I rather suspect that as much pain as it would cause him, he'd be forced to agree with me about this point.

Yes, but once the MP3 information is thrown out, you can't get it back.
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post #40 of 47
1/23/13 at 12:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Espo77 View Post

Yes, but once the MP3 information is thrown out, you can't get it back.

True but the reality of masking and other phenomena used to decide what not to encode (plus the ability to use a lot fewer bits per second when you encode in frequency ranges (don't need 44.2 KHz to capture a 100 Hz tone)) makes the question much closer with higher bitrates. IF (and admittedly it can be a big if) the only thing you lose is what you were'nt going to hear anyway, then lossy can sound just like lossless.

My preference is lossless just so I don't have to worry about whether I'm missing something . . . but I recognize that there are times where the two may be indistinguishable.
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post #41 of 47
1/23/13 at 1:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spanbauer View Post

I haven't read the entire thread so forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but two things came to mind:

1. When listening to iTunes, your center channel speaker shouldn't be doing anything; you want to be sure your receiver is only playing back a 2.1 source when listening to music. And if its true that your bass is coming from your center channel instead of your sub, that would explain why you noticed a lack of bass during 2.1 listening.

2. iTunes has an equilizer - try setting it to rock or bass boost and see if your results improve, but address the first issue first.

Unless he selects PLLII, or one of the other selections that play all speakers.
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post #42 of 47
1/23/13 at 7:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Espo77 View Post

Yes, but once the MP3 information is thrown out, you can't get it back.

What about ac3 and dts lol those are lossy compressions yet we still have bass in em. Some of my CDs were ripped in mp3 and still have the bass in em.
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post #43 of 47
1/23/13 at 8:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sealteamz6 View Post

..... I have a Yamaha Adventage RX-A710 AVR. I have had that for over a year now. I just upgraded to the andrew jones pioneer SP-PK52FS 5.0 setup and got two epik legends.

When I play games or blu rays off my ps3 the setup sounds amazing. So much great bass. I have my PC connected to my avr via optical cable. When I play games on the system the sound is great as is the bass.

Most likely when you play these two the digital audio has a .1 channel that the sub plays well to your liking. The problem sources don't and may not reproduce well on your speakers?



Quote:
Originally Posted by sealteamz6 View Post

I know little about DAC's but why would I wanna spend 300 dollars on something to convert a digital signal to an analog signal when all signals are moving towards digital and from what I know digital signals are better overall. How does converting a digital to analog signal increase quality?

A DAC will not help as you already passing a digital signal through your optical cable and the AVR is doing the decoding to analog. But, as stated, the itunes would be in stereo and the way you had your AVR set up would not pass the lows to the sub. Not knowing how your AVR handles bass management, it seems that when your speakers are set to small, all below 80Hz goes to the sub that is capable, hence your enjoyment with it set to small even with stereo music. So, that is your defacto setting. biggrin.gif
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post #44 of 47
1/23/13 at 9:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pokekevin View Post

What about ac3 and dts lol those are lossy compressions yet we still have bass in em. Some of my CDs were ripped in mp3 and still have the bass in em.

...and perhaps the bass that lives in a particular recording, MP3 or whatever, is there because of the recording process. As an example, I have been listening to Pandora for a couple years now, and any Steely Dan or a solo Donald Fagan song played has, IMO very good bass, even prior to upgrading to Pandora One (which gives you the higher quality audio). The artist wants it that way...he cares about fidelity when laying down the tracks. The recorded "loud" music is also an issue.
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post #45 of 47
1/24/13 at 5:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Espo77 View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by arnyk View Post

Taking everything written in Stereophiile as being the gospel truth is like flunking an IQ test.

Let's give the first sentence above a "sniff test".

Does Less Bits=Less Music?

What about lossless compressed files? They have less bits because mathematically redundant bits have been removed, but they can be instantly and easily converted back into their original redundancy-filled selves. Do they contain less music? Of course not, because 100% of the original music, 100% of the original information is preserved and can be reconstituted at will.

I may even be able to find another Stereophile article that agrees with me! ;-)

Stereophile is just a journal of opinion, and there is no rule that says that all of the opinions it publishes have to exactly agree. I've personally discussed this matter with the editor, John Atkinson and I rather suspect that as much pain as it would cause him, he'd be forced to agree with me about this point.

Yes, but once the MP3 information is thrown out, you can't get it back.

You thus prove that you are smarter than the guy who wrote the cited Stereophile article by noticing that there is a difference between lossy compression and lossless compression. Unfortunately, we're talking about a pretty low bar.

But since you brought up lossy compression there are some things we can observe about it. Lossy compression reduces file sizes by reducing the amount of information. There is far less information in the lower octaves than the higher octaves, so there is very little motivation to actually lose information in the bass range. If a MP3 file lacks bass, this probably happened because the bass was removed from the file prior to the MP3 compression step. The statement that all MP3 files lack bass is easy to demonstrate to simply not be true.
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post #46 of 47
1/24/13 at 8:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by arnyk View Post

You thus prove that you are smarter than the guy who wrote the cited Stereophile article by noticing that there is a difference between lossy compression and lossless compression. Unfortunately, we're talking about a pretty low bar.

But since you brought up lossy compression there are some things we can observe about it. Lossy compression reduces file sizes by reducing the amount of information. There is far less information in the lower octaves than the higher octaves, so there is very little motivation to actually lose information in the bass range. If a MP3 file lacks bass, this probably happened because the bass was removed from the file prior to the MP3 compression step. The statement that all MP3 files lack bass is easy to demonstrate to simply not be true.

+1 In the multichannel universe we ve the stark example of Master and Commander, which has huge very deep bass in some scenes on DVD (lossy encode) and is missing that bass on the BluRay (lossless sound). Somebody high passed the track before encoding it for BluRay. Bass is the easiest thing for digital to encode, takes little data, so throwing it out saves essentially nothing.
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post #47 of 47
1/24/13 at 10:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sealteamz6 View Post


When I play games or blu rays off my ps3 the setup sounds amazing. So much great bass. I have my PC connected to my avr via optical cable. When I play games on the system the sound is great as is the bass.

Now here is my problem, When I play music off of my Itunes i notice a severe lack in bass as well as mid bass. I also notice this playing spotify. Hence music sounds like crap. Now when i play music on Firefox like pandora or youtube there is no lack of bass and it sounds great. I know the issue is NOT the quality of my music. Played through headphones it sounds fine and before when I had my logitech 2.1 speakers hooked up i never had this issue. I just finished building a computer for my buddy. I put all of my music on his computer hooked it up to my avr via optical and had the same thing happen. Lack of bass. Again its not the quality of the music. I have downloaded LOSSLESS of the same songs to check if its the quality and I get the same thing.

Pick a track that you feel lacks bass. Play that same mp3 with itunes, the ps3, and upload it to youtube to play back for comparison. How did that one track sound played from those different sources?

In my experience a large percentage of music isn't mastered with tons of great bass, so music bass will often seem lacking when compared to the intentional heavy bass in games and movies. Maybe the issue is the source material and not your setup? I generally play music back with a flat EQ, but of course some tracks need the low end boosted or dialed down in order to sound "right". One setting won't fit all.
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