Audio Listening, File formats

[Au2ro]

I definitely agree with Tom about wanting to listen to music in the order it was originally intended

I just spotted this and had to comment.
I so agree. I go to the length of re-ordering the database that my Phatbox uses using SQL queries so that it plays all tracks by artist, album date then track number. I create just one playlist for all my music and leave it to run through all tracks in this order. Occasionally I will want to skip to one artist or album, which the Phatbox does allow, but usually just let it roll.
I have another playlist for all my wife's music in the same sort order.
I also have one playlist for all audiobooks, track order is essential for this playlist.

I have no idea whether any audio players could possibly allow this flexibility, but would love to find out.

All of my CDs are ripped to FLAC format and play fine on the Phatbox.
I have some MP3 downloaded material most of which I think sounds OK in the car if the bitrate is high enough.
I have tried recording vinyl to digital format and have spent hours with a program called DartPro in the past to try and get the crackles and pops removed but decided that this was really not worth it as I was never entirely pleased with the quality of the outcome even after so long fiddling with it.

 

[sciroccorrado]

...All of my CDs are ripped to FLAC format and play fine on the Phatbox.
I have some MP3 downloaded material most of which I think sounds OK in the car if the bitrate is high enough.
I have tried recording vinyl to digital format and have spent hours with a program called DartPro in the past to try and get the crackles and pops removed but decided that this was really not worth it as I was never entirely pleased with the quality of the outcome even after so long fiddling with it.

I need to have a look at the Phatbox again, I dismissed it a few years ago as being a bit too impractical, and not very user friendly when in use.

MP3s in the car is my default listening format, as that is all that the RNS-E supports. I have many tracks that I have only been able to find in MP3 format, which really annoys me sometimes. For example last night I watched the BBC Music of 2018 and was rather taken with Sigrid (Norwegian songstress, reminded me of a fast rapping London Grammar) however, I soon discovered that the only way to buy anything by her is via download from (insert preferred supplier here, Amazon, Apple, Spotify etc.) in MP3 format, no physical content was available anywhere. This frustrates me as I prefer not to have to "buy twice" if I want to later buy the tracks on CD (my preferred format).

As to ripping from Vinyl, I "went for it" and bought a high-end studio quality 24/96 sound card for my PC which is hooked up to turntable. These are then sampled at 24/96, and only occasionally do I actually bother doing any cleaning up - ie only really obvious snaps or pops. I actually prefer to hear the normal "vinyl crackle" as it reminds me of that warmth you get with vinyl, a lot of which is retained when listening at 24/96.

 

[Au2ro]

I need to have a look at the Phatbox again, I dismissed it a few years ago as being a bit too impractical, and not very user friendly when in use.

If you can find one cheap enough it will be worth the effort in my opinion.
The drive in the cartridge can fairly easily be upgraded to a descent capacity.
My only current issue is that I don't have a windows PC to run the software for it but I don't often get new music. I have recently got some new tracks though and need to get a windows virtualbox set up to add them to the phatbox which is how I managed this last time.

 

[Pinkythelabrat]

If you legally own a DRM article I believe that you are allowed to copy it to a physical format for your own use. I think this should include forms such as CDs. So long as you don’t share or distribute there shouldn’t be any illegality.
You write copywrited material to a second format whenever you back up or move items onto an external drive - This is a similar process.
That’s my understanding anyway. Mixtapes!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sciroccorrado]

If you legally own a DRM article I believe that you are allowed to copy it to a physical format for your own use. I think this should include forms such as CDs. So long as you don’t share or distribute there shouldn’t be any illegality.
You write copywrited material to a second format whenever you back up or move items onto an external drive - This is a similar process.
That’s my understanding anyway. Mixtapes!

That would be okay if you were able to buy them in at least FLAC format, unfortunately all the downloadable versions are MP3 (320kbps at the best). It just goes against the grain.

 

[sciroccorrado]

If you can find one cheap enough it will be worth the effort in my opinion.
The drive in the cartridge can fairly easily be upgraded to a descent capacity.
My only current issue is that I don't have a windows PC to run the software for it but I don't often get new music. I have recently got some new tracks though and need to get a windows virtualbox set up to add them to the phatbox which is how I managed this last time.

How is the integration into OEM stereos these days? Does it display track info, or does it just emulate a CD Jukebox like the XCARLINK?

 

[Bargepower]

If you can find one cheap enough it will be worth the effort in my opinion.
The drive in the cartridge can fairly easily be upgraded to a descent capacity.
My only current issue is that I don't have a windows PC to run the software for it but I don't often get new music. I have recently got some new tracks though and need to get a windows virtualbox set up to add them to the phatbox which is how I managed this last time.

There’s one on eBay at the moment...

 

[Au2ro]

How is the integration into OEM stereos these days? Does it display track info, or does it just emulate a CD Jukebox like the XCARLINK?

Same as it ever was, it emulates a CD changer. Track info is available as spoken audio, it speaks the track info to you.

 

[sciroccorrado]

Same as it ever was, it emulates a CD changer. Track info is available as spoken audio, it speaks the track info to you.

Okay, I'll stick to the 2x32GB SD cards in my RNS-E then, at least that displays tracks properly, and the sound is "sufficient" with the limitations of the BOSE system.

 

[Au2ro]

Okay, I'll stick to the 2x32GB SD cards in my RNS-E then, at least that displays tracks properly, and the sound is "sufficient" with the limitations of the BOSE system.

I don't see how track display on the head unit is any better than voice prompts, in fact I would assume (because I have never had a head unit with track display) it is easier to scroll through and listen to the voice prompts when you are trying to find a particular artist, album, track, genre, year or playlist etc. Never mind being able to control the order in which all tracks play by my preference of artist, album date then track number (granted I have to hack the database to get album date to work like this).

I don't want a new car unless I can get that kind of functionality from the stereo. I really don't know how to go about finding out the capabilities of car audio equipment though. I have looked on line but never can get sufficient detail of how these devices like XCARLINK and the likes of the manufacturers audio systems actually work in practice.