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Sony_Fan

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If you notice the paragraph , under the checkbox , it mentions "if there is noise in the recording after import " that would imply what is called "Dithering"

which is like Antialiasing in video , It turns on "Dither" to compensate for "Digital Noise" or low level artifacts in the conversion process.

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If you notice the paragraph , under the checkbox , it mentions "if there is noise in the recording after import " that would imply what is called "Dithering"which is like Antialiasing in video , It turns on "Dither" to compensate for "Digital Noise" or low level artifacts in the conversion process.

Sorry, you lost me there. What is Dithering? When I'm importing music should I have "smoothing" on or off? As someone posted, is it only for scratched up CDs?

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Sorry, you lost me there. What is Dithering? When I'm importing music should I have "smoothing" on or off? As someone posted, is it only for scratched up CDs?

No , That isnt for scratched CD's , that would be Error Correction , That is built into iTunes and is a selection available for damged CD's

Dither is to correct the Digital noise that is sometimes generated in the Analouge , to Digital Conversion, or Digital to Digital transfers of differing formats and bit rates.

When Studios record , they record at the Highest posible samples rates , and then DownSample , to get to the CD realm.

try this Take a Low bitrate file and UPSample it to the highest rate you can , then listen very carefully to the noise the gets developed.

Sometimes oldr CD's or CD's from different Machines and processes when you copy them have to go thru a conversion process ( Say your player has a 24 bit process and the CD is from 1984 ad is on a "Scaled 16 bit" rather than a true redbook Audio format 16 bit , you will have a very thin wimpy sounding cd .

Some people will say Audio is Audio ,.... very untrue , many ways to burn a CD so there are times when noise will get in the process, dither is to help get rid of that . That is the simplest way to say it . here is a good article on Dither

http://www.earlevel.com/Digital%20Audio/Dither.html note that the article is from 1996 when 24 bit wasnt really here yet.

Edited by Guitarfxr
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No , That isnt for scratched CD's , that would be Error Correction , That is built into iTunes and is a selection available for damged CD's

Dither is to correct the Digital noise that is sometimes generated in the Analouge , to Digital Conversion, or Digital to Digital transfers of differing formats and bit rates.

When Studios record , they record at the Highest posible samples rates , and then DownSample , to get to the CD realm.

try this Take a Low bitrate file and UPSample it to the highest rate you can , then listen very carefully to the noise the gets developed.

Sometimes oldr CD's or CD's from different Machines and processes when you copy them have to go thru a conversion process ( Say your player has a 24 bit process and the CD is from 1984 ad is on a "Scaled 16 bit" rather than a true redbook Audio format 16 bit , you will have a very thin wimpy sounding cd .

Some people will say Audio is Audio ,.... very untrue , many ways to burn a CD so there are times when noise will get in the process, dither is to help get rid of that . That is the simplest way to say it . here is a good article on Dither

http://www.earlevel.com/Digital%20Audio/Dither.html note that the article is from 1996 when 24 bit wasnt really here yet.

..so should I have the CD smoothing on or off??? I'm converting CD audio to MP3 @192.

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..so should I have the CD smoothing on or off??? I'm converting CD audio to MP3 @192.

Like the message say , " If ( that is the biggest little word in the dictionary) you hear noise after transfer then select smoothing , if you dont hear noise that bothers you then there is no need .

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Like the message say , " If ( that is the biggest little word in the dictionary) you hear noise after transfer then select smoothing , if you dont hear noise that bothers you then there is no need .

If I hear noise, then I have to rip the CD again with the Smoothing on. Shouldn't I just keep the Smoothing on all the time to avoide noise in the first place? It says that it will increase importing time, but I haven't noticed any difference in that with the Smoothing on.

I think this option is designed for older CD-ROMs, which are unable to do accurate CDDA transfers. No need for it on modern drives.

If that's the case, then what exactly is the "normal" and "high" settings when you import using ATRAC3plus or MP3? I hate the fact that Sony doesn't explain thoroughly what these settings mean and what they do.

Edited by Chris G
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What "High" and "Normal" settings do for ATRAC3plus, is not known. But I know for sure that they actually affect the cut-off frequency of MP3 files ("High" gives a higher cut-off frequency or not cut-off at all for some bitrates). See my old thread here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=15617. But remember that that thread is quite old. For a more current discussion (ATRAC[3[plus]] only, but with graphs) you are welcome here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?s=&am...st&p=125793

Edited by Avrin
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What "High" and "Normal" settings do for ATRAC3plus, is not known. But I know for sure that they actually affect the cut-off frequency of MP3 files ("High" gives a higher cut-off frequency or not cut-off at all for some bitrates). See my old thread here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=15617. But remember that that thread is quite old. For a more current discussion (ATRAC[3[plus]] only, but with graphs) you are welcome here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?s=&am...st&p=125793

What does that mean? I don't know what these techincal terms mean. Pretty much I want to know will the "high" setting give more treble? more bass? Will I notice a difference is I just use "normal."

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Hi Chris, grab a CD you are familiar with, record one track with dithering, one track without, see if you can tell the difference.

Bob

Hmm..will try that. But I always use MP3gain to normalize my MP3s to 96dB. So I don't know if dithering will affect the sound quality when an MP3 file is normalized.

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Simply speaking, the "High" setting will give more treble (no effect on bass) in MP3 for some bitrates, but the difference will be noticeable only if you have really good ears and equipment. But I would still use "High", and not "Normal", if only the SonicStage MP3 encoder wasn't that bad. I prefer using LAME when I need really good quality MP3s. The difference is noticeable everytime. And there is a lot of programs that serve as a front-end for LAME, to make ripping and encoding easier. One of them, Feurio! CD Manager ( http://www.feurio.com ), though no longer being developed, even has an option to encode non-stop tracks (detected automatically!) as a single track, completely eliminating the annoying gaps when playing MP3s, but still maintaining the ability to switch between non non-stop tracks. Of course, if a CD is completely non-stop, you'll get a single gapless, but non-switchable MP3.

Edited by Avrin
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Simply speaking, the "High" setting will give more treble (no effect on bass) in MP3 for some bitrates, but the difference will be noticeable only if you have really good ears and equipment. But I would still use "High", and not "Normal", if only the SonicStage MP3 encoder wasn't that bad. I prefer using LAME when I need really good quality MP3s. The difference is noticeable everytime. And there is a lot of programs that serve as a front-end for LAME, to make ripping and encoding easier. One of them, Feurio! CD Manager ( http://www.feurio.com ), though no longer being developed, even has an option to encode non-stop tracks (detected automatically!) as a single track, completely eliminating the annoying gaps when playing MP3s, but still maintaining the ability to switch between non non-stop tracks. Of course, if a CD is completely non-stop, you'll get a single gapless, but non-switchable MP3.

I thought the MP3 encoder in SS was really good. It sounds the same as the encoder in iTunes. I would use LAME, but only if it's as easy to import music as it is with SonicStage. I like my programs to find the CD info and cover art. If LAME does not do this, i'm not interested.

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Simply speaking, the "High" setting will give more treble (no effect on bass) in MP3 for some bitrates, but the difference will be noticeable only if you have really good ears and equipment. But I would still use "High", and not "Normal", if only the SonicStage MP3 encoder wasn't that bad. I prefer using LAME when I need really good quality MP3s. The difference is noticeable everytime. And there is a lot of programs that serve as a front-end for LAME, to make ripping and encoding easier. One of them, Feurio! CD Manager ( http://www.feurio.com ), though no longer being developed, even has an option to encode non-stop tracks (detected automatically!) as a single track, completely eliminating the annoying gaps when playing MP3s, but still maintaining the ability to switch between non non-stop tracks. Of course, if a CD is completely non-stop, you'll get a single gapless, but non-switchable MP3.

But MP3 @ 192 or higher, I don't think the High and Normal setting will be noticeable. Anyway, I imported 3 Madonna CDs using SS with MP3 @192kbps. I turned on the smoothing option, and when I played them back on my RH1, it seemed to have more bass. I'm thinking the smoothing, smooths out the highs so they won't be exagerated, and this gives the impression of more bass. More bass is always good!

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I am sure Madonna deserves a better quality (VBR LAME!!!). As for more bass with "Smoothing" on, I think that this is just a placebo effect. Well, I'll try it right now. Unfortunately I don't have any Madonna CDs, so, probably, the trusty old Paul Desmond's "Take Ten" will do.

Edited by Avrin
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Well, here we go:

GREEN - SS MP3@192 "High" with smoothing, but you'll never see any green, since

RED - SS MP3@192 "High" with no smoothing completely coincides with it, and covers it.

Both files are exactly the same in size and content.

What is really funny is the fact that the graphs are much better in the highest treble range, than those of ATRAC3plus@192, which has a much lower cutoff (about 18 kHz, if I remember it right).

post-33150-1187896650_thumb.jpg

Edited by Avrin
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Well, here we go:

GREEN - SS MP3@192 "High" with smoothing, but you'll never see any green, since

RED - SS MP3@192 "High" with no smoothing completely coincides with it, and covers it.

Both files are exactly the same in size and content.

What is really funny is the fact that the graphs are much better in the highest treble range, than those of ATRAC3plus@192, which has a much lower cutoff (about 18 kHz, if I remember it right).

A higher cutoff does not equal better quality. Lossy codecs compress in many more ways, of which most are not easily visible in graphs.

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Well, here we go:

GREEN - SS MP3@192 "High" with smoothing, but you'll never see any green, since

RED - SS MP3@192 "High" with no smoothing completely coincides with it, and covers it.

Both files are exactly the same in size and content.

What is really funny is the fact that the graphs are much better in the highest treble range, than those of ATRAC3plus@192, which has a much lower cutoff (about 18 kHz, if I remember it right).

Thanks for the analysis. Do you mind doing another analysis with SS MP3 @ 192 but with the "Normal" setting and with/without Smoothing? I'd like to see how all 4 graphs compare:

-High with smoothing

-High without smoothing

-Normal with smoothing

-Normal without smoothing

Currently I import my music with "Normal" and smoothing on. I also use my DVD writer drive, instead of my DVD-Rom drive. I believe the DVD writer drive imports a little slower, therefore more thorough.

Edited by Chris G
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A higher cutoff does not equal better quality. Lossy codecs compress in many more ways, of which most are not easily visible in graphs.

You are absolutely right! Sometimes a lower cutoff might actually mean a better qualty in the remaining range, since there is less information left to encode, and it is less complex.

As for the comparison of "Normal" and "High" with and without smoothing, I don't have time to do this right now, but I remember, that "Normal" actually gives no cutoff @192, so the graphs for "Normal" will again be the same for "Smoothing" and "No smoothing", but will have no cutoff.

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Could you give an example?

I'll give you three mp3 files. All of them are encoded at 80 kbps CBR, from the same short wav file, but with different parameters. The first one uses default settings, the 2nd has the lowpass filter disabled (-k switch in LAME), the 3rd has lowpass and joint stereo disabled (-m s switch). Notice how the artifacts increase as you disable these encoding options.

Sample_01__default_.mp3

Sample_02__HFF_disabled_.mp3

Sample_03__HFF__JS_disabled_.mp3

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An even simpler example will be encoding from a noisy analog source, such as an analog cassete, which mostly has nothing useful above 15 kHz (in case of Normal tape). If you encode over the full 20-20000 Hz range, you'll get a poorer result, than if you set a 15 kHz cutoff.

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So, the graph for MP3@192 in four different modes is finally ready.

Left:

GREEN - High with smoothing, completely overlapped by

RED - High without smoothing

BLUE - Normal with smoothing, completely overlapped by

YELLOW - Normal without smoothing

What we see here:

1. Smoothing has no effect when using a CDDA-accurate drive.

2. High gives you a cutoff @20 kHz, but more treble in the audible range.

Right:

GREEN - Original track

RED - High without smoothing

YELLOW - Normal without smoothing

Here we see that both encoding modes (High and Normal) give you less treble than the original above 16 kHz, but High gives more accurate treble than Normal in the audible range.

I would suggest using High without smoothing for a better listening experience.

post-33150-1188557521_thumb.jpg

post-33150-1188558118_thumb.jpg

Edited by Avrin
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