Playback hardware for youth choir

[jsparhwk]

I looked and didnt see anything about this.
not sure if it should be in the general thread or here...

going on tour with our youth choir,
we always run with pre-record split trax (inst / vox)
track has previously been on cd player,

looking into playing off an iphone (no sim card)
or a 4th gen ipod, there is the normal headphone jack
that I have a mini audio to 2 quarter inch.
or there are connection cables I've found that go into the
dock connector

would I notice any performance difference as far as dynamic
range or not noticable,

also looked into rack mounted flash players but most
had mp3 / wav support only and thier fairly expense.

thoughts / suggestions appreciated!
thanks,
Jonathan

 

[Morpheus]

Re: Cue Playback Software

I looked and didnt see anything about this.
not sure if it should be in the general thread or here...

going on tour with our youth choir,
we always run with pre-record split trax (inst / vox)
track has previously been on cd player,

looking into playing off an iphone (no sim card)
or a 4th gen ipod, there is the normal headphone jack
that I have a mini audio to 2 quarter inch.
or there are connection cables I've found that go into the
dock connector

would I notice any performance difference as far as dynamic
range or not noticable,

also looked into rack mounted flash players but most
had mp3 / wav support only and thier fairly expense.

thoughts / suggestions appreciated!
thanks,
Jonathan

The iPods will only sound as good as an iPod... which isn't saying much.
You'd be better off running from a computer, even if it's only playing iTunes.

 

[Chris15]

I've moved the original post and it's reply out of the Cue Playback software thread and into this new one so that we can give it proper attention.

With an MP3 player of any description, there are 2 factors that affect sound quality...
1] Encoding. MP3 is a lossy compression and affects the fidelity.
2] DAC. The digital to analogue converter and then headphone amp in these things is tiny and thus cannot be of high spec for space and cost reasons...

 

[Footer]

If you rip the music from a CD to a lossless-AAC file you will have as good as quality as possible. Do not rip into an MP3 file. The D-A converters in the iPod touch are fairly decent. I would also suggest that you get a line out adapter. This will let you get a bit cleaner of a signal out of the iPod. It won't sound as good as a high quality CD player. However, depending on the quality of your content and your output gear, you may never know the difference.

 

[bessel24]

perhaps a small sampler like the roland sp404 would be a solution.
I have bought one for small theater touring stuff. You save you audio files on a CF flash card and have big buttons to push and the track starts right away not like I-tunes sometimes .

 

[seanandkate]

+1 for Footer's suggestion. I would bring the CD along as well and see whether or not you can hear a difference (or do this in your home venue if possible).

 

[jsparhwk]

Yea I couldn't find it after I posted I thought something had gone
wrong, but thanks for moving it,

Yea def I wasn't planning on using MP3 as it sums
the highs and lows... not sure how much of this you
actually hear because its at the extremes...

I plan on taking a cd deck as backup,
the line out (dock) definitely looks like a good option.

I'd like to look at: Tascam | SS-R05 Rackmount Solid-State Digital Audio | SS-R05

but there is cost to consider, and I already have 2 ipods...
and it only supports WAV or MP3, I can do WAV but it takes
some doing as we're a mac only shop

 

[zuixro]

I used to use WAV on my iPod/Mac, and it worked just fine. Now I use Apple Lossless. The only problem I had with WAV was a lack of album art and some of the track tags didn't work well.

If you don't want to use WAV, look at Apple Lossless. Plays on iPods beautifully.

 

[jkowtko]

What PA system are you using?

I would think that, other than with a very high end speaker system, you would never be able to tell the difference between mp3 and wav files.

Other than making sure your playback device doesn't sound like crap, I would just go with convenience.

My son's iPhone puts out pretty good sound, but when he hooks it up to the house stereo it seems like I can hear the difference between that and my Tascam DR-1. In both cases we're using a Hosa 1/8" to dual RCA cable.

But it sounds like you haven't even tried it out yet, so don't go looking to spend $500 on an expensive solid state playback device when your iPhone with headphone jack may do just fine. And if you think it sounds a little weak, then move to a lower-end solid state professional recorder like the Tascam DR-07 for under $150. I wouldn't expect you'd have to go any higher than that.

By the way, as I mentioned convenience ... if you want a DJ-style CD player with the big buttons, check out the Stanton S-250 or S-252 ... $100.

 

[SHARYNF]

Sadly the conventional wisdom of only with a high end pa system will you be able to hear the difference from a MP3 vs wav files is false. MP3's work fine for ipods and in your ear buds etc, but when you playback even thru a modest pa system say Mackie SRm450's the difference is quite noticable to someone used to listening to quality sound. You really do loose something when you do all that compression.

It is interesting to hear two dj's at the same venue one using mp3 and other other one lower levels or no compression.

Sharyn

 

[jsparhwk]

I'll try to get up there tomm. night after I get the Dock connector cable.
to do a cd by side test w/ the CD player we used last time.
Apple Lossless ...Check.
the system will be a Allen and Heath 16ch Mix Wizard.
with...good call SHARYNF ... 4 SRM450's as mains
and 2 mackie 18" subs...I think I'll bypass the eq's
to get a better idea.
the Tascam DR-07 looks like a good option.
Thanks for all the help
I'll let you know if I can tell a difference....

 

[SHARYNF]

Apple Lossless will be good, it is more on the MP3 side of things that you start to have some issues

Some suggestions, put the two subs next to one another, best in the middle but if need be off to one side DO NOT split them apart, you wind up with a fair amount of interference. You can experiment and see what works best with the eq switches on the back of the 450's if it is too boomy you can use the 75hz roll off. Personally I like to have my own crossover (the Ashly SR1001 is a reasonably priced analog crossover that turns up on ebay a lot) but the Mackie subs do have built in cross over. Some folks like the 18's some don't and prefer the 15's if you have a graphic or Parametric you could look at trying to remove some of the boominess

Sharyn

 

[jkowtko]

Sadly the conventional wisdom of only with a high end pa system will you be able to hear the difference from a MP3 vs wav files is false. MP3's work fine for ipods and in your ear buds etc, but when you playback even thru a modest pa system say Mackie SRm450's the difference is quite noticable to someone used to listening to quality sound. You really do loose something when you do all that compression.

It is interesting to hear two dj's at the same venue one using mp3 and other other one lower levels or no compression.

Sharyn

Sharyn, I really think it depends on the situation. Sure, extremely loud, pumping music may accentuate the differences between MP3 and WAV, but music tracks supporting a kids choir? Even with our musicals on tracks I've sometimes run with MP3s. We use an M-Audio Delta 1010 playback unit -- puts out some pretty awesome sound -- but the difference through the (Mackie) PA system was very, very subtle, I'm sure 99% of the audience couldn't tell the difference, and half of the time I couldn't either. I also monitor with Sennheiser HD280s, and again hard to tell the difference. What I can tell, however, is the difference in quality of the source recordings of various music CDs ... much more so than MP3 vs WAV ....

So if you running an audio-only presentation of any sort, yes I would agree that the details can become very noticable. But under a musical or choir, not so sure ...

 

[SHARYNF]

I'm probably just overly picky but I have a situation here where one of the people insists on using mp3 out of an Ipod and you just sit there and try to figure out what is wrong why the sound system sounds so poor, then you put a cd in and it just sounds a lot better.

But I guess a back up for a children's choir it really is not that big a deal

Sharyn

 

[FMEng]

There is MP3 and there is MP3. With many variables to proper encoding, it is easy for it to sound bad. The quality of software encoders varies greatly, and you get what you pay for. If it isn't licensed by Fraunhoffer, and it is free, then it is probably crap.

Then there is the bit-rate to consider. The higher the better with the trade off of larger files. For top quality stereo, I would aim for 256 kbps or greater.

Then there is stereo versus joint-stereo. Joint-stereo alters the channel separation, but it can increase the over all quality at lower bit-rates. Joint stereo means that more bits can be devoted to the mono sum (L+R) as needed, instead of the stereo difference (L-R). The mono sum information is more important to the over all sound quality. J-stereo is superior to my ear for bit-rates of 128 kbps or lower.

Then you have to consider sampling rate. More isn't necessarily better, which is contrary to linear files. If the speaker system cannot reproduce anything above 15 kHz (most PA speakers), the MP3 will sound better at the 32 kHz sampling rate for any given bit-rate. This is because a higher sampling means more bits that the encoder has to work hard to throw away to get to the target bit rate. (The upper limit of frequency response is a smidge less than half the sampling rate.) 48 or 96 kHz sampling is not better for the same reason. 44.1 is a reasonable compromise except at bit rates of 128 kbps or less.

Taking these things into account won't make an MP3 as good as linear (like a CD), but it can be pretty good if done right. MP3 is a relatively archaic algorithm now. AAC is generally superior to MP3, and AAC+ is excellent for really low bit-rates. The differences in AAC versus MP3 lessen as the bit-rate goes up.

Sadly, many people never listen to music from anything but MP3 files on headphones. They don't know what they are missing! Well recorded linear, digital audio on good speakers can be astonishing.

 

[pmolsonmus]

I tried to respond yesterday, but my post disappeared.

I'll respond from 2 perspectives - as a person who has done recording for the last 30 years (on both sides of the glass) and how I've made my living for the last 20 years as a choral director.

As has been stated, there is a significant change in audio when dealing with compression at any stage of the process. Read and then reread FMeng's post for details, he stated it better than I did yesterday. All MP3s are not created equal but unless you are dealing w/ no loss and equal bit rates, etc... ALL are inferior to CD.

From the choral director's perspective....
This is important because your singers will adjust to what they repeatedly hear. The compressed sound of an MP3 or summed output will cause inexperienced (i.e not pros) to change their tone conciously or subconciously. If you don't believe me, listen to pop singers pre Madonna and post Madonna - there is a significant change in tonal production (nasality). The same is true for whatever Disney is offering up as the flavor of the month.

Not only will they adjust they may do so to a point of causing vocal harm in trying to blend to a compressed accompaniment track. As a choral director, I too have used accompaniment tracks for certain styles of music in certain settings and my singer's tone changes when singing w/ acoustic accompaniment compared to recorded. It is never for the better.

If you're carrying all that PA equipment anyway, why is a CD player a big deal? You certainly can still get portable with RCA outs or a rackmount that would be easy to carry.

Phil

 

[jkowtko]

I'm probably just overly picky but I have a situation here where one of the people insists on using mp3 out of an Ipod and you just sit there and try to figure out what is wrong why the sound system sounds so poor, then you put a cd in and it just sounds a lot better.

But I guess a back up for a children's choir it really is not that big a deal

Sharyn

You know, I wonder if it's either the audio hardware or cord on the iPod, or the mp3 density that's being used.

I can hear the difference between cheap audio cords and a Hosa audio cord (and Hosa isn't all that great itself). I can also hear a big difference between my laptop headphone jack audio quality and my Tascam DR-1 headphone jack.

On mp3 formats, anything below 128k bps sounds poor to me (however I have a hard time telling the difference between 128, 192, 256, and wav). I also think anything sampled at less than 44.1 starts to suffer.

And, I have run a dance show the past couple years, where the teacher gave me a bunch of clips off her iPod ... they sounded terrible and I wan't thrilled to play them. But the mp3s I generate sound nothing like this.

So yes, I believe there is bad mp3 out there, and maybe the standard iPod mp3 format is low quality -- but there is also good mp3

 

[FMEng]

I can hear the difference between cheap audio cords and a Hosa audio cord (and Hosa isn't all that great itself).

I don't mean to pick on you, but no you really can't. Properly done, double blind studies reveal that differences in short, line level audio cables are not audible. High priced cables are the result of pure marketing hype.

Over the years much has been learned about subjective testing of audio, and two things standout. One is that people's perception is highly suggestible. If you think you might hear a difference then you probably will. Secondly, we know that accurate auditory memory is very short. You cannot make a valid A/B comparison more than a couple of seconds apart. By taking time to swap cables, you are not comparing anything validly.

There are differences in the mechanical design of microphone cables, which can make a difference in sound. The differences are well known, and measurable, such as capacitance, twists per foot, durability of the shield, flexibility, etc. The differences in mic cables are not subject to the hype, like low oxygen copper, blah, blah, blah....

A prime example of the suggestibility of hearing are the equipment power cables that are selling for hundreds of dollars. Never mind that the cable is 6 feet long, and the wire in the wall is many times longer, and connections are made through slightly loose and corroded wire nuts, nickle plated screw terminals, etc. Not to mention the huge storage capacitors inside the equipment that makes whatever tiny sins that might be happening on the AC line invisible to the audio circuitry. There are plenty of suckers willing to buy into snake oil.

 

[jsparhwk]

wow there's alot of information to read that you guys
are going back and forth on, just wanted to let you guys
know I didn't forget about my post but have had a family
emergency and will be back in the mix hopefully tue.

thanks for all your input!