Re:How do you get decent MP3?

["mark_harrison_uk2" <mph@xxxxxxx>]

--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, "Richard Boreham"
<richard.boreham@n...> wrote:
> Couple of quick questions. First, of the various MP3 players
> mentioned, do these support multiple concurrent streaming
> (e.g. 4 different tracks to a multiroom amp for distribution
> to 4 different rooms)?

Nope - the metaphor is the other way round. You have a single server
streaming to distributed players (one per room), and then amplify
locally. (The Rio has a 10Watt amp built in for those situations
where you don't have an amp avaialable.)

> Second, regarding the point you make on sound cards etc,  a CD
> player has a DAC to do the all important conversion from
> digital - do I understand that the MP3 players have an
> additional step (MP3 -> 'digital' and then DAC) or is the
> process totally different? (Confused I am.)

Ah, I see where the confusion is :-)

In playing back a CD on a multimedia PC, it's common to have two
DACs... One built into the CD-ROM, one built into the sound card. On
CD replay, using the one in the sound card is common, since that
prevents any jitter issues caused by passing the data over the PC's
bus, and instead an analogue cable runs internally within the PC from
CD-ROM DAC-out, to soundcard mixer-in.

AIUI, the way that MP3 players work varies.

The Turtle Beach Audiotron appears to work by taking an MP3 stream,
converting it back to a PCM stream in the digital domain, (making
that PCM stream available on a TOSLINK output in the process) and
running that PCM stream through a conventional DAC.

By comparison, some of the other MP3 players appear to have more
integrated chipsets capable of playing back a raw MP3 datastream.

This may be why the Audiotron reportedly sounds better - there's a
lot more choice of PCM DAC chipset, and many more years experience in
building them to tune the sound compared to more integrated chips.

Regards,

Mark