...yet another CDex/mp3 question (1 Viewer)

[Scott Wong]

I know you're probably all sick and tired of me and my stupid mp3 questions. I promise I'll *try* and keep this short.

I just purchased a Sony DC-J01 CD based player. I just got it a couple of days ago. I got 129 tracks on one disc. I burned it using Nero. I encode using CDex while using "alt preset standard" at a VBR between 160kbps and 224 kbps. The "quality" setting is at V=2.

On certain tracks that sound phenomenal in Windows Media Player 9 on my computer, these same tracks on the CD I have burned now have little audio drop outs. They almost sound as though the CD is skipping. It doesn't happen all that often. On the CD I made myself with 129 tracks, I can only recall three of which that had that problem. I have heard of this problem before somewhere. I did a search but came up with nothing.

1. I want to insure that my Sony CD-RW CRX100E drive is configured optimally in CDex. Can anyone help me out with that? I don't necessarily care about encoding files quickly. I would rather take the extra time and insure that this is getting done correctly.

The settings thus far are as follows:

Read Sectors: 26
Read Overlap: 7
Block Compare: 1
Everything else is set to (0) zero


2. I know there's nothing wrong with my current files (are there?) because they sound quite good in WMP9. Is it something that NERO is doing??? I got this software from a friend so I'm afraid I do not have the manual. There's not that much configuring you can really do with NERO. I went into the preferences/properties tab but I didn't find a whole lot that appeared useful.

3. The only thing I found interesting when I did a search was that another user here has an in-dash Sony CD/MP3 player in his vehicle. They mentioned something about their Sony player not really liking VBR encoded MP3's. Perhaps it may just be my player?

Any ideas? ...so much for keeping this short. My bad.

Scott.

 

[Camp]

Hi Scott,

They sound fine when played via your PC but not so great on your portable, right?
Some portable players don't handle VBR encoded files very well. I'd suggest you do an experiment and burn a disc of mixed VBR and CBR files. Try using some of the same tracks you heard problems with.

I know there's nothing wrong with my current files (are there?) because they sound quite good in WMP9. Is it something that NERO is doing???

Probably not. What happens when you play these same troublesome files via the CD player on your PC? If they play fine there it's a pretty good sign that the portable player is the culprit.

If it's not too late to return the player I'd recommend one by iRiver. They make very good portable CD players capable of playing back multiple digital formats without error: http://www.iriver.com/

 

[Camp]

One more thing...

You might want to locate that specific Sony portable player on Sony's website. They may offer a firmware update that helps it perform better on VBR files.

Just a shot it the dark.

 

[Scott Wong]

Not sure why my portable player would single out these three particular tracks. The majority of the other files on that very disc were encoded the same way using a VBR method. *shrug*

I prefer VBR encoding myself as far as the "sound quality/space" ratio.

Returning the player at this point isn't an option. I did not keep any of the original packaging and it was ordered online from Crutchfield's website. I'll certainly check to see if there is any firmware available...? Otherwise, if I've got between 100-130 tracks on one disc and three of them are problematic, I'd say I'm doing okay. It's not perfect but it's something I can live with, I guess.

Any thoughts on optimizing my current CDex options?

Scott.

 

[Camp]

The software (firmware) on these players isn't really comperable to what you have on your PC. Not nearly as robust. Even the mighty iPod has had some reported difficulty with 320kbps files.

Any thoughts on optimizing my current CDex options?

Personally, I like the settings you list above.
Your best bet is to experiment to see what your portable player can handle. Take one of the "problem" tracks and encode it to various settings. Keep track of which is which and burn it to CD.

The goal here is to find the limits of your portable player.

 

[Angelo.M]

Scott:

Can you please list all of your CDex ripping and encoding settings?

Thanks...

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

I doubt this has anything to do with the ripping, possibly something with the encoding - but most likely is that the playback device just has sub-par decoding.

If you want to be sure you're ripping properly, you could try switching to EAC, though.

 

[Scott Wong]

If you want to be sure you're ripping properly, you could try switching to EAC, though.

I think I'll stick with CDex. For the most part, it's worked quite well for me.