I have an iPod Mini that I use for "books on tape" so I can "read" while I fly. Sounds OK to me. But I did copy Rossini's "La Gazza Ladra" on to it as a first test... sounded great, but what would I know, I'm gradually losing my hearing ;-)
...Jim Thompson
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| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
I have the same sort of problem... left ear severely dinged, about 30 years ago, by over-pressure while testing a hearing aid compressor circuit, by hammering on the bench while the earphone was in my ear... blew a hole in my eardrum :-(
...Jim Thompson
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| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
The most likely reason is that you have the volume of the MP3 player too high - try setting it lower then putting the volume of the amplifier up.
Most people find that MP3's encoded at 128Kbits/sec or higher are of reasonably good quality with rates above 192kbits/s being considered indistinguishable from CD quality.
I usually use 128K-192K for music and 32K for voice recordings and find they are perfectly acceptable in the home, in the car and on headphones.
My mp3 player only has a headphone jack. I suppose that is a current signal? When I hook it up to the amplifier it sounds fuzzy. I guess it's because it should be a voltage signal?
Is there a way to transform headphones to line out without turning the world upsidedown?
I don't have an MP3 player but I have heard that before. Why then is MP3 all the rage? Just because of the amount of songs that can be crammed into a gigabyte?
For speech they must be great. Even with music I am not too critical since I listen to shortwave and AM a lot. Quality checks I have to do on one ear since the other got a ding in the army when something went weeeooouuu-kaboom.
I use the headphone out on my Creative NuVo to drive amplified speakers and it works pretty good. Remember that the signal out of the MP3 player might no be large enough to drive speakers directly. Are you running the headphone out into an amplifier? If so, did you adjust the volume on MP3 player to different levels?
MP3 ain't CD quality, but its as good/or better than most radio to me.
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MP3's aren't fuzzy, but I've heard quite a few with a strong wishy-washy sound (mp3's have many of the same artifacts as FFT-based noise reduction that audio editor programs use). But yes, mp3's give 'most' of the sound of a CD [it's apparently indistinguishable to many people] for ten percent of the storage of CD's.
To the original poster, it's not a current vs voltage thing. It's possible the mp3 player is output too high a voltage for the line input. Does the fuzziness go down or disappear when you turn down the volume on the mp3 player? If so, leave it down.
There's no such thing as a 'current' signal the way you're thinking it seems in audio.
In any event all outputs have to have a voltage to make the current flow !
The headphone out *will* be a voltage signal btw. And indeed you can use it to drive a power amplifier with no modification.
I don't know why you have a problem, other than perhaps the fact that a decent external amplifier and speaker may accentuate the rather poor quality of mp3.
That depeds on the compession of course. I have read about tests where "audiophiles" got to listen to an top-notch CD player and an MP3 recording. Many of them couldn't tell the difference and some even chose the MP3 recording to be the best.
Any current source (if it is at all a current source) is transformed into a voltage source by a simple load resistor. To connect a 33 ohm resistor to the output as a dummy load and hook up the amp from there.
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