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Had a brainwave earlier - I've got 3 DVD-A discs, and I'd bought a creative x-fi OEM card a while back from my old work (£6 IIRC, brand new ;D ), which is in my hcpc. So thought it about time to look at if I can now play the DVD-A portion.
Found the driver disc, and yup, there's the player in the software, cool!
Installed, stuck A Night at the Opera in. First things first, play it using the DTS track. Very nice :)
Tried the DVD-A player. Nothing :( Closed AnyDVD, tried again. There we go :)
Now, I'm not an audiophile, but I can usually tell the difference between a good MP3 and a normal CD on my setup. I wasn't expecting to notice any difference.
I was wrong, there's so much more... depth.... I think that's the right way of putting it :)
Now I need to setup some more speakers, stereo is SO last century ;D
Can anyone recommend any other titles? I have A Night at the Opera, The Game (Both Queen), and Hotel California (Eagles).
Oh, and Beatles Love. Also, anyone know of a decent online supplier for them?
Cheers :)
Funny you should mention this as there is uproar in the music industry due to the effect mp3's are having. Essentially they are removing the dynamic range in the music and having it play at 100% all of the time. There is a heck of a difference between mp3's and even cd's, so I may look this dvd-a format up. I must admit that I never realised there was a higher rate than cd's for audio.
Matblack
27-08-2007, 22:35
I'm sure DRZ will be able to clear up the MP3/ CD thing, the difference isn't as much as you might think depending on the sample rate.
I do have some DVD-Audio/ SACDs and yes there is a distinct improvement, War of the Worlds is particularly good.
MB
A lot also depends on the conversion process from CD to MP3. A lot of the converters (including the likes of CDEX that gets some use around here) do volume level normalisation on a track-by-track basis. If the artist deliberate set volume levels low then that will be undone (a particular problem for classical music I guess). I think this is where the 100% comment comes from.
I don't know much about the differences between SACD and DVD-Audio, but I'm led to believe SACD is the better format (but also the harder to play as unlike DVD-Audio it requires SACD-capable hardware).
I think normalisation sucks when ripping. The only time I've _ever_ used it is when I'm ripping audio, ie talking books. Certainly it's not enabled by default on CDEX.
Admittedly I can't remember what CDEX default options are as it's been a while since I used it, and it got tweaked a lot when I did (mostly to fine-tune the compression), and I've since wiped that PC clean.
It's off by default in CDEX. I've never tweaked CDEX and it's not enabled. :)
Flibster
28-08-2007, 00:21
Night at the Opera is a superb DVD-A.
One of the best albums of all time as well which kind of helps. ;)
I just used to buy from www.play.com
Santana - Supernatural - great as well.
R.E.M. - Automatic For The People - just a classic R.E.M. album.
Eric Clapton ; B.B. King - Riding With The King - If blues is your thing...
Sting - Brand New Day - I really liked this album....
Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive - 2 DVD-A set rocks!
Simon/~Flibster
NIght at the Opera is indeed a FINE album. The DTS surround track on it is good, but finally hearing the proper dvd-a version (albeit missing bits at the moment through lack of speakers :embarassed: ) is great :D
I agree that MP3's if created carefully can sound great, but often I'll d/l a song off the internet to see if I like it enough to buy the album, and the quality is usually not very good :(
Rah! :D
http://www.play.com/Music/DVDAudio/4-/104840/Rumours/Product.html
Stan_Lite
28-08-2007, 10:11
Eric Clapton ; B.B. King - Riding With The King - If blues is your thing...
Simon/~Flibster
I know sod all about DVD-A but I just wanted to say that this album is brilliant :cool:
Santana - Supernatural - great as well.
R.E.M. - Automatic For The People - just a classic R.E.M. album.
Eric Clapton ; B.B. King - Riding With The King - If blues is your thing...
Sting - Brand New Day - I really liked this album....
Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive - 2 DVD-A set rocks!
Simon/~Flibster
Santana - can't deny he has mahoosive talent, but his work has never "clicked" with me.
REM - on the shopping list, wonder if they'll do out of time, that's my fav album of theirs :)
Riding with the King. When this came out I got all excited and bought it. Wasn't overly impressed. I guess the more blues side of Clapton I've ignored. Again, massive talent from both artists, but not my scene :(
Sting - love the Police, but not a big fan of his solo stuff. Ought to borrow the CD some time to see if I'm missing out :)
Peter Frampton - who? :huh: :embarassed: Will look him up :)
Currently still addicted to "love" :)
Flibster
28-08-2007, 21:49
Peter Frampton - who? :huh: :embarassed: Will look him up :)
Haaang on?!? You're older than me... and not heard of Peter Frampton? :dunno:
REM - on the shopping list, wonder if they'll do out of time, that's my fav album of theirs :)
Got £15?
TAADAA!!! (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Time-Double-Disc-DVD/dp/B0006ICF9A/ref=sr_1_2/202-4551019-0200630?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1188334128&sr=1-2)
Simon/~Flibster
Haaang on?!? You're older than me... and not heard of Peter Frampton? :dunno:
No :embarassed: Probably would recognise some of his stuff if someone pointed it out, but it's not a name I'm familiar with.
Got £15?
TAADAA!!! (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Time-Double-Disc-DVD/dp/B0006ICF9A/ref=sr_1_2/202-4551019-0200630?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1188334128&sr=1-2)
Simon/~Flibster[/QUOTE]
No :'( :'( :angry: But I get paid Friday :D
My ears pricked up yesterday when Radio 2 played a Frampton song. I recognised it :) Can't remember which one it was though :embarassed: It's not a song I particularly enjoy however.
Elvis No1's on it's way courtest of ebay and well under a tenner :)
Figured out why I'm missing the odd channel - Creative in their annoyingness have made their soundcards need a FOUR pole 3.5mm connector to get all the channels out :angry: and can I find the cables anywhere? Nope, so £15 from Creative themselves. That's more than I paid for the frigging soundcard!!!
Cable turned up yesterday, as did Elvis No1's DVD-A and Police, Every Breath You Take dts audio CD.
Elvis sounds fantastic, Police sound a little like they're on helium :huh: Sounds ever so slightly sped up. Might take it into the local hi-fi place to see how it sounds on their kit.
Flibster
06-09-2007, 21:07
Special cable?
I've got 5.1 coming out of mine in analogue and digital with 4 seperate cables.
1 - front left/right
1 - rear left/right
1 - center/sub
1 - toslink optical
I tried it that way, and it missed out the rear and centre channels. At least with this cable I have an excuse to hunt for a couple more speakers and go 7.1 :)
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