Home Audio Advice Needed....Please

[michaelman2]

Hi All,

I have an iPad Mini to which I have downloaded music. I am trying to find an audio system that will allow me to play the music at a loud level within my home.

The "boom box" and self contained docking stations are not what I am looking for and I cannot seem to find stereo/audio equipment anymore.

I want a decent set of speakers that can handle loud music and not sound muffled.

In years past, this was so easy and prevalent. You could find speakers and receiver/amplifiers ...now all I see are "home theater systems" and these cannot handle loud with out distortion.

I am really at a loss...have done Google searches and tried stores like Best Buy...the kids in there try to sell me the home theater systems or some system that costs a jillion dollars.

I purchased a Sony system from Best Buy thinking this would be the ticket and my music sounds like a muffled mess (which all of a sudden sounds that way on my Bose system as well). Since I am rambling at 2:30AM you guys can see this has me befuddled..

A)Anyone know of an audio system that can handle loud volume? And where to find it?

B)Anyone had a problem with the sound from an iPad sounding muffled and the vocal range almost non-existent. Even after re-boots, and other advice of downloads that I have tried?

Thanks in advance for reading this diatribe and also for any advice....

 

[whirlcool]

Well the first problem is that the MP3 format of the music is not full range. It's frequency response is considerably less than that of a CD or vinyl record. So the problem is with the source than rather with the playback equipment.

The link below will lead you to an excellent article about this and what you can do to improve the sound quality.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr12/articles/lost-in-translation.htm

 

[mattl]

Loud is very subjective.  What kind of systems are you looking at/buying?  The $199 cheapie system is going to distort  even at moderate volume.  Check the THD% and the IM% at what ever rated power is quoted.  It should be well under .5% and that is just for the amp, the speakers will distort at some point too.  At this point I have 4 AV systems around the house, some quite expensive some cheap.  I can play all loud, on my main system it's calibrated to system reference and when I play a movie I set it to 0 and get the full volume you'd get in a theater.

 

The others are either stuff I moved out of my main system or stuff I picked up cheap on Craig's list.  I picked up a few year old receiver on CL for $50 and paired it with a mix of Mission and Sony speakers and it can really rattle the windows if I want and I might have $160 or so into it - and it's a full 6 channel system.

 

 

As to Mp3s, yes some can be bad, but I am quite happy with the quality of mine, it depends on the source.  I rip my CDs to an pretty high bit rate format, and they sound fine, I stream rip other stuff and it is not nearly as high of a bit rate as what I'd do for a Cd but it still sounds fine.

 

[michaelman2]

Matt and Allen, thanks for reading my ramblings and for replying. I guess what I cannot figure is the speakers on my and the sound perfect.

The moment I hook it to an amplifier either via hard cable connection or Bluetooth the vocal portion is almost non existent on some tracks.....oddly this seems to have occurred almost overnight. I will read from the link you shared....thanks

PS
Loud= just shy of the window rattle you describe above.

 

[2packs4sure]

The big problem is the output of the mp3 players and ipods.

My mp3 player sounded awful in my system til i did this..

http://antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=180091

Mps files sound pretty good as long as they are at least 256 to 320 kbps.

http://antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=180091

 

[michaelman2]

Hey 2packs4sure,

Thank you for the link. I guess what mystifies me is the fact that this is all of a sudden. For example the song by The Beetles "Here Comes the Sun" ..the intro is an instrumental ...this is completely not heard when I connect to an amplifier.

Days before it was fine. I connected it via headphone jack to the "aux" on the amplifier and the intro could be heard clearly and at a good volume. Now for every song, it sounds like they are in a deep well (if you get any of the vocal track at all)..you get the back up singers and some of the instrumental.

It still is fine when I am listening to it from the small internal speaker on the iPad mini. Every song sounds fine.

When I connect it via the cable OR bluetooth, it sounds horrible I have tried to use other systems and also the bluetooth to correct this .....nothing works....and again this was all of a sudden.

 

[kb0nes]

Mike,

This whole thing mystifies me a little. I too have an iPad Mini and an iPod touch that I have hooked into a number of audio systems and never had an issue with sound quality.

First off I will say that it is NOT an MP3 compression issue, you can prove that by hearing decent audio with your headphones. Also remember also that Apple uses AAC compression which is a step above MP3, and even MP3 is pretty darn good as long as the bit rate is high enough.

I don't believe you need to use any form of an interface as the one link showed. The headphone output from these devices has a very low output impedance. It should be capable of driving most any reasonable audio input. The only rub I have had with mine is the output level is a bit low for some components.

It sounds to me that there is something amiss with the amplifier you are using. Have you tried feeding another source, like the output of a CD player, into that same input? Troubleshoot by trying all possible combinations to isolate the problem.

I have no guess at this point on the issues with the Bluetooth performance, but I'd troubleshoot the wired performance issues first.

As for 2 channel audio is it still very available but not like it used to be. Don't go to Best Buy though, they are all about either multi-channel home theater or bleeding edge (and checkbook) HiFi. Can a company that has pairs of $12,000 speaker cables on their demo floor really be trusted??

Stores like Vanns and Crutchfield still sell 2 channel audio gear.

Also remember that since everyone is abandoning 2 channel audio the deals are ripe on ebay and Craigslist. You could pick up a nice stereo receiver and a pair Klipsch KG2 speakers for $300 which is about 1/4 their original price. Your audiologist would hate them

 

[mattl]

Got to agree it's not an MP3 issue.  I have thousands of recordings and they all play fine on one and all of my systems.  I stream a ripped MP3 stream 24/7  on various systems in my home and they sound OK.  I'd suspect your connection, or more specifically the output connection to your ipad.