Quality of Sound sources

[84rzv500r]

Im struggling a little with the quality of sound sources FM radio kinda sucks, Internet streaming (iHeart Radio) is inconsistent song to song and channel to channel and SiriusXM is better overall however im in a slightly sketchy reception area south of US1 in the Keys... North is Much better... I guess the formats that are used as the input vary quite significantly... and it seems that the bottom end of the audio spectrum and the very top are the worst. At lower power listening levels this is less of a problem but crank it up to stripper pole levels (not saying i have a stripper pole just illustrative ) and ya gotta stay on the zone 2 volume...

what does everyone else do??

I'm gonna ask my kid tonight as she ran the college radio station for 4 years and still does guest programming...

 

[Farny]

Im struggling a little with the quality of sound sources FM radio kinda sucks, Internet streaming (iHeart Radio) is inconsistent song to song and channel to channel and SiriusXM is better overall however im in a slightly sketchy reception area south of US1 in the Keys... North is Much better... I guess the formats that are used as the input vary quite significantly... and it seems that the bottom end of the audio spectrum and the very top are the worst. At lower power listening levels this is less of a problem but crank it up to stripper pole levels (not saying i have a stripper pole just illustrative ) and ya gotta stay on the zone 2 volume...

what does everyone else do??

I'm gonna ask my kid tonight as she ran the college radio station for 4 years and still does guest programming...

I posted this question in some Facebook groups and got some good responses. Downloaded music is best if you have an app that can do it.

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[adrianp89]

I find Apple Music to be very good. Sirius is ok, it runs a few dBs low. If going to questionable service area, just download a playlist to your phone.

 

[Farny]

Seems Tidal, Spotify, and Apple Music were the better ones. Lossless music. And they recommend using the audio jack or USB for better signal quality

 

[84rzv500r]

no facebook here...

yeah as I suspected I think i have an apple music account that i don't use... I guess I can try that... all my inputs are consumed so it will come blue toothe from my onboard iPad or my iPhone.. .

 

[octavio3311]

Best source for me is the downloaded music on my phone.

 

[212s]

Iwhat does everyone else do??

It depends on the quality and streaming compression, and your expectations of "good sound quality". For me, sirius sounds like crap and is only good for talk radio, as does spotify and most streaming apps. A clean FM signal can sound decent although the highs are cut a bit to fit the bandwidth (30hz-15khz) but acceptable. MP3's at 320kbps is pretty good, but lossless FLAC is the best.

So what I've done for years is rip my CD collection (hundreds of them) to FLAC lossless files and download them to my network server for use at home. From there I convert to MP3 at 320 and upload to my phone or tablet or flash drive and connect to the stereo in the truck, boat, boombox, etc. This has the best compromise between good sound quality and file size for portability. Once you have a decent collection of MP3's get a player that can isolate by folders or genres. I use "Folder Player" on my android as I can separate classic rock, hard, metal, hiphop, pop, 80s, 90s, 2k, whatever into folders and play those types of songs for the crowd on hand or the mood of the event.

 

[CaptRedbeard]

I'll add a vote for the downloaded music on the phone. Some spots at our frequent lakes/river are not good for cell reception (any streaming) so I have Spotify set to automatically download any songs I add to a select couple playlists, then they're all ready to go when we hit the water. Well worth the annual subscription in my case.

 

[84rzv500r]

thanks all!!! I found 5 Gigs of Ripped CDs on one of my file servers... I'll start with that...

 

[biffdotorg]

I giggle at how our frame of reference has changed over the years. Quality audio is defined so differently than it was not even 30 years ago. With each decade, it is very obvious that we will accept lower quality audio for the sake of convenience.

I am still blown away by the sound quality in even my truck, when someone actually pushes a CD into the dash, instead of streaming over bluetooth, pulling down over Xm, or hitting up FM radio. It blows them all away.

But I too will accept the quality of XM over satellite for the conveniene of not having to be DJ in my boat. I love being able to pick a few channels and have Xm randomly move between the genres to appease the masses in the boat for that particular day. I know that I sacrifice audio quality.

But streaming XM through the app, then you drop even one more grade of quality, but we accept that when we are in a location that is not setup for satellite reception. (as the OP stated, "SiriusXM is better overall however im in a slightly sketchy reception area south of US1 in the Keys... North is Much better. ") So obviously not use XM through satellite, but rather the app.

One thing I will not do, is allow one of the kids to BT connect to play their favorite downloads that are all over the board as far as audio levels. That just means someone, usually me, has to sit and babysit the volume control, as each and every song may have been ripped at a different level. Nope, that crap stops as soon as one starts distorting.

I will go back to my XM over satellite. And for $35/season, I don't have to deal with level control, reception anywhere, and I create my own channels based on the age group in the boat that day. (still allowing me to skip, as the fusion head unit will cache the next few songs from each satellite channel in the group)

 

[84rzv500r]

I giggle at how our frame of reference has changed over the years. Quality audio is defined so differently than it was not even 30 years ago. With each decade, it is very obvious that we will accept lower quality audio for the sake of convenience.

I am still blown away by the sound quality in even my truck, when someone actually pushes a CD into the dash, instead of streaming over bluetooth, pulling down over Xm, or hitting up FM radio. It blows them all away.

But I too will accept the quality of XM over satellite for the conveniene of not having to be DJ in my boat. I love being able to pick a few channels and have Xm randomly move between the genres to appease the masses in the boat for that particular day. I know that I sacrifice audio quality.

But streaming XM through the app, then you drop even one more grade of quality, but we accept that when we are in a location that is not setup for satellite reception. (as the OP stated, "SiriusXM is better overall however im in a slightly sketchy reception area south of US1 in the Keys... North is Much better. ") So obviously not use XM through satellite, but rather the app.

One thing I will not do, is allow one of the kids to BT connect to play their favorite downloads that are all over the board as far as audio levels. That just means someone, usually me, has to sit and babysit the volume control, as each and every song may have been ripped at a different level. Nope, that crap stops as soon as one starts distorting.

I will go back to my XM over satellite. And for $35/season, I don't have to deal with level control, reception anywhere, and I create my own channels based on the age group in the boat that day. (still allowing me to skip, as the fusion head unit will cache the next few songs from each satellite channel in the group)

this is may be a better synopsis than I provided... agreed im not riding shotgun over the audio levels.. Ive taken to setting a level and leaving it at that. i'll move may old itunes curated catalog or downloads and CD rips to my onboard iPad and let the shuffle go wild... often when we have a group of boats we set the audio all to a local FM station at a low level and that sounds really cool...

 

[biffdotorg]

this is may be a better synopsis than I provided... agreed im not riding shotgun over the audio levels.. Ive taken to setting a level and leaving it at that. i'll move may old itunes curated catalog or downloads and CD rips to my onboard iPad and let the shuffle go wild... often when we have a group of boats we set the audio all to a local FM station at a low level and that sounds really cool...

understood, and my point was, unless you are using a streaming service, or a service to download your music from, the "rip level" may be all over the board. In other words, all the MP3's on any one person's phone could be all at different levels. So even if you didn't touch your volume control, the volume and thus distortion can be all over the board.

have you ever let someone play their collection and the volume goes up and down constantly, and nobody is touching the volume? that's what I'm talking about that annoys me about MP3 music. There is no standard, unless someone created their collection themselves, or pulled them all from the same known source. Which is usually never the case. This was a bigger issue during the rise of MP3, as there was no standard.

 

[lazergeek]

understood, and my point was, unless you are using a streaming service, or a service to download your music from, the "rip level" may be all over the board. In other words, all the MP3's on any one person's phone could be all at different levels. So even if you didn't touch your volume control, the volume and thus distortion can be all over the board.

have you ever let someone play their collection and the volume goes up and down constantly, and nobody is touching the volume? that's what I'm talking about that annoys me about MP3 music. There is no standard, unless someone created their collection themselves, or pulled them all from the same known source. Which is usually never the case. This was a bigger issue during the rise of MP3, as there was no standard.

This is a great utility to volume level all your mp3's MP3Gain It worked great on my 10gb music library before I gave up on it and just purchased the Spottily family plan. Spotify make my life so much easier then the old MP3 days. My entire spotifiy library is downloaded to my phone in case I dont have good service I can still play music.

 

[I_squared_r]

Use spotify. You can set certain playlists to automatically download to your phone when connected to wifi. It's great when traveling and international data is limited or the service sucks.

 

[adrianp89]

This is a great utility to volume level all your mp3's MP3Gain It worked great on my 10gb music library before I gave up on it and just purchased the Spottily family plan. Spotify make my life so much easier then the old MP3 days. My entire spotifiy library is downloaded to my phone in case I dont have good service I can still play music.

Just remember to always cut and not boost.

 

[kgower]

I use Spotify. I listen directly from the app or from downloaded content on my phone.

 

[2kwik4u]

This is a great utility to volume level all your mp3's MP3Gain It worked great on my 10gb music library before I gave up on it and just purchased the Spottily family plan. Spotify make my life so much easier then the old MP3 days. My entire spotifiy library is downloaded to my phone in case I dont have good service I can still play music.

This is what we did.

We managed CD's (Anyone else with a 128+ flip book on board in the early years of boating?) for awhile. We moved from that to self ripped, titled, tagged, and adjusted MP3's. Sometimes from our source, sometimes from online. It was a seriously new level of management, but we got to mix up the artists and create playlists that would outlast a CD change. A big game changer in our first boat was a CD playing head unit that would read the MP3's from the CD as data, instead of them as tracks. 650Mb of music on a single disc would last a whole weekend without repeats.

Fast forward a few years and we've moved to Spotify family plan. Wife, oldest boy, and myself are all on there with our own personal tastes. The levels for each song are "normalized" so we don't have to babysit the volume, and we have a couple shared lists. Those shared lists are setup on my phone to automatically download over WiFi at home, so the music is always available, of decent quality, and has already been vetted for content and quality. Spotify also has a ton of "premixed" lists that are super easy and fast to search and download. So we can plan ahead a bit for what we have on schedule for the day, adjusting the playlist for the group at hand. If we need to update the list or get some new ones, lunch at the marina has Wifi and we can grab something new then quickly and easily.

In terms of quality, we've never been big audiophiles overall. Our systems are typically stock with just small mods to increase clarity or reach at volume. Car usually get the "high end" bose system and left alone. We've upgraded the speakers and added a sound bar to the 190, but am still running the stock head unit. It's clear and well heard all the time, and we rarely run it up to "stripper pole levels", so most any input is acceptable for us. I am adding a sub this spring to help fill the sound in a little bit, but it's a single 10in with a 200w amp, so I'm not going to be making any ripples in the water with it.

We added another layer this year, which is my Garmin watch for control. I can adjust track, volume, and playlist from my wrist. Has made skipping the oddball song a playlist that nobody likes MUCH easier than climbing back in the boat.