Somebody who's up there at the show, ask these two questions about the stereo.

1) Will it play MP3's?
2) Will the stock indash have RCA pre-out's?

If the answer to either is no, tell them they they need to hire me as an audio system advisor.

 

Yeah, MP3s ought to be a concern for audiophiles. I'd expect a changer to be able to read em bare minimum (after the Dark Ages of the CD Tome and gigantic case, I'm ready to burn everything onto a few disks I can throw on my visor. And what kind of MP3 decoding will we get? Fraunhofer? LAME? Personally I'm becoming a big fan of Vorbis' .Ogg format, which I swear sounds cleaner for a given sampling rate and supports Variable sampling rates. another plus is that it's open code without royalties, which is THE reason that MP3 support for an OEM player is generally doubtful (after all...why should an auto company pay for something like that?? hehe). Check out Vorbis.com.

Out of the shadows comes first time poster

Panem et circenses!

 

Quote:

Yeah, MP3s ought to be a concern for audiophiles.

Definitely a concern but not in the way you meant! Nasty compressed noise...

 

Yeah, I don't think Audiophiles would want to listen to .mp3's, or any compressed audio files.

.mp3 also supports Variable Bit Rate compression, and Mazda already uses .mp3 in the Mazda6 (its an optional module). I do like .mp3's, but it depends on what storage medium is used. I really like my cd/mp3 player I have in my car right now, simply because it uses the CD's, which are cheap, so I can have a wide variety in my car with me.

 

i really hope there is minidisc availible.

and yeah, vorbis .ogg for some reason sounds cleaner i dont even know why.

someone should program a new compressor that has 0 quality loss...
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compared to CD's compressed audio format files can sound close to the original. While I agree that in general lossy compression makes for lower sound quality in principle, the majority of low quality sound in compressed files is due to the compression sampling rate or encoding used. Don't forget that CD's are themselves samplings of linear tracks and ARE a compressed audio format in their own right. There are lossless file formats out there but I support decoders like Ogg and mp3 because they allow a person to store a huge amount of music per CD, rather than shuffling through a massive book of em. The sound quality lost involved in a well encoded file is far less than the sound quality lost due to road noise IMHO. If you want to spend comparatively more $$ and audio is your thing, spring for the 200 disc changer, I won't stop ya. just saying that audio compression is a viable alternative that takes up less space in the cabin/trunk because it requires less media.:D Look at it this way: Smaller CD changer=bigger NOS bottle, Cheaper CD changer=more mods hehehe

 

the secret to Ogg's superior sound quality versus mp3 is that it uses a wholly different algorithm to sample sound. It's open ended so decoder advances will work even with files encoded with older encoders=> even old Vorbis files will continue to sound better as time goes on. Check out Vorbis.com for tech info/players et al. hehe If it wasn't freeware this would sound like shameless promotion:D Hopefully an integrated decoder will find it's way into HUs out there, it really does sound better than mp3 and for equal sound uses smaller file sizes.

 

With a good encoder (read LAME), I couldn't tell the difference and I had 10k worth of stereo equipment before it got ripped off . I was actually considering ripping the IASCA comp. cd and seeing if even the judges could tell a difference. Of course, it depends on your ears, the encoder used, and the reproduction. If you understood how the encoding actually worked, you would realize why all this is...I'm not going to derail this thread any more to explain it.

Back on topic, I hope it'll support MP3 too...but I doubt it. OEM is slow to catch on to advances in audio technology...think CDs...**** how long were CDs out before we could have it stock in a car? Mazda picked up on MP3 quicker (ala Kenwood), but I don't think Bose has been as quick to catch on.

 

yeah, lame is a real good encoder, i use to use that a lot
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yeah, and jpegs that don't depricaite quality, and a way to recycle rubber

all much easier said than done.

 

OBVIOUSLY.....lol
yeah, everything is easier said than done, unless it is said in such a way that it is actually more difficult than performing the procedure.
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They probably couldn't - given sufficient bitrate the compression formats are just too good these days. Most research now is aimed at reducing the bitrate while maintaining transparency, from MP3 to MPEG-2 AAC to MPEG-4 AAC and so on, with Ogg Vorbis sitting in the middle somewhere.

Back on-topic though, how does the MP3 plug-in for the Mazda 6 work, going along with assumption that the '8 will do something similar? Is it just a software upgrade or a new piece of hardware, replacement head unit?

 

there is a section on the stereo that is removable, and it is an actual plug in module. They have Tape, MD, or .mp3 modules. In the 8, it would be in the lower half-moon section of the head unit. If used. I don't know what storage medium the .mp3 player uses though.

 

So it doesn't actually use the in dash CD player as the medium? Figures