Been reading a lot about the 'quality' of the Amundsen+ sound system, my Avensis plays my MP3 128bit music fine and sounds good to me in the car, even wound up a bit. Tried the same files in my wife's new Rapid and thought that the sound lacked 'body' or 'depth'.

 

I could, given some time, copy all my CD music onto my PC in either MP3 320bit or WAV format, WAV makes much larger file sizes but is noted as higher quality sound, but am wondering if copying in WAV format will make any real difference on the Amundsen+, bearing in mind the apparent poor speakers and I think I read here that the head unit was restricted in some way that prevented it being overloaded. I read so many threads I forgot which one it was with that info'.

 

Anyone used both MP3 and WAV recordings and are WAV any better? Or is there a better file type to use?

WAV is completely uncompressed audio so the files take up a lot of room.

 

In a car, with road noise, I'd say MP3 at 320kbps will sound perfectly fine.

 

Does it play any other formats, like FLAC etc?

Edited 27 January, 201511 yr by softscoop

I re-encoded all my music as 320kbps AAC files. Mostly so I could just dump them from my iTunes folder onto the card rather than needing to transcode for the various applications in my life. Sounds fine in the car and take sup far less room than uncompressed files.

Edited 27 January, 201511 yr by Mort

Been reading a lot about the 'quality' of the Amundsen+ sound system, my Avensis plays my MP3 128bit music fine and sounds good to me in the car, even wound up a bit. Tried the same files in my wife's new Rapid and thought that the sound lacked 'body' or 'depth'.

 

......... bearing in mind the apparent poor speakers.........

 

Like you say, it makes very little difference (within reason - forget anything less than 64k) what the format is if the speakers and amp are sh1te!

 

Your Avensis probably has a decent setup whereas the Rapid's setup is probably 'less than ideal'.

I have the Colombus system & I have all my music in mp3 format (from 192kbps to 320kbps).

I can't say I notice any loss of sound quality in any of the files.

 

I would think that the system you have is actually better than the Avensis which is why you notice the problems now.

 

128kbps is quite low for an mp3 & I would expect listening to this on a good system you would notice the loss quality of higher frequency sounds like cymbals or vocals.

Lower bitrate mp3s usually sound flat & bassy due to the loss of more of the higher frequency components.

I re-encoded all my music as 320kbps AAC files. Mostly so I could just dump them from my iTunes folder onto the card rather than needing to transcode for the various applications in my life. Sounds fine in the car and take sup far less room than uncompressed files.

Wait...so the car is able to play AAC files?? 

I have the base Bolero in a mk3 Octavia and it copes with AAC fine. I'd assume the whole range should be fine with it? All m4a's straight out of iTunes.

I'd use 320kbps MP3 or FLAC, you could also try Apple lossless which is still AAC but without any lost detail.

 

As mentioned by another poster the audio system in the Avensis is simply masking the weaknesses of 128kbps whereas the better system in the Rapid makes them more obvious. The Octy MK3 Canton sounds amazing with FLAC files, whereas with MP3 can sound weak and lost.

Thanks guy's. Firstly my car will not be mine until March 1st so am doing this blind so to speak, using the wife's Rapid with Amundsen as a test bed.

 

I copied a CD in WMA and the file sizes were very large and I do not think there is an SD card large enough to fit all the music on! I will therefore use MP3 320 bit rate, as said in the car is a lot different than at home with a fairly good sound system. Due to some 'confusion' at the dealers I was not told that it was too late to upgrade to Canton so that option went out the window.

 

I use Windows Media Player to rip cd's, the only save options are some Window's Audio......, MP3 or WAV, there does not seem to be an AAC (Apple Audio.....?) or FLAC option so don't know what these are :(... yet.

Edited 27 January, 201511 yr by ajw1100

use iTunes to rip them

Try MediaMonkey if you don't want to install iTunes

 

Does very good 320kbps CBR mp3 rips and you can sort all your album art and tagging out nicely with it

Thanks for the advice, Windows Media Player seems to be doing a fair job so will stick with that, MP3 320 bitrate, only about another 1500 files to go, good job I'm retired

I use Windows Media Player to rip cd's, the only save options are some Window's Audio......, MP3 or WAV, there does not seem to be an AAC (Apple Audio.....?) or FLAC option so don't know what these are :(... yet.

Windows media player does not support FLAC unless you download an add-on. I found a couple on the web so wmp now plays FLAC files. Not sure if it allows wmp to rip to FLAC, but I use Dbpoweramp to rip my cds. I can rip to FLAC and mp3 at the same time, so I have FLAC for home use and mp3 to copy onto an sd card for the car.