Excuse me for my igorance but I have never used any type of player that was able to play mp3s. Do you burn the mp3 cd as a "data disk"? And will the player read the files if they are in sub folders?

 

The MP3 format is a compression system for music. The MP3 format helps reduce the number of bytes in a song without hurting the quality of the song's sound. The MP3 format compresses a CD-quality song by a factor of 10 to 14 without noticeably affecting the CD-quality sound (yes, you will lose some sound quality). With MP3, a 32-megabyte (MB) song on a CD compresses down to about 3 MB. You can download a MP3 song in minutes rather than hours, and store hundreds of songs on your computer's hard disk without taking up that much space. This format lets you record your MP3 files on a CD that you can play with an MP3 CD player or on your computer.

If you would like to convert songs from your CDs into MP3 files, you need ripper and encoding software to do that. You need software such as iTunes, (free) or Toast (Win and Mac compatible) to record your MP3 files on a CD. A ripper copies the song's file from the CD onto your hard disk. The encoder compresses the song into the MP3 format. By encoding songs, you can play them on your car stereo, computer or on your MP3 player.

If you have a writable CD drive in your computer, there are two ways to save your MP3 files on a CD: You can write the MP3 files themselves onto a data CD in order to save them and clear some space on your hard disk. You can then listen to the files on any computer. Some car stereos and DVD players now let you play data-encoded MP3s, too.

You can convert (decode) your MP3 files into full-size CD tracks and then save them to an audio CD. This allows you to listen to your MP3 files on any CD player. Hope that helps. :smile:
Charles

 

Thanks :smile:

 

MP3 files are data files and copy and are played as data files. MP3 files are either downloaded from the internet as MP3 format files, or taken from regular audio CD's and converted. Most PC users will use Music Match to rip the audio CD. "Ripping" just means to convert the audio CD format tracks on the audio CD to MP3 format files on your hard disk. Most rippers have variable settings for quality, from about 92 KBS to 320 KBS - the higher the number, the greater the sound quality, but also the larger the file. 128 is considered "CD Quality" by most rippers,but I find that 160 is a good compromise between quality and file size. Most current rippers use an internet connection that compares a CD's number of tracks and times to seek out the names of the artist and tracks from a huge database of available disks. The ripper then includes that info automatically in the ID tags.

Most CD writing software will have "MP3" disk as an option under Audio, like Nero or Easy CD Creator. If not, MP3 disks are actually data disks, with the MP3 files copied to it as data files. Programs like music Match allow you to manage and edit the ID tags that are part of the MP3 file format. ID information may include song name, artist, album - even album cover art. Current Mini MP3 players do not seem to be able to read the ID tag information, but once you start using MP3 files, other devices may utilize them, so they are good to include.

 

I have a Fujitsu Ten Eclipse CD5444 head unit. Had to use a infrared LED-device to connect my MFSW switches to the HU. Not a perfect match but it is okay. I always have the front panal or the supplied remote.

Anyway, the big complaint that ALMOST made me NOT buy this head unit was PLAYLISTS.

MP3 playlists are really common on portable players and home CD/DVD players (build in the last couple years....maybe more). Playlists are usually a <filename>.m3u file name.

This is pretty much a text file. What it has are the filenames of the <filename>.mp3 songs in the order that they will be played. My portable Rio Chiba player can support multiple playlists. I can load, say, 50 songs. But i can also load 50 playlists. And yes, i can order the playlists any way i want. One song, all 50, change orders. I can have "mood" playlists.

Roxio and Windows Media player have a playlist editor. iTunes also. They all work pretty well. I think iTunes is a bit harder to move a song title in but i erased it from my system. Roxio allows me to use my mouse to rearrange songs quickly. But since my system does not support playlists, i have not tried to create multiple with Roxio.

However, my HU does not recognize them.....UGH!!

A few months ago the only ones that did were built by Clarion. Even then not sure if all Clarion MP3 capable HU supported playlists.

So....for me, i have to make folders for the songs i want to playback. And i have to rename the files name to read 01-song, 02-song, etc. Then the folder names are 01. 02, etc.

Now i could just leave the file names as 1-song, 2-song, etc (These names are automatically applied when i rip store bought CDs to MP3's on my computer). But..... 10-song will play before 2-song. Soooooo..if i have over 9 songs, i have to use 01-song, 02-song, etc.

Still...i love the ability to put 8 John Coltrane's albums (a few even ripped from vinyl records!) onto a single CDR. Great for those long drives up Highway 1 in northern cal.

So...for those times when i want to grab some songs, i use my Rio Chiba. USB connection to some Rio software. I can create multiple playlists and edit them easy. 8 albums, 6 different playlists later, i can hit the road and pick a musical mood. Yes my Eclipse has an AUX input...but i cannot see the song titles without looking at my tiny Chiba (risking life and limb if i am driving!).

Good luck.

 

a free download...under options you can convert the mp3 file to .wav files and thus playable in the car! mp3s are much quicker to download as has already been explained...

I am interested in switching my HU out for the 05 mp3 compatible...it's just money

 

OK - we are starting to get confusing here. If you look at a commercial CD in your computer, you will see tracks labelled as .CDA files. These are relatively small files, and are not the actual music information. The architecture of a commercial CD is actually quite complicated and hidden - a by-product of its age and feeble attempts to reduce piracy.

If you "rip" a commercial CD, you can create MP3 files of the songs. The ripper program uses the cda index file to find the proper audio data and encode it as an MP3. A wav file is a different form of storage, and it is the base standard that computers (at least PC's) use. A wav file will play in the 05 Mini, but since it is not a compressed format it takes up about as much room as the original commercial cd files - no real advantage in using it. Most computer sound effects are really wav files, and if you search your computer for them, you will find all sorts of weird stuff.

 

I yield to the technical expertise of the Flossmaster...I was over-enthusiastically adding to the thread whilst winding down work on a Friday afternoon. A chap in my office makes cds for me from his mp3s into wavs so I can play them in my 02...yes they are huge files with no real advantage over commercial.

 

I find it funny but a lot of people do agree with you. To me, 128 is garbage and 160 is still pretty low quality. I almost always use 320 although 256 is acceptable, IMO. But to me, 128 sounds like a poor quality tape while 160 sounds like a tape. GOOD quality starts at 192 but you can still hear the imperfection. If you have the harddrive space (and most newer PCs do) I'd use 320.

 

I agree that any MP3 file is a compromise. For a home environment, even 320 is a step down on a good quality recording. In a Mini. with all the road noise and background processing by the HK system I assume 160 is passable.Its all about the size of the file at this point. If I could listen to vinyl and mentally edit out the clicks and pops, I figure I can disregard some loss of dynamic range and frequency limitations while paying attention to my driving. Most of the stuff I listen to was recorded on analog tape years ago, so I'm not losing much.

I have about 1 terabyte of storage on my home computers, so space is no problem. (its the videos now that take up room). I use commercial CD's at home - don't download much, but I do make MP3's to carry in the car or portables to save space.