MDI niggles

[Maverick]

But I did notice that the sound quality seems to be better from playing CDs than from my iPhone.

Who would have thought that a lossless format like CD would be better than an icrud playing back a lossy format.

[G-rig]

Who would have thought that a lossless format like CD would be better than an icrud playing back a lossy format.

How do you know he wasn't playing low bitrate mp3 on the phone?

CD's will always sound the best but lossless is very close and the mdi sounds fairly good. Also on the stock speakers/amp you can't tell a huge difference.

Lets hope VW bring out a new firmware for the MDI soon.

[Corey_R]

CD's will always sound the best but lossless is very close

Lol... only an Apple user could say a comment like that seriously!

You do realise the big issue with that comment right?

[G-rig]

Lol... only an Apple user could say a comment like that seriously!

You do realise the big issue with that comment right?

??

They should sound the same minus any loss through the mdi cable etc.

I use flac at home on the pc with Foobar and that is just as good, so are wav files.

[Corey_R]

That's what I'm trying to say. There should be NO difference between a lossless file and the original source.
If there is, then the 'CD ripping' stage hasn't done it's job properly, or the playback chain is not up to scratch. Obviously Apple being Apple, and forcing users to only be able to hear their digital music via analogue output is the cause here

[Maverick]

How do you know he wasn't playing low bitrate mp3 on the phone?

It's irrelevant as it's a lossy format.

CD's will always sound the best but lossless is very close and the mdi sounds fairly good.

But it's still not the same, being surprised that a lossless format sounds better than a lossy format is like being surprised that the sky is blue.

Especially when the CD which is lossless is being played goes from a digital source to the headunit as a digital signal and is only converted to analog at the speakers whereas the icrud plays a lossy digital file converts it to analog is transmitted to the MDI and passed through to the headunit (I'm not sure if the signal is converted back to digital and finally back to analog at the speaker outputs at this stage).

Also on the stock speakers/amp you can't tell a huge difference.

Clean out your ears!

[G-rig]

It's irrelevant as it's a lossy format.



But it's still not the same, being surprised that a lossless format sounds better than a lossy format is like being surprised that the sky is blue.

Especially when the CD which is lossless is being played goes from a digital source to the headunit as a digital signal and is only converted to analog at the speakers whereas the icrud plays a lossy digital file converts it to analog is transmitted to the MDI and passed through to the headunit (I'm not sure if the signal is converted back to digital and finally back to analog at the speaker outputs at this stage).



Clean out your ears!

We are all basically saying the same thing..

My point is that most people may not hear the difference on the stock sound system between mp3 and lossless, however the better speakers/sound system the more you'll hear inaccuracies in low quality music rips/bitrates.

[Maverick]

We are all basically saying the same thing..

Except you're doing the faithful Apple Fanboi argument and skirting around the fact that a lossy format (whether it be on an Apple Icrud or not) is inferior to a lossless format, personally I don't care as high quality MP3's are good enough given all the limitations with audio in the car.

My point is that most people may not hear the difference on the stock sound system between mp3 and lossless, however the better speakers/sound system the more you'll hear inaccuracies in low quality music rips/bitrates.

You would need ears full of wax to not hear the difference, even between high quality mp3's and a cd source you can hear the difference on the stock system.

[G-rig]

Except you're doing the faithful Apple Fanboi argument and skirting around the fact that a lossy format (whether it be on an Apple Icrud or not) is inferior to a lossless format, personally I don't care as high quality MP3's are good enough given all the limitations with audio in the car.

We are not talking about lossy formats, but apple lossless vs CD.

I don't particularly like apple or itunes or apple lossless, but until there are head units out that support FLAC it will have to do, but interfaces with the car pretty well, except for the VW MDI bugs.

You would need ears full of wax to not hear the difference, even between high quality mp3's and a cd source you can hear the difference on the stock system.

I can hear the difference but it sounded like you couldn't if you think the stock MK5 setup sounds good. Although i may have got a dud car last time.

[Maverick]

We are not talking about lossy formats, but apple lossless vs CD.

Actually we're talking about icrud sound quality.

Apple lossless may be close to CD quality but you forget that it's let down by the icrud that is playing it back. The sound quality will never be as good as a CD player in a head unit or a PC with a digital output to an amp or a CD player connected to an amp.

I don't particularly like apple or itunes or apple lossless, but until there are head units out that support FLAC it will have to do, but interfaces with the car pretty well, except for the VW MDI bugs.

If by will have to do you mean have multiple extra connectors, unshielded cables and so forth why not just use high quality MP3's?

I can hear the difference but it sounded like you couldn't if you think the stock MK5 setup sounds good. Although i may have got a dud car last time.

The stock setup is fine if you set it up correctly, if you start hacking away at the car slapping in different components than you'll end up with different results. The car environment is dreadful for music playback and spending $3000+ to get slightly better sounding music is a pretty poor return IMO. Spend $500 on a pair of headphones and use those in the car and pit the other $2500 towards a system at home where that money will yield better results.