Hi guys,

I've heard some guys reserve they're pristine monitors for playback of wavs only in fear that mp3's (especially low quality) may actually degrade them.
Is this true?

If it's a good song, it's okay... the bad ones are trouble...

I heard that happens when you play Warrant.

This is going to be fun ain't it ?

Where did you hear that. It doesn't sound like a technical truth to me, but I'm persuadable.....

complete, utter, flying bollox.

your mp3 sends maybe 192 kilobits every second into your converter. the converter then flips those 1s and 0s into a wave. the wave then runs down your cables, into your amp, where the amp amplifies (get it!) that wave to a much bigger, stronger wave which is sent down the speaker cables, then into the speaker, where the speaker itself, which is nothing more than a transducer (like a lightbulb or heating element) turns that wave into kinetic energy - ie motion - the speaker moving.

a wav sends about 1500-2000 kilobits every second in your converter. the converter then flips those 1s and 0s into a wave. the wave then runs down your cables, into your amp, where the amp amplifies (get it!) that wave to a much bigger, stronger wave which is sent down the speaker cables, then into the speaker, where the speaker itself, which is nothing more than a transducer (like a lightbulb or heating element) turns that wave into kinetic energy - ie motion - the speaker moving.

whether your converter converts 1500 or 192 kilobits every second, it still produces a wave, the latter just has less detail. but either way, it's a similar looking wave. and the speaker really doesn't care whether it's wave once comprised of 192 kilobits, or 1500. it just converts the wave to motion.

what do you think would happen in a purely analogue system? would the 100Hz piece of kick drum degrade your monitors quicker than the 8k element of a hi hat?

somebody's feeding you turd.

It was a rambling I picked up somewhere on a forum some time back but I never really resolved it as a potential risk.

My studio like many is patched into the net where our speakers are exposed to horrendously low bitrate mp3s on a a gazillion sites and my brand new A7's are just breaking in. Maybe I'm being a lil too precious but it would be nice to know.

sm7

Thanks mate, awesome explanation. I'll play away

I dig it - this mic is great on vocals - did you know it was used to record the Thiller vocal?thumbsup

I hear they need a lot of clean gain.

heh

A good answer to ANY question!

Bono uses SM58.

buy yourself a few CDs for wearing in, it does work better if you play material with bigger dynamc range and a bigger range of frequencies.

My fave wearing in CD is chocolate starfish by limp bizkit. not a band im normally into, but it fat pounding kick, trashy cymbals and gritty rock guitars, making it a great CD to get both the woofers and the tweeters really kicking.

If you really want to wear them in proper, face them directly at each other and place them so they're touching. like literally, air seal. make the source mono and phase flip one speaker. turn them up full volume and leave them on for a few days. they'll make almost no sound, but move one slightly away from the other an things will get very loud.

with gap73.

(never heard either but I'll slate anyone who disagrees)

[i have, just keeping the stereotype going]

It's a great pre, maybe I should buy a one to get it modded?

yeah i discovered this great mod.

you take the knobs off and just adjust it using the metal pots. makes it sound just like an API

me thinks...... some folks on this thread are so far up their own solutions they can't see their own problems.

Pump white noise thru those puppies at about 110dB for a week, then you won't have to worry. They'll be completely broken in, and no mp3's will ever hurt them.

No, I wasn't joking....

It's not what mp3s will do to your monitors, it what they will do to your MIND...

Actually those 192 kbps of mp3 data will be sent through an mp3 decoder first, which will "uncompress" (remember, mp3 is lossy compression) those 192 kbps and the output will be 1411.2 kbps of PCM data, which is exactly the same a WAV file (44.1/16) contains.

So even the DAC doesn't notice any difference between the two.

well yeah if ti it sounds bad enough you may poke the speaker with a sharp object out of disgust and destroy it.

I'm sure it IS true - that some guys believe that nonsense I mean....

Complete and utter nonsense. It's like saying a JPEG will degrade your computer screen quicker than a PNG or TIFF.

Very good analogy. I like.

Find whoever said mp3s will degrade anything, then kick them in the nuts.

And tbh, I wouldn't wear in A7s therealbigd said. Though perfectly viable for him, I'd just use them and they'll wear in more gradually and if your wrapping up your speakers in cotton wool you'd sleep better at night.

Also, it has been reported to me that a friend's 3 year old A7's still sound more or less the same from Day 1. I wouldn't think too hard about wearing them in. It's that ribbon tweeter, which is as hard as nails.

All I know is I did a Null test with a mp3 & a wave & it is ********! There is a constant noise floor that never goes away on an mp3. It is disturbing how bad mp3s are actually are!

I made an mp3 of your sm7.

Low Quality MP3s do sound worse. No one is going to take that away from you, though 320kbps is suprisingly good.

And since when has a speaker reproducing noise been bad for it?

Well, the technique was told to me by maintenance at PMC Speakers. And there are few companies in the world who understand the world of studio monitors better than PMC - after all their products end up in Abbey Road, BBC, Metropolis etc.

Wearing speakers in is important. It's not an urban myth, an excuse to play loud music for a week.

The reason you push them together and flip the phase is it puts the drivers in perfect sync and thus no sound is made. So you can crank them up to full and not hear anything. I don't know what your 'sleep easy' theory is, any decent monitors will be able to handle a decent amp with no issues and you should have no concerns turning them up.

Well I got the Tony Maserati Signature SM7! So there!