Hacking DS sound quality for MP3

[.TakaM]

I use my DS for music just about every day.

Yes, the sound quality isn't holy shit amazing, but it isn't holy shit awful either (unless you put moonshells volume up to 400 or something)
Honestly, it gets the job done, and I gladly sacrifice a little bit of quality for the convenience of using one device while waiting for the bus etc.

 

[OSW]

I use my DS for music just about every day.

Yes, the sound quality isn't holy shit amazing, but it isn't holy shit awful either (unless you put moonshells volume up to 400 or something)
Honestly, it gets the job done, and I gladly sacrifice a little bit of quality for the convenience of using one device while waiting for the bus etc.

Indeed.

And folks, the title specifically mention's MP3's which are a lossy format after all, not exactly the choice of format for a true audiophile.

Same with AAC for ipods (unless you've hacked your ipod, which defeats the purpose because you are paying for their software).

oh, just realised MajinBuu had said something similar.

Also agreed with VBKirby on the opinion that itunes is terrible.

 

[enarky]

And folks, the title specifically mention's MP3's which are a lossy format after all, not exactly the choice of format for a true audiophile.

With the smallish difference that MP3 was especially engineered to have as little audible difference to the original as possible (with the right settings) and the DS Audio hardware... well, was not. Not even close. Remember the 32 kHz/10 Bit statement on page 2 of this thread?

To be honest, in my opinion anyone claiming to hear the difference between a LAME V0 encoded MP3 and the original WAV in an ABX test on something different than his favorite recording most likely is a liar. Most self-acclaimed "Audiophiles" should call themselves Voodooists instead, those are people who spend three figure amounts of cash for cables and put their CDs in freezers or paint them green to, ahem, improve readability by the CD Players laser. Or they tell you with a straight face that Vinyl is superior to CD.

 

[OSW]

who knows, maybe some people have "special ears"

i think the average user probably usually doesn't encode much of their own music, and a fair majority that they have is probably not perfectly encoded.

but still, i pretty much agree with your post there.

 

[DanTheManMS]

No offence, but you people who don't hear the difference most likely don't know how good audio has to sound.


Taka's response pretty much sums up my opinion here.

I use my DS for music just about every day.

Yes, the sound quality isn't holy shit amazing, but it isn't holy shit awful either (unless you put moonshells volume up to 400 or something)
Honestly, it gets the job done, and I gladly sacrifice a little bit of quality for the convenience of using one device while waiting for the bus etc.

Quote for truth. If I want to listen to a quality recording, I'll sit down in my front room and use my dad's multi-thousand-dollar setup where I can be uninterrupted. If I just want some background music while I do my homework during the school day, the DS works perfectly fine. Granted, the headphone choice does make a large difference, and my good ones broke so I'm using crappy ones at the moment, but I'll fix that soon.

If you were talking about the GBA, which required conversion to GSM format, then yes you'd have a valid argument. However, IMO a DS is perfectly able to function as an mp3 player on a daily basis.

 

[VBKirby]

I personally don't see the advantage of a Nintendo DS Mp3 player. You might be able to organize it, but that doesn't really matter too much once you get used to it. If you have all the songs you really like right in a row, you won't bother to go through any of the other stuff you rarely listen to, but on an odd occasion decide to listen to. Plus if you listen to video game music as part of your player, putting all the music from the same game in a row does get a bit annoying. It's not enough variation.

And to use the DS as a player, wouldn't you have to open it every time you want to pause or something? (I have no idea how to use your DS as an Mp3 player, nor even heard of it till now.) If you could somehow program all of the commands to use the shoulder buttons, it might be practical then. Sounds like the DS would be a lot harder than just reaching into your pocket and pressing a button. to skip a song or pause.

Another problem with that, (though keep in mind I have no idea how this thing works) is that if there is a game that has annoying music, you can't put your Mp3 player on to add replacement music.

The concept of having it all in one thing sounds practical at first, but with the other impracticalities about it, it doesn't sound like it would be so great. It makes sound quality sound a bit like a side problem.

 

[Jaejae]

The sound quality isn't too bad if you are playing it in mono using madplay in DSLinux, but it is in mono.... lol.

 

[DanTheManMS]

I personally don't see the advantage of a Nintendo DS Mp3 player. You might be able to organize it, but that doesn't really matter too much once you get used to it. If you have all the songs you really like right in a row, you won't bother to go through any of the other stuff you rarely listen to, but on an odd occasion decide to listen to. Plus if you listen to video game music as part of your player, putting all the music from the same game in a row does get a bit annoying. It's not enough variation.
The advantage is that you have one less device to carry around with you. For people who don't want to spend money on an mp3 player, it works fine.

LMP-ng's shuffle mode shuffles all the songs on your entire card. I use this quite often to shuffle my OCRemix tracks. You can also use playlists in DSOrganize and lmp-ng if you want.

And to use the DS as a player, wouldn't you have to open it every time you want to pause or something? (I have no idea how to use your DS as an Mp3 player, nor even heard of it till now.) If you could somehow program all of the commands to use the shoulder buttons, it might be practical then. Sounds like the DS would be a lot harder than just reaching into your pocket and pressing a button. to skip a song or pause.
In Moonshell and LMP-ng, L+R (in that order) advances to the next track while R+L pauses the song. This prevents accidental button presses while in your pocket. In DSOrganize, R is next and L is previous. All three have options to ignore shoulder button presses entirely. Works fine for me, reaching in my pocket to change to the next track.


QUOTE(Jaejae @ Jan 14 2008, 12:13 AM)The sound quality isn't too bad if you are playing it in mono using madplay in DSLinux, but it is in mono.... lol.

But why would you do that? I've used madplay before to play mp3 files I just downloaded via Retawq or Links, but it's not worth opening up DSLinux just to listen to music, especially since you have to use the mono and downsample arguments to prevent it from choking. I'd rather not open up my DS to type "ctrl+n" to advance to the next track.

 

[cubin']

If this thread has made one thing clear, it's that audio quality is highly subjective. If MP3 playback on the DS sounds good to you, then by all means use your DS as an MP3 player. If not, use something else. The only way to tell is to listen for yourself.

Well said Destructo...you are a wise man as you have shown in many of your posts.


Sound is entirely subjective. If you think DS sounds good then there's no reason to upgrade to a better player. If anything upgrading to a better player will spoil your ears and you'll always want your music to sound like that. Save money! +11

 

[MajinBuu]

if you want quality sound, ignore psp and ipod (since when have ipod had great audio hardware?) and buy yourself a flash player sandisk, creative etc.. they all have better audio hardware and can be modified to support almost ALL formats in the world thanks to rockbox . TRUE lossless not some itunes infested crap


Are you serious? I've used Creative Zen, Ipod, and PSP for music before. While the Zen is definitely the best player, the iPod and PSP are not very far behind. You'd have to be an audiophile to tell the difference between them.

On another note, the DS's sound quality is pretty much crap for MP3's. I wouldn't recommend it.

Hmm im not sure if I qualify as an "audiophile" but I despite mp3 or any compression that takes away soo much from the original source... I actually use FLAC on my sandisk with rockbox... of course if i've encoded it with 320CBR LAME or v0 I wouldn't hear a difference on the portable unit.

Yes dude im seriuos.. ipods are garbage if you ask me... it's not just the hardware.. I don't like the fact theres stores on the .net not much cheaper then the retail product.. and they ONLY offer you mp3/4 crap NO lossless which is VERY wrong if you ask me.

PSP.. are you serious?

Buying online should be cheaper since there's no package, no extra personal for the transfer.. but that's not the case.... I find it hilarious people buy severely reduced/compressed music compared to the original cd

And yeah.. I have to agree.. if you don't care how it sounds.. I mean it sounds perfectly okay in your eyes.. who cares about the actual hardware or media, as long as you deem it to be awesome.. that's what matters in the end

I'm also a member of hydrogen audio forums

 

[glacialspike]

so basically, the consensus is that the sound quality isnt horrible, right?

how loud can it get without moonshell's amplification, can u hear it in a cafeteria/metro/noisy bus etc? (with earbuds of course)

 

[Destructobot]

The consensus is that there is no consensus. Several people have posted saying they think the quality sucks (I'm in this group), several seem to think it's great, and several more think it's somewhere in the middle. You'll have to decide for yourself what you think about it.

Audio playback is not terribly loud with the volume at 100 (full normal volume), but it's not super quiet either. The software amplification isn't too bad if you don't max it out, especially with quiet mp3s. A volume of 200 should sound okay in a noisy environment, and be loud enough to listen to.

 

[DanTheManMS]

Since the software amplification distorts the sound, I personally use a small portable headphone amplifier that takes AA batteries to amplify by 100% (and also split 3 ways).

 

[barefoot88]

i cant believe it that there are some people even mention psp ipod etc . . . obviously those have better quality than ds, but its as much as comparing pee and dang, one might be better but at the end of it, both sucks. ipod have one of the crappiest sound out of all popular choices of mp3 players, you cant even custom tweak the eq on the latest gen! wth! get a proper mp3 player for god sake, cowon, iaudio etc. . . even creative one sucks and they actually produce quite decent gaming audio cards? holy . .

but again this is coming from a audiophile wannabe

 

[fischju]

Well, sound quality can be objectively measured by comparing the original vs output, and in this way, the DS sound quality is poor. But if you don't have an MP3 player, it's much better than no music.

 

[DarkAura]

Exactly. As long as it plays music at an okay quality, it's good.

Topic closed.

 

[azndreama]

why not uh..plug it in wit the speakers?

 

[94dan]

If you leave the volume at 100% or below, it's fine. I think its... On par with everything. Seriously, other that putting the volume above that, or using crappy amps, I've never seen (or heard) a music quality other than this.

 

[Omoikane1979]

I agree that the sound of the DS speakers, or Lite for that matter, aren't the best, but a good set of headphones can make a very large difference overall. Of course there are better options, but to be honest I own an Creative Muvo^2 MP3 player and a DS lite and I still wouldn't take both of them with me when on the road while travelling.

 

[Hitto]

The sound on a Ds phat is fine, it's good enough to hook it up to a big speaker or quality headphones (don't worry, good enough headphones are of the 25 euro kind). The sound on a ds lite is a bit crappier but still good enough.

A lot of people who call themselves audiophiles focus on music "quality" (ie MY SPEAKERS ARE EXPENSIVE AND COATED WITH STEVE JOBS' SPERM IT MEANS THEY R BETAR LOL) and the next second will be all wet about how a vinyl's sound is the very best humanity has to offer.

PS : I read the whole thread and let me just vent : Fucking spoilt brats. I grew up with a fucking walkman. What, your ears BLEED when you listen to music on your DS? Fuck off. Second, if your ears can really tell the difference between an MP3 and an original, then please call fraunhofer right away as they're eager to speak to the first computer-literate dog. Otherwise, forget this lie spewed by the riaa or other associates of the corporate thugs.
PPS : whatever your choice of appliance, DS, PSP, ipod, grammophone, don't forget, the worst way to solve a problem is by throwing money at it!