How Important Is Audio Format to A Car Stereo

5

'59

Active member
Good evening,

I recently did a major overhaul to my car stereo. mid-tier head unit, high end tweeters and mid driver, mid-tier subwoofers.

How much of a difference does switching to a lossless format make? I want a good sound but I'm not too keen on spending large amounts of money to switch to hifi streaming and re-buying my more underground stuff.
 
Not sure, but I do know for mixing and engineering, playing your stuff on a car stereo to hear the mix is a smart move.
 
There is a difference between lossy formats (like .mp3s) and lossless . . . but most people can't hear it if they're comparing a high qualtiy .mp3. I wouldn't worry about switching over between the two - the stuff you have should still sound decent, and I doubt that it would be worth the time and effort. Maybe opt for future purchases in a lossless format though.
 
Depends what you're talking about

What unit do you have, exactly? And how premium or crap is your car? Is it dead quiet insulated or transparent to sound and rattly suspension to boot?
 
I just like hearing that sound when it's taking my CDs in or out, and I still love my cassettes, but absolutely not in the outdoor/car environment. Kills them.
 
dave74 said:
I just like hearing that sound when it's taking my CDs in or out, and I still love my cassettes, but absolutely not in the outdoor/car environment. Kills them.
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If you enjoy listening to cassette tapes, you will not get any benefit at all from switching away from mp3s. At 256 kbps or higher, .mp3s will produce distinctly better audio quality than a cassette tape.
 
I had cassettes for years, and was overjoyed when I could listen to mp3s in cars. I didn't (and still don't) like CDs in cars...not the sound, just storing them so they don't get scratched and looking for the case while driving.
 
GuitarStv said:
If you enjoy listening to cassette tapes, you will not get any benefit at all from switching away from mp3s. At 256 kbps or higher, .mp3s will produce distinctly better audio quality than a cassette tape.
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Never had an mp3 in my life. Maybe in another decade I'll be ready for that "new" techy stuff. lol
No joke, it was 2001 before I even had a home cd player. Had one in the car for a few years before that, but I'm always way behind on gadgets.

Cassettes I only enjoy on occasion at home with my good old-logo Pioneer deck. It's like a warmer tone IMO,,,,,definitely not as crystal clear, but the bulk of the tone is better IMO.
 
Little Pigbacon said:
I always go with the highest bit-rate MP3 at which iTunes will rip a CD. I have been able to enjoy them playing back from my portable devices and have always considered the lower-end portable earbuds and car stereos to be the limiting factors. Even my B&W C5-Mk.II's don't seem to reveal the compression artifacts. Also, my hearing isn't what it used to be, so I am perhaps more easily pleased these days. Conversely, I do a better job of listening and actually enjoy music more than I ever have.
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I use VBR I figure that the computer can figure out not to use a huge amount of bits to describe an essentially dynamic-less passage.

Sent from my SM-A115A using Tapatalk
 
I'll tell ya what sucked...8 tracks. Besides the bad quality, it would separate longer songs into 2 or 3 tracks with huge gaps of silence.
 
IME lossless format is noticeable in a stock car stereo over MP3 or other lossy formats. Mostly noticeable in the treble detail; voices, cymbals, brass/string instruments, etc.
 
Drak said:
I did last year basically the same thing you did now.
I ripped the entire interior out, top to bottom, and installed KilMat on everything.
Built my own sub box, whole new system, separate amp, the works.
The point is, I did go to the trouble to make the environment worthy of the new experience.

So, my entire musical inventory for the car is now on Flac, on 3-4 32G flashdrives now.
I have a converter program that will do mp3's and other lossy and lossless formats as well as Flac.
So when converting to a particular format, its just what box do I tick, they're all there for the choosing.
But Flac is totally working for me, I have no complaints and everything is good.

Would I notice the difference between Flac and mp3's?
I don't know, maybe not, I've subjected my ears to some pretty substantial musical abuse for +/- 40 years, so who knows.
But it's just as easy for me to convert to Flac as it is to convert to mp3, and flac is lossless, so I chose Flac.
Its literally, do I tick the Flac box, or do I tick the mp3 box, its that simple and easy.
I actually doubled my musical catalogs on both Flac and mp3 on my home drive storage, so I have everything on both formats.
I mean, its just so simple and easy, why not?
But I never use the mp3's for whatever reason.

Not as much space per flashdrive, but that's just such small potatoes, it just doesn't matter to me.
So I have to carry an additional flashdrive to make up the difference...big deal, so I go lossless.
To modify or make a new flashdrive of music takes not even 5 minutes now.
It's all folder-based, exactly like opening a new folder in Windows, no different.
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How effective is that kilmat stuff? And how much did you need to do the whole truck?
 
beaubrummels said:
IME lossless format is noticeable in a stock car stereo over MP3 or other lossy formats. Mostly noticeable in the treble detail; voices, cymbals, brass/string instruments, etc.
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What bitrate of .mp3?

I can hear a difference between 96 and 256 kbps.mp3s quite easily. The difference between a 320 kbps .mp3 and a CD is extremely hard to identify, and I bet would be impossible in a typical noisy car environment.
 
Meh. Lossless seems like hype only detectable on the finest of systems. I'd bet that switching to lossless for your car audio system would be like switching to 4k video on your very nice, but not 4k, TV.
 
alex1fly said:
Meh. Lossless seems like hype only detectable on the finest of systems. I'd bet that switching to lossless for your car audio system would be like switching to 4k video on your very nice, but not 4k, TV.
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Part of the issue is that a car is a shitty environment for music. I know we all rock out to tunes while driving around . . . but cars are noisy. There's wheel noise, air noise, engine noise, sounds from outside . . . all of this obscures the slight details of difference that a lossless format will give you.

It's like watching 4k video on a 4k TV, but from 15 ft away while wearing dirty glasses. :P
 
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