Noob question...
 

How come with mp3 cds my cd player seems to sound much better than just an original cd? With an original cd it seems like no bass is pushed out at all, but when i put in an mp3 cd, it seems to sound a lot louder, more bass, and more crisp?

its the SRT(sound retouch) that pushes out more bass

So basically what you're saying is that listening to a normal cd basically sucks because no bass is pushed out?

it just sounds.. normal.

Not to me, with a regular cd in, there is like NO bass at all, even with the bass at 5. Could my speakers be blown? Because they sure do push a lot of bass out with an mp3 cd in..

Well not really, because you just said you're getting great bass from Mp3 CDs.

It really depends on how the recording was done for the CD, and the compression used to store the CD... I think. I'm no expert on this. But, I have CD's you need to turn the bass DOWN to play.

Maybe you're just getting better quality compression out of the Mp3's, better sound quality, and more even sound overall.

what it comes down to is how the mp3 is encoded. the higher bitrate the better (avg is 128kbps, cds use 320kbps) . but yes the SRT from the stock deck does color to music and it only applys to mp3 cds, not normal audio cds, thus mp3 cds sounding better. and you will know when your speakers are blown by if the sound is distorted when it hits.

Thanks for your input guys, I really appreciate it. Maybe i'm just getting undersatisfied with the speakers..

speakers good...

now headunit?... yeah...

there is no way that mp3 format can be as good as wav format...its just the SRT that putting out more bass than it can with a regular cd in where there is no SRT option...put in a new headunit and an amp and there is no comparison between mp3 and wav format...mp3 format = +/- 5mb wav format = +/- 80mb...big difference there. A trained ear can hear the tracks much more compressed into an mp3. With a good system, you don't want to listen to mp3 when you can listen to a better format

here's one other thing that might help. the stock HU have a "car setting" for each of the xA, xB, tC. hold the SSP button down until you get a "cars type" prompt, use the volume up and down buttons to change between vehicles, and see which one sounds best to you.

i personally feel the xA setting sounds fullest and has the deeper bass and cripser highs. ironically, the tC sounds the most muffled, i'm not sure what the deal with that is....but this should help a little, but with the stock, the SRT does make the MP3's sound a ton better than regular CDs.

Theoretically, you can't get a higher sound quality from an MP3 vs the CD it was ripped from. MP3s are only sampled as high as 320kbps (kilobits per second). CDs are sampled at much higher rates. All MP3s have loss of quality from a CD... just most people can't hear it. That's the reason MP3s are so small compared to .wav files. You can sample a .wav file and it would be "lossless" (basically a 1:1 copy of the CD, no loss in quality) and sound better than an MP3.

So overall, an MP3 won't ever have the same quality that a CD it was sampled from.

xa setting has a "higher" bass then the xb, xb works real good with subs if u want hard hitting, but for listening the xa/feel or xb/hear are both good

and i hate how the tC is muffled...dont know how i listened to cd's beforei found out how to change it...

what he said!

Is it jsut because the headunit doesn't push out enough power?

Yeah funny this is happening. When I redid my system I actually thought I had done something wrong initially cause all my mp3 discs sounded like crap which had sounded good in my stock headunit now sounded like @ss. What it was was that my new head unit and speaker just showed the low SQ of mp3s at low compression more. It was after that I that I had to go back and redownload my discs so that all my songs are at least 320 or higher otherwise I just think they come through real lousy. I even started buying Cd's again for the first time in years, cause certain songs on my mp3 disc would song horrible, then I'd pop in the same track off a CD and it'd be night and day difference. But even in your case with the stock headunit, its strange to hear that the mp3s your playing sound a lot better........hmmmm.......

Could it be a defective headunit? or anything? because on regular cds.... as i turn it up louder the bass goes away even with it all the way turned up. That's not how it works with the mp3 though. It seems like my bass has dissappeared since i bought the new car. The bass sounds ok when it's at a lower volume, but at like 35 or 40, there is no bass at all, it's just all clarity. And that's EVEN with the car settings on xB and the SSP on Feel.

It's the way the cd is burned. It might sound better, but I notice how crappy the stock headunit more and more everyday. CHanged out the headunit and it was a great improvement then speakers were even a bigger jump. I did the rears before I did the fronts and I could see the difference at how crappy the stock speakers were.

the stock speakers arent designed for deep bass....there not subs, so as they go louder, they're volume does not increase linearly(according to your ears) with the treble, so u dont "hear" any bass over the treble....stick your hand up to the door speakers, everything is ok, trust me, mine was the same way


u want big boom, get u some 15's....want decent boom, go with a 12/10 or 2

(semi-related)

When I got into the Scion, I was almost disappointed at how lacking the speakers were in terms of depth of sound (I loved the sound I got from my '04 Jetta's stock setup). I was curious about the "Car selection" thing with the SSP, so I messed with that, and I found the xB sound had much more depth than the tC sound did.

$0.02