Perfect Sound Quality

For what You Dream of......... Bangin tune

On a serious note your trance compilations won't the best mastered/engineered..... Probably cut straight from the vinyl not the masters!

maybe try a turntable or an external DAC between your laptop and speakers... Presume they are active?

how has you music been ripped? FLAC or mp3

Using the headphone jack does not sound like a good plan. What is your budget?

Well, my music is all ripped via Windows Media Player to MP3 256 as these are the same files I use on my device.

Not got a lot of money to spend on improvements just finding that most albums are mastered better than others.

Maybe my ears are just tuned to certain frequencies and pick out sounds or lose certain sounds especially in the mid range.

Not the best format to rip files to imho.

Try re ripping to FLAC - I'm not disrespecting your music tastes (I actually like  orbital prodigy etc) but trance won't be the most well produced - it's made for those full moon parties on Goa Beach do your never going to get what your looking for! 

Yes well I would re-rip but find Windows Media Player does the best job at media management and syncing to my device, even though the sound qyality is not always best, it is a welcome sacrifice.

I have decided to stop messing with all the enhancements and let my speakers do the work, I have also turned off the EQ in WMP as I want the cleanest of sounds, even though some albums sound better than others.

I think what the others are trying to say, is that there are quite a few possible reasons why you may not be hearing your tunes as well as you could be.

In no particular order, I would consider the following as areas where you could easily see improvements.

Re rip in flac, wav, or alac (windows media player should still handle some of these options I am sure). You only need to do this with a few CDs, but then you can see if you hear a difference (you could even do an ABX test if that turns you on  ). Certainly on my system lossless files sound better than lower resolution mp3's.

Get an external DAC, as currently you are using the DAC in your computers sound card and the headphone socket, neither of which are generally best quality. An external dac moves the conversion into a less 'noisy' environment, and would IMO probably give the biggest improvement.

You could also consider trying different speakers, or moving them further from the wall (reflections from the walls can muddy the bass, for eg). Infact, if the speakers are currently on your desk, getting some cheap second hand stands would probably make a big difference. Worth a punt (if they make no difference, sell the, for what you bought them for  )

What is your budget please?

I think you are now hearing the inconsistencies in quality between different recordings. A well recorded piece, sat next to a poorer piece will accentuate the audible differences. I had an HRT 2 streamer and this gave me good quality into my previous hifi setup.

I think you need to find a good sample rate (320 would be my choice in WMP) and stick to it. Don't worry too much about the quality discrepancies (although you could email the producer concerned and tell him to get his act together!)

256 is the highest I can go to cram in all the music on my device while still having enough quality on big speakers.

It is a trade off I suppose and unless I can get a bigger device than my 16GB Walkman then it will have to stay 256.

I wish Sony would make bigger sizes than 16 GB.

Your music collection and natural sound don't go hand in hand unfortunately. This type of music varies in quality massively and you're never going to achieve perfect sound with every album. 

You've turned the EQ off so that's a good start, what amplification do you use? The headphone output of your laptop is the worst connection you could make really. A separate DAC would be a wise move for you IMO.

I fear your approach will never get near 'perfect'.  It is bit like saying why don't my horse burgers taste like fillet steak?  Answer, because they are not the same!

A low resolution copy will always lack something.  I'd echo the suggestion of trying a DAC and headphones.

You should give Jriver MediaCenter a try, both for encoding your files and for playback. It usually gives a clear improvment over using Windows Media Player.

First off, why not rip twice, flac on your laptop and 256 on your Walkman?

Secondly, agree entirely about needing an external usb DAC rather than using headphone out.

Third, I have the same speakers as you in my kitchen hooked up to TV/Freeview radio. They are cheap consumer version of studio monitors with boomy bass, especially when close to a wall. They will never give you the sound you seem to be looking for.

I think there are a few sacrifices you are going to have to make. The first is the bitrate, 256 kbps is simply not enough bandwith to be considered perfect. 320 kbps is a minimum for decent sound and higher gets better. Without reripping your music collection I wouldn't bother to add a dac to be honest, a better dac might just bring out more of the flaws of the mp3. Second, I don't mean to disrespect your choice of music genre but actually trying to hear how trance was meant to sound is something hard to justify...I would think they sound better on PA systems as that is how they are reproduced. What you need is something with oodles of bass possibly, something neutral in the midrange and a punchy treble. Then again that is my opinion. If you think you need to keep 256 kbps for your portable device then why not have 2 libraries or use something like media monkey just to manage your portable music collection? I hope this helps.

Regards,

Shafin