I've recently re-ripped all my CD's and used --alt-preset insane to encode them to mp3.
Insane yes, not like I'm going to hear the difference but having the best quality mp3 available just feels good.
Anyway, most of them sounded alright to me. But still it's not quite CD quality.
Some 'harder' music like rock/metal sounds extremely blown up. I've also got this with two trance CD's.
Besides that, alot of mp3's contain a huge amount of 'noise' and they sound kinda 'crispy'. That's not good...

Anyone know what could possibly cause this? Since pretty much everyone here claims that --alt-preset extreme, or even standard sounds the same as CD, I'm starting to suspect my CD-rom player. Which is a 52x *puke* Aopen.

In case it matters. I rip my CD's using EAC, secure mode. Accurate Stream and Drive caches audio data re checked and C2 is off. I'm using a Creative SB Audigy(retail) and Sennheiser HD 580 headphones.

Try ripping a song as a wav file, and listen to it. Do those problems occur in the wav file?

If they do, then you know the problem is with ripping, not encoding.

ahh good one! Going to try that right away.

Okey...
Both the wav file and the mp3 file sound horrible, but the mp3 file is even worse than the wav file.
I'll go try some different command line parameters then.

Maybe you should actually try to get your ripping quality together, before jumping to conclusions..

Well I'm not yet concluding anything. Just trying to find the problem...
So far no good.
It just pisses me off that I can never seem to get a perfect rip. Something always goes wrong.

I don't trust my CD-rom player. Going to try my burner, although it's alot slower.

What the...
I ripped the same track as before, but this time with Audiograbber 1.81. Quess what? No problem!

One thing I noticed is that the ripped wav file sounds 'different' than the CD. I can't say which one souds better though.

Audiograpper?! Why not use a *good* ripping program such as EAC or CDex?

He did use EAC, but he apparently shouldn't have checked "Accurate Stream".

Try playing around with the drive settings in EAC. Try disabling Accurate Stream and Cache.

If that doesn't work, you could just use your other drive to rip.

Well, if you didn't conclude anything, then the topic of the thread is a bit weird..
"--alt-preset Insane = Completely F*cked Up Sound?, Sounds blown up and has loads of noise.."

I think there's something wrong with your Media Player Software or your Blaster Card.

Well I havn't tried anything new yet, went outside.
But what's odd is that when I use Audiograbber I don't get those blown up wav's and mp3's.
Besides that the program sucks imho.

I'll go play with EAC and see if anything helps. Although I can't imagine accurate stream having anything to do with the blown up sound.
I didn't normalize the sound either, so that couldn't have blown it up either.

Well I'll play around a bit.

Maybe it's because of normalisation, don't normalize.

Normalization can degrade sound, but produce "noise" and "crispiness?" I don't think so... unless they're "normalized" to the point of severe digital clipping. You may be right though, it almost sounds like digital clipping is what Roef is describing.

P.S. Roef, in my experience AOpen is a fairly decent brand... certainly better than a lot of the really cheap ones. I've never had a problem with an AOpen before (two different CD burners).

Still no solution. My CD-rom player and burner both give the same results. So where am I to look now?
EAC is my first bet. 'Cause audiograbber worked fine, except for the plops and clicks...
But I have NO clue what option could blow up sound like this. It does indeed sound like clipping. But I never normalize anything. And besides that, I wouldn't know any options that could affect the sound in such a way as described here.

Anyone familier with CDex(that's what it's called right) ?? Quess I'll give it a shot anyway...

Try to run your mp3s through mp3gain, see what kind of volume it gives you. I had a similar problem with a couple of ripped albums.

a suggestion:

rip a cd and burn it onto a cd-r
then play it back with your home stereo cd player

if it sounds like on your pc, the problem is getting a clean rip
if it sounds ok, your problem is the playback on your pc.

Well NOW I'm getting somewhere!
I was about to give up when I decided to just format my drive and install windows 98se(used to run xp pro).
All said and done, installed EAC and configured it. It uses the default windows ASPI layer.
P.E.R.F.E.C.T!

But I still don't have the slightest idea of what the problem was... Going to run a few more tests and then I'm going to install windows xp next to 98se and compare the results.
If xp gives bad results, I'll just leave 98se next to it.

Edit:
Okey now can somebody explain THIS?!
The mp3's I ripped, using windows xp, sound perfect when I play them under windows 98se!
BUT while the mp3's sound blown up under windows xp, the original CD still sounds perfect, under both xp and 98se!

Could well be dodgy Windows XP drivers for you soundcard. Maybe...

If in doubt, blame XP. Those words will get you a long way these days.

Well... sure the CD is not digitally played, but played though the soundcard, and probably, the wave playback is too high.

for some reason, the NT family work a bit weird with the mixer. I have one soundcard where I have set all the sliders to 1/3rd of the total volume, and another one with all at half, just to avoid clipping.

BTW: Using Windows sound drivers.

Hmm...
Installed XP again. To me the sound appears better than before, but it's still slightly 'blown up'.
I'm using Compaq drivers for my Audigy btw, for me they work better than the 'regular' Creative drivers.
Maybe I should try a different set of drivers though, just to see if it works.

I'm afraid this will be a problem for me. My Sennheiser HD580 apparantly arn't made for use with soundcards so the volume is quite low.
So I have two choices, accept the lower volume or pump the volume and deal with the clipping. Neither of them please me, but I don't have much of a choice I'm afraid.
I've thought of hooking an amp to my soundcard, but the one I have in my room is pretty much cracked up and I don't feel like spending several hundred dollars just to amplify my headphones.

Try KX Project's drivers. They're great IMO.

or you could buy some cheap headphones that don't mind being plugged into a computer... also, i thought that a moderately uncrappy headphone amp could be found for around $200. besides, with headphones like that, i can't imagine you not using an amp with them. seems like a waste of money to me...

edit: ok, so $200 won't get a "decent" amp of any kind....

Hey, for $265 you can get the Corda kit (DIY assembly) and for $259 the HeadRoom Little. Under $200 you have all the portable amps like the Total Airhead and the Porta Corda...

Yeah it's a waste of those headphones, I agree.
But when I bought it, I had no idea! Just wanted a pair of decent headphones and the Sennheiser HD580 sounded best to me in the store where I bought them.
Not realising I might need an amp...

I don't think some cheaper headphones will do the trick. I'm addicted to my HD580... For now I'll just live with some lower volume, maybe I'll buy an amp later and hook a pair of speakers on it too.

Just downloaded them, I'll install them when I get back from work.

Thanks for the info! Tho I think I'd buy a regular amp so I can hook a pair of speakers on it too.

Update: Installed the KX drivers.
THANK YOU!
They're perfect! No more clipping or distortion, even at high volume! I don't know how they did it, but it's great!

Edit:
Damn those drivers are more than perfect!
Besides my clipping problem being solved, the sound is ALOT more dynamic!
My headphones have never sounded this good on a soundcard! LOL!
Thanks again!

My pleasure. BTW... Combine them with DirectSound output - SSRC under WinAMP. Plug your headphones into the rear speakers output. Set wave volume to max and volume under Winamp to max also. Use only master volume control to set the loudness. In out_ds_ssrc turn off "fast mode", set resampling to 48 kHz, 16 bit, use triangular dithering and noise shaping and you will get out of your sound card everything one can get. B) You'll see. Oops, I mean : you'll hear

Here's the link :
Peter Pawlowski's plugins. Download out_ds.exe. Be prepared : it's CPU power hungry.

Am I the only one who has problems with the kx-Drivers? I have an old SBlive value and following problems:
- The rear output is unusable (mono?!, noise); maybe my soundcard
- The maximum volume is significantly lower
- some weird DSP filter are active (or not)
- dropouts, gaps: not only with games but at one time with Winamp as well
- unstable mixer interface

I must have done something terrible wrong...

I had a problem with not being able to record through my line-in with those drivers. And the mixer is a mess. Installed last month's Creative Audigy drivers and those work well so far.

I've been using that plugin for some time now.
Just never looked at it very close. Only reason is that this one allows me to remove silence between tracks.
The standard WinAmp DS plugin doesn't work good, loads of caps in the sound.

One small problem with the kX drivers though. When I'm just listening music with WinAmp and I start WMP 7, the master volume immidiately increases.
It scared the *beep* out of me several times!

Edit:

WHOOHOOOOOOOOO!!! Amazing what a bit of tweaking can do with your sound!
Thanks again mtm!
I should have known this before... Hehehe!

Edit2:

The problem with the increasing volume isn't only with WMP. When I play ANY media file with any program, the volume increases.
So when I start WinAmp, for example, the volume is still normal. But when I start playing a song it increases to a level which my ears can't handle very long...

I think it's got something to do with the software I use for my keyboard.
One of the features is a volume control button which is on my keyboard and is controlled by the software.
It always worked perfectly but apparantly it's not compatible with the kX mixer.

That's what I think anyway... Maybe I'll send the kX team an email asking what they think.

Okay, if I'm completely off of my rocker on this one, someone correct me.

If you're using the DirectSound output plugin in WA, and you have "Enable Volume Control" checked, the issue you're running into might be that the volume in Winamp is turned down. Turn WA's volume up to 100% and see how things work then.

When you use DirectSound out, it doesn't modify Windows' volume. It just scales down its volume to a given percentage of wave volume.

Roef, it's the problem with Windows' mixer and so far they haven't been able to completely solve it. If you don't use Windows' mixer to change the volume, and only use KX Mixer to do it, everything works fine. But the software for your keyboard accesses Windows' mixer and it causes problems with KX Drivers. You can read about Windows' mixer issue on their web page and on the forum.

Nevertheless, glad to be helpful. I have SB Live and I used to absoultely hate it until I've found KX Drivers and SSRC resampling built into DS out for WinAMP. B)

Now, if I only had a better CPU...

Thanks guys. I've turned off 'volume control' in WA DS Plugin. But unfortunately it doesn't appear to work help.
Everyine I restart WA the volume is maxed out again. Not WA's own volume, but the master volume which affects every application. Sometimes I forget to turn it down, and BOOOM! AAARGHH MY EARS!!

Isn't there a way to completely disable the dang windows mixer? ...obviously not or the kX team would've used that option, right?