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[Lord Error]

Well, the other day I became the proud owner of EX71 earbuds, which are both blessing and a curse. Blessing because they sound kickass all around, and a curse because now every little nut and crain of the music is exposed clear as day. What yesterday sounded like perfection, today needs to be re-encoded, or just sounds weird on the original material.

Anyways, as for the actual question. I'm using PSP to listen to the music, and I'm fairly sure that it's amp produces absilutely no audible hum or noise on it's own. It's obvious in many songs when they end, and there's 2-3 seconds of silence at the very end of the track - I'can't hear a damn thing there in 90% of songs. Hower, some songs that start with say, some simple beat over the fairly silent track, have audible white noise behind that rhythm. Most are fairly new music at that, and encoded at 192kbps or VBR 256.

Examples include Prodigy's "Diesel Power", Goldfrapp's "Strict Machine", Chemical Brothers' "Surface to Air" and some others that I can't think of now.

Is this a problem with playback or is it intended to sound this way and if it is - why?

 

[aoi tsuki]

i've heard it too and just thought it was the way the track was recorded. i've got EX-70s and noticed the same thing on some tracks when transferring them to MD. i don't have my EX-70s handy, but i'll que up Diesel Power and see for myself.

 

[Error Macro]

All I hear in the background of Diesel Power is more percussion.

 

[DarienA]

I know there are some hip hop songs that start with audible noise in an attempt to evoke that back in the day putting on an actual record feeling.... is that the type of sound you are describing?

 

[aoi tsuki]

I know there are some hip hop songs that start with audible noise in an attempt to evoke that back in the day putting on an actual record feeling.... is that the type of sound you are describing?

If it's the same as what i'm thinking, it sounds more like the Dolby Noise Reduction on tapes, perhaps more subtle. i've heard people complain about that kind of noise when using higher end phones like the Shure E5C, even from the player itself.

 

[Lord Error]

Yeah, it's veeery subtle, definitely not what Darien is talking about. There was no chance to hear this on any headphones I used so far (they were all pretty crappy) or on the speakers even, which are not so crappy.

All I hear in the background of Diesel Power is more percussion.

It's at the very beginning, definitely not any kind of instrument, more like a DNR on tapes, just like aoi tsuki said.