Ah....I see said the blind man...

https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/pand...284035177?mt=8

 

Unfortunatly Pandora isn't available for iPhone in the Netherlands, Belgium or Switzerland. (Can't check other European countries in the Appstore)

It's digital internet radio, but there are some alternatives or you could try Spotify, but I always find the quality of internet radio pretty bad. I use Spotify in my Audi (with B&O) now and that quality is not as good as 320kbs MP3.
Apart from CD, Apple lossless gives the best quality I think.

Suzy991

 

Just found out in the article that MoeMistry referred to, my old 2005 Ipod classic is supposed to be one if not the best...

Nice!

Thanks for the info. For now the focus will be on apple lossless on the 2005 ipod then


You do not see that to often BTW. A 25 year old lady in a brand new 911

 

I realize that all too well and I also realize that I'm a very lucky girl to have that oppertunity
(Allthough with those Dutch prices I wouldn't be able to spec my car like I've done now. Cars in the Netherlands are insanely expensive! Thanks to the BPM)

Suzy991

 

Based on my A to B tests a well recorded CD sounds best through the Burmester. In this format the Burmester's internal amp and dac are utilized, whereas using the ipod as your source, you are using the ipod's dac.

I experimented with my audiophile dap, the Ibasso DX100 which is miles ahead of the ipod in terms of sound quaility (not user interface) and it uses the ES 9018 32 bit dac chip and supports up to24bit/192khz bit for bit decoding and it did nots ound as good as a CD of the same recording. The music in question was downloaded from HD Tracks in 24bit/192khz onto my DX100. The sound was not as full, bass had less control and some clarity was lost. This was very disappointing as I was hoping to use the DX100 as my main source since it has 64G and 32G external micro sd. I will need to spend more time with this set up. It has 3 gain settings and I was on the lowest setting. I am determined to make this work!!!

Streaming music is probably the least attractive from a quality standpoint but certainly one of the most convenient ways to listen to music.

By the way, does anyone know what dac chip Burmester is using.

 

I haven't A-B'd the ipod DAC to the B Dac via CD so thanx for the info. Maybe I will give that a go later this week. Are there one or two CDs that come to mind that you tested? The best solution would have been if Porsche had included a flac decoder in their f/w along with the others. Even though control would have been reduced vs the ipod at least then you would have something as an alternative to the ipod DAC. I just don't see myself loading six cds at a time vs the 100+GB I have in the car now. This would have been much better than their jukebox implementation as well (and it would have been virtually free).

 

I agree....In so far as the test, I used Chick Corea's Return to Forever "light as a feather" and Gary Husband "the dirty and beautiful" volume 1. The Chick Corea recording was downloaded from HD Tracks in 96kHz/24bit then compared to the CD. The Gary Husband CD was downloaded in lossless format then compared to the CD. Both of these cds were very well recorded, which is 9/10 of the battle. I'm going to make this work damn it! Gonna try a moon audio "black dragon" mini cable from the DX100 line out into the B aux in.

 

Thanx. I don't have those but I will try some other jazz, some acoustic guitar, and some vocals. When I was playing with the ipod I found that I had to turn its volume control all the way and then use the volume control of the PCM from there. Otherwise the ipod "sound" thru the PCM was very much as you describe. Also, I played with the ipod EQ settings and that made a difference. I get more than enough bass when I want it (For example, Black Cadillac makes me into a boombox bass machine if I am not careful.) Lastly I found that the B is a little like Porsche Bose in that the speaker sensitivity may be a little demanding at lower volumes with whatever they use for the non-ribbon speakers. I can go pretty high without strain/fatigue on well recorded albums. Very quiet passages are a bit of a miss but that is the nature of 911 car audio me thinks.

 

/Off topic:

It's your age but also nice to see a young woman spend here money on such a nice car

And cars are insanely expensive in Holland. But since Porsches are reasonably economical the BPM came down to 17621 so I could live with that But I did think about moving to Belgium for a minute of two. The tax for driving it privately is insanely high too! Perhaps someday I will move.....

Which color / setup did you get?

/on topic

Thanks for your input. Somethings to think about. Think I will be a nice hobby to get the best out of the system too Can wait to get started....

 

I have been a car enthusiast as long as I can remember. As a little girl I didn't play with barbiedolls... I always played with toycars. So I think it's baked in to my DNA.

We moved to Belgium a year and a half ago and I bought an Audi S5 there. It was 29% cheaper than the Dutch price!!! Not only was the price of the base car a lot cheaper, the options were also a lot cheaper and those prices have not always something to do with the BPM. I suspect that some importers in Holland keep their prices artificial higher to make more profit.
Now we moved to Switzerland for our work and here the prices are at the same level as in Belgium and a little higher than Germany, depending on the marque. Still not as cheap as in the U.S. but it will do

Good luck with the "hobby" of getting the best out of your Burmester

Suzy991

 

For what we pay for our 991s it should be a pretty insignificant expense to purchase a dedicated iPod with the largest storage capacity that lives in the car.

 

It is. But it seems like any new ipod will not provide any sound improvement
over a new one. The 5th generation should be better. But I could use the additional 130GB....

 

I ended up doing exactly what you describe. I have a 160GB Classic iPod with a decent collection of Apple Lossless music.

I can definitely tell the difference between Lossless and MP3 format. MP3s are kind of... Well.. hollow.

That said, the Burmester is great regardless, but you can really have an incredible experience with better quality media.

Also, I have a few DVD Audio DVDs that really take advantage of it. I had to get my frist PCM replaced because these would skip quite often. Even the replacement unit has problems playing these. I don't think Porsche thought anyone would actually buy any DVD Audio disks. But CDs work flawlessly.

As mentioned by others, streaming services that can be accessed on smartphones (Spotify and Pandora) and connected via bluetooth audio are super convenient, but have the worst quality. Typically 192kbps.

It's really too bad that they don't offer a higher tier on these services for those who want higher quality.

 

Excellent point and I forgot to turn up the volume at the source. Some say if you want bit for bit playback, the source needs to be turned up all the way. I'm not wild about the eq settings on the ipod and find that while it adds on one side it takes away on the other side.

 

The later generation ipods use the cirrus logic dac chip. I think you'll find that the Burmester dac is far superior and the good thing is that you can really tell the difference with the Burmester regarding source, quality of recording etc...