Worth the switch from Audioengine A5+?

[CRA5HMAN]

Hello,

I recently got a pair of Sennheiser 598s and it opened up new worlrd of sound to me.  I had a good closed back headset that do sound really good to me( Beyerdynamic mx300s ), but I am hearing things in my music I have never heard before.  This experience has made me look at my speakers now.  I think the Audioengine A5+s that i have sound great to me and are hooked up to a Soundblaster Z sound card (also have a low end polk audio sub woofer ).  I have been researching and been intrigued by the JBL LSR 305s.  Most of what I have read has been extremely positive. I play games and listen to music on my computer. So my questions are with adding roughly $100 dollars to do the switch:

1) Is there potential for me to have a similar experience that I did going from my headset to the headphones (details and quality of sound)?

2) Are MP3s a good enough source for the 305s?

3) If you have the JBL 305s, what are your impressions?

 

Thanks for any feedback.

 

[SSL]

If the mp3 files are of 192kbps or less, I wouldn't call them good enough for most anything.

[CRA5HMAN]

 

21 minutes ago, SSL said:

If the mp3 files are of 192kbps or less, I wouldn't call them good enough for most anything.

The are actually WMA files(oops) and according to Foobar 2000, they are 193kbps, which I suppose is the same as 192...

I ripped my cd collection and didn't really pay much attention to what I was doing.  If these files aren't that great quality, is there a solution for converting them to a better format?  What format would you suggest?

[SSL]

13 minutes ago, CRA5HMAN said:

 

The are actually WMA files(oops) and according to Foobar 2000, they are 193kbps, which I suppose is the same as 192...

I ripped my cd collection and didn't really pay much attention to what I was doing.  If these files aren't the great quality, is there a solution for converting them to a better format?  What format would you suggest?

 

There's no solution except to re-rip them. I don't have experience with WMA files, so the bitrate may ore may not be comparable to mp3. If the compression is more efficient, the quality may be acceptable. If you're really curious, re-rip a CD to FLAC and do a comparo.

[Guest Kloaked]

6 minutes ago, SSL said:

 

There's no solution except to re-rip them. I don't have experience with WMA files, so the bitrate may ore may not be comparable to mp3. If the compression is more efficient, the quality may be acceptable. If you're really curious, re-rip a CD to FLAC or A

WMA is poor quality compression when compared to MP3, so I would also recommend to re-rip them from the CD to something higher quality and see if there is any difference.

 

Source: I had an external drive from years ago that I ripped all of my CDs to in WMA format since I was a plebeian and exclusively used Windows Media Player anyways. They sound worse than the MP3 versions I currently have on my drives now (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park, etc are what I was comparing).

[CRA5HMAN]

Thanks for the imput guys.  I will re re-rip a few and see if they sound better and I have no issues redoing everything if it does sound better.

 

Assuming they do sound better and I do re-rip everything to FLAC format, what would be your opinion on going from the A5+s to the 305s?  My ears are probably aren't the most sensitive and I am old  , but I did hear a noticeable difference with my switch to the headphones.

 

 

[KaminKevCrew]

1 hour ago, CRA5HMAN said:

Thanks for the imput guys.  I will re re-rip a few and see if they sound better and I have no issues redoing everything if it does sound better.

 

Assuming they do sound better and I do re-rip everything to FLAC format, what would be your opinion on going from the A5+s to the 305s?  My ears are probably aren't the most sensitive and I am old  , but I did hear a noticeable difference with my switch to the headphones.

I doubt you'd notice much of a difference. The 305's are more of a side grade than anything. 

[CRA5HMAN]

1 hour ago, KaminKevCrew said:

I doubt you'd notice much of a difference. The 305's are more of a side grade than anything. 

Thanks, 

I think I have a case of upgraditis?

[Guest Kloaked]

3 minutes ago, CRA5HMAN said:

Thanks, 

I think I have a case of upgraditis?

We all do.

 

I own too many headphones.

[CRA5HMAN]

On 2017-01-19 at 11:56 AM, SSL said:

 

There's no solution except to re-rip them. I don't have experience with WMA files, so the bitrate may ore may not be comparable to mp3. If the compression is more efficient, the quality may be acceptable. If you're really curious, re-rip a CD to FLAC and do a comparo.

Well I did do a comparison and there is a noticeable difference.  I tested both formats with headphones and speakers (many times at 10-25sec intervals) and the FLAC file seems like the volume level is slightly higher with more detail in the softer ambient sounds. Tested it (fittingly) with the track, "Everything in Its Right Place".  I am going to test a few more tracks but it looks like I will be ripping my collection to FLAC.  Thanks.