Soft 'N Easy Net Radio

I may soon just use the uncompressed WAV files for the cleanest sound possible.
I highly recommend this. Any time you double-encode audio, such as taking MP3 music files and sending them into a MP3 or AAC+ web stream, there is a very noticeable loss of quality. It's just like back in the '80s when you would make a "high-speed dub" of a cassette and the copy would never sound as good as the original tape.

Uncompressed CD-quality audio requires about 10.6 MB of disk space per minute of audio. That sounds like a lot, but now that large hard drives are getting more and more affordable, there are fewer excuses to store a music collection in a compressed format. A 300 GB hard drive will store over 28,000 minutes of CD audio; at an average song length of 4 minutes, that's 7000 songs, or over 19 days of continuous music without repeating a song!

The one useful application for Ogg Vorbis compression is in your web stream itself. Back when I only had a 33.6K modem connection, the best-sounding web stream I ever heard was a 24 kbps Ogg Vorbis stream. It wasn't stereo, but the audio was clean, clear, and natural-sounding. On the other hand, I don't really care for AAC+'s "synthetic" treble. At first it sounds really bright and crisp, but after you listen for a while its harsh and metallic sound gets on your nerves. I think a 24 kbps mono Ogg stream would be an excellent choice for dialup listeners, while the existing 128 kbps MP3 stream offers great sound and universal compatibility for broadband listeners.

I also use a processor that conditions the audio for the encoder.
Can you tell us what kind of audio processing you use? Is it done on your computer, or do you use an external audio processor box? It really sounds fantastic, without any of the overly "squashed" and distorted sound many other web streams have.

Can you tell us what kind of audio processing you use? Is it done on your computer, or do you use an external audio processor box? It really sounds fantastic, without any of the overly "squashed" and distorted sound many other web streams have.
I use a software-based processor called Stream Solo by Plantronics. I tried a couple of inexpensive hardware devices but they were not designed for this purpose and sounded bad.

Plantronics doesnt offer any products like that only headsets and such? :?: :?:

Plantronics doesnt offer any products like that only headsets and such? :?: :?:
The company has been sold once or twice. I think they are Volumlogic now.

It's now called Volume Logic, by Plantronics.

http://www.volumelogic.com/

They sell a simplified stand-alone version of their audio processing as a "TV Volume Regulator". It uses the same Volume Logic core, but without any ability to adjust the compression ratio, equalization, etc.

http://www.firststreetonline.com/product.jsp?id=6463