Help needed to play mp3 with 060 and Paula

[mr_a500]

Try using mpega. The sound is near perfect, and 060 will be more than enough. There are lots of GUI utils for it, my favourite being BMG (on Aminet).

BMG is ugly. DiamondGUI is much nicer and has more options.

When I play MP3s on my A500, I use DiamondGUI/mpega and buffer for 15 seconds. This gives about 25-30 seconds uninterrupted (on max quality stereo setting). I change to 90 seconds if I want to listen to the whole thing uninterrupted, but it can get painful waiting. If I like the MP3 and don't want to keep waiting for buffering, I use mpega to convert the MP3 to 16 bit AIFF, then listen to it in SongPlayer with AHI set to 14 bit++ calibrated. The AIFF takes up huge file space, but at least I can listen uninterrupted and without buffering - and the sound quality is great.

But this is with a measly 020. I would've thought an 060 can handle MP3s without problem.

[mr_a500]

However, there is still a minor problem: for exemple, Madonna seems to sing as if she has hair on her tongue (it means in french "avoir un cheveu sur la langue", not sure of the english for this expression), so that any "s" becomes "sssssss".

Madonna does have hair on her tongue, so this is normal.

[mr_a500]

Just try Prayer2, the best mp3 player on 68k amigas.

Yes, Prayer2 is pretty good. Thanks for suggesting it. I read that it was made open source in 2002, but unfortunately the site containing the source is no longer active. I wish I knew how to create a "robe" for it. All the robes I found are pretty ugly. It also would have been nice if there was an option for buffering like with DiamondGUI.

Amazing noone suggested you to actually do the calibration!

I suggested 14 bit calibrated, but I guess nobody read it.

[mr_a500]

@Xanxi

I think I heard the "hairy tongue" of which you speak. Is it in the song "Sorry"? Even after converting the MP3 to 16 bit AIFF, the "hairy tongue" was still there so maybe it was the MP3. There is also a spot where it sounds like Madonna is singing with a couple marshmallows in her mouth. Besides that, the sound quality (after converting) was so good it gave me shivers.

@mr_a500

Yes, you did suggest using a 14bit calibrated mode, but you did not suggest actually doing the calibration. Your arrangements did seem rather involved, as well. Does all that work nicely on an 020 (presumably not 14MHz EC020)?

Ah, I see. Yes what I described does work nicely on an 020 (33Mhz). AmigaAMP is total crap on an 020 (have to turn off the Amiga to stop it because it doesn't respond!) and playing MP3s without buffering is like Max Headroom gone berserk. But playing MP3s with buffering gives good quality (if a bit of a pain waiting for buffer) and converted 16 bit AIFF with 14 bit calibrated plays perfectly with no skipping.

[mr_a500]

Which tool do you use to convert to AIFF please?

I use mpega. I usually do "mpega -s -A -T ". This will convert to AIFF without playing, showing the time so you can see the progress. As I said, AIFF takes up huge disk space. (example: Madonna's "Sorry" takes up 49Mb!)

For me, I don't consider this much of a problem because I have a huge harddrive and Amiga software takes up very little space.