MAS-Player and 68030

[Franko]

Hi.

I have a MAS-Player. I think it's a Pro version hence it has both parallel and serial connectors.

I though it was suffucient for full hardware support of MP3 decoding, but it's not, on my current computer at least (A1200 - Blizz 1230@50MHz + FPU - 64 MB FASTRAM). I tried reading a 320 kbs 44 KHz MP3 from an USB key, from the hard drive or from RAM: but i only get choppy output while multitasking, and most of the time when doing nothing.
I use the simple program which comes with the MAS Player, with 0 priority and 2MB buffer.

Any idea what i am doing wrong?

I remember to have used this flawlessy some years ago but was on an Apollo 1260.


Subsidiary question:
I connect the output from the MAS Player to the "line in" connector of my Logitech speakers, while in the meantime, the Paula output is connected to the main jack entry of these speakers. Could there be any danger for the amiga circuitry (some kind of dangerous electronic loop or so)?

Thanks for your help.

I used to have the MasPlayer, it worked perfectly 99% of the time on my old A1200 + GVP030/50Mhz board. At the time though I was reading mp3's from the HD and not via USB, but doing too much multitasking would cause the choppy effect.

I think reading your mp3s via USB could cause problems, if your Amiga is only 030 & less than 50Mhz CPU Speed. I can play mp3's on my A1200 060/PPC from HD without problems using Songplayer via the custom built amp in my A1200 and it only uses about 25% of the processor speed.

[Franko]

Before I converted all my music Cds to mp3s a few years ago (using nothing more than Lame & my Amiga) I carried out various tests on all the different bit rate encodings.

I found personally that using a VBR at between 128 to 225 bits, produced the best quality for file size ratio.

The playback quality really all depends on what your using to play the mp3s on and what type of speakers & amp you use. Having tried lots of different set ups I found that my cheap Alba MP3 player gives far superior sound than an expensive Sony one when played back on the same equipment...