[audioguru1]

OK heres the mess as it stands. I have a sony MZR70 on ubid for $139 -20 dollar discount. THey messed up and offered to cancel my order, and it will take a long time to get. I can get a sharp MD for $150 from j and r. But i would not have a Pc link to transfer my cd's digitally, i would have to use the analog out of my portable cd player (which is very very good). Thing is that i have been reading that the sharps atrac 24bit is far superrior to anything but a sony ES machine. here is the link http://carboy33.tripod.com/index2.html

What i want to know, is will the pc USB link for the sony (16 bit atrac) sound better than a good analog link with the 24 bit sharp. I am thinking there will be massive noise on the system (pIII now may be athlon, which warns about RFI output), this would create jitter in the thousands of PS i would imagine. I am leaning towards the sharp. I might be able to get a digital optical out for the SBlive, but i am not sure if will even work with the 686b southbridge on the athlon.


ALSO :
does anyone know wether the USB pc link on the sony is analog or digital. IE where do you plug it into the MD machine from teh PC link, into the analog connector or the digital one. Or is it some propietary?

 

[skippy]

most cd-roms have spdif digital outputs. just connect a high brightness LED to it and you have an optical digital output.

 

[audioguru1]

Quote:

Originally posted by skippy most cd-roms have spdif digital outputs. just connect a high brightness LED to it and you have an optical digital output.

i am sure that if you did what you say, if it even worked, the quality would be terrible.

 

[coolvij]

I would highly doubt Sharp's analog recording is BETTER than a good digital recording on a Sony....but maybe i'm wrong...

 

[audioguru1]

Quote:

Originally posted by coolvij I would highly doubt Sharp's analog recording is BETTER than a good digital recording on a Sony....but maybe i'm wrong...

sorry to be a pain, but keep in mind the only digital output i will have is off a SB live. I dont have a high quality digital source. I will be brigning a good analog cd machine tho. (drives my hd600's just fine)


there is a potential to get a optical out from my computer eventually, however this would take time. In this case which would be better.

thanks in advance;.

 

[coolvij]

oooooh - in YOUR situation - with YOUR limitations...yesh, you should be happy you got a Sharp...

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Thing is that i have been reading that the sharps atrac 24bit is far superrior to anything but a sony ES machine. here is the link http://carboy33.tripod.com/index2.html

Unfortunately, that's pure marketing. I'm a big Sharp MD fan (have two Sharp portables and a minisystem) but Sharp ATRAC is not "far" superior to any Sony machine. In fact, I'd bet large sums of money that most people would not be able to hear the difference between Sharp ATRAC and Sony ATRAC, and even if they did, that there wouldn't be a clear consensus on which was "better." There was actually a thread a while back about this that was quite entertaining

Quote:

ALSO : does anyone know wether the USB pc link on the sony is analog or digital.

It depends on which Sony unit -- older models had the Xitel AN-something (analog), while newer ones come with the DG-2 (digital).

 

[reynman]

kenk,

When you do your search for Sony portables the designation DPC (ie MZR900DPC w/c I own) indicates that model has a digital PC link, but it's optical (toslink - not RCAs).

If your budget does not allow for Sony MZR700DPC or the 900, I believe you can buy a digital PC link from:

http://www.minidisco.com

I paid about $280 (including shipping) for my new pimp red 900 from another vendor.

Regards - reynman

 

[thomas]

Which SBlive do you have? most newer ones have optical outs.

And skippy's LED trick also works, and since it's digital shouldn't be too much worse than a true optical out (your MD reclocks everything so there's no jitter)

Many people have used the PC links and many have problems with poor sound quality, and data corruption that the MD can't read properly...

 

[coolvij]

.....and track marks being inserted incorrectly!

 

[audioguru1]

Originally posted by thomas
Which SBlive do you have? most newer ones have optical outs.

CT4830