[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally posted by Tina one here. minidisc consensus lean to this model. and a lot seem to agree that atrac is better compression than mp3. i think it's hardware capability. and another plus is stealth portability and the upper hand for live recording. that's right. and if you'll get an ipod anyway, one hard drop and there goes all your 5gigs of music. 2

Okay, I'll bite. Atrac is better sounding than mp3, but to a large degree only mp3's at normal compression. Most of those 96-128kps mp3 files going around the internet (though at least they can be passed around) aren't the best sounding. There's been many newer 'standards' to address this (mp3pro, wma, mp4, etc.) which have all met with various degrees of success. But this is mostly in the pursuit of getting decent sounding files in an ever smaller space (as Sony has done with newer Atrac standards). When it comes to ever better sounding files (approaching and some say reaching source transparency), mp3 is the leader right now (not to say other compression systems- ogg, mpc, monkeys audio and other lossless compression, etc. don't have their place). As users space increases and bitrates are moved up the available options for 'massaging' the compression are unparallel. Just look at these 'recommended' settings (there are many more) for the LAME mp3 encoder- http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.p...ST&f=15&t=203&
These are options to be used or not, but they're options Sony will never give you.

So to get back to the original statement, Atrac is better than many mp3's (Atrac3 LP is probably a more accurate comparison), but properly compressed mp3's are much better sounding than Atrac files. If I remember correctly, minidiscs are about 120 megs large. You let me encode an album at LAME mp3 preset extreme (about 90-110 megs depending on music type) or even LAME mp3 preset standard (about 70-80 megs) and I'm sure you'll prefer the mp3. Course you can compress Atrac down (LP) to much more track time, and will retake the lead as mp3s loses sound quality dramatically as the kps go down (course Sony has come under attack for going too far). Again it's either about the 'better sounding' files or more 'decent sounding' music in available space. Of course all compression is about sacrifices and give and take (otherwise we'd all be carrying around uncompressed wav/aiff players- though the iPod can do this), so you decide which is more important.

I will say as a previous minidisc owner, MD's do have their place. As you mentioned their durability should be taken into account (when I sold mine, it had a large dent and still worked). If I was the gym type, there's an argument for it there especially (at least in respect to hard disk mp3 players). Plus as you mentioned recording.

I prefer the extra space of hard disk mp3 players, prefer the 'openness' of the mp3 format (ogg comments not withstanding), and better sound of good mp3 files. Plus I gotta say the schizophrenia of Sonys business plans (even to the point of the entertainment/music area suing a confederation including their electronics division see - http://wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/sony.html ) has me a little scared.

Just wanted to throw in my two cents.

 

[Eagle_Driver]

I agree with the extra space of hard drive MP3 players. But none of those that I've tried are at all satisfactory for my uses. I've had two expensive players - one of which a 5GB iPod - crap out on me during a brisk walk (I was kinds lead-footed during the times that I had tried the players). (I've borrowed those players from a friend.) And both Apple and the other maker of hard drive players wanted to charge the original owner at least $300 apiece (which is more than the units are currently worth) just to repair those units, because their warranties won't cover damage from such use (they will only cover factory defects).

Suffice to say, unless hard drives become totally shockproof, I won't be buying one for myself anytime soon.

 

[tbdoah]

Quote:

Originally posted by Mystyler One model: MD-DR7. Sharp Minidisc recorder, I'm sure many can vouch for it's supreme sound.

Another here

. Ultimate portability and superb sound. I think that about sums it up.

 

[pengin]

Yes the DR7 has superior sound (due to Auvi).. But it doesn't have NetMD (if you plan to use that).. You also can't title songs while they are playing.. Maybe some nuisances. N10 is nice.. But battery life is bad. THe NF810 looks good. ANd the N910 looks good too. BUt you have to import the N910 (either from europe or Japan) because they aren't releasing it in the United States. THe 3 models i listed are by Sony.

...
derek

 

[RacerX]

I am a man of action!

I like to listen to music when I run, bike, punch and kick bags, lift free weights and stretch. Consequently, HDD players will not work for me and I've used various flash memory type players, but the best one so far has been the Nomad MuVo 128MB. Easy to use and I can carry around other data besides music.

 

[nales]

Cautionary advisory:

In loudspeaker reproduction, sounds must travel several feet before reaching the listener's ears. By the time they arrive, a portion of the high frequencies have been absorbed by the air. Low frequencies are not absorbed as much, but they are more felt through bone conduction than actually heard. With headphones, the ears hear all frequencies without any attenuation, because the transducers are literally pressed against them. Thus, when listening to headphones at the same effective volume level as loudspeakers, headphones may still transmit louder high frequencies that are more likely to cause hearing damage.

Another hearing phenomenon that seems to be more noticeable with headphones is a decreasing sensitivity to sound levels over time, as the ears adapt to loud sounds. The listener perceives a gradual drop in loudness even though the volume control setting hasn't changed. The acoustic isolation of headphones tends to highlight this dulling effect. It is all too easy for headphone listeners to turn up the volume to the point where hearing is at risk. Interestingly, most people find it difficult to distinguish between 85dB and 100dB SPLs, despite that the latter is more injurious to hearing. Therefore, it is important to avoid listening fatigue by resting the ears in silence after long sessions with headphones and to fight the temptation to turn up the volume.

Personal stereos are another source of hearing damage risk. Using those open-air lightweight ("Walkman-style") headphones that come with portable stereos, listeners can enjoy music on the go - and often have the volume levels cranked up to drown out traffic and other outdoor noises. In a recent study of noise exposure from portable stereos (Airo et al.), listeners in a quiet laboratory setting were comfortable with headphones set at an average volume of 69 dB. Once outside where the mean noise level was 65 dB (average sound level on a busy street is about 80 dB), the average volume went up to 82 dB, with some levels as high as 95 dB. The study concluded that "ome hearing loss risk would be expected when [portable stereos] are used in noisy conditions at work or among traffic, and therefore avoiding continuous use of [portable stereos] in noisy conditions is recommended."

Wearing headphones (especially the Walkman-style) during exercise is also dangerous to hearing. Aerobic exercise diverts blood from the ears to the limbs, and leaves the inner ear more vulnerable to damage from loud sound. A Swedish study estimated that the risk of hearing loss is doubled when listening to headphones at high volume during aerobic exercise. The study recommends limiting headphone use during exercise to one-half hour per day at half volume.

[ [size=xx-small]c. 2001 Chu Moy[/size] ]

 

[RacerX]

Thank you. I am well aware of the risks and in fact I have lost some hearing at higher frequencies but not from headphones or exercise.

Too many AC/DC concerts in my past.

 

[Tina]

Quote:

Originally posted by blessingx Okay, I'll bite. Atrac is better sounding than mp3, but to a large degree only mp3's at normal compression. Most of those 96-128kps mp3 files going around the internet (though at least they can be passed around) aren't the best sounding. There's been many newer 'standards' to address this (mp3pro, wma, mp4, etc.) which have all met with various degrees of success. But this is mostly in the pursuit of getting decent sounding files in an ever smaller space (as Sony has done with newer Atrac standards). When it comes to ever better sounding files (approaching and some say reaching source transparency), mp3 is the leader right now (not to say other compression systems- ogg, mpc, monkeys audio and other lossless compression, etc. don't have their place). As users space increases and bitrates are moved up the available options for 'massaging' the compression are unparallel. Just look at these 'recommended' settings (there are many more) for the LAME mp3 encoder- http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.p...ST&f=15&t=203& These are options to be used or not, but they're options Sony will never give you. So to get back to the original statement, Atrac is better than many mp3's (Atrac3 LP is probably a more accurate comparison), but properly compressed mp3's are much better sounding than Atrac files. If I remember correctly, minidiscs are about 120 megs large. You let me encode an album at LAME mp3 preset extreme (about 90-110 megs depending on music type) or even LAME mp3 preset standard (about 70-80 megs) and I'm sure you'll prefer the mp3. Course you can compress Atrac down (LP) to much more track time, and will retake the lead as mp3s loses sound quality dramatically as the kps go down (course Sony has come under attack for going too far). Again it's either about the 'better sounding' files or more 'decent sounding' music in available space. Of course all compression is about sacrifices and give and take (otherwise we'd all be carrying around uncompressed wav/aiff players- though the iPod can do this), so you decide which is more important. I will say as a previous minidisc owner, MD's do have their place. As you mentioned their durability should be taken into account (when I sold mine, it had a large dent and still worked). If I was the gym type, there's an argument for it there especially (at least in respect to hard disk mp3 players). Plus as you mentioned recording. I prefer the extra space of hard disk mp3 players, prefer the 'openness' of the mp3 format (ogg comments not withstanding), and better sound of good mp3 files. Plus I gotta say the schizophrenia of Sonys business plans (even to the point of the entertainment/music area suing a confederation including their electronics division see - http://wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/sony.html ) has me a little scared. Just wanted to throw in my two cents.

lol...and quite a lengthy one.

anyway...when it comes to ones and zeros, mp3 compression may have the upper hand. that's why i said that's in in the hardware capability. example, we all know that the pcm or a wav file in its uncompressed form is the mother of the diagram. but those new pcdp's available right now suck in headphone out capability. there were a lot of mp3 player owners (i for one) who mentioned that the mp3 units just sounds inferior to some md units (specifically sharp's auvi and sharp units prior to the mdlp era).
so okay. mp3 compression is better looking at the graphs and numeric interpretations. but i hope an mp3 unit would be created to do justice to your 'superior' format.

another 2

 

[syk]

I think the best one is sharp MD£_DS8

 

[TMC]

Tina: Which mp3-players have you tried that are clearly sonically inferior to md-players? Because the mp3-players have generally improved quite a bit in sound quality for the past year or so, and if you put well ripped mp3's in those that difference is rather negligable on the go unless you listen very critically and don't mind being hit by car

 

[blessingx]

Yesterday in my headphone exploration (see ungodly number of posts in that forum section), I tested Grados 60's, 80's and Senn 497's. First using a Marantz receiver, then using my iPod (and mp3 encoding at before mentioned preset extreme). I don't expect to be using the phones with my iPod (have other headphones for that), but wanted to hear music I'm very familiar with before buying. I can't compare the sound to a MD, side by side, as I didn't have a MD player... and besides I don't want to sum them all up by a single player anymore than I want to use the sound of the iPod to make a statement about all mp3 players (my iPod sounds better than my first Creative Nomad Jukebox, but that's a whole other story). I do though want to say the iPod drove all three headphones extremely well and it and they sounded great.

Also will say the same for the mp3's I have on my Mac using Xitel output to my Pioneer receiver and out my Advent speakers. That's another combo of the hardware and the source.

I don't want this post, or my last, to come across at all as minidisc bashing in the slightest. As I mentioned I previously owned one (R-76) and was very pleased with it. I do however want to come to mp3s defense when said to sound inferior. My limited listening experience is that good mp3s sound better than good Atracs. I know mp3's can sound a whole lot worse- part of their inherit options.

And as for which side has released worse hardware players, I do suspect the mp3 group wins this hands down. There's so many small companies making $90 fixed memory players, a great deal of them have to suck. I can only imagine.

 

[Tina]

Quote:

Originally posted by TMC Tina: Which mp3-players have you tried that are clearly sonically inferior to md-players? Because the mp3-players have generally improved quite a bit in sound quality for the past year or so, and if you put well ripped mp3's in those that difference is rather negligable on the go unless you listen very critically and don't mind being hit by car

i have the slim-x imp 350. i have a friend who works in an electronics store and sells all kinds of these geeky electronics gadgets and i can say that i am lucky to hang out at the store (fyi: technomart). my cousin owns a 5 gig ipod (if you think i'm lying, leon owns the auvi ds8 and have had 3 (i think) ipods that passed his pockets; and he has good ears

) another friend has the iRiver iFP-195TC(512MB) . and sad to say, non of them comes close to the sound of my sharp md units. if in doubt, buy one and listen for yourself.

i'm tired of this arguement. if any md-dr7 or ds8 owners out there would say that an mp3 player sounds better than the auvi units, i'll rest my case. simple as that.

blessingx, it's okay. check this thread and look for ipods or above $90 fixed memory players: http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showt...highlight=rank

cheers.

 

[TMC]

I've just got one more question for you Tina. Your friends and you when you make mp3:s, have you tried doing it with LAME and EAC at VBR? Otherwise it might very well be the mp3:s that make the players sound bad as opposed to the players themselves. I mean I can tell the difference between my old-school Kenwood MD (which had superior sound compared to Sonys back then) and my LAME-ripped songs out of an MPIO DMB+. But to me it's small differences that I don't notice unless sitting in a quiet room and really listen critically. That's why I don't find it a problem to use an mp3-player while on the go, because I can't put that much of my attention into the music anyway.

 

[Tina]

i used LAME and MP3Pro in compressing my original CD's for my cdr library. but now, my slim-x is resting in the closet. i'm not even using the memory sticks of my PEG-NX70V pda filled with mp3's much anymore. for music and stealth portability, i'm just too happy with my md. and i guess it's because my er4p/s just reveals every detail i want.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally posted by TMC I've just got one more question for you Tina. Your friends and you when you make mp3:s, have you tried doing it with LAME and EAC at VBR? Otherwise it might very well be the mp3:s that make the players sound bad as opposed to the players themselves. I mean I can tell the difference between my old-school Kenwood MD (which had superior sound compared to Sonys back then) and my LAME-ripped songs out of an MPIO DMB+. But to me it's small differences that I don't notice unless sitting in a quiet room and really listen critically. That's why I don't find it a problem to use an mp3-player while on the go, because I can't put that much of my attention into the music anyway.

TMC,

Have you heard any of the latest MD models out there? Have you heard a Atrac 4.5/Type R MD? Just curious, if you're basing your conclusions based on some old school MD unit, then it's not a very fair comparison.