[yugopotamia]

So I haven't seen a thread that discuss about this.

What you guys think about the SQ and ONLY SQ of discman or vintage one versus today's dap like x3 x5 ak100 120 dx50 90.

So all about portable dap have been hyped up lately. And it seems the vintage style discman will no longer in trend as time goes by and technologies growing rapidly.

Anyone care to do the comparison?
I own an ak100 but I'm just curious about discman sound.

 

[Silverprout]

So I haven't seen a thread that discuss about this.

What you guys think about the SQ and ONLY SQ of discman or vintage one versus today's dap like x3 x5 ak100 120 dx50 90.

So all about portable dap have been hyped up lately. And it seems the vintage style discman will no longer in trend as time goes by and technologies growing rapidly.

Anyone care to do the comparison?
I own an ak100 but I'm just curious about discman sound.

Hello
The discman must compete them with a fairly high error reading rate !

 

[yugopotamia]

 
Hello
The discman must compete them with a fairly high error reading rate !

it means less SQ??

 

[kantana]

So I haven't seen a thread that discuss about this.

What you guys think about the SQ and ONLY SQ of discman or vintage one versus today's dap like x3 x5 ak100 120 dx50 90.

So all about portable dap have been hyped up lately. And it seems the vintage style discman will no longer in trend as time goes by and technologies growing rapidly.

Anyone care to do the comparison?
I own an ak100 but I'm just curious about discman sound.

I have the last MD player made by Sony RH1 and it sounds good playing back ATRAC but for lossless it doesn't compare to the DX100 or AK240.  The HO weren't designed for multi BA driver iems I believe, not much power.  As a source to the Hugo it still sounds divine

 

[wshinji]

Interesting point in discman vs new daps...
 
i think there is too much confirmation bias with the astell and kern range of DAPs. Amazing sound yes but the cost ratio lol....

 

[Silverprout]

 
it means less SQ??

Less fidelity and the risk of detail loss.

 

[yugopotamia]

hmm yeah. the trend right now is: buy CD, Rip them to wav, copy it to DAP, throw them away... it is such a waste... I hope Fiio or AK or iBasso will develop modern discman model soon... just to optimize the SQ

 

[Silverprout]

  hmm yeah. the trend right now is: buy CD, Rip them to wav, copy it to DAP, throw them away... it is such a waste... I hope Fiio or AK or iBasso will develop modern discman model soon... just to optimize the SQ

You can connect a modern Discman on a ibasso or Fio amp.

 

[mark2410]

i am aware there were select discman that had exceedingly good reputations but none has ever come my way and none are ever likely to. 
 
from how i understand it most discmans were meh, cheap components becaus the buyers wouldnt know thi difference much like a typical ipod would be today. 

 

[kantana]

I much preferred the SQ from discmans compared to ipods.  ATRAC compression was nice and lossless ATRAC was very enjoyable.  Shame it had draconic DRM and lacked support outside Japan.  We literally had to hack support into Sonicstage to be able to transfer music onto minidisc.  Sony was at it's top form in engineering then, a minidisc player the size of 2 stacked minidiscs.  Their anniversary walkmans and discmans were collectors pieces.
Nowadays they have ran out of steam and financially forced to make average quality products, I still remember some of their headphones and earphones back then, E888, R10, Qualio etc

 

[mark2410]

i think your confusing discman and mindiscman.  discman's are the take a CD kind.

 

[Sparky191]

I had one Discman back in early 90's which was great. When it broke I was never happy with any of the Portable CD players (PCDP) I had after that. The sound doesn't wasn't great. I actually went back to cassette, which I felt sound better, if noisier. I then went MiniDisc and HiMD, and I was very happy with that. But the the DRM on ATRAC was painful. MP3's caught up in SQ and MP3 player were just far easier to use, with no DRM issues. 
 
For ease of use, something like a Sansa Zip with a MicroSD card is just better than any PCDP or MIniDisc player. That said I find younger kids struggle with MP3 players, I'd like to get an easy to use PCDP for them but they've all but vanished from the market now. 
 
I thought the issue with older Discman was they had very clear signal paths. The later ones had antiskip and battery saving features which compromised the SQ. So while the occasional one was great the vast majority weren't that great. 

 

[kantana]

  i think your confusing discman and mindiscman.  discman's are the take a CD kind.

I had a Sony CD discman back in the 90's.  It was an early model with the battery pack underneath it, built like a tank.  Sounded better than cassettes but it was bulky.  I eventually moved to minidiscs and bought an Aiwa one that still works to this day.  Used it for the toslink output so I can record to minidisc.  Tried it out the other day using ciems but SQ was so so.  I fed the toslink to my Hugo and it was much better.
Some of the Discmans had really nice SQ but they were quite expensive, well past my budget at the time.  iPods and the like offered only average SQ and I missed the early models and stuck to the Sony MD players until the very last one RH1.  After that I've been on various players/phones until I got my first ciem and the iBasso DX100 which changed the idea of portable audio having to be compromised in quality.  This year I've been trying this and the other for mobile audio and includes the DX50, DX90, AK240 and the Chord Hugo.
Right now, from what I've heard from all these players I can't even go back to an iPhone or Android phone since they sound so much worse.  I can accept iems for portable quality with the AK240 but would be happier with Hugo and HD800 quality However that setup is obviously not as portable.

 

[kantana]

  I had one Discman back in early 90's which was great. When it broke I was never happy with any of the Portable CD players (PCDP) I had after that. The sound doesn't wasn't great. I actually went back to cassette, which I felt sound better, if noisier. I then went MiniDisc and HiMD, and I was very happy with that. But the the DRM on ATRAC was painful. MP3's caught up in SQ and MP3 player were just far easier to use, with no DRM issues. 
 
For ease of use, something like a Sansa Zip with a MicroSD card is just better than any PCDP or MIniDisc player. That said I find younger kids struggle with MP3 players, I'd like to get an easy to use PCDP for them but they've all but vanished from the market now. 
 
I thought the issue with older Discman was they had very clear signal paths. The later ones had antiskip and battery saving features which compromised the SQ. So while the occasional one was great the vast majority weren't that great. 

Yes the DRM from sonicstage, magicgate memory sticks etc sucked bad.  3 checkouts to devices only, no recording from minidisc to minidisc etc  The software sucked but I really loved the hardware quality of the Sony gear.

 

[AUDIOBREEDER]

High-end discmans will beat the living daylights out of any dap out there in the market simply because you are playing CD format. True, different discmans have different sound but of them and I feel the D-5 is the best of all. May not fit into your pocket but great for listening at home!
 
The downside to buying a discman/cd player is that it will conk out anytime!