Does G-Protection Reduce Sound Quality?

[steel102]

I was just wondering, since I have one of those Sony G-Protection Diskmans. Would leaving it disabled give better quality? (albeit less battery life

) unfortunately, i lost mine somewhere around the house so I can't answer this question for myself, but ill get around to finding it eventually

Thanks guys.

 

[zombietycho]

I heard it does in PCDP but not in MD.

 

[steel102]

well its a cd player, not minidisc.

 

[pedxing]

G-Protection does reduce muscial fidelity if its using a compressed buffer. If you can like read 30-40 second ahead with your pcdp, you are probably using the compressed buffer.

If you can only read ahead like 10 seconds, its probably a linear buffer and the music is not compressed or compromised.

How can you measure the length of the buffer? You can try to searching this forum for the refrigerator door button test from like 2 years ago, but you can also risk blinding yourself with the pcdp laser.

With most sony pcdp sold in the past 3 years, turning on G-Protection usually turns on compression. Turning G-protection off means you still have a read buffer, but the compression is turned off. Certain sony pcdp have varying levels of G-Protection. I am not sure what the specific varying levels of G-protection might mean, but I think its a trade-off between power consumption and preventing skips.

 

[steel102]

thanks for the replies, that really helped. that is what I was thinking that it compresses the music. so yes, it does have the compressed buffer because I can take out the cd if i put a pen in the "latch" part, tricking it into thinking that it is closed, and it will play for 30 seconds or so. well thanks, i guess I will just turn it off guys, except for the times I use it for jogging when I will really need it.

 

[viviorunitia4]

I thought that g-protection was mechanical, not digital...

nevermind....

 

[Loki]

It's physical aswell as digital.

My understanding of it is that the CD spins faster, and 10 to 40 seconds of music is cached to memory before the track has reached that section. The music is then played from the buffer, hence no skipping for 10-40 seconds.

I'm not up-to-date on the newer models, but thats how it was with my old DE-401's "ESP2".

 

[pengin]

Hey guys, there's actually a sony explanation for G-Protection. It does alot of things. clicky.
I was joking with my friend a while ago. That for equpiment descriptions.. G-protection always has a TM. I said that G-Protection COULD stand for a system in which the player causes the disc to skip... Like it could mean ANYTHING. Its just a name.. right? Its all about marketing n eventually.. $$$

...
derek

 

[Eagle_Driver]

That link clarifies things.

Now I know that G-Protection on my D-EJ1000 is always active, regardless of the position of its G-Protection switch: "1" is for non-compressed buffering, "2" is for compressed buffering (at the expense of sound quality). My D-EJ721, on the other hand, is stuck on non-compressed buffering but the mechanical portion of the G-Protection can be turned off. And with that G-Protection turned off on the EJ721, the laser may not recover quickly enough on jolts.

Thus, the "On" position of the G-Protection switch on cheaper Sony PCDPs is equivalent to the "1" setting on the high-end models. There is no low-end equivalent for the compressed "2" setting on the high-end models.