bangraman
Headphoneus Supremus
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Sony MZ-NH1 vs iPod Mini
With a global launch due soon for the iPod Mini, and the upper-model Hi-MD machines from Sony also soon I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to write about how the two compare. I’ve taken the flagship MZ-NH1 from Sony (a final production unit, not a prototype) and a February 2004 manufactured iPod Mini to do the comparisons.
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MACHINE VIEWS (pictorial)
The smart magnesium-cased Sony MZ-NH1 is the top of Sony’s Hi-MD lineup. It’s equipped with a single-line display on the unit, as well as a three-line display remote. A 4-way joystick on the side of the unit performs track and menu navigation functions, and other buttons have specific functions. Discs are loaded by a spring-loaded clamshell design which opens at the top with a latch. The connection to the PC (via USB only) is on the bottom of the machine, and Line/Optical in as well as Mic in sockets are on the same side as the headphone/remote connection.
The supplied subtly backlit remote allows for total control of the NH1’s functions through a number of buttons and a jog dial built into the faceplate of the remote. The machine comes with a charging dock, which does not provide PC connectivity.
The iPod Mini’s design is centred around the large, brightly backlit 5-line display and unique touch-sensitive wheel and click buttons. The wheel can be depressed in 4 compass directions for track and menu navigation, and is also touch-sensitive so that sliding your finger across the top of the wheel allows menu movement and other controls. The shell of the Mini is a hard-anodised extruded aluminium case which comes in a variety of colours. The headphone/remote socket is at the top, while a bottom connector accepts PC(via Firewire and USB2) connection cables, as well as separately sold Line Out cables and docks.
MEDIA
The iPod Mini incorporates a fixed-in-place 4Gb Microdrive. The Sony Hi-MD allows for freely interchangeable Hi-MD (1Gb) or MD (can be reformatted to 300MB) discs, which in theory allows for limitless storage.
CONNECTION TO PC & POWER
The MZ-NH1 has a separate charging cradle to charge the battery, and it ships with a USB cable for connection to the PC. The NH1 is ‘USB2.0 compatible’, i.e. it is USB1.1. The iPod Mini charges from the PC, be it using Firewire or USB2 and ships with cables for both USB2 and Firewire.
BATTERY LIFE
The NH1 gives approximately 12 usable hours of playback under normal use (i.e. quite heavy chopping and changing), compared to approximately 7 of the iPod Mini. The iPod Mini charges from the PC and is effectively not being discharged when connected. The NH1 works off the USB power when connected. The NH1 has a trump card to the extended duration user in the form of the removable battery. The most important aspect of this for heavy users is the ability to carry a spare charged battery.
BUILD QUALITY
Both products are very solidly designed, detailed and finished items. There were problems with quality control for the iPod Minis when they were released, which have to my knowledge been resolved. There are a couple of very minor finish problems with the current NH1 which needs to be ironed out (perhaps subsequent production batches have this sorted out), but the Sony player is also a solid product.
DURABILITY
For various reasons I'm not saying how I tested this, and without that information I doubt many MD fans will believe what I have to say. However let's just say that the test procedure, if carried out inadvertently by an owner would have their heart in their mouth. The result is quite simple: the most robust player by far is the iPod Mini. It can take impacts that will kill the Hi-MD unit and keep on going. Furthermore, although the magnesium shell of the NH1 is tough, such impacts are less likely to seriously mark the hard-anodised shell of the iPod Mini. The now wide availability of integrated-design protective covers for the Mini only adds to it's survivability in an everyday use situation.
As far as media are concerned, only the Hi-MD has removable media and these are quite robust by themselves. However there are certain very rare cases of data corruption issues when the disc is inside the Hi-MD unit. I’ve not been able to pin them down yet, but I have confirmed that it does happen. The iPod Mini has not suffered any build issues since March. The NH1 seems to be a solid product, and the typical Sony build quality seems to me that there’s little to go wrong in the near future.
MAIN UNIT DISPLAY & CONTROL
The NH1's non-backlit main display is a single-line item and as such is not ideal. It is possible to control most functions but is somewhat tricky to use. The main unit has a rather fiddly 4-way joystick on the side which acts as transport control and also menu navigation. The record, stop and pause buttons are on the front panel in order to aid ‘tapers’.
The iPod Mini's main backlit display offers a much better navigation and larger viewing area than the NH1 main unit or the remote. The one overriding factor here is that the iPod user interface is vastly superior to the Sony. It uses a consistent and logical menu system, operated using one control method. The touch-sensitive wheel acts as the jog dial, and the four compass corners of the wheel act as transport and menu navigation buttons.
REMOTE
Much usually centres on the remote of a Minidisc unit, mainly because it is usually the most visible part of an MD unit. The RM-MC40EL has a faceplate mounted jog wheel, along with a jog dial at the base of the remote and ancillary buttons for EQ control. The jog dial allows the user to navigate the folders on the Hi-MD, and a click of the dial allows them to play it. Everything apart from the Track Mark and record facilities can be triggered from the remote, and the remote is also capable of navigating inbetween folders as well as displaying the contents. The clip now swivels to offer maximum flexibility in positioning.
The optional iPod remote is a much more basic, if attractive and distinctive affair and only offers Play/pause, volume controls and FFW/RWD controls (track navigation and playlist navigation). The clip has trouble staying put in some situations. All in all, it feels like an afterthought as far as the iPod (and the Mini, since currently they share the same remote) is concerned.
The Hi-MD remote is hugely superior to the iPod’s offering. Bearing in mind the inferiority of the main unit controls however, a full-function remote is a necessity on the NH1.
PLAYBACK FEATURES
The NH1 requires around 5 seconds to ‘boot up’ with a disc. The iPod Mini powers up immediate as it is effectively always on. (this means that the iPod Mini’s battery is gradually discharged even if you don’t use it, although it does have a deep sleep mode which kicks in after a day or so) Once powered on, the NH1 allows for playback in a variety of ways - by album, artist, etc. It has a program play mode which allows you to manually select which tracks to play. Compared to a CD player, it has a flexible playback interface. Going on to the iPod Mini, we have the browse menu, which allows the user to navigate extremely quickly to the artist, album, etc of their choice, as well as multiple playlists which you can create in iTunes and sync to your iPod Mini. The on-the-fly playlisting feature is also useful and is very simple to set up. Both players allow you to select shuffle and repeat facilities by various parameters. The NH1 is on the whole decidedly lacking when we’re looking at how each unit offers options in the music playback. However, since the NH1 is limited in terms of storage on a single disc one could argue that it does not need all those playlisting facilities since there’s no enough music on a disc to justify it. It’s true to an extent but it’s clear that the iPod has superior playback features for accessing your music in a varied manner.
MUSIC TRANSFER, SOFTWARE/HARDWARE INTEGRATION - SONICSTAGE, ITUNES
Since iTunes came out for the Mac, it’s been recognised as one of the most easy to use pieces of music management and syncing software on the market. Last year, to much fanfare the Windows version was released, and to the relief of Mac/iTunes fans the PC version was virtually the same. Since that release, the Windows version has kept step with the Mac versions for features and usability.
Sonicstage on the other hand grew out of the quite frankly terrible OpenMG and the uninspiring previous versions of Sonicstage. Whereas both iTunes and OpenMG flouted Windows user interface conventions, OpenMG seemed to do it for no recognisable reason. Combined with the relatively poor performance of the codecs, bugs and the high rate of resource usage, it was never going to set the world alight. Sonicstage 2.0 builds on what was made right in 1.5 and cleans up the bugs in order to come up with something significantly more usable.
Ripping
Ripping speeds seem virtually identical with the tested bitrate. Either way there is not a huge performance gap. Both software can be set to rip automatically when the CD is inserted, and to eject after rip. iTunes has the full range of AAC and MP3 codecs to rip to, as well as uncompressed and Apple Lossless, a codec which compresses the audio but suffers no loss in quality. Sonicstage has three ATRAC3 bitrates (near-equivalent codec to MP3 at 66, 105 and 132K), three ATRAC3+ bitrates (slightly superior at low bitrate codec to MP3 at 48, 64, 256K) and uncompressed WAV. Both will query CDDB when required.
Music Library
There are many ways to look through your music library in iTunes. One is the standard all-music list, which allows sorting by any of the columns… artist, name, album, etc. Pressing the Browse button allows the library to be navigated on the basis of Genre -> Artist ->Album in a way that pressing a certain genre automatically narrows down to the selected genre artists and so forth. It’s a very flexible method of navigation, made all the better by the instant search facility. Start typing in an artist, song name, etc in the search field and the entire library is scoured in real time to narrow down the matches as you type. There’s also a Party Shuffle function, a sort of auto-DJ which allows you to cue up songs for use at, well, a party.
Sonicstage’s Music Library is significantly more basic in terms of presentation and navigation. The view is fixed around an Artist-Album organisation or an all-tracks display, and is easy enough to navigate using similar controls to iTunes. There’s also an additional alphabetical panel on the left hand side of the album display The search feature does search as well as the iTunes equivalent, although it doesn’t happen in real time.
Transferring music to the player.
iTunes has a variety of options for sending music to the iPod Mini. At the simplest level, you can opt for manual music management where you copy and delete music manually on the Mini. However this is a waste of some of the best features of iTunes. You can set up multiple playlists which can be automatically synchronised, and you can set up Smartlists, where you can define rules with ease such as “Make me a playlist which is 2Gb in data size, which contains randomly selected music of genre containing the word ‘Electro’, which I haven’t listened to in the last two weeks, and which is encoded in 192Kb MP3 or better”. Smartlists update as your library changes, and the two-way syncing of track play and time it was played data between the iPod and iTunes means that time-based rules are made possible. You can also rate tracks as you’re listening to them to be sorted / deleted / otherwise manipulated later. Even this, along with the number of times you’ve played something, is synced between the iPod and iTunes.
In comparison to that, Hi-MD appears spartan. You can define albums/folders (groups) to encapsulate bunches of music, and transfer based on that. Although you can manually create groups, they are created automatically per album. There is no playlist definition from within Sonicstage, although Program Play is possible from within Hi-MD. In terms of cueing up your music and flexible, imaginative ways to listen to it, iTunes is light years ahead of Sonicstage.
Transferring music between computers using the player
Suppose that you wanted to transfer your music from one computer to another using the Mini or the Hi-MD. With the Mini, direct transfer of music that you ripped yourself on one computer is not easily possible… but it is possible. With Hi-MD, it is impossible. The only option with Hi-MD is to give your friend the Hi-MD disc and hope that he has a Hi-MD player too.
Single disc ripping
Hi-MD offers a mode (or rather different software) which allows you to quickly get one CD onto a Hi-MD. Simple Burner is a separate application which doesn’t record to the Music Library but straight to Hi-MD from CD. Inserting a CD then hitting the record button on the PC-connected Hi-MD unit allows Simple Burner to start the ripping process. Ripping a typical CD to Hi-SP takes 5 minutes or so on a reasonable PC.
DRM
Digital Rights Management is of course one of the hot topics of music these days, and Sony was at the vanguard of the more restrictive vendors of playback gear. With Sonicstage 2.0 they have made concessions for fair use, and now you can transfer your own ripped music an unlimited number of times to Hi-MD. However, only one PC is licensed to use the music that you rip from your own CD’s, which means that if you have more than one PC, the music cannot be transported between PC’s. On the other hand, iTunes allows unsecured music (it can make a clear distinction between your own rips and purchased tracks) to circulate freely. There are other issues which will be referred to later in this review, but Sonicstage still unreasonably restricts fair use of music in Sony’s overzealous attempts to curb piracy. Two thumbs down for Sonicstage in this respect.
CONNECT vs ITUNES
Both online stores allow you to purchase music after a brief preview. iTunes wins out with a ‘full-strength’ sample, whereas with Connect you are limited to a low-bitrate preview. It’s not hard to find anything on either service if you know what you’re looking for, but iTunes leverages the user interface that’s used in your own music library to show you tracks on iTunes Music Store in the same manner. In terms of variety of tracks, Connect in Europe probably has the edge at the moment, but look to Apple to close this up very soon.
Sony took iTunes apart when developing Connect obviously, and at the moment their behind-the-scenes workings is more favourable to the artists publishers than how iTunes works. Because it means more cash in pocket and a more reliable way to gauge online sales, that’s why independents in Europe have embraced Connect more than iTunes. However, the best-paying music store in the world is no use if it’s designed poorly and people don’t flock to it… and Connect, although it works perfectly well if you know what you’re looking for, needs more work in the user interface and also in the ability to ‘wonder the virtual aisles’ that iTunes does so well. After all, we don’t always know what we’re looking for.
Software overall summary
In every single area of the software, iTunes takes the win, frequently by a large margin. It’s it’s slicker, quicker in use, more flexible and is easier to use. There are also less restrictions on your rights as a music owner.
MP3 TRANSFERS
Perhaps the most jaw-droppingly terrible aspect of Sonicstage is how much it cripples users of MP3 files. As may have been remarked before, the Hi-MD machines only support ATRAC natively and as such, all MP3 files have to be transcoded into ATRAC before the '100x real time' transfer.
On a regular PC (2Ghz class, 512MB RAM):
Hi-MD would transfer / transcode 1Gb's worth of 256K MP3's into 256K ATRAC files in just over 1 hour.
iPod Mini transfers 1Gb's worth of 256K MP3's in under 8 minutes.
PC DEPENDENCY / COMPATIBILITY
The MD/Hi-MD format is practically the only way to go these days for people who don’t own a PC to store their music on. The NH1 is capable of recording music through the Line and Optical inputs and as such can be used without a PC in the loop.
The iPod Mini is totally dependent on a PC for it’s music, and it works with Mac or PC (Windows 2000 upwards). The NH1 works with Windows 98 upwards, and has no Mac support. For people with older PC’s, the iPod can be used with a variety of third-party software which can achieve the same thing as iTunes. The NH1 has no third-party software support at this time, although Real has made it’s player compatible with Net MD.
DATA TRANSFER
Both machines are recognised as a removable disk drive when connected to a PC. Both require no drivers with Windows 2000 upwards. The NH1 had a sustained transfer rate of approximately 450K/sec. The iPod Mini had a sustained transfer rate of approximately 2.3MB/sec over Firewire.
RECORDING & EDITING
As the iPod Mini doesn’t record, the NH1 has this section all to itself.
The record button on the main unit switches the unit into recording mode. Once engaged, the record button glows red. The NH1 is capable of recording from a Mic, Line and Optical sources. The Stop and Pause buttons are located right beside the record button. The modes one can use to record are PCM (uncompressed), Hi-SP (256K ATRAC3+) and Hi-LP (64K ATRAC3+). When a regular Minidisc is inserted with old material already on it, the machine is capable of recording in SP and LP modes for backward compatibility. Usual Sony MD recording features, such as synchronised recording, etc are all supported. The recording levels can be manually set, but as on the previous generation MZ-N10 it can only be accomplished while the recording is paused.
The remote has a clear and usable multi-segment L/R level indicator as that featured on the main display of the MZ-N10, while the main unit has a more rudimentary level indicator. As with the MZ-N10 again, the Track Mark button is on the side of the unit and works in exactly the same way. As far as track editing is concerned, the options available on the unit are the aforementioned Track Mark to split tracks, Erase and a Move facility. There seems to be no Join facility, limiting portable editing. Ewoudenberg points out that you can reverse track marks, although I have not tried this yet. Group editing facilities (effectively movement of tracks within folders and the creation of new folders) are also provided.
The recording quality in all modes (after upload) is hard to fault and like the previous generation of MD's makes the NH1 a superb audio notebook. The recorded sound is excellent quality and in PCM, all the data of the music is captured without compression. However how useful that will be is debatable... see UPLOADING.
UPLOADING
One of the biggest questions about Hi-MD is the upload capability. Let me outline what it is:
- Uploads are simply carried out through the same transfer window in Sonicstage that you use to transfer music to Hi-MD.
- All uploaded files, be they Hi-LP, Hi-SP or PCM are encrypted with the OpenMG digital rights management.
- You cannot burn uploaded files to Audio CD. You can burn them to ATRAC-encoded CD's for playback in ATRAC Discmen.
- No third-party programs to edit OpenMG encrypted files are available at this time.
- You cannot email the resulting .OMG file to other people as they do not have the rights to play the file back.
- You CAN create copies of your own recorded material to other Hi-MD/MD discs, and of course you can listen to the files on your PC.
The end result is that the upload facility is of diminished usefulness in a practical context, and will be of a particular disappointment to one of the major niche users of Minidisc... amateur musicians. The only way you'll get recordings into Cubase et al will be to play the sound in via analog in the old way, or to grab the WAV stream internally on the PC as you play the sound back in real time. This MAY change in future versions of Sonicstage, but it's not guaranteed.
SOUND
I compared both machines using 256K bitrate material. In the case of Hi-MD, I used of course Hi-SP. In the case of the Mini, I used 256K VBR rips within iTunes at 'highest' quality. I compared from the headphone socket and also through Line Out modes of both players, using the Xin Supermini as the reference amp. Unamped headphones used at various times were the Sony MDR-G74SL, Sennheiser PX100, Etymotic ER-4P, Shure E5, Sony MDR-V700DJ and the Sennheiser HD25-1. Amped headphones were the Audio-Technica ATH-W2002. In a test of overkill, the Stax SR-007 was also employed.
Let’s first go over the supplied earphones: The NH1 should come with the MDR-E838 for customers in Japan, Asia and Europe… I’m not sure about the US. The iPod Mini comes with the now ubiquitous white iPod earphones. The 838 sounds tinny, splashy and lacks lows while the iPod earphones feel rolled off and lumpy. I’m hard pressed to say which is worse on aggregate, but I think I would say it’ll be the MDR-E838 which loses. Suffice it to say both are perfectly usable although neither are sonic masterpieces, and you should be considering a change of phone should you wish to take more advantage of the sound offered by both devices.
At the bitrates we’re discussing, there are to all intents and purposes no particularly discernible differences between the MP3 codec and the ATRAC3+ codec, as proven in multiple blind tests using the MP3/ATRAC3+capable D-NE900 (which might indeed favour ATRAC3+ if anything else). Lower bitrate results are a different matter. Although neither sounds good, ATRAC3+ at equivalent low bitrates seems to be more convincing. However since you don't get any ATRAC3+ bitrates between 64K and 256K, that information is not as useful as it appears.
Sony usually pitches itself on the high ground in terms of audio quality, and the Hi-MD is no exception. ATRAC3+ is claimed by Sony (or at least, marketing and technical people within and attached to Sony) to be the best codec out of all the others. Imagine my surprise when after my comparisons, I have to conclude that the sound quality is missing from the Sony product. The Hi-MD lacks clarity, and although not rolled off there is a definite smudging of upper-end information. The lows also lack coherence, with a smudged low end. In Line Out mode being amped through the Supermini, the Hi-MD gives a better account of itself, being slightly more faithful to the original. However this is a somewhat subjective statement: The Hi-MD Line Out is still outclassed by the iPod Mini equivalent, although it is an optional extra (via the dock or the various third party alternatives).
For those of you expecting the HD (High Definition) digital amp to make a major difference to the sound, or any digital amp for that matter, it's not really an issue. The primary reason that the digital amps are being fitted to portables these days is to prolong the battery life, and not necessarily to improve the sound. Certainly in the case of the NH1, the base sound quality is not significantly improved. If anything, the High Definition tag has me reaching for the UK Trade Descriptions Act 1968 Guide.
But as we know, technical quality isn’t the be-all of sound, especially for portable devices. The Sony NH1 as remarked offers inferior quality but a pretty agreeable sound out of the headphone socket, which is warm and could be terms as lush, which many non-audiophiles will undoubtedly proclaim is of a higher quality than current Sony MD's or other HDD DAPs including the iPod Mini, which lacks a truly working 'phat bass boost'.
In terms of being able to adjust the sound from the headphone out, the Hi-MD wins due to an EQ that actually works and one which is highly configurable. This ability is most useful when dealing with low-cost headphones which often have issues with the sound, which can be partially cured by EQ. In addition to the preset EQ modes carried over from the previous generation Net MD units, two custom EQ settings are available, which offer adjustments in the 100hz, 250hz, 630hz, 1.6khz, 4khz and 10khz bands.
So in a nutshell, the NH1 is agreeable enough to listen to and offers excellent control of EQ to the benefit of low-cost headphones, but lacks an overall precision of sound in comparison to the iPod Mini. The Sony is unsuitable for amping and higher-end headphones, especially for the premium portable amps/canalphones that are increasingly used by Head-Fi members.
WORDS IN CONCLUSION
The Hi-MD machines are a genuine evolution of Minidisc. Viewed purely on it's own it's an accomplished improvement to the Minidisc format, and is recommended if you're looking for a replacement to your current Minidisc unit because you need to record. Hi-MD offers usefully increased media capacity, increased PC-based ATRAC quality, improved recording capabilities and data storage for the same effective retail price as your current MD. The NH1 is the top model of the new machines which incorporates all the functions of Hi-MD, and I like the precision build, feel and the style of the unit, all of which ooze quality. The iPod Mini is however no slouch in the build stakes either, with a design and build that outlines the creator’s fundamentally superior understanding of product engineering in comparison to Sony.
Now the bad news. Compared to the iPod Mini, Joe Public probably won't get it... especially with the lower-model MZ-NH700 going more or less head to head with the iPod Mini in terms of global pricing. And thanks to Apple Lossless and the relative sound quality (and I mean quality, not how much bloaty bass it'll generate), Hi-MD is not going to be the automatic choice of the audiophile.
With Hi-MD, Sony have updated Minidisc to sit reasonably comfortably alongside flash and other non-HDD players around the same price tag. It is flexible, records with very high quality, and compared to anything but the iPod Mini it is serious competition. However stacked up against the Apple juggernaut, the NH1 is left wanting as a player and as an object of consumer desire. In terms of style, desirability, nice features and ease of use (the things that the consumer worries about), the Mini leaves the NH1 for dead. In terms of codec flexibility and sound quality (the things that Head-Fiers worry about), the Mini also leaves the NH1 trailing. Sony’s huge marketing and distribution muscle definitely has a part to play in the future sales of Hi-MD, but who knows if this will be shifted in favour of Sony’s newly launched hard disk players? Certainly every informed consumer I’ve talked to has more interest in the NW-HD1 ( Sony’s new hard disk player) than Hi-MD. Significantly wider adoption such as the iPod Mini is almost guaranteed to achieve is very likely to elude Hi-MD. And it’s not because it’s a smarter choice that’s been cruelly overlooked by undermarketing: the fact that I generally like the NH1 as a Minidisc machine notwithstanding, the iPod Mini is quite simply a better player than the Hi-MD in a way that consumers can readily appreciate.
So where does that leave Hi-MD? I believe firmly entrenched in the current core user base: Music makers rather than listeners. It's ironic to know that it's very likely that the AAC song you download to your iPod from iTunes was probably first recorded onto MD to create demo CD's (via a lengthy manual upload process) to send to a label.
iPod Mini
Pros: Design, portability, ease of use, unit durability, speedy loading, excellent software/hardware integration with less restrictive DRM, more audiophile-friendly sound.
Cons: Cannot record, limited endurance, non-expandable storage, EQ is of very limited use.
MZ-NH1
Pros: Recording, better remote, extended endurance through replaceable batteries, freely interchangeable & durable media, working EQ with pleasant sound.
Cons: Sound quality for amped / higher-end phone use, slower to load with more limited software/hardware integration, inferior man-machine interface and playback features, still restrictive DRM despite improvements
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With a global launch due soon for the iPod Mini, and the upper-model Hi-MD machines from Sony also soon I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to write about how the two compare. I’ve taken the flagship MZ-NH1 from Sony (a final production unit, not a prototype) and a February 2004 manufactured iPod Mini to do the comparisons.
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MACHINE VIEWS (pictorial)
The smart magnesium-cased Sony MZ-NH1 is the top of Sony’s Hi-MD lineup. It’s equipped with a single-line display on the unit, as well as a three-line display remote. A 4-way joystick on the side of the unit performs track and menu navigation functions, and other buttons have specific functions. Discs are loaded by a spring-loaded clamshell design which opens at the top with a latch. The connection to the PC (via USB only) is on the bottom of the machine, and Line/Optical in as well as Mic in sockets are on the same side as the headphone/remote connection.
The supplied subtly backlit remote allows for total control of the NH1’s functions through a number of buttons and a jog dial built into the faceplate of the remote. The machine comes with a charging dock, which does not provide PC connectivity.
The iPod Mini’s design is centred around the large, brightly backlit 5-line display and unique touch-sensitive wheel and click buttons. The wheel can be depressed in 4 compass directions for track and menu navigation, and is also touch-sensitive so that sliding your finger across the top of the wheel allows menu movement and other controls. The shell of the Mini is a hard-anodised extruded aluminium case which comes in a variety of colours. The headphone/remote socket is at the top, while a bottom connector accepts PC(via Firewire and USB2) connection cables, as well as separately sold Line Out cables and docks.
MEDIA
The iPod Mini incorporates a fixed-in-place 4Gb Microdrive. The Sony Hi-MD allows for freely interchangeable Hi-MD (1Gb) or MD (can be reformatted to 300MB) discs, which in theory allows for limitless storage.
CONNECTION TO PC & POWER
The MZ-NH1 has a separate charging cradle to charge the battery, and it ships with a USB cable for connection to the PC. The NH1 is ‘USB2.0 compatible’, i.e. it is USB1.1. The iPod Mini charges from the PC, be it using Firewire or USB2 and ships with cables for both USB2 and Firewire.
BATTERY LIFE
The NH1 gives approximately 12 usable hours of playback under normal use (i.e. quite heavy chopping and changing), compared to approximately 7 of the iPod Mini. The iPod Mini charges from the PC and is effectively not being discharged when connected. The NH1 works off the USB power when connected. The NH1 has a trump card to the extended duration user in the form of the removable battery. The most important aspect of this for heavy users is the ability to carry a spare charged battery.
BUILD QUALITY
Both products are very solidly designed, detailed and finished items. There were problems with quality control for the iPod Minis when they were released, which have to my knowledge been resolved. There are a couple of very minor finish problems with the current NH1 which needs to be ironed out (perhaps subsequent production batches have this sorted out), but the Sony player is also a solid product.
DURABILITY
For various reasons I'm not saying how I tested this, and without that information I doubt many MD fans will believe what I have to say. However let's just say that the test procedure, if carried out inadvertently by an owner would have their heart in their mouth. The result is quite simple: the most robust player by far is the iPod Mini. It can take impacts that will kill the Hi-MD unit and keep on going. Furthermore, although the magnesium shell of the NH1 is tough, such impacts are less likely to seriously mark the hard-anodised shell of the iPod Mini. The now wide availability of integrated-design protective covers for the Mini only adds to it's survivability in an everyday use situation.
As far as media are concerned, only the Hi-MD has removable media and these are quite robust by themselves. However there are certain very rare cases of data corruption issues when the disc is inside the Hi-MD unit. I’ve not been able to pin them down yet, but I have confirmed that it does happen. The iPod Mini has not suffered any build issues since March. The NH1 seems to be a solid product, and the typical Sony build quality seems to me that there’s little to go wrong in the near future.
MAIN UNIT DISPLAY & CONTROL
The NH1's non-backlit main display is a single-line item and as such is not ideal. It is possible to control most functions but is somewhat tricky to use. The main unit has a rather fiddly 4-way joystick on the side which acts as transport control and also menu navigation. The record, stop and pause buttons are on the front panel in order to aid ‘tapers’.
The iPod Mini's main backlit display offers a much better navigation and larger viewing area than the NH1 main unit or the remote. The one overriding factor here is that the iPod user interface is vastly superior to the Sony. It uses a consistent and logical menu system, operated using one control method. The touch-sensitive wheel acts as the jog dial, and the four compass corners of the wheel act as transport and menu navigation buttons.
REMOTE
Much usually centres on the remote of a Minidisc unit, mainly because it is usually the most visible part of an MD unit. The RM-MC40EL has a faceplate mounted jog wheel, along with a jog dial at the base of the remote and ancillary buttons for EQ control. The jog dial allows the user to navigate the folders on the Hi-MD, and a click of the dial allows them to play it. Everything apart from the Track Mark and record facilities can be triggered from the remote, and the remote is also capable of navigating inbetween folders as well as displaying the contents. The clip now swivels to offer maximum flexibility in positioning.
The optional iPod remote is a much more basic, if attractive and distinctive affair and only offers Play/pause, volume controls and FFW/RWD controls (track navigation and playlist navigation). The clip has trouble staying put in some situations. All in all, it feels like an afterthought as far as the iPod (and the Mini, since currently they share the same remote) is concerned.
The Hi-MD remote is hugely superior to the iPod’s offering. Bearing in mind the inferiority of the main unit controls however, a full-function remote is a necessity on the NH1.
PLAYBACK FEATURES
The NH1 requires around 5 seconds to ‘boot up’ with a disc. The iPod Mini powers up immediate as it is effectively always on. (this means that the iPod Mini’s battery is gradually discharged even if you don’t use it, although it does have a deep sleep mode which kicks in after a day or so) Once powered on, the NH1 allows for playback in a variety of ways - by album, artist, etc. It has a program play mode which allows you to manually select which tracks to play. Compared to a CD player, it has a flexible playback interface. Going on to the iPod Mini, we have the browse menu, which allows the user to navigate extremely quickly to the artist, album, etc of their choice, as well as multiple playlists which you can create in iTunes and sync to your iPod Mini. The on-the-fly playlisting feature is also useful and is very simple to set up. Both players allow you to select shuffle and repeat facilities by various parameters. The NH1 is on the whole decidedly lacking when we’re looking at how each unit offers options in the music playback. However, since the NH1 is limited in terms of storage on a single disc one could argue that it does not need all those playlisting facilities since there’s no enough music on a disc to justify it. It’s true to an extent but it’s clear that the iPod has superior playback features for accessing your music in a varied manner.
MUSIC TRANSFER, SOFTWARE/HARDWARE INTEGRATION - SONICSTAGE, ITUNES
Since iTunes came out for the Mac, it’s been recognised as one of the most easy to use pieces of music management and syncing software on the market. Last year, to much fanfare the Windows version was released, and to the relief of Mac/iTunes fans the PC version was virtually the same. Since that release, the Windows version has kept step with the Mac versions for features and usability.
Sonicstage on the other hand grew out of the quite frankly terrible OpenMG and the uninspiring previous versions of Sonicstage. Whereas both iTunes and OpenMG flouted Windows user interface conventions, OpenMG seemed to do it for no recognisable reason. Combined with the relatively poor performance of the codecs, bugs and the high rate of resource usage, it was never going to set the world alight. Sonicstage 2.0 builds on what was made right in 1.5 and cleans up the bugs in order to come up with something significantly more usable.
Ripping
Ripping speeds seem virtually identical with the tested bitrate. Either way there is not a huge performance gap. Both software can be set to rip automatically when the CD is inserted, and to eject after rip. iTunes has the full range of AAC and MP3 codecs to rip to, as well as uncompressed and Apple Lossless, a codec which compresses the audio but suffers no loss in quality. Sonicstage has three ATRAC3 bitrates (near-equivalent codec to MP3 at 66, 105 and 132K), three ATRAC3+ bitrates (slightly superior at low bitrate codec to MP3 at 48, 64, 256K) and uncompressed WAV. Both will query CDDB when required.
Music Library
There are many ways to look through your music library in iTunes. One is the standard all-music list, which allows sorting by any of the columns… artist, name, album, etc. Pressing the Browse button allows the library to be navigated on the basis of Genre -> Artist ->Album in a way that pressing a certain genre automatically narrows down to the selected genre artists and so forth. It’s a very flexible method of navigation, made all the better by the instant search facility. Start typing in an artist, song name, etc in the search field and the entire library is scoured in real time to narrow down the matches as you type. There’s also a Party Shuffle function, a sort of auto-DJ which allows you to cue up songs for use at, well, a party.
Sonicstage’s Music Library is significantly more basic in terms of presentation and navigation. The view is fixed around an Artist-Album organisation or an all-tracks display, and is easy enough to navigate using similar controls to iTunes. There’s also an additional alphabetical panel on the left hand side of the album display The search feature does search as well as the iTunes equivalent, although it doesn’t happen in real time.
Transferring music to the player.
iTunes has a variety of options for sending music to the iPod Mini. At the simplest level, you can opt for manual music management where you copy and delete music manually on the Mini. However this is a waste of some of the best features of iTunes. You can set up multiple playlists which can be automatically synchronised, and you can set up Smartlists, where you can define rules with ease such as “Make me a playlist which is 2Gb in data size, which contains randomly selected music of genre containing the word ‘Electro’, which I haven’t listened to in the last two weeks, and which is encoded in 192Kb MP3 or better”. Smartlists update as your library changes, and the two-way syncing of track play and time it was played data between the iPod and iTunes means that time-based rules are made possible. You can also rate tracks as you’re listening to them to be sorted / deleted / otherwise manipulated later. Even this, along with the number of times you’ve played something, is synced between the iPod and iTunes.
In comparison to that, Hi-MD appears spartan. You can define albums/folders (groups) to encapsulate bunches of music, and transfer based on that. Although you can manually create groups, they are created automatically per album. There is no playlist definition from within Sonicstage, although Program Play is possible from within Hi-MD. In terms of cueing up your music and flexible, imaginative ways to listen to it, iTunes is light years ahead of Sonicstage.
Transferring music between computers using the player
Suppose that you wanted to transfer your music from one computer to another using the Mini or the Hi-MD. With the Mini, direct transfer of music that you ripped yourself on one computer is not easily possible… but it is possible. With Hi-MD, it is impossible. The only option with Hi-MD is to give your friend the Hi-MD disc and hope that he has a Hi-MD player too.
Single disc ripping
Hi-MD offers a mode (or rather different software) which allows you to quickly get one CD onto a Hi-MD. Simple Burner is a separate application which doesn’t record to the Music Library but straight to Hi-MD from CD. Inserting a CD then hitting the record button on the PC-connected Hi-MD unit allows Simple Burner to start the ripping process. Ripping a typical CD to Hi-SP takes 5 minutes or so on a reasonable PC.
DRM
Digital Rights Management is of course one of the hot topics of music these days, and Sony was at the vanguard of the more restrictive vendors of playback gear. With Sonicstage 2.0 they have made concessions for fair use, and now you can transfer your own ripped music an unlimited number of times to Hi-MD. However, only one PC is licensed to use the music that you rip from your own CD’s, which means that if you have more than one PC, the music cannot be transported between PC’s. On the other hand, iTunes allows unsecured music (it can make a clear distinction between your own rips and purchased tracks) to circulate freely. There are other issues which will be referred to later in this review, but Sonicstage still unreasonably restricts fair use of music in Sony’s overzealous attempts to curb piracy. Two thumbs down for Sonicstage in this respect.
CONNECT vs ITUNES
Both online stores allow you to purchase music after a brief preview. iTunes wins out with a ‘full-strength’ sample, whereas with Connect you are limited to a low-bitrate preview. It’s not hard to find anything on either service if you know what you’re looking for, but iTunes leverages the user interface that’s used in your own music library to show you tracks on iTunes Music Store in the same manner. In terms of variety of tracks, Connect in Europe probably has the edge at the moment, but look to Apple to close this up very soon.
Sony took iTunes apart when developing Connect obviously, and at the moment their behind-the-scenes workings is more favourable to the artists publishers than how iTunes works. Because it means more cash in pocket and a more reliable way to gauge online sales, that’s why independents in Europe have embraced Connect more than iTunes. However, the best-paying music store in the world is no use if it’s designed poorly and people don’t flock to it… and Connect, although it works perfectly well if you know what you’re looking for, needs more work in the user interface and also in the ability to ‘wonder the virtual aisles’ that iTunes does so well. After all, we don’t always know what we’re looking for.
Software overall summary
In every single area of the software, iTunes takes the win, frequently by a large margin. It’s it’s slicker, quicker in use, more flexible and is easier to use. There are also less restrictions on your rights as a music owner.
MP3 TRANSFERS
Perhaps the most jaw-droppingly terrible aspect of Sonicstage is how much it cripples users of MP3 files. As may have been remarked before, the Hi-MD machines only support ATRAC natively and as such, all MP3 files have to be transcoded into ATRAC before the '100x real time' transfer.
On a regular PC (2Ghz class, 512MB RAM):
Hi-MD would transfer / transcode 1Gb's worth of 256K MP3's into 256K ATRAC files in just over 1 hour.
iPod Mini transfers 1Gb's worth of 256K MP3's in under 8 minutes.
PC DEPENDENCY / COMPATIBILITY
The MD/Hi-MD format is practically the only way to go these days for people who don’t own a PC to store their music on. The NH1 is capable of recording music through the Line and Optical inputs and as such can be used without a PC in the loop.
The iPod Mini is totally dependent on a PC for it’s music, and it works with Mac or PC (Windows 2000 upwards). The NH1 works with Windows 98 upwards, and has no Mac support. For people with older PC’s, the iPod can be used with a variety of third-party software which can achieve the same thing as iTunes. The NH1 has no third-party software support at this time, although Real has made it’s player compatible with Net MD.
DATA TRANSFER
Both machines are recognised as a removable disk drive when connected to a PC. Both require no drivers with Windows 2000 upwards. The NH1 had a sustained transfer rate of approximately 450K/sec. The iPod Mini had a sustained transfer rate of approximately 2.3MB/sec over Firewire.
RECORDING & EDITING
As the iPod Mini doesn’t record, the NH1 has this section all to itself.
The record button on the main unit switches the unit into recording mode. Once engaged, the record button glows red. The NH1 is capable of recording from a Mic, Line and Optical sources. The Stop and Pause buttons are located right beside the record button. The modes one can use to record are PCM (uncompressed), Hi-SP (256K ATRAC3+) and Hi-LP (64K ATRAC3+). When a regular Minidisc is inserted with old material already on it, the machine is capable of recording in SP and LP modes for backward compatibility. Usual Sony MD recording features, such as synchronised recording, etc are all supported. The recording levels can be manually set, but as on the previous generation MZ-N10 it can only be accomplished while the recording is paused.
The remote has a clear and usable multi-segment L/R level indicator as that featured on the main display of the MZ-N10, while the main unit has a more rudimentary level indicator. As with the MZ-N10 again, the Track Mark button is on the side of the unit and works in exactly the same way. As far as track editing is concerned, the options available on the unit are the aforementioned Track Mark to split tracks, Erase and a Move facility. There seems to be no Join facility, limiting portable editing. Ewoudenberg points out that you can reverse track marks, although I have not tried this yet. Group editing facilities (effectively movement of tracks within folders and the creation of new folders) are also provided.
The recording quality in all modes (after upload) is hard to fault and like the previous generation of MD's makes the NH1 a superb audio notebook. The recorded sound is excellent quality and in PCM, all the data of the music is captured without compression. However how useful that will be is debatable... see UPLOADING.
UPLOADING
One of the biggest questions about Hi-MD is the upload capability. Let me outline what it is:
- Uploads are simply carried out through the same transfer window in Sonicstage that you use to transfer music to Hi-MD.
- All uploaded files, be they Hi-LP, Hi-SP or PCM are encrypted with the OpenMG digital rights management.
- You cannot burn uploaded files to Audio CD. You can burn them to ATRAC-encoded CD's for playback in ATRAC Discmen.
- No third-party programs to edit OpenMG encrypted files are available at this time.
- You cannot email the resulting .OMG file to other people as they do not have the rights to play the file back.
- You CAN create copies of your own recorded material to other Hi-MD/MD discs, and of course you can listen to the files on your PC.
The end result is that the upload facility is of diminished usefulness in a practical context, and will be of a particular disappointment to one of the major niche users of Minidisc... amateur musicians. The only way you'll get recordings into Cubase et al will be to play the sound in via analog in the old way, or to grab the WAV stream internally on the PC as you play the sound back in real time. This MAY change in future versions of Sonicstage, but it's not guaranteed.
SOUND
I compared both machines using 256K bitrate material. In the case of Hi-MD, I used of course Hi-SP. In the case of the Mini, I used 256K VBR rips within iTunes at 'highest' quality. I compared from the headphone socket and also through Line Out modes of both players, using the Xin Supermini as the reference amp. Unamped headphones used at various times were the Sony MDR-G74SL, Sennheiser PX100, Etymotic ER-4P, Shure E5, Sony MDR-V700DJ and the Sennheiser HD25-1. Amped headphones were the Audio-Technica ATH-W2002. In a test of overkill, the Stax SR-007 was also employed.
Let’s first go over the supplied earphones: The NH1 should come with the MDR-E838 for customers in Japan, Asia and Europe… I’m not sure about the US. The iPod Mini comes with the now ubiquitous white iPod earphones. The 838 sounds tinny, splashy and lacks lows while the iPod earphones feel rolled off and lumpy. I’m hard pressed to say which is worse on aggregate, but I think I would say it’ll be the MDR-E838 which loses. Suffice it to say both are perfectly usable although neither are sonic masterpieces, and you should be considering a change of phone should you wish to take more advantage of the sound offered by both devices.
At the bitrates we’re discussing, there are to all intents and purposes no particularly discernible differences between the MP3 codec and the ATRAC3+ codec, as proven in multiple blind tests using the MP3/ATRAC3+capable D-NE900 (which might indeed favour ATRAC3+ if anything else). Lower bitrate results are a different matter. Although neither sounds good, ATRAC3+ at equivalent low bitrates seems to be more convincing. However since you don't get any ATRAC3+ bitrates between 64K and 256K, that information is not as useful as it appears.
Sony usually pitches itself on the high ground in terms of audio quality, and the Hi-MD is no exception. ATRAC3+ is claimed by Sony (or at least, marketing and technical people within and attached to Sony) to be the best codec out of all the others. Imagine my surprise when after my comparisons, I have to conclude that the sound quality is missing from the Sony product. The Hi-MD lacks clarity, and although not rolled off there is a definite smudging of upper-end information. The lows also lack coherence, with a smudged low end. In Line Out mode being amped through the Supermini, the Hi-MD gives a better account of itself, being slightly more faithful to the original. However this is a somewhat subjective statement: The Hi-MD Line Out is still outclassed by the iPod Mini equivalent, although it is an optional extra (via the dock or the various third party alternatives).
For those of you expecting the HD (High Definition) digital amp to make a major difference to the sound, or any digital amp for that matter, it's not really an issue. The primary reason that the digital amps are being fitted to portables these days is to prolong the battery life, and not necessarily to improve the sound. Certainly in the case of the NH1, the base sound quality is not significantly improved. If anything, the High Definition tag has me reaching for the UK Trade Descriptions Act 1968 Guide.
But as we know, technical quality isn’t the be-all of sound, especially for portable devices. The Sony NH1 as remarked offers inferior quality but a pretty agreeable sound out of the headphone socket, which is warm and could be terms as lush, which many non-audiophiles will undoubtedly proclaim is of a higher quality than current Sony MD's or other HDD DAPs including the iPod Mini, which lacks a truly working 'phat bass boost'.
In terms of being able to adjust the sound from the headphone out, the Hi-MD wins due to an EQ that actually works and one which is highly configurable. This ability is most useful when dealing with low-cost headphones which often have issues with the sound, which can be partially cured by EQ. In addition to the preset EQ modes carried over from the previous generation Net MD units, two custom EQ settings are available, which offer adjustments in the 100hz, 250hz, 630hz, 1.6khz, 4khz and 10khz bands.
So in a nutshell, the NH1 is agreeable enough to listen to and offers excellent control of EQ to the benefit of low-cost headphones, but lacks an overall precision of sound in comparison to the iPod Mini. The Sony is unsuitable for amping and higher-end headphones, especially for the premium portable amps/canalphones that are increasingly used by Head-Fi members.
WORDS IN CONCLUSION
The Hi-MD machines are a genuine evolution of Minidisc. Viewed purely on it's own it's an accomplished improvement to the Minidisc format, and is recommended if you're looking for a replacement to your current Minidisc unit because you need to record. Hi-MD offers usefully increased media capacity, increased PC-based ATRAC quality, improved recording capabilities and data storage for the same effective retail price as your current MD. The NH1 is the top model of the new machines which incorporates all the functions of Hi-MD, and I like the precision build, feel and the style of the unit, all of which ooze quality. The iPod Mini is however no slouch in the build stakes either, with a design and build that outlines the creator’s fundamentally superior understanding of product engineering in comparison to Sony.
Now the bad news. Compared to the iPod Mini, Joe Public probably won't get it... especially with the lower-model MZ-NH700 going more or less head to head with the iPod Mini in terms of global pricing. And thanks to Apple Lossless and the relative sound quality (and I mean quality, not how much bloaty bass it'll generate), Hi-MD is not going to be the automatic choice of the audiophile.
With Hi-MD, Sony have updated Minidisc to sit reasonably comfortably alongside flash and other non-HDD players around the same price tag. It is flexible, records with very high quality, and compared to anything but the iPod Mini it is serious competition. However stacked up against the Apple juggernaut, the NH1 is left wanting as a player and as an object of consumer desire. In terms of style, desirability, nice features and ease of use (the things that the consumer worries about), the Mini leaves the NH1 for dead. In terms of codec flexibility and sound quality (the things that Head-Fiers worry about), the Mini also leaves the NH1 trailing. Sony’s huge marketing and distribution muscle definitely has a part to play in the future sales of Hi-MD, but who knows if this will be shifted in favour of Sony’s newly launched hard disk players? Certainly every informed consumer I’ve talked to has more interest in the NW-HD1 ( Sony’s new hard disk player) than Hi-MD. Significantly wider adoption such as the iPod Mini is almost guaranteed to achieve is very likely to elude Hi-MD. And it’s not because it’s a smarter choice that’s been cruelly overlooked by undermarketing: the fact that I generally like the NH1 as a Minidisc machine notwithstanding, the iPod Mini is quite simply a better player than the Hi-MD in a way that consumers can readily appreciate.
So where does that leave Hi-MD? I believe firmly entrenched in the current core user base: Music makers rather than listeners. It's ironic to know that it's very likely that the AAC song you download to your iPod from iTunes was probably first recorded onto MD to create demo CD's (via a lengthy manual upload process) to send to a label.
iPod Mini
Pros: Design, portability, ease of use, unit durability, speedy loading, excellent software/hardware integration with less restrictive DRM, more audiophile-friendly sound.
Cons: Cannot record, limited endurance, non-expandable storage, EQ is of very limited use.
MZ-NH1
Pros: Recording, better remote, extended endurance through replaceable batteries, freely interchangeable & durable media, working EQ with pleasant sound.
Cons: Sound quality for amped / higher-end phone use, slower to load with more limited software/hardware integration, inferior man-machine interface and playback features, still restrictive DRM despite improvements
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