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how good is atrac3plus 352kb/s

May 22, 2006 at 9:40 PM Post #2 of 10
This seems to be one of those questions that would be very easy to decide for yourself, especially since everyone's hearing and equipment is different. No one is going to convince someone else whether they hear a difference or not.
 
May 22, 2006 at 10:14 PM Post #4 of 10
It should sound pretty good, but if I were you I wouldn't be locking myself into Sony's proprietary format. If you ever get a different player, you'll be screwed.

LAME VBR MP3 is still the best bet for lossy...
 
May 22, 2006 at 10:28 PM Post #6 of 10
Quote:

Originally Posted by astranovus
my reasoning as follows,

if somebody like bangraman who has better equipment than me i.e. Qualia; can't tell the difference then I'm safe for future upgrades :-)


or you could rip your library to a lossless codec then you would be safe for future upgrades. You could then transcode all you files to you hearing threshhold for your various devices. Flac and wavpack are both wonderful codecs that have device support through oem or 3rd party firmwares. If you plan on running any test and maintaining a multi codec foobar is a wonderful program. I personally would stay away from proprietary codecs because your next upgrade may not support it, and there is always development with open source stuff. 2 librarys is the way to go if you want to future proof imo.
 
May 22, 2006 at 10:44 PM Post #7 of 10
yepp I'm on two library's

flac and atrac3plus 352kb/s

my sony mz-rh1 was built for atrac, that's why I'm using it, better battery life through hardware atrac decoding and excellent sound quality,
 
May 22, 2006 at 11:15 PM Post #8 of 10
But also asking how someone with such expensive equipment hears things is kinda pointless. Bangraman might be able to hear the difference with whatever equipment due to having clearer hearing. Hearing is such a subjective thing that you can only really go with whatever you hear.

Especially if you've got a FLAC backup of all your music - just transcode to whatever, to you, sounds the same. Then, when you get some better equipment just test out again whatever you can hear to and transcode again (if neccesary)

If I remember correctly I'm sure I've read of some people playing VBR MP3 through things like K-1000 and not being able to tell the difference.
 
May 23, 2006 at 8:13 AM Post #9 of 10
I have no complaints, it's very good. I did try it a while back with the RH1 and it is as good as any other top-rated DAP outputting at a similar bitrate... although I didn't spend that much time with it. (unfortunately comparing on a PC is worthless as you're going to be using this codec portably)


I don't really have any problems with ATRAC3+ in terms of quality. However at higher bitrates it's not really superior to any of the more established codecs because most have achieved "transparency" within their limitations, all of which are pretty much the same.


Where ATRAC3+ really scores right now is below 128K. No other codec implemented on portables at this time gives better sound at the lower bitrates... but then, the quality we're talking about at these bitrates, even for ATRAC3+, isn't exactly 'head-fi'.


As m_memmory says, just because someone owns expensive equipment is neither here nor there. I can hear things from an Apple bud that some people miss.
 
May 23, 2006 at 9:06 AM Post #10 of 10
thx bangraman, your wise self as always

i'm new to head-fi and it takes a while to "train" your ears, but i'm getting there,

can't stand "normal" sony buds anymore, i got rid of the rh1 buds straight away, even though they are better than ibuds

i have decided to delay my rh-1 review,

i am gonna use the rh-1 for a month and then do an indepth one with on the road pics so you get a coherent picture of the machine, i need to test real-life battery scenarios etc
 
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