[coolvij]

The title is fairly self-descriptive. I am under the impression that for a Sony portable MD, ATRAC 4.5 is as good as it gets....no Type R available (sigh).....

Anyway, I have been planning on getting an MD with MDLP mainly for LP2 mode - i have heard a lot of good things about it.

However, i would REALLY be indebted to anyone who could possible provide me with a fairly in-depth analysis and comparison of the two. I think i understand how ATRAC 4.5 may sound, but how does LP2 sound? Does it gloss over the sound? If possible, tell me how LP2 reacts with jazz pieces - does it distort Coltrane as badly as MP3 at virtually ANY bitrate short of 320K?

Thanx in advance...

P.S. Once again, i would like to stress how thankful i would be to anyone who could help me out here - a $200+ decision is pretty big for me.....sorta like a college student deliberating over whether to get RS-1s rather than sticking with his SR-80s....

 

[thomas]

I haven't personally tried MDLP, but i don't think and headwizer/head-fier would want to use it. A simple concept in data compression is the "rate distortion theorem", the more data you take out, the worst it will sound. I can't see any way that music stored at 132k/sec could possibly approach CD quality. Seems more of a marketing ploy aimed at dum-basses than audio enthusiests.

As for Sony ATRAC 4.5, I don't really like it as much as Sharp ATRAC 6. Sony's ATRAC sounds closer to MP3, in that most details are kept and there is very little colouration, but the sound seems "dead". In contrast, Sharp ATRAC colours the sound slightly, and loses a bit of the detail, but the sound seems much more lively and realistic in my opinion. It seems that most headwizers also prefer Sharp over Sony.

Sharp MD's also have more powerful headphone amps (the older models) and are better than sony units in most ways, esspecially sound quality.

 

[Peddler]

I have to disagree with Thomas. I use LP2 a lot on my Sony MD-R900 and this is through Sony 888's and Etymotics ER4P's and any differences between normal play and LP2 are extremely subtle to my ears anyway.

There may be slight differences in stability of sound and perhaps soundstage but, to be honest, I really don't think I could tell the differences in a blind listening test between the two formats given the limitations of portable playback.

LP4 on the other hand is pretty naff - OK for spoken word, secret recordings and the like but no good for music - except perhaps in the car!

I hope this helps.

 

[coolvij]

Thanx peddler.

In reply to thomas - i would've thought the same thing had i not heard the ATRAC3 codecs....i downloaded them, and i easily competed with 224K+ MP3s - both sounded less vibrant, in different ways, tho. My main question was whether normal ATRAC ripped LP2 to shreds, which, apparently, it does not.

Also, i don't think i would care about the overall sound of Sony vs. Sharp. After all, the cans that will mainly be used with the MD are OPTIMIZED for these things (888s, hehehe)......

 

[lini]

coolvij: I remember some interesting graphs in some german hifi-magazine. They've been using a multiburst signal with several disrete peaks over the audible spectrum. One could clearly see that lp2-mode had less noise beetween the peaks and the peaks reached further up into the high frequencies than regular mode with old atrac (4.5, I think). So I'd think it's pretty save to say that lp2 on a new machine is at least as good as the normal mode on an older recorder/player.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[coolvij]

Really, lini? That is extremely intriguing....Type R encoding is well out of my reach, and the best i can get is 4.5...or perhaps i should say 4.5/LP2? lol

P.S. - I JUST ORDERED THE R700 and 10 TDK 80-min. blanks! Wahoo.....