[KJ_Palmer]

1. Digital Pitch Control (DPC) allows you to change playback speed from -50% to +100% (factor of 0.5x to 2.0x) in 13 steps without change of pitch (unlike other speed controls). Useful for musicians and language students etc.

2. I refer you to kurisu's excellent explanation of digital amps

3. VPT is "Virtual Headphone Technology Acoustic Engine" which uses Digital Signal Processing to provide "Studio, Club, Live, or Arena" effects. Can't be used with the equaliser and is best avoided anyway...

 

[bangraman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kurisu Leon! I'm surprised about that, but in some situations I suppose it could be tolerable. It sure does feel like a muddy experience with LP4, although a digital amp'd unit can color it a bit. Does LP4 vocal tracks sound good with a Pana? I love reading people who are content with MD live recordings, because seemingly it's not discussed on boards as much as it used to. The Minidisc's recording ability in this scenario is still pretty unrivaled in this price range, and really one of the few benefits of the format that still exists [hi-md is nice, but the shortcomings will sway many, I assume]. What'd you end up recording?

The digital amp technology specifically doesn't really colour the output. What does, as ever are the bits before and after it.


MD is indeed still very good for stealth recording, although I see many Flash players catching up very quickly with more benefits for the recorder. As for DAPs, the NJB3 is still the only one I've used which does recording genuinely as good as MD (actually better, as you can record far longer at uncompressed or high bitrates) in all respects, but the only way that'll impress someone for size is if you shove it down your front of your trousers

 

[leon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bangraman The digital amp technology specifically doesn't really colour the output. What does, as ever are the bits before and after it.

The relative benefit of digital amps in the portable context - clarity through better S/N, etc - might reveal the codec's shortcomings, but for some of us it's just less stuffy of a sound to listen to. That's what he was asking about.

 

[kurisu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bangraman (actually better, as you can record far longer at uncompressed or high bitrates)

How long can you record on that battery with such bitrates [and is it uncompressed]? Holy cow, this thing has a 100mW output?

I might have to get one of these..

I see that they call this the Creative Jukebox 3 in Europe, but NOMAD Jukebox 3 elsewhere. You prefer NOMAD, I see.

 

[Head_case]

Quote:

I love reading people who are content with MD live recordings, because seemingly it's not discussed on boards as much as it used to. The Minidisc's recording ability in this scenario is still pretty unrivaled in this price range, and really one of the few benefits of the format that still exists [hi-md is nice, but the shortcomings will sway many, I assume].

Excuse me for revealing what a dinosaur I am!

That was written in 2004: have we moved on since then?

How do people record with an iPod or iTouch or i-whatever gadget, as conveniently as a minidisc?

I'm asking because I really don't know: if for instance, I heard a track on the internet and wanted to capture it to study or listen to it later whilst travelling (those frequent flyer miles are mounting up), a minidisc just plugs direct into the computer headphone jack and records with the click of a button. The quality is pretty amazing! It's as good as a MP3!!

Joke by the way.

 

[righteousball]

Sony's PCM-M10 is in the old MD price range of $300, and I would consider it a direct replacement for people who want to record MD-style with that degree of quality. The Japanese - everyone from Kenwood to Sanyo - have come out with quite a few IC (memory card) recorders with their line-in features buffed up to MD-level.

The ATRAC-enabled Sony Walkmans also have line-in recording, no rec level control but the battery life, sound and stability are MD-superb. Have yet to try if the mp3 FM-recording on E440 inherits these traits.

With the ipod? You buy a recording attachment and in theory you can record line-in with auto gain control. Even the iTouch can do it now, as of 2009, in lossless. Battery life's a problem though.

I capture internet radio with PC/Mac software all the time, either by saving the original file or by a digital recording of the sound that comes through the sound card. Even less "conversion" than going through an analog connection to MD, at least in theory. My main source of music are 32kbps WMA files... Bangraman will probably silently kill me inside his head for using the IE8 for that.

So really, in 2009, there's no reason to use MD for anything other than to protect your feelings (male ego?) from the fact that the times have moved on and left you in the dust. Really. Or maybe I just ate the wrong food groups, and became mighty impatient for the disc to spin up.

Line-in and radio recording is a feature nobody cares about. Over half the portable players have them, but 80% of the time they're not done right. Or they crash at random times for unknown reasons. Or they cut off at the 4-hour mark. (I hate you Samsung! I was going to marry you but, but...) So MD recording is really nice for its relative stability... until the magnetic head does a LiLo and self-destructs over the UTOC.

But I'm really just writing to say... oh how I miss the bangraman.

Edit: OMG, how many people have new HF screennames now? LOL...

 

[Head_case]

Lol!!! What a hilarious and fun post!! Thanks - I'll have reply in quotes

Quote:

Originally Posted by righteousball /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sony's PCM-M10 is in the old MD price range of $300, and I would consider it a direct replacement for people who want to record MD-style with that degree of quality. The Japanese - everyone from Kenwood to Sanyo - have come out with quite a few IC (memory card) recorders with their line-in features buffed up to MD-level.

So...technology from yesterday - about 10 years ago, which costed $300 then, and about $50 now, can be compared with a 'direct replacement like IC memory card recorders which cost about $300 now?

Quote:

The ATRAC-enabled Sony Walkmans also have line-in recording, no rec level control but the battery life, sound and stability are MD-superb. Have yet to try if the mp3 FM-recording on E440 inherits these traits.

Looks like we both think Sony can PiSP off..!! Sharp have invented MD recording level control over a decade ago.....cheap MD players available now....better than the original

Quote:

With the ipod? You buy a recording attachment and in theory you can record line-in with auto gain control. Even the iTouch can do it now, as of 2009, in lossless. Battery life's a problem though.

That's precisely it isn't it? Buy buy buy. Spend more, buy more, spend even more. You can buy a recording attachment, and spend more on a gadget that costs $300, rather than using something which can do it elegantly and easily like an MD

Quote:

So really, in 2009, there's no reason to use MD for anything other than to protect your feelings (male ego?) from the fact that the times have moved on and left you in the dust. Really. Or maybe I just ate the wrong food groups, and became mighty impatient for the disc to spin up.

Not at all. This kind of 'reason' doesn't stack up at all. There are plenty of MD players out there already: why waste? We have a finite planet and resources. Protect my feelings, by using a vintage technology which costs $50 now instead of your $300 now for a modern iPhone recorder?!

Sure....lol. That's too funny. I'm eating a baguette with cheese and listening to my minidisc player with Sennheisers HD280Pros - whilst Heather Nova sings: I'm looking for a taste of happiness within these walls I built around myself. Ahhhh - the most infamous fabulous Senn headphones universally bashed by users who haven't run them in lol. My redundant vintage MD format and killer headphones is so sexy:

Try it some time! My music is as good as sex on a minidisc! I guess you'll want something bigger though

 

[righteousball]

I'll protect your feelings by pretending that baguette is Heather Nova and... *finger visibly reaches out to poke*

But yeah, all valid points for an MD fan

It does make one wonder what would've happened to the format with some minor tweaks to their strategy. Say Panasonic replacing Ayu with some man-hole in their ads... no I don't mean man-hole, I meant Koyuki.

 

[Head_case]

Lol! You're a funny odd ball

And that's coming from a Head_Case

Heather = female. As in Heather Nova, the artist and singer. No baguettes here! She's from Bermuda - you know, the Triangle place where baguettes go missing!

Lol - am I a MD fan?!

The format works: it records; it plays back (better than my iPod or computer), even when I rip music from my computer (now go figure!). It's low maintenance....all the attributes of a great portable format.

I don't know Ayu nor Panasonic very well. Do they make rice cookers over there?

What sort of music does Koyuki make? I was looking her up in google and see she's quite handy with a 2ft sword. I guess funeral dirges and requiems?

Koyuki makes tobiko nori don katsu nigiri mincemeat and fricass'eed noriyaki out of her opponents! :

 

[righteousball]

Koyuki is an actress, she was in The Last Samurai, and rumor has it that the "omg I made a hollywood film" thing went to her head, totally unaware that the only reason anyone saw that movie was to see Ken Watanabe, the closest thing Japan has to a proper stud.

Which is probably why she's seen here making a schoolgirl-potato-cream-stew

Both Koyuki and Ayumi Hamasaki are celebs that appear in Panasonic ads. Back on topic, I do think you're quite a fan of the MD, because you don't find it to be restrictive or annoying or no better than anything else out there, unlike yours truly. My history consisted of over 10 MD portables and optical line-in recording (which baffles me today when I see people say condescendingly that OMG that's better than mp3), but I can tell you I'm not going back. I'm sick and tired of wrestling the format's restrictions just because Sony hasn't got the sense to do the right things (how about a standalong software encoder and player that's not SonicStage?). I want to make sony potato cream stew. The Sword. Gimme.

 

[Head_case]

Wow - to think what we're missing over here in Yurop!

I didn't know Koyki and Hamasaki before this, so it's strange googling them and finding that they are related to sushi i.e. making sushi out of others. What about Sharp then? Did they such advertising? I'm not ofay with the Asian film stars. But this one is my favourite - the girl on the right from 'Shadowless Sword'. What a fantastic movie!

Comeback Fight! MD vs MP3 (MP3 flailing hard on the left; MD defending effortlessly

):

Hmmmm. Is MD restrictive? I don't see how..unless your work flow is computer based? I don't need to upload artwork for each song...I don't need the song title of each song either. That's why I'd rather have a quality MD player which plays quality music, over an iPod which does it all...except play good music.

Well, don't forget, MD is just a portable music format. It works very well for that! No one has ever tried: "Hands up and hand over your antiquated Sharp MD wotsit MT888 mini-disc and battery charger! And all of your recordable 140MB discs with the handwritten titles scrawled on it! This is a stick up!"

iPods fuel rise in robberies| News | This is London

Quote:

Pods fuel rise in robberies By Justin Davenport Crime Correspondent, Evening Standard Last updated at 00:00am on 26.05.05 The iPod generation is helping to fuel a surge in street crime, Britain's top policeman claimed today. Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said the latest generation of mobile phones and iPods with their distinctive white leads were partly behind a shock 26 per cent jump in street robbery last month. New figures published today show gun crime also leapt by 35 per cent in April compared with the same month last year and the number of violent offences increased by 13 per cent. In a report to the Metropolitan Police Authority, the Commissioner said the Met had suffered "a bad few weeks" but that crime in the capital was still falling.

MD fan?! Lol!! Not at all. I just don't chase my tail after the next most expensive new tecchie gadget on the market

There's plenty of formats better than MD - vinyl LP is my favourite; CD next. MP3s just suckkkkk! That's the current Sony lie telling us "MP3" is better than your old gramaphone player stuff'. Zeitgeist marketing, telling everyone that it's superior - buy buy buy!. Haha - Sony seem to get a lot of stick for their attitudes and failures with MD. They do make good laptops for Guy Fawkes nights though - you know - the ones with the exploding batteries....

 

[righteousball]

MD is very restrictive. Example: I can't easily transfer songs on one disc to another - if I want to make a new compilation, I have to start all over again - and DON'T tell me I can do that with an expensive, rare, full-sized deck, that's not practical.

Honestly, you sound like a zealot. No more talking to you.

 

[Head_case]

Quote:

Originally Posted by righteousball /img/forum/go_quote.gif MD is very restrictive. Example: I can't easily transfer songs on one disc to another - if I want to make a new compilation, I have to start all over again - and DON'T tell me I can do that with an expensive, rare, full-sized deck, that's not practical. Honestly, you sound like a zealot. No more talking to you.

FYI, others are not what you make them out to be.

It's just that your reasoning for a zealous defence of MP3 doesn't hold water:

MD is limited, because if you have to make a new compilation; you have to start over again. You would have to start over again to make any new compilation!

And what does this have to do with the quality of music playback hmm?

Rhetorical question anyway. I know I've been sent to coventry

You're losing the plot about this thread: it was about the sound quality: the best of mini-disc being a viable alternative to complete MP3 and iPod dependence. It was never an evangelical 'mini-disc is better in every way than MP3'. Nope ~ those are the old arguments you and others might have rehearsed in your own heads, but it's not what I'm interested in.
There is no question that mini-disc is far less convenient than MP3; however do not forget, that convenience arguments, are not arguments about the 'quality of playback'.

Enjoy your MP3s! I'll enjoy slaying music on my minidisc!

 

[righteousball]

Defending the MP3 format was never my point.

I used MD, then I realized I have much more important things to do in life than sit around and creating my discs all day long. That, sugarpie honeybunch, is why I gave up on the friggin format. I started having a job. I started making a living.

You want quality? Most MD are not pre-recorded and will NOT be the same quality as the source. They will not top your precious CD sources, no matter what you think. And LP2 willl always only have around 70dB in S/N ratio no matter what you slay. Eat that.

 

[bangraman]

Oops