[RYCeT]

Hi, I am just wondering the difference between Md and cd. As far as I know, My friends made their compilation from cd to md. Is the quality of the md will be better than the source (Cd)? How much is the difference? Which one is better a burned cd (cd to cd) or md (Source Cd to MD)? For copying the md, How to get the highest quality of recording? using the optical line out of Discman to MDwalkman? or using mini system that has both format (cd and md) . Sorry for the silly question.

 

[erikzen]

I can answer the first part of your question. No, but a qualified no. The MD recording will not be better than the CD source. However, depending on the quality of the playback equipment the MD might actually sound better. It seems that the newer portable cd players do not sound as good as portable minidisc players. So because of the better quality of the MD player, it might seem like the quality of the recording is better when actually it is not.

 

[Frag|LE-]

how could lossy compression of digital music sound better than the original? doesnt work. with md youll always lose resolution.

 

[erikzen]

Quote:

Originally posted by Frag|LE- how could lossy compression of digital music sound better than the original? doesnt work. with md youll always lose resolution.

If your minidisc player is better than your cd player the md may sound better, that's all.

 

[maczrool]

Quote:

Originally posted by Frag|LE- how could lossy compression of digital music sound better than the original? doesnt work. with md youll always lose resolution.

Lose resolution? Isn't MD 16 bits just like the old Sony/Philips perfect sound forever format?

Stu

 

[fiddler]

Put simply, MD is compressed CD data. It is in principle the same as MP3. However, the compression algorithm MD uses (ATRAC) is far superior to MP3, according to my ears and many others on these forums.

When you compress CD data, you throw away sonic information that is supposedly "inaudible", in order to reduce the file size. However, no compression system works this perfectly. With a very good hi-fi setup, you will hear clear differences between MD and CD. You'll probably even hear it even if the equipment's not that good, in quiet listening environments. However, in a portable environment (which is what MD was designed for), the artificacts created by ATRAC become almost, if not completely, negligible.

Couple that with the fact that, as erikzen pointed out, modern MD portables are of far better quality than modern CD portables, for truly portable use MD is usually the best choice. It is for me, anyway. I hate carrying around my valuable CD collection, and MD's don't get scratched due to their very portable-friendly design. Oh yeah, and they're tiny.

But no, as a format, MD cannot sound better than CD. It just comes awfully close when used portably.

 

[Superbaldguy]

In a perfect world, CD will sound better than MD, all things being equal. The world we live in with portable devices, the MiniDisc units have *way* better DAC's than the ones found in PCDP's, so, in reality, MiniDisc comes off sounding better.

On my home system, I have a Sony MXD-D5C deck, a 5-CD changer with a built-in MD recorder. I cannot hear any difference between CD's and MD recordings done in the SP mode. I imagine if I had the very best amplifier and headphones, there would be some improvement with the CD.

In practical terms, MiniDisc is quite remarkable. It's sooo much more portable than using a PCDP, and you don't need to drag around a headphone amp, either.

 

[mEtal]

ATRAC being far superior compared to MP3's is an overstatement when the MP3's have been encoded properly.

 

[pedxing]

I doubt this is a problem today, but there are various forms of ATRAC compression. I read at one website that sony has a wide bit format for ATRAC 4 and 4.5. It suppose to support like 24 bit wide stream format, whatever that means.

I read a lot of reports over the past 2 years that the output amp on most of the sony MD's are superior than pcdp. I was thinking about buying an MD two years ago, but I didn't want the hassle of transferring my music to MD format.

 

[RYCeT]

ok, now I understand the difference between the cd and md but how about the quality of a burned cd vs md? Which one is better? I don't think a burned cd suffered loss in quality. but is there anyone who has another opinion.

 

[phonatic]

A burned CD ought to sound the same as the source it was burned from, though you will undoubtedly encounter people who will argue even this point.

I've only recently got into MD, but I've been into hifi two decades, and I'd have to say that a current portable MD recorder can reproduce digitally transferred audio quite faithfully. The difference between MD SP and the original CD is not enough of a difference to care about, at least not if you're talking about portable use. As others observed, a portable MD may even seem to sound better than a portable CD player.

There's a good page about MD sound quality over at www.minidisc.org

 

[pedxing]

Quote:

Originally posted by rycet ok, now I understand the difference between the cd and md but how about the quality of a burned cd vs md? Which one is better? I don't think a burned cd suffered loss in quality. but is there anyone who has another opinion.

Assuming you extracted all the bits correctly from the original CD source, the burner should put all those bits correctly on the burned CD. Of course, a lot of the lousy burner software now days leave out the subliminal layer, rewrite the indexing information, and do all sorts of bad stuff that prevents you from making a faithful duplicate of the original.

If you noticed that the burned CD sounds different you might have done one of the wrong things:
1) Extracted the music from the CD through an analog output.
2) CD player can't play back burned CD's too well.
3) The laser didn't carve out the pits correctly on the copy - one of the common reasons this can occur is because the copy was done in like 16X speed or faster.

MD uses compression and its a magnetic-optical medium (I don't quite remember - last time I read a technical paper on MD was like 10 years ago). Besides suffering from the same mechanical and physical defects of playing back CD's, MD is only as good as its lossy compression.

The first MD's were horrible. I can instantly tell if the music played back was from a MD source or not because of the artifacting. But the newer compression standards that came out over the past 6 years makes it indistinguishable to my ears.

 

[redshifter]

some of the benefits of md over cd:

better portable hardware
sweetens the sound of tinny sounding cd's
more convenient to carry than cd's
easier to load into your portable
you can make great live recordings
it is easier to record vinyl on md
no jewel boxes needed
no computer needed
md's are cool (they were in "the matrix")

some radio stations use md for promos and other radio content because atrac type-r levels the playing field for good and bad recordings. for the most part though, the main value of md is as a portable format.

when you start looking at numbers and stats as to "lossy" and "compression" issues, to me it is apples and oranges. i would be interested in hearing more about the wide band format md's if pedxing has more info.

 

[gloco]

Some more benefits of MD over CD:

Can delete tracks
Can move tracks around
Can split up a track: imagine a 25 minute long song? Just split it up.
Sounds great on the go, small, convenient, ability to change bass/treble settings on Sony models...

and everything else that redshifter mentioned

 

[RYCeT]

I read on audiocubes regarding the newest sony md recording player, I am just wondered, What format do you guys mostly used and why?