[Ctn]

I havent heard the sound from a MD deck before.
Is it worth getting a MD deck for a high performance hifi system?

Its definately got the kewl factor.

 

[Sol_Zhen]

In A/B tests using good equipment, MD in SP mode sounds almost indistinguishable from the original CD it's dubbed from.

If MD is your portable media of choice, then a deck is a great convenience for making dubs and recording from vinyl.

 

[ProFingerSk8er]

also, premastered mds sound should be very very close or same as premastered cds. the only problem is the lack of artists on premastered minidiscs

 

[Ctn]

Nice, is there any good decks would you recommend?

 

[blessingx]

Besides the kewl factor, what are you planning on using the deck for (over your CDP)?

 

[Ctn]

Quote:

Besides the kewl factor, what are you planning on using the deck for (over your CDP)?

Im thinking of getting a mdp for use with the deck.

 

[Gojira]

Are you going to be listening to the MO disks on a portable or on the deck?

I don't think any of us can answer the question because it depends on your ears. Can you hear the difference between a 320kpbs (lame encoded) MP3 with your equipment? If not then I wouldn't worry about any differences. An MP3 A/B test should be your first stop. You may want to check out http://www.hydrogenaudio.org. You should also be able to download some version of an ATRAC3 encoder online. I know I did. While the codec may not be as advanced as the ones on the most recent players, it should give you a pretty good idea I think.

 

[Ctn]

Quote:

Are you going to be listening to the MO disks on a portable or on the deck?

On the deck more.

Quote:

Can you hear the difference between a 320kpbs (lame encoded) MP3 with your equipment?

Yeah...its pretty obvious. I dont listen to mp3's on my eqiupment anymore. I'm afraid the distortions will damage the speakers.

Surely ATRAC3 type-R is close to cd?

 

[blr]

I have Sony MDS JE-530. Its an ATRAC Type R machine (no LP or NetMD). I've compared the originl CD sound to a digitally recorded MDs. At first it seemed that the difference was obvious. The copy sounded brighter. The original played through a Marantz CD6000OSE was smoother and more musical. However, it was the difference in the players I was istening to. Once i hooked the Msarantz through the deck (the deck can be used as DAC) the difference almost dissapeared. I doubt that I could consistently tell the difference in a blind test. Sony makes a range of decks starting at about 150 USD and running to over 1000. The high end machines are nicely made and have high quality DACs and analog stages. To me MD deck is well worth it. Titling and editing is much easier on a deck plus if you ever want to play MDs through your system the deck outperforms any portable by a mile.

 

[gloco]

I own a Sony MXD-D5C, it's a MDLP deck with titling and even has a port for a keyboard. Plus, it's a 5 cd changer/MD deck which means kick ass dubbing. I can throw in 5 cds, program the tracks i want and let it do the rest.

 

[Gojira]

Yeah...its pretty obvious.

If that's the case then I would recommend waiting to see if Sony comes to their senses and makes the ATRAC3 decoder an optional circuit path and allows the playing of redbook, wav, and lossless compression as well. They have not announced this, but now that Ipods have started to dominate the portable markets (and with good reason), I think Sony/Aiwa will need to be a bit more adaptable. If you can hear the difference between 320kpbs MP3 and redbook, I think you will also hear the difference between ATRAC and redbook.

Surely ATRAC3 type-R is close to cd?

Well, there certainly are plenty of people who believe this. Although I have not heard type R, I am inclined to be extremely skeptical that it is far superior to the MP3 format at similar bitrates. Every music compression programmer seems to think that his solution is the ultimate one that will make lossless compression a waste of time, but it is not an easy task.

The human ear is a very sensitive instrument which can detect the smallest details in pressure waves. Considering how much some of us here spend on just interconnects, and how many of us claim to be able to hear the difference between redbook and SACD, claiming that most of the musical information can simply be thrown away based on some programmer's idea of what is not important seems absurd to me. In my view, all of the musical information below ~24khz is important, and even if some of it is not, I do not trust some coder (who might not even be an audiophile or have sufficiently good equipment) to decide for me which parts I need to hear and which parts I don't.

Some of the compression programs are open source and you can actually examine the code (OGG for instance) so that you can see the kinds of decisions they needed to make in order to save all that space. The programmers for the AAC and MPC encoders (two of the best) occasionally even post at hydrogen audio. They may be willing to answer questions about how they do what they do and/or how they go about deciding whether a particular space saving strategy is audible or not. We can only hope that they have the ultimate audio equipment, extremely good recordings, and lots of time to compare many different musical styles with an instantaneous A/B comparison setup.

 

[crazychile]

Ctn,

I'm not sure how things are in Oz, but here in the States the selection of home MD decks is pretty bleak. Sony makes one model thats MD only for about $170 USD and thats about it. (Somebody correct me if there is something else!) But in Japan it is still big so maybe you can get a high-end Japanese model. What do you guys need for voltage down there? is it 50Hz/240v?

I'm not trying to discourage you because MD is very cool. I built a mic pre-amp and some mics and have made some pretty good recordings of live concerts. Check out http://home.earthlink.net/~gottapes/micdiyers/main.htm for more info if you want to get into that.

I'm saving my money to buy either a Sony or Tascam pro model for my home rig. MD is great. The editing capabilities are awesome, and the sound quality surpasses a good analog cassette recording. It's pretty close to CD. Close enough tomy picky tastes that I don't really worry about the sound being an issue.

 

[loveheadphones]

in my MD recorder manual, sony explains SP recording as simply hacking off the frequencies (super high and super low) that we can't hear, as humans. is that wrong?

 

[Gojira]

Quote:

in my MD recorder manual, sony explains SP recording as simply hacking off the frequencies (super high and super low) that we can't hear, as humans. is that wrong?

Yes. The algorithms are far more complex than that. Also, the ability to hear high frequencies varies a great deal in humans. Some of us may only be able to hear up to about 14khz, while others (especially children) can sometimes hear up to 24khz. I believe that the older atrac algorithm assumed that anything above 16khz could be thrown away.

 

[blr]

Quote:

Originally posted by Gojira Surely ATRAC3 type-R is close to cd? Well, there certainly are plenty of people who believe this. Although I have not heard type R, I am inclined to be extremely skeptical that it is far superior to the MP3 format at similar bitrates. Every music compression programmer seems to think that his solution is the ultimate one that will make lossless compression a waste of time, but it is not an easy task. The human ear is a very sensitive instrument which can detect the smallest details in pressure waves. Considering how much some of us here spend on just interconnects, and how many of us claim to be able to hear the difference between redbook and SACD, claiming that most of the musical information can simply be thrown away based on some programmer's idea of what is not important seems absurd to me. In my view, all of the musical information below ~24khz is important, and even if some of it is not, I do not trust some coder (who might not even be an audiophile or have sufficiently good equipment) to decide for me which parts I need to hear and which parts I don't.

Yes it's tough to believe that hrowing out 80% of the information cannot make difference to the sound, but trust me type R is very close. It's difficult to make comparisons with mp3. A good MD deck will have very good playback electronics incorporated. I don't know of many machines that will play mp3s through good DACs and analog stages. Converting back to WAW/AIFF is an option, but it may cause further degradations. Anyway, MD was never intended to be an audiophile format. Nevertheless, through a good deck it sounds good enough to make systems for several K$ sing.