>...man, are you the head of marketing at Sony or somthing?
LOL, no, just someone who actually knows something about the technologies, and had done quite a bit of comparison.
>When you make your comparasons, you only choose the disadvantages of
>the worst type of player.
No, I compared it to all three types independently. I feel that each type of MP3 has advantages over the others, but because they each also have severe DISadvantages, that I feel MD is better than each.
>HD based...In comparason to MDs. they offer CHEAPER storage
Not necessarily true. Do a comparison of how much it would cost to fit the same amount of comparable-bitrate music, and MD is actually cheaper until you get into HUGE hard drives. MD is cheaper than a Treo, for example, when you factor in all costs, plus you can actually record with MD.
>WAY MORE STORAGE density
Again, once you get into the large drives, yes. But, as you said in your post, there are huge disadvantages, too. If you aren't going to be moving your HD-based player, you have an AC outlet, and you need to have a HUGE amount of music in one place, and don't mind losing a bit of sound quality, then maybe a HD-based MP3 player is for you. But I don't think that describes most "portable" audio users.
I already talked about CD-based MP3 quite a bit.
>Minidisc... players are quite expensive
Expensive? Under $100 for a recorder or a player is pretty cheap. $200 for a higher-end MDLP recorder that can also record live is a huge bargain.
>Also great for portable use, but not quite as good as memory based
>MP3 because of moving parts, heavy weight, less reliable, can skip
>when jogging.
Again, as I posted earlier, my player is lighter than most MP3 players. <2 ounces? How many MP3 players, even the "small" memory-based ones, are 2 ounces?
I also disagree about "less reliable" -- I feel that MD is at least as reliable as any MP3 player. Don't put your headphones next to one of those little memory-based MP3 players... As for skipping, I just shook my MD player for about a minute straight -- no skip. Yes, in theory, RAM doesn't skip, and "mechanical" media does. But if it doesn't skip when running, does it matter that there is a theoretical difference?
>Now onto sound qualty. Its pretty hard to compare just the MD
>encoding and MP3 encoding. MD's have good componants inside, while
>MP3s are usually played back on crappy soundcards that add lots of
>distortion (power supply noise, RF/EMI noise, resampling to 48khz,
>**** DACs) And as i said, most MP3 players don't use very good
>componants in the signal path either. So how can direct comparasons
>be valid if the componants in the signal path differ so much?
Forget the MP3 portable. Compare the best MP3 encoder on a computer with an audiophile soundcard, through a high-end computer audio system. Plug your MD player into the line-in on that sound card. Now you can directly compare, and you can hear the difference. The truth is that ATRAC has been around for a long time, and Sony, Sharp, and other manufacturers have spent millions of $$$ improving it. MP3 has no such R&D budget behind it. So it makes sense that ATRAC is a superior encoding system -- it had better be LOL
That said... all of the above is really irrelevant. The POINT is how the music is going to sound. MD players sound better than MP3 players. Be it because of superior encoding, superior components, or whatever, better sound is better sound. I like better sound
>The MD uses Sharp ATRAC 6.0, considered by most to be the best
>algorithm available in a portable MD.
Actually, I've never heard anyone say that. Sharp ATRAC 6 is pretty much audibly identical to the ATRAC used in most current Sony recorders. Sony's home decks actually use a superior version of ATRAC (Type R), but it requires more electronics than can fit in a portable. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Sharp MDs -- I own three Sharp recorders -- but to say it's the best is questionable. It's pretty much equivalent to Sony's.
>Overall, MD is much more "musical" sounding and in my opinion, a
>better represention of the original CD. However, people who prefer
>details in the mid frequencies over "airyness" and soundstage would
>probably prefer MP3.
I disagree. IMHO, what is really happening here is that MP3 has trouble encoding treble, especially upper treble. It also isn't as good on bass as MD. So what you get is an emphasized midrange. If people prefer an emphasized midrange, then, yes, they will prefer MP3. However, it's not because MP3 is "better" at preserving the midrange.
>I don't think you can say that MD compression is definately better
>than MP3, it depends on personal prefference.
I can consistently tell the difference between standard ATRAC and CD, but it's a challenge at times. However, I can *always* tell the difference between 384k MP3 and CD. To me, that means ATRAC is better
>And i serioulsy doubt that MDs at ~64k/sec (joint stero) is equal to
>128kMP3s (full stereo). Every review i've seen has stated that LP4 is
>totally useless for music, only usable for speach.
I consider LP4 to be the functional equivalent of 96k MP3, not 128 -- both suck for music.
Look, it's obvious that people disagree about MP3 vs. MD. LOL, you should see the flame wars on the minidisc.org forums. Here's my bottom line -- for VERY specific applications (such as the one outlined above about stationary storage), there are kinds of MP3 players that are preferrable to MD. However, the beauty of MD is in its versatility. It plays, it records, it can work with a PC or without. It has superior audio, but it can pack in more content at lower fidelity. You can carry it tiny and featherweight with a few hours worth of music, or you can bring a huge amount of music in a fairly small space. For certain specific uses, there is an argument to be made for MP3. However, in terms of quality and versatility, nothing can match MD right now.
