[jonnywolfet]

hello all,

i have recently gone from using a ipod 60gb photo (lineout to cmoy) to a nw-hd5, and took the oppertunity to compare the mp3's i have been using to sonys atrac format.

the comparisons where done on the hd5 with shure e4c's and no amp.

i ripped a few cd's in atrac3plus 96kbps, atrac3plus 132kbps, Mp3 192kbps and 224kbps.

i will keep my impressions short.

Atrac3plus 96 kbps, sibilant, compression artifacts very noticable, treble extention cut right off. sounds like a bright mp3 at 128kbps

Mp3 192, sibilance gone, treble extention back, sounds a bit muddy and squashed, not horrible though, i can easily ignore the compression artifacts.

Mp3 224, cant easily tell the difference between this and the cd, any differences seem to be in seperation of detail.

Atrac3plus 132 kbps, now here is the surise for me, while i expected this to be similar to 128kbps Mp3, it actually sounds dead in between Mp3 192 and 224! for portable use this is definately the ticket. im well impressed!

anyone else have similar findings with atrac?

 

[Shosta]

I never did a comparison like yours.
But in general I found that ATRACplus has a very natural sound in my Sony HD3 (it is my wife's player but I do all the transfers).
In my Philips WMA sounds better (IMO) than MP3 lame.
It's a pity that i haven't an easy way to convert from FLAC (that's my standard to rip CD's) to ATRACplus. With that I would consider a Sony player as my next player.

 

[spaceconvoy]

It's just a rumor (so far) but maybe it is true that Sony cripples mp3 playback on its players just to make atrac sound better. [/conspiracy theory]

 

[FenderP]

I use ATRAC3+ 352k on my HD3. Sounds great.

 

[Sebastianbf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spaceconvoy It's just a rumor (so far) but maybe it is true that Sony cripples mp3 playback on its players just to make atrac sound better. [/conspiracy theory]

I don't know if they did it on purpose, but on my mzdh10p HImd player the mp3 sounds with no treble at all if you use the same eq to listen to atrac files and to listen to mp3s comparing boths. When you listen to an mp3 you have to set the eq different from what you set it to play atrac files, you have to increase highs and leave the bass in 0. (After this, the cripple will be fixed)
BTW: Atrac 352 sounds great!

 

[LFC_SL]

Dunno about the new Walkman line, but Sony HD DAPs only let you use the EQ with Atrac, not MP3

And I remember an article on Bangraman's blog (phonephile), when attempting to do a comparison with the HD5 with others on flat EQ, he discovered the Sony artificially had a bass boost, rendering said tests pointless.

 

[bangraman]

This post has been triple-posted I think. Allow me to refer you to my previous reply:

http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showp...86&postcount=3

 

[jonnywolfet]

yeah it did, some glitch in the system kept telling me that my request was denied. or something...