Sony NW-HD3 (full review)
Dec 18, 2004 at 3:25 PM Post #76 of 860
Quote:

Originally Posted by doomlordis
Blue Onion , i have owned an ipod for a few weeks and i listen to quite a varied range of music, i found that music with pronounced bass (house music, electronica etc ) sounded very empty on the ipod, there was very little difference between the highs and lows - it was somewhat flat. Now i am no audiophile but this is how it sounded to me. I am not the only person in the world who has found this either.


Regarding anemic bass on the iPod, you may find this thread of interest.
 
Dec 18, 2004 at 4:48 PM Post #77 of 860
Quote:

Originally Posted by doomlordis
Blue Onion , i have owned an ipod for a few weeks and i listen to quite a varied range of music, i found that music with pronounced bass (house music, electronica etc ) sounded very empty on the ipod, there was very little difference between the highs and lows - it was somewhat flat. Now i am no audiophile but this is how it sounded to me. I am not the only person in the world who has found this either.


i believe that's what they call clear and balanced, ie good SQ by some audiophiles here, I would say just get whatever your ears tell you to get. Everyone enjoys their music differently, there's no one standard rule to go by.
 
Dec 18, 2004 at 6:54 PM Post #79 of 860
Quote:

Originally Posted by mirage
i believe that's what they call clear and balanced, ie good SQ by some audiophiles here, I would say just get whatever your ears tell you to get. Everyone enjoys their music differently, there's no one standard rule to go by.


I personally don't consider the bass response on the ipod balanced (or neutral)...it surely is lacking.
 
Dec 18, 2004 at 11:36 PM Post #80 of 860
Quote:

Originally Posted by doomlordis

I agree , i havent listened to my hd1 or hid hd3 with shures but i have tried quite a few others and there was no hiss, others were on hd1 - er-4p , ex71 , pxc250 , ed21lp, px60, mdr-cd2000, i only tried e888lps and my mates ex71s on the hd3 but i didnt notice any hiss.


I have a pair of Shure E5's and spent 14 hours there and back to Singapore listening to my HD1. I can assure you there was no hiss at all even when ther was no song playing. I am very happy with both the E5s and the HD1. Oh, by the way I also own a 4G IPOD and in my opinion the sound quality from the HD1 is far superior, but I grant you it is totally subjective.
 
Dec 19, 2004 at 1:48 AM Post #81 of 860
Quote:

Originally Posted by flashgordonv
I have a pair of Shure E5's and spent 14 hours there and back to Singapore listening to my HD1. I can assure you there was no hiss at all even when ther was no song playing. I am very happy with both the E5s and the HD1. Oh, by the way I also own a 4G IPOD and in my opinion the sound quality from the HD1 is far superior, but I grant you it is totally subjective.


Have you tried those E5c's with the new HD3?
 
Dec 19, 2004 at 1:54 PM Post #83 of 860
So, I'm hopefully getting my NW-HD3 next week from Amazon, and have already dowloaded the SonicStage 2.3 software from www.connect.com and sucessfully begun converting the first batch of the 1,200-odd CDs I own into ATRAC format (I may be some time). I've not previously owned a hard disk mp3 walkman of any kind, but found SonicStage easy to use, and quick to get to grips with - I'm scanning CDs in from scratch, rather than converting mp3s, so perhaps it's easier this way.

I've a couple of questions though:

- The RM-MC40ELK Remote control Mavis has in her photographs of the unit - is this the official remote to use with the NW-HD3? If so, when will it be avaiable in the UK, and any idea on a RRP? Plus, is it any good?

- What is this "gapless" playback people are referring to, that the iPod cannot do? I take it to mean you get a brief, audible gap between tracks when playing albums with the songs segued together (mix albums, etc.)? If so, will the ATRACplus albums that I'm creating currently play back on the NW-HD3 without any gaps on these kind of albums?

Andy
 
Dec 19, 2004 at 2:28 PM Post #84 of 860
Twizzle, you can get the RM-MC40ELK from audiocubes.com. They deliver everywhere. It's $79, if I'm not mistaken. The remote has all the functions of the player (and even gives you time remaining and actual pause).

Gapless playback is exactly what you said. Atrac albums converted directly from the CD won't have any gap, click or whatever between tracks that are intended to be continuous.
 
Dec 19, 2004 at 2:30 PM Post #85 of 860
Quote:

Originally Posted by Twizzle
...and sucessfully begun converting the first batch of the 1,200-odd CDs I own into ATRAC format (I may be some time).


Oi. The HD3 supports MP3 natively. Why not use LAME -alt preset-standard? Less space taken up and probably sounds better than lame old ATRAC3+. Gapless playback's the only thing worth anything about ATRAC.
 
Dec 19, 2004 at 2:49 PM Post #86 of 860
Quote:

Originally Posted by aeriyn
Oi. The HD3 supports MP3 natively. Why not use LAME -alt preset-standard? Less space taken up and probably sounds better than lame old ATRAC3+. Gapless playback's the only thing worth anything about ATRAC.


Lost me there, I'm affraid!

So what is gapless playback??! LAME -alt preset-standard? Que?

Andy
 
Dec 19, 2004 at 2:53 PM Post #87 of 860
Quote:

Originally Posted by aeriyn
Oi. The HD3 supports MP3 natively. Why not use LAME -alt preset-standard? Less space taken up and probably sounds better than lame old ATRAC3+. Gapless playback's the only thing worth anything about ATRAC.


The only Mp3 bitrates that are comparable to Atrac3+ (256) are Alt-preset-extreme (VBR between 192-320) and Alt-preset-insane (CBR 320). Maybe CBR256, but I haven't done much testing. Have you even listened to Atrac3+ 256kb/s? Also Atrac3+ is farely new compared to the lame codecs, so I don't know where you get the lame old stuff.

I agree though that it would be better to encode into Mp3 because in the future you might not own a Sony player, and therefore you would have to convert all your music back into Mp3.
 
Dec 19, 2004 at 3:26 PM Post #88 of 860
Yeah, but I have 10,000+ tracks in my CD collection, and am mostly interested in getting that all in one place, with a bit more scope for future CDs I buy. If I use mp3 128kbps I won't fit my existing tracks onto the NW-HD3. I've listened to ATRACplus at 64kbps, and while it's not as clear as 128kbps mp3, it's decent enough for me to get good enough sound quality while on the train to work, etc. and get those 13,000 songs on there. MP3 is quite an old format now, don't forget, so I'm more likely to need to grab all my CDs again into a format that has yet to be created, than rip them all into mp3 again. Also, I don't do any of that file sharing stuff, so a proprietry format will do for me - as long as any future Sony Network Walkman remain backwards-compatible.

I'm no purist, I just want my record collection with me when I'm out and about!

Andy
 
Dec 20, 2004 at 4:37 AM Post #90 of 860
Quote:

Originally Posted by Krishna
The only Mp3 bitrates that are comparable to Atrac3+ (256) are Alt-preset-extreme (VBR between 192-320) and Alt-preset-insane (CBR 320). Maybe CBR256, but I haven't done much testing. Have you even listened to Atrac3+ 256kb/s? Also Atrac3+ is farely new compared to the lame codecs, so I don't know where you get the lame old stuff.

I agree though that it would be better to encode into Mp3 because in the future you might not own a Sony player, and therefore you would have to convert all your music back into Mp3.


Yes. I've listened to it. There are noticeable (to me at least) ringing, metallic artifacts that are maddening. In fact, I can't listen to it for long without being annoyed. ATRAC 4.5R is superior to my ears. It may have more artifacts than the new version, but they're not annoying.

There's plenty of information on how poorly ATRAC3+ stands up against other codecs on the Minidisc Community Forums. You should go check it out. =P
 
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