[Damage]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamWill it's not the same as Apple at all. Apple players can play MP3 files, and non-DRM AAC files created with any AAC encoder. If the Sony players played MP3 - as they do now, but never used to - there wouldn't be a problem, as you could just bypass ATRAC3...

Just to correct you a bit, the Sony MP3/PCDPs and now the extinct Clies always had the ability to play MP3s out of the gate burnt on a CD without any copy protection ability or what not, and still does to this day. Which is very puzzling since these items (especially the Clie's) had the ability to play ATRAC3 and MP3 concurrently, and PCDPs started out with MP3 playback first.

OTOH, Network Walkmans and MDs did not, the former I'd say due to DRM/Sony-BMG issues (which smacks of hypocrisy considering their MP3CD line), and latter more due to technical issues than anything else, who know what they may be. I'd say the file system 1is the biggest culprit, having it established well before all of this USB was a glimmer in some Intel engineer's eye, though the mere existance of MD Data drive is the biggest argument against this... The NetMD was a shoehorning a new tech into a decade old tech, and came out as well as could be expected.

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx lease keep in mind none of these codecs are brand new (though WMA is by far the most recent).

Would you count ATRAC3plus as a subset of ATRAC3 or as a brand-new codec? I'd assume the former from your quote.

 

[EdipisReks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mightymouse Apple does the same thing, but with aac files- and its just as inconvenient. if your whole library is in .wav files, you have to wait an extra DAY to get your music transfered to an ipod.

patently untrue. the iPod plays many different file formats natively, including wav.
Quote:

apple also forces u to use one computer's library, and you can't transfer back from you ipod...

patently untrue. i use my iPod with several different computers, each with a seperate, discrete library. you can also easily transfer files from the iPod to your main library using simple unix commands. if you can't figure that out, there are also several free/shareware programs that can easily transfer songs from the iPod to a computer library.

 

[Michael1980]

The funny thing is that Sony Clies cannot play Atrac3 files anymore since the memory stick needed for that is no longer produced. It was limited to 128mb anyway.

 

[AdamWill]

damage: sorry, you're right, I should have made it clear I was referring to the MD, flash and hard disk players. I think the discrepancy with CD players is due to different units within Sony having considerable autonomy (for instance, the music publishing arm of Sony dearly wishes the CE arm to stop making CD burners, but it doesn't have any way of making that happen).

 

[Dreambrother]

I'm still loving my Sharp DR7. Only problem is the capacity and realtime recording (always do SP). I still prefer my DR7 over my bro's IHP-120, but I only did a short side by side comparison. Wish Sharp would come out with an HD player...or a High MD player.

 

[redshifter]

the clie also doesn't support vbr mp3. very bad sony. atrac1 type r via optical or from a good source like a turntable into a md deck can sound very good, perhaps even the best of all consumer portable codecs. plus the md hardware performs tasks like creating tracks automatically for vinyl rips with minimal effort.

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Damage Would you count ATRAC3plus as a subset of ATRAC3 or as a brand-new codec? I'd assume the former from your quote.

Well if not HeAAC and host of others need to be taken into account.

 

[Fungee]

atrac is also a downer if you already have your songs ripped, reencoding them into atrac is definitely a quality loss

 

[MrJoshua]

I used to LOVE minidisc before MP3 got popular.

I had all sorts of players/recorders...

4 different portable recorders (1x NetMD in there)
3 different in car head units
A 6 Disc Multichanger for the car
A Hi-Fi Seperate

I still have a Sony MDS-JE530 on my rack, and every now and then it gets used to play stuff I haven't got round to recording to MP3...

I used to love recording radio from my Denon TU-260LII (and CD's via Optical). The recordings used to sound very good, and being able to fade in and out when recording the radio used to sound great.

I was very unhappy with NetMD, so I sold it and bought a 2g 20gb iPod instead!

 

[mightymouse]

hmmm, i'm sorry for jumping to conclusions, but i'm puzzled as to why i was forced to convert to aac before uploading songs to my ipod.

i've had both a sony and an ipod mp3 player, and i used both sonicstage and itunes to transfer songs. i don't find any difference between the two programs, except that apple just spent more money on esthetics.

 

[Oga]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dreambrother I'm still loving my Sharp DR7. Only problem is the capacity and realtime recording (always do SP). I still prefer my DR7 over my bro's IHP-120, but I only did a short side by side comparison. Wish Sharp would come out with an HD player...or a High MD player.

Actually Sharp does have a HD player. But its DRM infested and the sound is apparently good, but not a cut above, they way that the Sharp Minidiscs were clarly king of minidisc sound.

BTW, I used to have a DR7 myself. I gave it up because frankly I could not see any rationale for dealing with moving parts, dics, DRM when I could pick up a I-river flash player and be free of all that - so that is what I did! But if Sharp came out with an Auvi flash or HD player (and DRM-free), I'd have to give it a serious think.....

 

[dura]

I can see the point of comparing ATRAC and AAC.
Right now I have a Sony NW-HD1, and if I ever go over to another player my library (200 CD's I recorded, took me days) is useless.
Exactly that happened to me last year when I had an Ipod Mini and recorded lots of Cds in AAC. I gott rid of the Mini (abysmall battery life, I often make longer trips) and my whole itunes-lib suddenly was just a waste of diskspace.
But of course the ipod gives you the choice of codecs, and Sony players untill recently only supported ATRAC.

BTW, right now I've all my music in ATRAC 3+ 256Kbs and I find the sound quality very good.
But I guess most codecs perform very well at these bitrates.

 

[Michael1980]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dura I can see the point of comparing ATRAC and AAC. Right now I have a Sony NW-HD1, and if I ever go over to another player my library (200 CD's I recorded, took me days) is useless. Exactly that happened to me last year when I had an Ipod Mini and recorded lots of Cds in AAC. I gott rid of the Mini (abysmall battery life, I often make longer trips) and my whole itunes-lib suddenly was just a waste of diskspace. But of course the ipod gives you the choice of codecs, and Sony players untill recently only supported ATRAC. BTW, right now I've all my music in ATRAC 3+ 256Kbs and I find the sound quality very good. But I guess most codecs perform very well at these bitrates.

That is exactly why I recommend LAME alt preset insane to store your music in. That way you are future-proof for all audio devices out there.

 

[alexfoot]

I was wondering if anyone had anything to add here by way of atrac's performance, either analytically or anecdotally. I'm not a sound engineer so all I can offer is the anecdotes.

I just bought a firmware-upgraded HD1, but finding battery-life struggling to get beyond 15hrs on high bitrate mp3s and skipping all over the collection, I gave atrac3+ 64kbps a go. I use the standard headphones and often have a huge amount of background noise, but I'm really happy with the sound, not to mention the improvement in storage efficiency and battery life.

I've rarely seen or heard good things said about atrac, perhaps on principle, but hell I'm going to fully-implement it (whilst leaving the high-bitrate mp3s sitting on the comp).

Is there a factual case against atrac in comparison to the rest? I'd be interested in objective testing of atrac3+ 64kbps Vs mp3 alt-preset-extreme, for sure.

 

[D-EJ915]

Dude, come on...at least give atrac a chance, use Atrac 3plus 256, that's what I use on my HD3 and it sounds great.