jupitreas

The iPods are notorious for their mediocre audio quality. This does not mean that all mp3 players sound terrible though. Im quite happy with my Sansa Fuze and although it still does not match my Hi-MD unit in terms of sound quality (notably, the bass seems much faster and more responsive on the MD) it is really not that far behind.

looks like apple is trying to patent something that has already long ago been invented. am i the only one who remembers the popular CD business cards?

Im not sure if the HiMD unit uses its gain function when outputting the sound directly to the headphone jack as it it being recorded. Either way, you can always record the video and sound separately and sync it in Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro or whatever video editing software you are using. Its a fair amount of extra work but that is what you get when using an inexpensive minidv camcorder.

Ive been using Senn CX95 for a while now and so far am quite happy with it. Not a bad set of canalphones, although I believe they cost slightly more that 100$. I enjoy a deep bass and after burn in the Senns offer plenty of that, particularly when coupled with a nice phone amp.

iPods are notorious for mediocre sound quality. Never owned one myself but I did get to test out a few units that friends own. No idea if the latest generation ipods are any better at SQ but I wouldnt bet on it. I also recommend going with some alternative mp3 player instead of the iPod. The Zune is one option, reportedly certain Sony and Samsung units also have great SQ (you'd need to do some research on the net before buying). The latest Sansa players are very good as well, in terms of sound quality.

The Hi-MD unit is not able to play ATRAC-Lossless files. It only plays the ordinary ATRAC portion and ignores the remaining data present in the codec. For this reason, what you actually transferred to your player wasnt lossless - it was the 256 kbps ATRAC file. Naturally, transcoding it into WAV again resulted in it being a very different file. The only way to play lossless on the Hi-MD unit is using PCM and this would most likely result in the files not being changed at all, or at least only slightly by adding tags etc.

Use Winamp's library...

I have not seen a lot of episodes of Stargate; however, the ones that i have seen have been above average at best and mediocre at worst. Its not a bad show; however, there is some lazy storywriting and editing happening, which along with the somewhat childish attitude of the show prevents me from enjoying it as much as say Farscape, Firefly or BSG.

indeed, a good discussion is always welcome and a forum can only offer so much. the whole issue is worth thinking about either way, whether we like it or not, we live in a time with a lot of change. i cant say i like ALL the changes that are occurring but at least it keeps things interesting!

You of course have a point in stating that a company like Apple is responding to a market dominated by people who seek 'instant gratification'. Nevertheless, it would also be wrong not to associate people's changing listening habits with how technology is developing. Both sides are to blame for the change, if we are to view it as a negative one (after all, art forms of all kinds have experienced significant changes in the past, from how mechanical reproduction decreased a painting's aura to how multiplexes and the DVD changed the face of cinema). Anyway, since I still listen to albums on my computer, I agree with you that it is just another medium that can be used 'right' if one chooses to do so. What I was getting at is that according to what you described about that genius function in iTunes, Apple seems to be actively pushing people towards abandoning the album format in favor of mixing songs from different artists/albums. Winamp doesn't do that, or at least not without some plugins. This is why I concluded that Apple was doing something evil! If the iTunes store is set up in such a way that favors downloading single songs instead of albums, the problem is that it forces artists to write songs in a way that prioritizes the appeal of a single song over experiencing a number of songs. This could potentially decrease willingness of bands to record un-orthodox songs and to experiment with their sound. In the past, they could simply include these songs on an album, together with songs that were more clearly written for instant gratification. People would be buying the whole album anyway and this way even those of us who just wanted to hear a particular song from an album would be exposed to more varied music. To me, this is the primary advantage of the album format but it also has nothing to do with what medium you use to listen to an album. You can still get the same experience from listening to the album using an mp3 player. You also mentioned tape trading. How is trading tapes, which were usually compilations, different than the genius function in principle? BTW: Winamp is the number one application that prevents me from abandoning Windows. The Adobe suite, which is what I use professionally, is after all also available on Macs and is fairly well emulated on Linux (still needs to be improved but they are getting there).

Im definitely glad that Im boycotting both iTunes and the iPod then (and Apple in general, but that is a different story). I use Winamp with its music library set up so that it lists artists and albums by year (displaying the album cover in the library). I dont see how that is anything besides a far more convenient way of dealing with albums in a physical form. Conclusion - Apple is killing the album experience!

I dont understand how using digital portable media players such as iPods or whatever can contribute to the death of the 'album'. You know, most of these devices come with media library systems that still list tracks by Artist and Album, right? I personally also like to listen to entire albums at a time and using an mp3 player doesn't stop me from doing that in ANY way. A more significant difference in how music is distributed these days is that artwork does not influence the experience of listening to music as much as it used to. Since Im not dealing with a physical medium, I dont have easy access to artwork designed specifically to augment an album since at the moment, the most that an iPod or similar device can display is a small image of the front sleeve of the cover artwork. At the same time, artists now can use websites, youtube videos and other media to establish a specific image for their music, which is something that was not possible to such an extent in the past. Change is not necessarily a bad thing.

Or maybe you need to wait for the RH-1 earphones to break in.

Hmm, I was thinking of that Advanced Audio Transfer (or however it is called) feature of Bluetooth. That is really quite crap and not worth investing in at the moment. If you are using BT for transferring data like over a network; however, it would indeed be lossless, just like any other network data transfer. Therefore, sorry - my bad. Although there is still a lesson in this: dont use bluetooth headphones!!

I am not familiar with the equipment you are using; however, all of the experience that I have had with Bluetooth audio so far was very negative... The SQ is harmed significantly.

Is there a reason to 'properly disconnect' the MD player? I just yank out the USB cable

Food for thought: iPods and most other mp3 players are not in fact designed only with super SQ in mind. They have microprocessors that decode the compressed files, draw the menus and in latest models, even play movies, show visualizations etc. I am sure mp3 player constructors still put a lot of care into achieving high sound quality from a device like this; however, there is most likely some sort of compromise being made since battery life also needs to be considered. MD players are in comparison extremely simple machines. The circuit is designed pretty much solely for producing sound.

I think it would be difficult to find out which Hi-MD unit has the best sound quality since SQ is so subjective... There are people out there who think vinyl sounds the best after all.

Just use Winamp for everything.

ATRAC Lossless is a scalable compression codec. This means that a file contains both the core, compressed audio stream, as well as information about the residual data lost in the compression. Therefore, it makes no difference what bitrate you compress the file at. A lower bitrate will simple mean more residual data. The sound will be exactly the same (ie. lossless) regardless. The advantage of this is that you should theoretically be able to play back the 'core' part of the stream on any ATRAC device, although I have not personally tested this.

hahaha well, lets just say that even the cheapest MD player blows MOST mp3 players away then

I really like this comment. I find that this is very true. MD might not be as convenient or as robust as the mp3 players of today (no album art, smaller storage, slower uploading) but for sure, they sound damn better than even the high-end or 'audiophile' mp3 players out there. Even the cheapest MD player simply blows all mp3 players away. As I said earlier, if you want to listen to music casually on the bus to work, just get a mobile phone that doubles as an mp3 player. You need to carry around that pesky leash anyway, so why not get some use out of it? For longer journeys or vacations; however, the MD player wins for me since it offers superior sound quality.

There isnt one, at least not officially, since I think there are some plugins that allow for this. You can always just send the document to yourself though.

in that case, its worth waiting a few years for the top of the line models to become really cheap on ebay and amazon and getting them then. I bet they will still have far better sound quality than any of the mp3 players available at the time...

Amazon.co.uk stocks a lot of very cheap blank MDs and Hi-MDs. Its usually worth paying the additional postage cost since some stores sell blank MDs for one pence, for example.