MDietrich

Off topic: Out of interest: what CPU do you have? I ask because a year ago I replaced our old Core2Quad (oc'd to 3 Ghz) with an AMD APU (Trinity)... judging from all the rewievs I´ve read one could gain the impression that it's slow as a turtle and draws as much power as a 500 watt bulb. As it turned out, the CPU part alone is 80% faster than the old CPU, draws at maximum clockspeed 30 watts less (including fully utilizing the GPU parts, everything at stock settings), and was 50% cheaper. Back to topic: Audio on PC is computationally so easy, even with high sample rates and bit depths. This hasn´t been a problem for PCs since 2006 / 2007.

BTW, your article is very well written, love it

You probably use 48 kHz because it´s even more compatible than 96 kHz. For years, hardware for PCs wasn´t able to sample at 44.1 - the quasi-standard was 48 kHz. Should your hardware be of good quality I don´t think that you´d need to worry about it anymore as long as you´re happy with it.

If you routinely employ different DSPs (like EQ, stereo field tools, exciters, reverb, etc.) it makes sense to do all of them on 192 kHz files with a bit depth of 32 bit floating point or 32 bit integer. Many DSPs can´t handle 44.1 very well, they will introduce errors simply because they have been programmed shoddily. Reason: with 44.1 kHz the aliasing cutoff frequency is very close to the audible frequencies (the available window for aliasing rejection is just 2.050 Hz small). Bad DSPs miss an aliasing filter and will therefore introduce severe aliasing errors into the audible frequency band. Good DSPs on the other hand oversample so that the problem will become moot. Yet, it´s even better to resample yourself because you effectively reduce the possibility of processing errors to 0. Whenever I do some processing on audio files I always do it at 192 kHz. It´ll take longer of course... but only because the HDD has problems keeping up in case it´s fragmented. Now to HiRes in general. Have a look again at my 'available window for aliasing rejection' statement. Before the CD was introduced to the market in 1982, the engineers were arguing about the best samplerate. They wanted a samplerate of roughly 60 kHz so that they could construct a reliable and not harmful aliasing rejection filter that was 10.000 Hz wide. This 10 kHz wide window would have allowed for a harmless aliasing filter which in turn would have guaranteed perfect passband (20-20.000 Hz) quality. Well, it turned out differently, with CD (or MD) the window is only 2.050 Hz small. So they devised oversampling to get rid of aliasing in a more elegant way. It works sufficiently but the aliasing rejection mechanism embedded into the oversampling filter is still close to the passband which led to the adoption of higher samplerates. With these higher samplerate you can construct aliasing rejection windows even wider (in case of 192 kHz theoretically 76.000 Hz wide). It relaxes the frequency cut off and removes even the slightest possibility of reconstruction errors. I´m a staunch believer in 96 kHz for exactly these reasons. 60 kHz would have been sufficient IMO but it doesn´t exist as a format. The next best thing is 88.2 kHz but that´s still not very compatible to the bunch of available hardware (so many DACs - even new ones - are incapable of playing them back). So it´s 96 kHz because of fantastic compatibility. I upsample every bit of music to 96 kHz and I do this with a special upsampling algorithm that avoids the small 2.050 Hz window I talked about above yet comes at the cost of introducing severe imaging errors ('aliasing' above the passband). A note: please consider that I´m mad and an audiophile; and audiophiles can´t be trusted. You see, your generic audiophile is a person with too much money and not enough brains. He will buy everything as long as its marketed with technical pseudo-babble, looks expensive and was built from rare and expensive materials. Just mention that you have invented a magical de-jitter machine and he will eat right out of your hand, even if you hold a vial of poison. Cynical, I know... but I´m talking from experience as I´ve seen myself for decades in the mirror. My blog changed quite a bit of what I deem to be true... still, a true skeptic would have cried out loud if he read this post.

Ooooh... I´m sorry, but 96 kHz has nothing to do with oversampling. Oversampling is something completely different perfectly explained by Wikipedia: "In signal processing, oversampling is the process of sampling a signal with a sampling frequency significantly higher than the Nyquist frequency. Theoretically a bandwidth-limited signal can be perfectly reconstructed if sampled at or above the Nyquist frequency. Oversampling improves resolution, reduces noise and helps avoid aliasing and phase distortion by relaxing anti-aliasing filter performance requirements." The DSPs you mentioned are trying to fix errors where none exist, I think I´ve even said that to you some months before. Mp3 sounds on occasion slightly muffled - but not because frequencies are removed, it´s because the timing resolution isn´t small enough (AAC fixes that).

192 kHz sampling frequency has been the maximum 'sane' (if it´s sane or not depends on how you generally look at digital audio) value since 2005/2006. Nowadays some ADCs are capable of 384 kHz. Yes, our ears can only hear as high as 20 kHz - and only if we´re very young and weren´t exposed something like constantly loud noises (like visiting loud concerts, clubs, airports etc.). With age, our ability decreases rapidly until it reaches a horrible upper limit of roughly 7 kHz when we´re 70 years old. Now this is all based on averaged statistical data; take me: I can still hear up to 16,5 kHz even though I´m 38. But some people my age can only hear up to 12 kHz so the statistic is still valid. Secondly, we don´t listen with our ear. Our brain is in fact the major part of our hearing system since it deletes what we don´t need for survival. In general it can be said that 80% of the things our ear hears won´t be used by the brain for further processing, it´ll be discarded. That´s BTW the only reason why lossy formats like MiniDisc, mp3 or AAC work, they erase what our brain would erase anyway. Regarding your vinyl question: when translated to the world of digital, a common vinyl record would have a bit depth of 12 bit and a samplerate of 32 kHz. Should the record be brandnew, should the same apply to the pickup, the needle, should the azimuth be aligned perfectly and in case the necessary RIAA amp doesn´t produce the usually typically frequency errors you´d have a maximum of 14 bit and roughly 64 kHz. But play this vinyl once and you´re rapidly approaching radio quality. Vinyl is a playback system where every playback further destroys the medium it plays. 192 kHz is not only possible on some but on most hardware. Even for portable devices. Look at this nifty little player I bought in October last year: http://www.amazon.co.uk/FiiO-X3-Portable-MP3-Player/dp/B00DQBWY04/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392244662&sr=8-1&keywords=fiio+x3 Fill it up with 192 kHz FLAC and it´ll play them in full quality (I´ve measured it). Today space requirements aren´t a problem anymore when a 2 TB harddrive costs a mere 100 Euros and when you can have memory cards as small as your fingernail with 64 GB of space. Audibility? Actual differences between 44.1 and 96 or 192 kHz are tiny. Really. I´ve tested it so many times over the past ten years... the actual differences are so small that 98% of all people won´t ever hear them. A shitty recording will still sound like shit in 192 kHz, it´s not the magical medicine that makes everything better. I believed so myself many years ago - but hitting the bottom was a mindblowing experience. Whenever I hear someone saying that this or that recording does sound sooooo much better in 192 kHz I think to myself that this person wants to believe that (excluding mastering differences). This 'want' subsequently creates his/her experience (this is called 'placebo effect'). EDIT: To clarify, I´m a firm believe in 96 kHz - for reasons explained below. I just wanted to put things in perspective, HiRes is just not as wonderful as people believe it to be.

Not completely true. The portable/stationary ATRAC versions seem to have been introduced with ATRAC 4.5. ATRAC 4.0 equipped recorders (doesn´t matter if their portable or not) do not differ regarding encoding quality. Everyone can test this themselves with a Sony MZ-R 90/91. That one is ATRAC 4.5 equipped, yet recordings made on it sound hideous compared to stationary 4.5 or stationary/portable 4.0 recordings. From what I know, the MZ-R 90/91 is the first MD recorder with an ATRAC version that has been compromised for portable purposes.

If you made recordings using microphones you won´t have any problems transferring the 24 bit output to your flash recorder. Once it´s captured by this recorder it´s stored as a (24 bit) file which then can be edited with full quality. And I´m sure that you will have an advantage doing it this way. To my knowledge, the MZ-RH1 transfers ATRAC SP recordings only as 16 bit files (incredibly stupid), even WideBitStream recordings such as yours. Both recorders most certainly use SCMS (not entirely sure since your flash recorder might ignore the SCMS bit entirely... it´s a professional device, isn´t it?). This is an early form of Digital Rights Management where a single bit tells the connected recorder if the digital stream can be copied or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Copy_Management_System

Judging from the experience we have collected so far, yes, a home deck will record with superior quality.

I bought mine at amazon for roughly 25,- Euros.

Yes, it´s quite normal for any NiMH (again: except Eneloop) battery to loose the charge that fast. On the first day alone it´s usually 5-20 % and after that stabilizes around 0.5-4 % per day. Warm temperatures? Faster discharge (at 45° Celsius 3 times faster). Cold temperatures? Slower discharge. Furthermore, the higher the capacity, the faster the discharge (exception: Eneloop).

I´ve often read that those types don´t hold the charge... well, let me tell you something: they´re not able to. No NiMH battery is (with the exception of Eneloop). Furthermore, those NiMH need to be discharged (but not completely) before being charged again. While they don´t have the 'Memory Effect' of NiCD batteries they have something else. Imagine you have a NiMH battery that´s still charged at 40%. If you charge it to a 100% it´s at a 100% minus the 40% it already had before charging. So effectively you´re now at 60% masking themselves as 100%. This happens every time. For that reason I´ve bought this: http://www.technoline.eu/details.php?id=1400&kat=15 It´s the best charger on the market IMO (it´s available in other countries than european too under a different name). It discharges NiMH batteries before re-charging them, it also has a refresh function which works marvellous. But it isn´t able to charge Gumstick batteries. To do that I use two copper cables, elastic rubber band to firmly attach the contacts of those two cables to the poles of the battery and something to press the other end of those cables to the connectors of the charger. That way, my NiMH gumstick batteries have held up for more than two years - and they are the same cheap ones you bought.

I haven´t a Hi-MD recorder so I can´t say. But I doubt it. The main thing improved using the high quality setting is the phase response. Normal quality yields a severe phase error with high frequencies, high quality does not. In my experience, ATRAC3Plus at a bitrate of 256 kBit/s and the high quality setting sounds extremely close to the lossless original it came from.

Aye, you´re right. I always forget that their was one mainstream MD recorder that´s able to copy from MD to MD unaltered. ATRAC3Plus can have an even better quality, it can be configured in the configuration panel of SonicStage. It doesn´t apply to ATRAC3 though.

It´s perfectly possible that the D400 makes superior high-speed copies. For all I know, it contains a different ATRAC IC which might explain advantages. All other combo machines had ATRAC 4.5, whether they were using realtime or high-speed dubbing. I hate to disagree, but the copy can´t be bit perfect as it involves a lossy compression scheme. An MD recorder is by principle never bit perfect.

I remember an article in a german audio magazine where the MXD-D3 was reviewed. To rate devices, they use a system of points. The maximum a device can reach is 100 points. The MXD-D3 got 85 points for MD and CD playback but only 80 when using the 4x dubbing. I could confirm this myself, because my best mate owned this machine and he and I made some quick tests. The fast copy always sounded a bit less differentiated, less crisp, a bit blown up.

From a data stand point they would be (should be) the same. The only service manual I´ve seen so far for those combo units didn´t state anything else. So the transfer is the same, it doesn´t matter if it´s done via optical cable or through some conductive copper threads etched into the mainboard.

It´s the same here. A few months ago I got a FiiO X3 (portable HiRes player) which easily beats every MD device in sound quality and also includes a very good and powerful headphone amp... but despite this I´ve started again to skip tracks or albums. Just because I can do it and the process of changing an album is so fast. I wonder... when listening to music with the PC, the situation is the same, yet I listen to albums in full without skipping around. On the other hand: having a choice when for example riding a train is good too. When taking MD along the ride I have to be very strict on what album to chose (because of space constraints)... and it happened often that I´ve wished I´ve taken another album. With the FiiO X3 this problem has become moot again.

Yeah. Exception: a DAC or a recorder (DAT for example) that´s not 24 bit capable. For those it´s 16 bit.

That´s correct. The 24 bit setting affects the digital output only, the input (digital or analogue) is always 24 bits. It´s for transferring WideBitStream recordings with full quality. Switching to 16 bit will dither the 24 bit files to 16 bits without truncating values. In case you are using your JB940 with an external DAC (or an amp with digital inputs) I´d set it to 24 bit. It doesn´t matter how it was recorded as MD always encodes with 24 bit precision.

Good question. I would assume that stationary ATRAC 4.5 is as good as portable ATRAC DSP Type-R/S. Just my two cents though.

No difference. Haven´t tested it myself but I´ve seen several measurements elsewhere. Apparently the ATRAC version in Hi-MD units is the same as used in other portable, non-Hi-MD units.

1. How old were you when you first 'bought into' the format? Wanted MD when 17 and reading 'bout it, got one for myself when 21 (MZ-R 30, 1997) 2. Do you still regularly use your very first player? No, it broke in 1999. 3. Do you regularly 'use' your items, or are some purely of interest as a 'collector'? I use 75% of my MD units regularly but some were purchased out of interest only. I have three units I use more than all the others 4. Do you listen to 'new' music on your discs, or prefer to keep the format for music 'of the era'? I listen to all kinds of music on all kinds of media 5. Do you own more items than you can 'practically use'? Definitely 6. Did you 'go away' from MiniDisc', only to return to it at a later date? Yes. Went away in 2003, came back in 2011 7. Do you associate use of your player with 'fond memories', or is it a purely 'practical' consideration? I cannot think of examples for both right now, so no. I can relate to that. Will you be asking for tape, vinyl, CD and mp3 here too?

Why don´t you hook up your mp3-capable player to the Sony 510 with a digital cable? Most mp3-capable DVD players are able to give out a digital signal when playing mp3. The only portable player with a digital out that comes to mind right now is the FiiO X3. http://www.fiio.com.cn/products/index.aspx?MenuID=105026016 Or at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/FiiO-X3-Portable-MP3-Player/dp/B00DQBWY04/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385044169&sr=8-1&keywords=fiio+x3 MP3 playback isn´t yet error free, but I´m sure that it will be soon fixed with a firmware update. The alternatives - if it should be portable - are older players by for example iRiver.

The one up above is the ATRAC IC but just like you I couldn´t find any information.