MDietrich

There are indeed quality differences between optical cables. I´ve written an article about quality differences with optical signal transfers but the article more or less revolved around the signal quality of portable CD players against my Creative X-Fi HD USB... and it wasn´t about the cables. As I found out, the optical output of the Creative is the best I´ve ever 'heard'. Now, I cannot measure the signal integrity coming out of the optical output. But the sound coming from it is very different (and much closer to the original) than the sound coming out of the optical outputs of any of my portable CD players. In short, optical outputs of portable CD player suck. The cables are something different. For quite some time I´ve used an optical cable by Philips, this one: http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/dcbint/cpindex.pl?ctn=SWA7302S/10&scy=ru&slg=en It´s a no-nonsense cable... and slightly better than all of the cables any MD recorder was equipped with. And yes, I tested this. Not with measurements, I can´t measure it. Some months ago I received a Sharp MD-MT 270, the person selling it also sent me the optical cable he used: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hama-Audio-Optical-Connecting-ProClass/dp/B00006JCNQ This cable has been around for... I don´t know, 15 years or so and while it looks good it isn´t good. It sounds decidedly different to the Philips cable. And yet, it still is bit-perfect. How this can be still baffles me.

This is difficult. Technics / Panasonic never revealed what ATRAC version their own IC was built on. But it´s indeed their own IC, as shown by the service manual: http://www.minidisc.org/manuals/panasonic/service/panasonic_sjmd100-sup.pdf I believe - this could be wrong - that they employed Sharp ATRAC 5.0 as a starting point and added their own set of algorithms to improve on it. But I don´t know exactly and for all I know this might be very wrong.

Would you really? Please do then

It doesn´t seem to be upsampled. This is the data sheet of one of the DACs (the D400 has two): http://www.akm.com/akm/en/file/datasheet/AK4584VQ.pdf It´s a converter built for DVD players and other multimedia units, it can even detect (but not decode) Dolby Digital and DTS streams. I assume that it´s just a good (and cheap enough) resampler used by Sony and that its 192/96/88.2/48 kHz capabilities are dormant. The CD->MD high speed copying hasn´t anything to do with samplerate, it´s just data which is transferred with high speed (and a drop in sound quality I might add since the ATRAC encoder now has to compromise because of speed). But I have to ask: why would you try the best LP4 playback anyway? Those recordings have been compressed so strongly that nothing can return them to former glory. 96 kHz certainly doesn´t help, it probably makes everything worse.

Now I don´t understand What device is doing the upsampling? The D400 or the upsampler? I really doubt that it´s the D400. You can deduce the bit depth of a signal most easily when recording it with a PC, then looking at the signal in WaveLab. If one doesn´t have WaveLab you record a 1000 Hz sine that has a volume of -90 dB. With 16 bit system you´ll get a very staircase like result, with 24 bits it looks like a sinewave. There is no setting 'disable DSP'. You just switch all DSPs off. DSP like EAX, Hall, EQ, Crystalizer and whatnot (all of them can be enabled or disabled). Then you set your samplerate according to the samplerate of the MD: 44.1 kHz. I know for a fact that all of this can be done with an X-Fi Extreme Audio... assuming that you have installed the soundcards' driver. You can find all these settings within this configuration panel: ReplayGain is done in the software you use to playback your music, not within the card.

She has You could try an experiment: fed the D400 a 96 kHz signal via its optical input. Connect the optical output of the D400 to a 96 kHz capable receiver/amp. See if the display of the unit light up and says '96 kHz'. My Sony STR-DB 830 would do so. But I very much doubt that the D400 gives out 96 kHz. You see, it´s usually this way: they use these ADC/DAC (the D400 does have ADC/DAC all in one IC) just because they might yield better quality when working with 44.1 kHz. Either way, the MD cannot ever handle anything else but 44.1 kHz. Maybe Sony implemented an upsampling algorithm but I very much doubt that, IME they were never fond of upsampling anyhow. But all of this doesn´t say anything about the sound of the D400. And I bet that it sounds very, very well.

If you want to set your Creative card to the only format the MD stores in, set it to 24 bit and 44.1 kHz. It cannot ever work with 96 kHz. Not ever. 48 kHz are bad too, because your MD recorder has to resample it to 44.1 kHz. Save that work for your PC, that one is much better at it. Recording in 44.1 kHz will only work if you disable any DSP inside your card. Otherwise, everything will be resampled from 44.1 to 48 and back to 44.1. This process (as performed by the Creative) will add distortions so it´s important to switch all DSPs off. Why 24 bit? Because your MD recorder is capable of using this bit-depth to gain a sonic advantage. Disadvantage? None. The suggestion from PhilippeC to use ReplayGain is very reasonable, that way you can encode all your music with correct RMS levels (I´d recommend 'Album' mode).

Yes, SoX can be used very well for upsampling. Should you want to use it for playback, place it in the 'DSP' menu of foobar (this won´t apply to the converter; that one uses a different engine for conversion). And those guys in forums are right: if you want to have full control over resampling you´d have to do it yourself (depending on the hardware and the driver you use). I don´t have any experience with foobar2000 + SoX + Creative USB HD. For one, I don´t use this card for playback (except for when recording to MD - and in that case I´ve already resampled the material to 44.1 with another resampler). I upsample my material before playback, I also store it this way. BUT: if I would do my upsampling on-the-fly, I´d do it with SoX. The Creative USB HD can only handle samplerates based on 48 kHz for analogue playback (meaning: 48 & 96 kHz are fully supported - if all DSPs of the card are inactive). The card itself doesn´t have a resampler, it uses the one built into Windows instead. And that one is crap compared to SoX. If you use the Creative USB HD through its analogue output I´d always resample any material to 96 kHz.

No, it only appears through the right-click 'Convert' dialogue. Just like every DSP within foobar (except for playback). The passband setting configures the steepness of the aliasing filter. In my opinion it should always be at 90% - that way you lose a bit of frequency content but you´ll gain perfect impulses that way. For downsampling: NEVER tick 'allow Aliasing/imaging'. Otherwise you´ll introduce artifacts into your audio. For upsampling: now you can tick 'allow aliasing/imaging', for upsampling it doesn´t matter, it´ll also relax the aliasing filter further. You configure bit-depth within foobar itself. SoX will always resample internally with 32 bit floating point precision (every DSP embedded within foobar will). I´ve encircled the important parts. Please note: the settings I pictured above are only for 16/44.1, 16/48, 16/96, etc. If you want to store as mp3, aac, wavpack or ogg the output bit-depth should be set to 32. Those codecs can handle floating point input very well. If you want to save to FLAC, I recommend 24... or 16, depending on what you encode your audio for.

I´ll try: he didn´t buy the most expensive MDs. What that means I have no idea. Maybe he wasn´t interested that much in haptic quality. Or he simply didn´t care. He´s an orderly person, titling his MDs. The music he likes... well, he does have taste. Blur, Ella Fitzgerald, Daft Punk and Faithless. Clubmusic, jazz, alternative rock. On occasion he experiments with different styles like Dido or Elvis Costello... or Boyzone (!). There´s also an MD especially made for cooking. Either for a girlfriend or for himself... Some MDs are not titled by him but by another person, judging from differing styles of writing on several MDs. Which could mean that he convinced someone else to invest into MD or that he was convinced. I cannot see very much I´m afraid, except stating the obvious.

Yes. As you know, foobar2000 is a player. The playlist you´re listening to can be converted via right-click to any format using any DSP you like. Get SoX here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=67373 I recommend the normal version.

The samplerate converters in all Sony MD recorders were released more than 10 years ago. Their major goal was to be portable, meaning they weren´t allowed to consume much energy/power. Conserving energy always goes hand in hand with limited processing capabilities. In turn that means that the CPU for resampling is small, slow and doesn´t take too much energy while working. This limits the complexity of the embedded algorithms used for resampling (and resampling from 48 kHz to 44.1 is an extremely taxing process involving complex algorithms). Therefore, the resampler used in those machines is OK, but nothing more. It works and gets the job done with - from today's standpoint - mediocre to bad quality. Conclusion: 1. they´re old 2. not sophisticated Compare that to r8brain or SoX. Would you use them with computer hardware from 10 years ago they´d take forever due to their modern and complex architecture. But on a modern PC they´re fast AND they resample with a quality that would have been considered impossible 10-15 years ago. I should know, I started to work with Sound Forge in 1995. The resampler built into this DAW around that time was slow, extremely slow. And the quality wasn´t even that good. It has been improved somewhat over the years, yet it still is an OK-resampler only. This is a site where resamplers are compared: http://src.infinitewave.ca/ On those tests they resampled from 96 to 44.1 kHz (equally taxing as going from 48 to 44.1) and the results were measured. The resamplers I recommended (SoX and r8brain) are one of the best. I confirmed their results for myself with a bunch of my own measurements. Please note that foobar2000 is included in the list. They measured the resampler foobar comes with in this case. SoX is listed seperately.

a. yes b. yes c. yes d. yes The r8brain resampler is one of the best available resamplers anywhere. Equally good: SoX (foobar plugin). Both are free, yet their quality leaves nothing to desire. The best resampler is the awfully expensive Weiss Saracon. Pristine results... at great costs. r8brain & SoX are almost as good but free. What more can one want?

Good suggestion. This is indeed a very good resampler. A hidden gem if you will.

I find it to be that way. Others may disagree though. For me however, this unit is the most convenience mixture out of good playback sound, reliability, manufacturing quality and running time.

Technically, SACD is just a DVD. Sony used a different formatting and clustering when developing their own format (the other one was DVD-Audio; dead by now). The high-resolution layer cannot be decoded by a DVD drive, it needs drives specially designed for it (mostly achieved by software as the lasers are common DVD lasers). The format it contains is called DSD (DirectStreamDigital) which right now experiences a renaissance in audiophile circles. Stupid really... but reasons are difficult to explain without becoming too technical. For playback it´s fine. But as you already said, for copyright reasons Sony used a strong protection that hasn´t been broken even after 14 years. Mostly because no one knows how. Every normal CD player will play the CD layer of the SACD, only SACD capable players will recognize the other layer. This other layer contains two parts: a HiRes 2-channel part and a HiRes multichannel part. Many DVD players or BluRay players can recognize this layer and play it back. My Pioneer DVD player for example (cheap model) and my Pioneer BluRay player (equally cheap). The latter will give the DSD 2-channel signal out via the optical output converted to 24 bit / 88.2 kHz which I then can record digitally and process further. SACD can be compared to HiRes downloads you can buy at for example HDTracks. But if you lack playback mechanisms, you won´t experience the better quality. Even then, the quality advantage is not very big. Many people won´t realize it because it´s so small. I believed for a long time in SACD and I have many. Collected them over many years, mostly classical music. Pop or Rock doesn´t make sense on SACD (except if you´re looking for lossless, HiRes multichannel) since most of them are not HiRes in the first place. I own many native DSD recordings by Telarc, most of them sound pretty well, some of them spectacular. But so does their CD layer (roughly 95% of the SACD sound). SACDs are really inconvenient and IMO Sony should now open up the format. SACDs aren´t sold very often nor are they produced for the the mainstream market anymore. They have been replaced by HiRes downloads - which is a good thing. No more hassle with stupid restrictions. HDCD is just a normal CD. On these discs a signal code is hidden in the least significant bit which switches on some special filters inherent to the HDCD process. Those discs claim to be 20 bit but in reality this is only achieved by clever dithering and filter switching. Your Tubular Bells HDCD for example has the dithering enabled which makes it 17 Bits instead of 16 Bits. 'Peak Extension' (improves dynamics) is not used on that disc. HDCD is unnecessary nowadays since dithering has developed so far that HDCD only is a thing of the past now. Was developed in 1995 by Pacific Micronics and bought in 2000 by Microsoft. foobar2000 can decode it too.

Interesting that you ask for this. According to information from other forums it should be able to be used as a DAC. But the PC is vital for it to function, it won´t work with a wall charger. To convert any optical signal to analogue it needs to route this signal through its driver. I´ve never tried out that function so I can´t say anything about. I have exactly that card. Bought it so that I can record my SACDs digitally with an optical input. And do you know how hard it is to find optical inputs capable of 88.2 kHz samplerate? This card can do it. My Creative is unable to record or playback 88.2 (digital in-/outputs: 44.1, 48 & 96 only), my Xonar Essence STX only has an optical/RCA out. The Terratec is a good card. Nothing fancy but well built. Don´t know about its sound though as I haven´t yet reviewed it.

1) Yes, I would make a different choice today. I would either take this: http://www.terratec.net/en/products/AUREON_XFIRE8.0_HD_167798.html or this: http://www.asus.com/Sound_Cards_and_DigitaltoAnalog_Converters/Xonar_Essence_STU or this: http://www.asus.com/Sound_Cards_and_DigitaltoAnalog_Converters/Xonar_U7 2) Jitter sounds. Low frequency jitter 'warms' up the sound and makes it too mellow, high frequency jitter makes it more aggressive. The Creative doesn´t show these effects, I also made some tests to find out how precise the digital signal is. As an example, not a single one of my portable CD players that have an optical out has a signal as precise as the Creative. 3) The Creative needs to be connected with USB to the PC, otherwise it cannot work (it´s a USB card, it is powered by the USB port and receives its data from it). Which means: when I record something to MD I play it back with foobar2000 through the Creative (through the USB cable naturally) and then through a simple, optical cable that connecs both the Creative and the MD recorder.

Exactly. I still have to get some decent deck to test that out myself. Right now I´m watching several, but it´ll take a while.

Good question. I initially bought it for our laptop as the included audio solution of the laptop was OK but nothing spectacular. With headphones it sucked though. Headphone playback was the most important to me, the Creative seemed to offer a decent, built-in headphone amp where other cards simply didn´t or were much too expensive. So there you have it: 1. headphone amp 2. price 3. former experiences with Creative and how to handle it In hindsight the Creative isn´t a great card. At best it´s decent, at worst mediocre. It´s not neutral, its headphone amp isn´t as good as advertised. But it has a fantastically jitter free optical output (easily surpassing ANY other optical or RCA output I have - and I have many to choose from). I didn´t install the software, any DSP the Creative offers is switched off. So far I didn´t have any problems with it, it has been very reliable. Yes, JRiver supports every file format you can think of. Really every single one, even exoctic ones (except ATRAC of course). Output settings range from Wasapi, ASIO, DS, Kernel Streaming, WaveOut, yadda, yadda, yadda. Most of them are more reliable then the ones from foobar2000 (don´t know why). Windows settings are important: http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_7_Audio_Playback_-_Setup_Guide http://www.abyssmedia.com/isound7/windows7-tips.shtml Follow the directions on the second link - but switch it to the samplerate you most of the time use. Go back to the 'Enhancements' panel and switch off any enhancement Windows offers (won´t be there on the Creative), those enhancements are hurtful to the sound.

If you´re having a look for the - in my opinion - most reliable, convenient and best sounding unit I´d recommend the MZ-R 90/91. They run very reliably (contrary to their reputation), their headphone output is strong, they aren´t as flimsy as their successors and it takes forever to drain the chewing gum battery. Those can BTW be found for very cheap money everywhere (ebay, amazon) in new condition... though not from Sony... but that doesn´t matter. BUT: they suck as a recorder. Their ATRAC version sounds audibly worse to former (!) or later models. But as a player they´re great.

Long face... well, you have no idea Actually, you have several steps which worsen your sound quality. What samplerate and bitdepth are the files having you´re playing? If they are 24/96 you should downsample them yourself with foobar2000 (there´s a component/plugin available with one of the best resamplers out there: SoX). - MD can only work with 24/44.1, nothing else - 24/96 is resampled by the X-Fi to 24/48 (in bad quality) and then by the MD recorder to 24/44.1 with equally bad quality (both resamplers are old and they are just bad, bad, bad) - the windows vista/7/8 driver of the older X-Fi cards is known to have many flaws on many systems - that DFX11 creates an artificial Wasapi output module looks fishy to me, it´s just a DSP that tries to sell itself as a soundcard - for what reason? where does it get its input? DS? Wasapi? ASIO? - with Wasapi the Windows settings are important. You have to configure Windows, especially when you use DS IMO you´d be better off if you don´t use any DSP at all. As a player for the PC I can recommend JRiver Media Center. Its extreme wealth of function can be overwhelming but their forum is great and very helpful. Costs money though. But it´s worth it IMO.

Ha! Again, a very good question. I hope that an ES deck is not better than a lower level model... but Sony, who always was very conscious about price-related quality differences, could very well have tweaked the ATRAC IC further. In reality though... I´ll never own an ES deck. Prices are way too high and clearly not justified, so I won´t know and have to work with the average-joe-models instead

Yes, it was. But Sharp did not disclose which units contained which ATRAC version. I have a Sharp MD-MT 180. Does it have Sharp ATRAC 6 or 7? I tested it and found it to be bad (comparing it against DSP Type-R). And what about the MD-MT 270? I own that one too - and it´s much better but not on the same level as the stationary Sony-ATRAC.

Punkrockaddict recorded his test signal digitally with the MDS-JB930. The digital signal was provided by his Creative Soundblaster Audigy 4. He then packed his MD into an envelope and sent it to me via mail. I recorded my test signal digitally with the MZ-R 909 onto the same disc. The digital signal was provided by my Creative Soundblaster X-Fi HD USB. In both cases the signal was bit-perfect, meaning both soundcards didn´t alter it. After all signal were recorded to MD I played them back with the Kenwood DM-5090 digitally. It has optical outs, my Soundblaster X-Fi HD USB has optical ins. The Kenwood gives out a digital 20 bit signal which the X-Fi HD USB is able to record unaltered. That way I was able to compare the pure ATRAC performance.