polario

Being regarded as an authority of any field these days apparently does not seem to require much. A Scientific study wanting to be taken seriously, should address all aspects of structural weakness (in this case); lack of smallest common denominator, statistically sane number of input data and in its findings produce an error margin accompanied with appropriate analysis of all aspects. Mr Amorim's test consisted of several different music types, which is good, but fails in getting more than 27 inputs for any of the tracks tested. The results of a statistical study with anything less than 100 participants can not be viewed as representative of the general public. The statistical base is simply too small. Why do you think opinion polls use 1000, preferably 2000 participants? They would cost far less to ask only 15 people their opinion, but then again the poll would not have any value. Most importantly such tests should always be performed in a controlled environment, which it was not. As to the quality of ATRAC: Recording modes other than SP, can only be regarded as what they are, ie, marketing gimmicks by Sony to increase (double/quadruple) recording times on the minidisc. They work reasonably well. Digital recordings (SP) I have made with my Sony MDS-JA333ES home deck (ATRAC with Type-R DSP) sound extremely good even compared to the original CD. SP mode is what ATRAC is all about. It was designed for this bit rate and very few encoders can compete with it. If you are out of space, buy another minidisc, do not use LP2 or LP4 and complain about the quality. I have yet to find a unit with another codec using portable media that will come anywhere near quality wise. - - My only concern about the new ATRAC3plus at Hi-SP is if it will sound as good as with my current equipment. It remains to be heard. With the new Hi-MD units one can get 7h 55m of Hi-SP or 1h 34m of PCM on a single disc. Having hours worth of good quality music can be practical because one can have an entire multi disc album on a single minidisc. But what is the point of having days of music that you only listen to in the background. And why demand hi fidelity elevator music? Music should be enjoyed, not faded into the background. /Polario

Thorgal, I'm happy you have shown such a verbose interest in audio compression technology and comparisons thereof. Although I do respect your opinions, I beg to differ on a few points. The ATRAC encoder has evolved over the years, from a not-so-hi-fidelity start to the perfectly enjoyable SP mode quality of today. In a quest to increase recording time, Sony sound engineers came up with the LP2 mode (MDLP). For backward compatibility reasons, this new mode uses the same 212 byte sound group rate (padded with 20 bytes of dummy data) but twice the transform window size of SP. Compatibility is the reason ATRAC3 LP2 mode is a constant bit rate (CBR) encoder. It is my understanding that to all intents, constructions, and purposes, it could easily be made into a variable bit rate (VBR) encoder. But this is not the point of my argument. First of all, to compare CBR to VBR and from that decide upon the superiority of the compression algorithms is very odd indeed, only proving the tester's level of knowledge and comprehension of the technology: On one hand, a CBR encoder frequently needs to discard some data provided by the audio compression algorithms in order to meet a fixed data rate. On the other, what VBR encoders do is to make unused data rate available to transform windows needing more space in the data stream. So in effect, what you get is apples shoved through slightly too small steel pipes (CBR) and oranges through rubber pipes (VBR). You don't get to compare intact apples to (undamaged) oranges. Which would be very interesting to do. In an audio fidelity test where the smallest common denominator (in this case the data bit rate) is not equal, the results can not be an indication of the quality of the audio compression technology used in different encoders, but only the subjective opinions of the test group regarding music in various data rates. As to acceptable variance in data rates. Comparing encodings of a track with data rates ranging from 128 kbps to 155 kbps is hardly acceptable. Regarding the quality of audio encoded with differents compression algorithms, I am not disregarding the fact that there are more sophisticated encoders than others. I am merely pointing out that, in my firm opinion on the matter, the test is unfair and I can only disregard it as useless. Clearly Mr Amorim has may other irons in the fire. He should not hesitate to put this test with his other irons. - - On the number of examples to use in discussing a topic: Using more examples would only prove to be redundant, as a link to the original test was supplied. Bearing this in mind, I cannot refrain from quoting George Latimer: "When I open an egg, I don't have to eat the whole egg to discover it is bad." As a frequent reader of forums, I tend to value concentrated and clear postings. Although, exceptions make the rule and I do hope the forum readers will forgive this slightly off topic rant. :grin: - - Regarding ATRAC3plus Hi-SP mode vs PCM: While doing a A to B comparison, with good listening equipment, there is a difference in ambience, but otherwise Hi-SP is more than good enough. In other words, I will be perfectly happy with Hi-SP for my afternoon jog around the park, but at home I will continue to enjoy my music uncompressed. /Polario

I find it interesting that Roberto Amorim chooses to mix CBR with VBR encoders in his Multiformat at 128kbit/s Listening Test. Which means some of the encoded material contains more than 128 kbps of compressed audio in it's data stream. No wonder the variable bit rate encoded music was percieved as better quality. The results clearly show as expected that music encoded with higher average bit rates correlates to better quality, with some exceptions due to compression algorithms used. For example the song Waiting by Green Day received the following results in the listening test: 4.64 - MPC (153 kbps) 3.95 - Vorbis (144 kbps) 3.76 - Lame (148 kbps) 3.67 - iTunes (128 kbps) 3.65 - WMA Standard (131 kbps) 3.49 - ATRAC3 (~128 kbps *) From the list above one can only directly compare iTunes with ATRAC3, of which iTunes is percieved as producing higher quality results on this particular piece of music. I dare say this test seems unfair and to some extent misleading!

Exactly! That is in essence what happens. This, however, will become totally irrelevant with the new Hi-MD devices arriving. With them, Hi-SP (Atrac3plus 256 kbps) tracks can be downloaded. I'm looking forwared to comparing the audio quality of SP and Hi-SP. My guess is, the new Hi-SP will sound better, due to advances in audio & data compression algorithms, despite the reduced data rate (standard ATRAC SP @ 292 kbps). /Polario

Ryzir, the SP mode you refer to is for compatibility with non-MDLP MD devices. The quality of the track is only LP2 (132 kbps) written to disc using the SP recording mode. In effect LP2 labelled as SP. Rip a track as WAV (PCM) into SonicStage 2.0 (works in 1.5, too). Transfer that same track to your NetMD in SP mode. SonicStage starts by converting from PCM to LP2, then transfers that LP2 file to the NetMD as a SP track. You can check by just listening to the track on your NetMD (although it says SP in the display, the sound quality is audiably worse), or you can actually look at the track properties File Info -tab and see for your self that an OpenMG(ATRAC3), 132 kbps, file format magically has appeared alongside WAV(PCM) in the list. Just thought I'd clear up that misunderstanding. /Polario

Your missing track names are most likely due to the above mentioned restrictions. This also impacts the group information stored on the disc. Solution: Use shorter track names, and you'll be fine. /Polario

konrad, I found the mz-nh600 on mediaCHECKPOINT, a German company that I can recommend. (Go to: Audio & Hemkino -> Sony -> MD - devices.) So far I have ordered four times from them, and I have nothing but good things to say about the company. And best of all, the prices are right. Shipping is a bit steep though. Germany -> Finland = 50 euro. Delivered home, cash on demand by UPS. /Polario

The .md5 file contains the checksum (numbers and letters) of the SonicStage installer application (SS20E_20040319.exe). It is used to check that the file you downloaded is an exact copy of the original and did not get damaged on the way to your computer. Basically you put the files in a folder, open a command promt there and use md5sum.exe to generate a checksum that you compare to the one in the mysterious numbers-and-letters file. For example: md5sum.exe ss20e_20040319.exe If you need more information, search for MD5 cheksums on Google. /Polario

I had the same problem with SonicStage. Turned out to be OS related. Fixed it by enabling the Autorun feature for CD-ROMs. See Microsoft Knowledge Base Articles 155217 (W2k) or 330135 (XP). Read the articles and concentrate on the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetServicesCDRom Autorun=1 Please do be careful when modifying the system registry as you could make your OS go nuts... And as kurisu pointed out, your problem might be related to some other software issue. /Polario