aeriyn

I really don't care if you guys use casette tapes--whatever floats your boat. But complaining about the obvious limitations of a severely outdated format is what's going on, and it's just a waste of time. MD wasn't designed for extended battery life. It wasn't designed for superior sound quality. It was designed for exactly what it does, which makes it a good design. A good device is one that does exactly what it's designed to do, and MD does admirably replace the usage of a compact casette. It does not, however, replace nor is even the same THING as an MP3 player. I'm not beating up on MD. I'm actually defending it. =) Yes, I've had a change of heart but the arguments are the same. MD is old, it's fifteen plus years old, "upgrades" notwithstanding. Don't expect it to be as good as the new stuff, and don't claim it's what it's not. It's not fair to compare MD to an HDAP. That's not what MD was designed for. And it's not fair for Sony to try and make MD compete with HDAPs.

Sony nearly always exaggerates their battery life figures, and they are always based on the low-bitrate (in this case 64kbps) realm. Hell, even an iPod could get 15+ hours of life on 64kbps AAC files. >.>; At 256kbps ATRAC3+, most of them get about equal battery life to nearly every other MP3 player in existence. If the internal headphone amplifier of the Sony MD units matched that of competing brands, the battery life would be even less. I don't care what anyone says or how efficient your headphones are--more powerful signal just sounds better. Hence the existence of headphone amps, preamps and power amps. The goal behind ATRAC was to fit 72 minutes of audio on a disc 1/5th the size of a CD and optimized for real-time recording and editing with an acceptible level of degradation/distortion. Remember, the first MD unit actually took longer to charge up than its runtime on a single charge! MD is an old technology and ATRAC is an antiquated codec. So is MP3 (they're about the same age). With ATRAC, Sony's goal was as I stated above. They were not trying to wow audiophiles. They were attempting to replace the compact casette but failed. At this point I'm not sure why Sony doesn't just contract a new codec instead of using ATRAC. I liken this to Capcom's milking of the MegaMan franchise--like that old political cartoon showing a Communist milking a dead cow. The technology is old, people. Obsolete. Move on. And by the way, Sony is moving on. Point in case: the NW-HD3. The only, ONLY reason they keep making MD units is because they are still wildly (perhaps culturally) popular in Japan and some Asian countries. Wow, been a long time since I posted in such a long-winded manner. =)

The only even remotely decent can here is the CD580s, and they're totally not nearly as good as the CD780s (one step up at 100 USD). If you need good phone for cheap, nothing can beat senn MX500s. Just ditch the existing foamy slip-ons and get a pair of replacement ones from Radio Shack, which believe it or not, not only sound better but stay on better (the stock ones have a habit of slipping off after mild use).

See my "Best Headphones Under $100" post in this subforum for more info.

The ex71s really do have a workmanship issue most of the time. My pair is shit, but the pair I gave to my best friend are still working beautifully even after two years of hard use. It's confusing actually. :S and btw, the ety ER-6 are great. I think the ER-4 sounds a good deal better but the ER-6s are just so much better designed for portability.

Analog is analog, Chris. =P The unit cares not if it's ATRAC or PCM that it's receiving. In all actuality, the data is decoded from ATRAC to PCM before it even hits the DAC, the first piece in the digital to analog signal chain. So basically Sony *can't* optimize Hi-MD to make atrac sound better because by the time it's actually converted into an audio signal, it's not even close to atrac anymore. =D

The MX550s are much, much worse than the MX500/400s. These phones already lack bass. The 550s have nearly none at all. =/ For the budget, check out E2cs if you have a DAP with a good parametric EQ.

If you're using a Mac... and all you want to do is play music portably... Just save yourself headache and get an iPod. No other DAP is as well integrated with Macs. None.

There are situations where atrac can be superior to MP3. Gapless playback is one of these. The codec itself is not "better" in any sense where even an above average user such as myself could tell the difference at 256kbps or higher. I can barely tell the difference between 320kbps and 192kbps MP3 on my Mini with my ER-6s. Most everything has its strengths and weaknesses. MD is still not attractive to me anymore, and it's for practicality/portability reasons: I do not wish to tote discs around and I do not wish to have capacity limited to only 1GB by carrying only one disc in the player. :S Size is also an issue. So don't think I'm an atrac fangirl. I'm just playing it like it is. Atrac can be very good for someone who is a classical music enthusiast due to its effortless gapless playback. And at bitrates above 192kbps, the differences between ALL codecs are mostly academic and not worth talking about.

Perfect condition, barely used. Forgot I had these and I don't even remember when I bought them. $22 shipped to continental US.

The only real difference between using the 4-conductor headphones is the benefits of dual mono... that is, better channel separation and lower crossover distortion. The sound using the typical shared-ground plugs is not much different.

Like I said, a Class D amp is not always better. Usually, it's the same or worse. All it does is waste less power... Class D amps are 90% efficient on average, while Class AB amps (the type typically in audio equipment) waste a good bit more juice. Sony may have realized the issues the HD amp has with certain headphones and removed it for compatibility reasons...

My friend Nika's EX71s have lasted for nearly two years now, and Damage gave nismo a pair that's also very old... but I have read a lot about Sony phones, not just EX71s, but E888s and other Sony "portable" type earphones breaking easily. They are rather fragile. That's one reason I like the Future Sonics EM3... made as stage monitors, they are built like tanks.

It appears to be Sony's typical magnesium with plastic. The construction reminds me of that of the HD3, but I think Sony placed a glossy plastic coating over the case alloy. It looks as if it'd scratch pretty easily, though...

I'm optimistic about the new generation. Sony has recently sacrificed good large-sized audio grade components for teeny little not-so-audiophile components in making their units very small. Sure, Sony's MD players were the smallest, but Sharp's sounded better. Sharp's units were never smaller than Sony's or even the same size. I think the fact that they are bigger means that maybe Sony decided to use better parts, not worse ones. Better in the audio world usually means physically larger capacitors, premium resistors, etc.