moment42

*sigh* Yes, that's about what I expected. Oh, well, you learn something every day. Today I learned that the default recording settings on my NH-1 are useless for the situations I mainly use it for (and yes, I usually turn AGC off, I just forgot). At least the recording doesn't sound completely horrible - it's listenable, just very annoying. And the recording was for documentation, not publishing. Re compression: I don't really know what compression is, technically, but I thought AGC just equated to holding the unit while recording and fiddling with the recording level (except that you can't do that, but anyway). What's the difference between just applying an "amplify" filter to portions of the recording and using expansion? Thanks

Hi. A while back, I recorded a choir concert using my NH-1, and today I pulled it onto my computer to split into songs and burn a CD for sharing. However, when listening to the recording I noticed that during loud portions (especially volume surges), the volume is decreased suddenly. My guess is that I mistakenly left AGC on (why is AGC the default?). My question is: is there a good way to "salvage" the recording, i.e. "undo" the AGC? Of course it's possible to find all the places where there are sudden volume changes and manually adjust it so that there are no noticeable jumps, but that's still just "winging it". Is there a better way? (I imagine that if one knew the exact algorithm used to adjust the volume, it would theoretically be possible to undo it, but I guess only Sony know that.) Cheers, / M

Erm, no. First of all it's 132kbps (kilobits per second), which means that the difference isn't 4 bits it's 4096 bits per second (or 4000 depending on your definition of kilo-). That's a lot of bits. And that's every second. What you're talking about sounds like it needs a bit or two in the header of the file, not several thousand per second. Now, I don't know any details about ATRAC3 encoding, but I doubt there's anything magic about the number 132. It's probably just a point where they had a good "size"/"sound quality" ratio. It's very seldom the case that there's something special about powers of 2 either. It's just that programmers tend to pick them instead of purely random numbers (or powers of 10, or whatever), often out of habit, and sometimes to make it seem the number's special when it could really be anything. Of course there are occasions where powers of 2 are the best choice, but I doubt codec bitrates are one of them. / Mats

Well, depending on your view of "normal conditions", I agree. And I said as much in my post. My point was that in somewhat better conditions, 64kbps isn't good enough for me, but 256kbps seems a bit over the top most of the time (in pure storage terms, at least). But now that I've found that I can use 132kbps ATRAC3 on Hi-MD formatted discs, that's the perfect middle ground for me. And even though I haven't had time to do hardcore listening tests myself, I've heard some people say they think ATRAC3/132 often sounds better than ATRAC3+/256. Nevertheless, I still think Sony should provide more options. Sorry, my bad. Not all source material is CD quality and/or music. Of course 48kbps is useful for these things. / Mats

Hmm, didn't think of that (I thought you couldn't use ATRAC3 on a Hi-MD formatted disc, but it turns out you can). I'd still like more options for Atrac3+, and I'd definitely like SimpleBurner to support direct encoding using ATRAC3, but at least it gives more options. / Mats

Does anyone know or have an opinion of the likelyhood that Sony will provide more bitrate options for Hi-MD in future versions of SonicStage? I'm currently using Hi-LP, and while it's ok for listening in noisy conditions like walking around in a city, it leaves a lot to be desired in better listening conditions. But to me, the space tradeoff for using Hi-SP isn't worth it (especially given the non-availability of Hi-MD discs). So for me going halfway, i.e. something like 128kbps (or, better still, a "custom bitrate" option in SS - don't see that happening anytime soon though) would be just peachy. And since there are also people who think Hi-SP isn't good enough, an even higher bitrate might also be desired. I don't know if Sony have some deep marketing (or other) reason for keeping the LP and SP options so far apart in bitrate, but since SS already has the 48kbps option (does anyone use this?) it seems very likely that it's technically possible to use a wide range of bitrates. I'm personally going to send a message to Sony asking for this, and maybe if enough of us do, they'll listen. Any thoughts? / Mats

Hi! Sorry if this has been asked/answered before - I couldn't find anything when searching and there's no FAQ for it. How long should it take to rip a cd using MD Simple Burner (the version attached to SonicStage 2.2)? I have an MZ-NH1. I only seem to be getting real-time ripping, and that seems ridiculous. My cd player is at least 32x (don't know exactly off the top of my head) and my machine is plenty fast. Ripping to mp3 would take maybe 3-5 miniutes for a 45 minute CD, and although I don't expect that speed, I would still expect at least a factor 4-5 faster than real-time. Transferring to the MD takes time, and I can accept that ATRAC ripping takes longer than mp3 since it gives better compression for comparable quality, but this doesn't seem right. Can anyone comment? Should it take this long? / Mats