etotheix Posted December 9, 2004 Report Share Posted December 9, 2004 Just curious what other people's experience has been with 64kbps Hi-LP. Here's mine: For a lot of music, I'm finding Hi-LP sounds unacceptably bad. What Hi-LP absolutely cannot do: 1) Complex, noisy sounds like cymbols or snares. Sounds like these end up very harsh and distorted and the stereo imagaging gets mangled, jumping around or warbling from ear to ear. Just awful. Hurts my ears! 2) Close up, hi-fi vocals. Consonants are a big problem in Hi-LP, I suppose for the same reason things like cymbols and snares are. Not sure if the consonants are the only problem with vocals in Hi-LP though. The amazing thing is that for some recordings, Hi-LP sounds shockingly good. I recorded An American in Paris and was amazed how good it sounded. I had trouble hearing any artifacts at all (except for a few places where some cymbols come in). Same goes for a recording I made of some classical guitar. A plucked guitar, a hammered xylophone or a piano, high strings, low strings--I'm really surprised how good these can sound in Hi-LP. I keep expecting things to sound garbled or grainy or distorted, but this just doesn't seem to happen very much. Also, low-fi mono recordings can often be difficult to tell from the original. I've got some late 1930's Billie Holiday that sounds great in Hi-LP. I keep listening for some grainyness or some hint of crappyness in the sound. Then when I think I hear something, I'll check the original source and I hear it there too! -- Hi-LP is very unlike 66kbps LP4, which seems to maintain fairly consistant level of badness. To my ears, for some material Hi-LP actually approaches Hi-SP in quality. For others, it makes LP4 sound wonderful by comparison. For the most part, when Hi-LP sounds good it sounds very good. When it sounds bad though, it sounds VERRRY bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xispe Posted December 9, 2004 Report Share Posted December 9, 2004 I think Hi-LP is like a box full of surprises. For listening music in some cheap computer speakers, it's a very nice codec. Sometimes I realise that it's not sounding bad at all, and after that i think: "Wow, this is sounding great! and at 64 kbps!" Still i think it is worst than mp3 at 128 kbps, althogh that ugly metalic sound is not present at all. In terms of stereo separation, it's very good, i can feel it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
campekenobi Posted December 9, 2004 Report Share Posted December 9, 2004 I used LP by mistake the first time I input some tracks (techno) into my hi-MD. Listening to it I thought it sounded "fine", like a regular mp3. Then when I realized my mistake & re-digitised in SP, it was like... OH.... WOW. So I figure LP is good if you have nothing to compare it with, like two tracks on the same disc w/ diff bitrates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atheodo Posted December 10, 2004 Report Share Posted December 10, 2004 I just got my Hi-MD just a couple days ago. When the original CD is available, or a lossless extract, Hi-SP is the only way to go. I listen to a lot of classical and new age instrucmental music, so I need very high quality retention, and the MD has never let me down. I used SP with my non-hi-md unit. I use lower bit rates (LP2) when I buy songs from Connect. I am usingHi-LP for audio books. You can burn a lot of audiobooks in a single 1GB disk. I play the audiobooks from my mac overnight while the recorder is recording inrea time. When I get up in the morning I have my audio book burned already. PS. I have digital out from my mac, so now worries about no sound recording, since the MD is in synch mode when the recording is done via the digital in plug. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrsoul Posted December 10, 2004 Report Share Posted December 10, 2004 I have an optical out and in on my PC but I can't use synch too well due to the 3 fans I have inside my computer causing too much noise, or at least that is what I attribute that problem. On my Sony Decks there was a way to adjust the sensitivity so it wouldn't pick up so easily. Anyway to adjust that on the NH900 that anyone has noticed? When recording something off the PC via the optical, I usually just give it a play list and come back later. It doesn't do so well with cutting the tracks either due to that noise so it's rare that I do that anyways. I usually just use SB or SS and record in LP2 so I can listen on the MZ-S1. I really don't have a problem with Hi-LP for music since the only time I use it is on the road and I have cheap Sony headphones on and I am on the 12 hour drive from SC to OH while the kids are watching movies in the back. It sounds good enough for portable and definitely better than LP4. Sure beats changing MDs while trying to drive through West Virginia! Then again, I use LP4 on some MDs for use on my MZ-S1 in the gym and it sounds good enough to keep me listening on the treadmill or when I am out walking. I guess it depends on the playback, the earphones and your tolerance for less than perfect reproduction. Most of what I listen to is from a live source so it ain't perfect anyways! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obsideo Posted December 10, 2004 Report Share Posted December 10, 2004 I won't use it. 80min discs are, what?, $1.50? $2? All my stuff is in SP. SOme of my tunes were ripped at 132artac and then a few new albums I did at 292 artac+ - when listening back on my gig MD I reached one of those albums and was astonished at the differenence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sbetsho Posted December 10, 2004 Report Share Posted December 10, 2004 HI-LP is fine for me. but it is true that some songs sound better than others, try Kelis - Milkshake on Hi-LP. For me, it sounds amazing. As Hi-MD blanks hasn't arrived yet in Finland (Go Sony!) I think it's best to have 10 hours of completely fine-quality music to an 80min disc. I haven't heard any cases that LP4 > Hi-LP yet, for most of the time Hi-LP sounds almost 2x better than LP4. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrsoul Posted December 10, 2004 Report Share Posted December 10, 2004 Yeah, I haven't put anything Hi-LP on Hi-MD yet, I am still using standard 80min reformatted and keeping my HiMDs for live recording use only. It's still fun to get that much on a one standard 80min and sound decent enough to enjoy on the road or outside,etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qwakrz Posted December 11, 2004 Report Share Posted December 11, 2004 Personally I think Sony have got the Hi format bitrates all wrong. Should have been 256K, 128k, 64k for the 3 modes (or even 256, 96, 48) this would have been a much better arangement as most people still seem to use LP2 as its a good compromise between quality and size. I use Hi-LP for some albums that I will be taking with me on long trips, mainly where I will not hear the difference due to background noise. Sony.... PLEASE give us a choice of Atrac3+ bitrates & not just the 3 we currently have. 320, 256, 160, 128, 112, 96, 64, 48 would be nice to let US select the quality of our music (I still use 48K for audio books after passing them through a band pass filter). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmix Posted December 11, 2004 Report Share Posted December 11, 2004 Guys the ones that have tried Atrac@64 optical/line in can you tell how much diffierent is the quality when compared to track ripped using the same bitrate on Sonicsatage? Because I figure that if some people are ok with this bitrate then maybe if SS improved their quality for this bitrate it could be way better don't you think? I just only wish Sony fullfilled their promise that Atrac@64 would be comparable to LP2 :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
streaml1ne Posted December 11, 2004 Report Share Posted December 11, 2004 This debate on atrac3plus@64 makes me wonder how much depends on the headphones you're using. On my Sony MDR-7509 phones 64k sounds fine. Yea the highs are softer than at 256k, but it's not bad at all. I've noticed that it does still reproduce original recording errors, so much so that I thought the amp on my NH1 was going until I listened to the original wav. Granted, 64k is not better than atrac3@132, but it's also half the bitrate and a quarter that of 256k. I haven't even tried recording a track via optical yet so if the word on the street is that HiLP is even better there then the size vs. quality is a stellar tradeoff if you ask me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jadeclaw Posted December 11, 2004 Report Share Posted December 11, 2004 @Jimmix: While the results are better than the SonicStage-created tracks, Hi-LP@64k still can't keep up with LP2@132k. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etotheix Posted December 12, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2004 I just only wish Sony fullfilled their promise that Atrac@64 would be comparable to LP2 Ditto Jimmix. Personally I think Sony have got the Hi format bitrates all wrong. Should have been 256K, 128k, 64k for the 3 modes... Ditto Qwakrz. Hi-LP really is NOT comparable to LP2. I can't understand why there is no intermediate ATRAC3+ bitrate. That's something I'd really like to know the answer to. Sony, why is there no bitrate for ATRAC3+ between 256k and 64k? Baffling. Anybody have any ideas about what Sony was thinking/smoking? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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