Sound Quality In Dependence Of Software

[Kryztof]

In dependence of the software (MD Simple Burner vs. Sonic Stage) transferring files from PC to Hi-MD leads to different results regarding the sound quality. Of course the original file is the same (mp3, 320 kBit/s) in both cases.

Using MD Simple Burner causes no problems, e.g. the file has the expected quality. Against this the quality is poor if Sonic Stage (2.3.00.11120, German version) is used, i.e. the file sounds like being coded with 64 or 48 kBit/s. In both cases the properties of the files are displayed as ATRAC3plus 256 kBit/s. There is a minimal difference in the file sizes on the disc: 5,980,160 Bytes (transferred with MD Simple Burner) vs. 5,963,776 Bytes (transferred with Sonic Stage).

Has anybody made the same observation? I am grateful for every suggestion.

[deafplayer]

i thought simpleburner could only rip CDs to MD?

if youre burning the mp3 to a CD it will change the sound, as will converting it to a .wav and using a virtual drive

[Kryztof]

Indeed you have mentioned an important point: The mp3 has to be converted to wav (44.1 kHz) before it can be burnt on CD.

On the basis of further testing I found out that the cause of the poor sound quality is the sample rate of the original mp3 file which is 48 kHz. Although Sonic Stage should be able to convert mp3 with a sampling rate of 32 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz or 96 kHz and a bit rate between 32 and 320 kbps, I get a bad result converting 48 kHz-mp3 files. Everything is fine with 44.1 kHz.

Can anyone confirm this finding?

[ROMBUSTERS]

its probably not unreasonable to think so with all the other problems in this software, Sony probably figured 44.1 would be the 99% majority and put its effort into making that work well and said forget the others

[dex Otaku]

I have thrown all kinds of VBR mp3s at SS, as well as WAV files that were at sampling rates up to 96kHz at 24-bits. It handles most of them correctly [most notably, all WAV formats I've tried importing do so successfully with proper/adequate sample-rate conversion and at the very least bit-depth reduction that works, if not in fact full use of 24 or 20-bit data at the encoder].

The exceptions for me seem to be mp3s from certain encoders, which come through only as silence - regardless of whether they are CBR, VBR, &c.

I wish Sony would just start using default Directshow/Directsound filters instead of their own codecs for formats other than atrac/3/plus. This would make SS capable of transcoding any format you have a directshow filter installed for, from mp3 to aac to ogg to MPC to AC3.. Most of which carry no DRM of their own.

If they're going to let people transcode their mp3s, they should also let them transcode anything else they have the codec for.

Caveat: since there is no real standard for how codecs pass metadata [title tags &c.] this would make it even harder to get titles and such passed to SS. Not impossible, though.

[deafplayer]

Caveat: since there is no real standard for how codecs pass metadata [title tags &c.] this would make it even harder to get titles and such passed to SS.  Not impossible, though.

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and that is why we need totalitarian governments

im pretty sure i remember reading in this forum that SS sucks at resampling, according to the poster anyway, he didn't refer to anything to back it up

he may very well have been talking about one particular rate, and if he was it was probably 48000