ATRAC3 or ATRAC3plus?

[fuzbuz77]

Hello all,

I was lucky enough to be given a Vaio VGF-AP1L fo rmy birthday (hooray!) and want to put as much of my rather large music collection onto the little lovely. I'm trying to decide between Atrac3 132kbps or Atrac3plus at 256kbps or 64kbps. Not sure what differences will be rendered...

I'm a music lecturer, so it's quite important to me to get hte right balance between quantity (being able to play anything anytime to my students) and quality (being able to play a decent quality track...)

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

fuz

[Christopher]

Depending on how much music you have, just go with 192kbps or 256kbps ATRAC3plus. That would be what I consider to be an acceptable medium.

[fuzbuz77]

Thanks...in the absence of 192kbps, would you suggest 256k A3+ or 132k A3?

fuz

[Christopher]

Definitely 256kbps ATRAC3plus, there is no other choice. Why not 192kbps? You can do that with the Pocket.

[Guest Stuge]

Technically Atrac3plus is better than Atrac 3.

[fuzbuz77]

Looks like the decision is made!

As for the 192kbps option....there just isn't one when I'm setting the options in Sonic Stage. On A3+ I have the choice of 256, 64, or 48kbps. I can't imagine the lower two would be any use quality-wise, but reckon 192 would be a nice compromise between space and quality....

fuz

[Christopher]

What version of Sonicstage are you employing?

[fuzbuz77]

Version 2.1, from the CD supplied with the player - there is an update on the sony site, I know, but Sony refused to give me technical assistance if I upgraded. Do you suggest an upgrade?

fuz

[Christopher]

Yes, definitely, download Sonicstage 3.3 ASAP. You will have that bitrate and much better functionality.

[fuzbuz77]

Great, thanks so much for your help and advice.

fuz

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

Hi, i'm new to the forum, but no newbie when it comes to encoding and prepping audio to compressed audio forms

Was doing the compressed audio thing back before most of the people at HA ever heard of mp3

So to cut through all the usual 'x vs y' BS that often comes into replies, and that's not reflecting on previous responses to your question - a reflection instead on the usual line that most people in other forums feed.., here's my take :-

As to which codec, ATRAC3 or ATRAC3PLUS, goes - simple answer is, use what works for YOU (yes, you, not what other people think is the best solution).

The only way you'll discover that outcome, is to literally invest time and effort into encoding and testing to see what solution works best for YOUR needs (again, ferk the rest of the world, it's your deck.. your effort, your satisfaction counts here not that which suits me or the rest)

The safe road, if not overly efficient one, is to literally encode at the highest rate available and ferk the excessive capacity hit is has on the storage of the player.

It's the safe road, in the sense that, it'll gen results as good as they will get, at a cost of some of those tracks (more than initial 'net advice' impressions will lead u to believe) being overly high-rate encoded when some of them could easily gen decent enough results at a lower bit-rate encoding.

It's literally a suck-it-and-see situation.

So looking at your situation, i figure you need to see it from two perspectives...

1) Demoing

As a lecuturer of music, clearly having stuff on tap on your player is handy, as a compact way of being able to play back sample items you want to talk about to classes etc.

So i would suggest for those instances, anything you are going to use for demo, gets encoded for max resulting quality. That's sticking to the safe ground, but being a victim of sound demos that involved some dire (hellish) quick-win low-rate encodings before (i thank the lecturer on sound i had at college, during my academic days, by means of a kick in the teeth if i could, for subjecting us to his super-duper low-grade MP3 demo's). Let me put it this way, his were so poor, that even the poorest grade comms circuit can carry better quality compressed audio than his demos' demonstrated.

So find your balance for quality, on a track by track basis, for the demo stuff and if need be, go with the safe ground, and compile those into a playlist or album to keep on the portable player when needed (and on your indoor HDD in readiness), so you can switch over to the compilation of demo tracks when needed.

This is one trait those much-unappreciated ATRAC CD walkmans had, the instant swap facility, where i would have (in your shoes.. in a similar demoing vein), kept demo ATRAC CD's to use for demoing with, and went with whatever-works encoded ATRAC CD's for personal listening use.

So, essentially, apply a 'for demo' strategy for stuff that's gonna be demoed based on the fact that the demo material is for that , not personal listening, and you wont go wrong.

2. Personal use

This is the more involved issue of the two...

My personal strategy is simple..

a) Encode all audio (from sources) to lossless form for archive.

Pre to the latest SS release, i used WMA Lossless for simplicity (aka it direct imported and could be encoded from to ATRAC in SS 2.0 onwards from WMA LSL without issues). But if you can use SS 3.3 (dont think SS 3.2 gave the facility, since i skipped that release), your CD's and analog sourced recordings can be stored in ATRAC Advanced Lossless instead - which allows you to choose a quick-transfer lossly format for rapid transfer (in lossy form) to portables, but at a cost of slighty slower transfer, the ATRAC LSL's can also go to any supported codec/bit-rate supported by the portable deck.

Having LSL's archived, and in your available library, will save you much time later on

The same response i started out with, vs ATRAC3 and ATRAC3PLus still applies, but instead of looking at it from a 'which to use' point of view, you should really think of it along the 'what works' line of thinking.

Clearly, when you want to use ATRAC3PLUS specific bit-rates (and there will be times you want the ultra-high and ultra-low combos), you can't use those same ultra-extremes with ATRAC3, so you'll have to encode to PLUS when you want those.

Likewise, where 66/105/132 combinations suit a given purpose, and the nearest PLUS combos are either too low/size efficiency too restrictive, then you'll be using ATRAC3 for such instances.

So returning to my strategy, vs your use and how it reflects on your use (i often have to demo audio for the purposes of showing how PA type compression effects audio) :-

Make lossies to suit :-

1. Get your audio into LSL form and have it archived and available in your library.

2. For each track/audio instanct, make one conversion to lossy form for every bit-rate combo.

Then, and this will generate thousands of files if your collection of source audio is massive (and mine is, it's literally a a big commericial radio library worth + my personal collection which counts into 5 figures in terms of discs/tapes/carts etc alone), you can spend time going through the results and back-to-back test the combinations either on PC or on your player (whatever you do in that respect, use either decent phones/speakers to audition with for purist outcomes, or use what you will most commonly listen with in terms of portable phones).

Although this, on the surface, sounds manic obsessive and a hell of a lot of time invested, it certainly is not time wasted.

It gives you a massive perspective on the matter which allows you to recognise over the period of time encoding and auditioning, simply what works for what types of audio source. Remember, there is no one perfect bitrate/codec combo that will take any one genre and give transparent or even low-grade acceptable consistent use results, two very similar sounding pieces can often require quite diverse encoding methods to get similar high or medium grade results.

One thing that can be said for ATRAC (to account for all it's incarnations) is whilst it lacks the massive-rate range implemented that the common compressed-audio encoders used outside of thoses circles generate, you have a nice swiss-army knife selection of usable codec/bitrate combos preset in the encoder.

I'm no fan of preset encoding, (ask anyone who has seen my writing on MP3PLAYERS.CO.UK forum and the iRiver forum, re Lame and Lame presets, and how i detest slavery to preset encoding), but when it comes to ATRAC which is essentially a very end-user codec group (aka intended for simply compress and go non-techy usage), i dont mind being a slave to preset bitrate combos, and if you like a quiet hassle-free life, i think you will grow to accept it too

God knows, after having to be an encoding obsessive in my various work relating to broadcasting prep/engineering and whilst working with domestic compressed-audio users during my iRiver and MP3PLAYERS.CO.UK forum time as their off-the-books tech support guy/'cat' (if you pop over there, look for the cat-related nickname, it's very frequent in the archives), i find the freshness of having stuff in a grab and go fashion to be like the miracle cold cure that clears the migranes and sinus hassles of a flu, in respect to on-the-fly library to device transfer.

The most important lesson here is...

You aint gonna learn nothing, without investing time to discover what works

I am not saying u need to follow all the above, just chew over it and keep it in mind

Regards

'Tom Kat'

aka JustAnUnCoolCat from the iRiver and MP3PLAYERS forum days

*yep, it's me.. you can tell by the scorched virtual fur.. and mucho scars of my scraps with the HA and Ogg user communities*

[ Currently purring happily with a D-NE1, D-NE20 after iRiver lost the CDP plot somewhat, and a NW-NH1 MD unit, for those times i need MD]

[dyon]

I would like to know witch one is better :

ATRAC3 132

OR

ATRACplus 64

Witch one sound's better ?

I know the A+ , the files are smaler , but is the sound worst ?

[Guest Stuge]

I would like to know witch one is better :

ATRAC3 132

OR

ATRACplus 64

Witch one sound's better ?

I know the A+ , the files are smaler , but is the sound worst ?

←

Atrac3 132kbps will definately sound better than Atrac64pkbs

[dyon]

Thank you for youre opinion.

I have another question :

With is better ?

ATRAC3 132

OR

MP3 160

?

[Guest Stuge]

Dyon,

Some people say that Atrac 132kpbs is equivalent to Mp3 192kpbs ..But new Atrac3 plus 128KPBS IS BETTER THAN Atrac 3 132KPBS ...

Yes ,Personally I feel Atrac@132kpbs as good as Mp3@160kpbs..

Tell me in which format your music is stored?

[dyon]

I have bougth te Sony NW-E507 , and it doesn't suport atrac3plus at 128.

I am loking for the beter sound for it, and not taking much space.

I am thinking of using the ATRAC3 at 132 , because its beter than atrac3plus 64 , and as good as the MP3 at 160.

What is youre opinion of what sould I use in the NW-E507 ?

Thanks

[Guest Stuge]

If you want to fit more songs on E507 with decent sound quality then go with Atrac3 132kpbs But if you want better quality then go with Atrac3 plus 192kpbs but it will require more space as compared to 132kpbs ..But the ratio of Sound quality/space goes with Atrac3 132kpbs..

[dyon]

Ok , tank you very much for youre opinion

[sh33p]

hey pop quiz, what about a3+ 320 vs mp3 320 ? they're almost identical in size... which sounds better?

[Guest Stuge]

hey pop quiz, what about a3+ 320 vs mp3 320 ? they're almost identical in size... which sounds better?

←

If you see carefully Atrac@ 48kpbs & MP3 @48kpbs ,Their file sizes are also identical ..

Same bit rate of different formats or codec have same files sizes..At higher Bitrate their is not that much a difference between Sound quality of different codec

I my view Atrac3 plus 320kpbs is equal to Mp3 320kpbs in Sound quality ..Also Our Old modes are not comptible with Atrac3 plus 320 ..So it is useless

But Sincerely I use Mp3 192kpbs the most because it helps me to exchange my music with my friends (All because of GYM)..

MY HD5 is half filled up with MP3 & Half filled up with Atrac3 PLus .