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MZ-RH10 & Mp3 Playback

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I'm still not 100% convinced that Sony did this on purpose. If that were the case, it would be logical that also NW-HD3 and NW-HD5 had cripled MP3 playback, but they don't.

No, the way it is, is logical.

The HDD-players are targetted at a whole different audience. People who already have hundreds of MP3's and just want another MP3player.

The MD however, is been around for a long time, with a percentage of users who use it to record music. The MD was originally designed as that, a digital cassetteplayer.

They probably try to convince the recorder crowd Atrac is a very decent format and that MP3 is only for the mindless masses.

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No, the way it is, is logical.

The HDD-players are targetted at a whole different audience. People who already have hundreds of MP3's and just want another MP3player.

but that doesn't explain and even contradicts the lack of equalizer when using MP3 on a HD5 (see my post above)

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Guys & girls, how about this:

we give Sony untill the end of this month to come up with an official statement, in which they state that a nasty bug has made its way into the latest generation of minidisc players (or something), that makes MP3 playback sound bad compared to ATRAC. Sony should offer users a firmware upgrade (for free, of course) that fixes this issue.

If they don´t do this, we can send a message to all major technics & audio news sites (CNet and the like) in which we make clear that Sony most probably scr*wed its customers by degrading the MP3 decoder, to advertise their own ATRAC format. If I was working for Sony, I would not let it come to this point.

I think it´s time we strike back! If you think about it, we´ve always been very patient with Sony here at MDCF. We pointed out things that could be improved on the hardware and software side, helped new users who had problems with either their units or Sonicstage, etc. Despite all the ignorance of Sony, most people here at MDCF sticked to MD, because they believe in the format (at least I do). Maybe it´s time we show that Sony can´t do things like they did now and simply get away with it.

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Guys & girls, how about this:

we give Sony untill the end of this month to come up with an official statement, in which they state that a nasty bug has made its way into the latest generation of minidisc players (or something), that makes MP3 playback sound bad compared to .....

No reason to wait. Just let people know. Consumers' interests should be top priority. I was about to buy RH10 and I have tons of mp3's...

Sony did it on purpose. Will be very hard to make them change their mind.

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Judging by Ken Kutaragi's arrogance when asked WTF was the deal with the defective square button on the PSP, I guess we can imagine what Sony will say. ("This is the design we came up with, no one questions the placement of a door in a house, it's a problem all right, but this is something the gamers and developers will have to live with." Which is corporate talk for "Up yours, suckers.")

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1. The roll-off behavior is consistent throughout all MP3s, regardless of encoders.

2. That roll-off can be somewhat corrected by using EQ.

3. You can not necessairly infer that roll-off behaviour is intentional or unintentional. If it were intentional, I'd expected it to be lot worse and to not be correctable via a simple EQ setting (ala HD series).

Frankly, you have other options if you want MP3 on a Sony hardware (PSP, PCDP, Network Walkman, etc). RH is a MD player first and foremost, so I'd be more concerned if there was a playback error with ATRAC files vs. MP3s.

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No, no, no!

1. The roll off behaviour at 19kHz is consistent, NOT the rolloff starting at 2kHz!!

2. Somewhat... I doesn't need to be there at all.

3. You can't correct it with the EQ, which would make it intentional accoring to you? It just can't be coincidence, especially with Sony.

If I buy a 2nd gen HiMD unit (for whatever reason, mine would be the ability to use a better lossy codec!) I expect it to work as it should. When I pay €250 I do not expect crippled playback! There's just no point here of excepting this 'reduced playback' from Sony. Why on Earth shouldn't I be mad about it?

Where in the manual does it say that if I want real MP3 playback, I should go buy another device meant for that? That's just plain ignorance.

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The 2nd generation do exactly? as they claim - they support mp3. After that I think that you should let your ears do the choosing.

Sure, I'm not an owner, but it's a bit like the old SP/LP2/LP4 question. If mp3 sounds good to you then great - if it's not so good then put it in Atrac...

There's no point threatening Sony - I'm sure that they're quite deaf. Do it. Tell everyone what's wrong and hope that Sony will feel obliged to correct? it in time for #3. I'm holding my breath, but don't try this at home kids! ohmy.gif

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The 2nd generation do exactly? as they claim - they support mp3. After that I think that you should let your ears do the choosing.

Sure, I'm not an owner, but it's a bit like the old SP/LP2/LP4 question. If mp3 sounds good to you then great - if it's not so good then put it in Atrac...

The problem is, there will be a lot of people that buy a 2nd gen unit, because of the MP3 playback feature. For me, it would be the main reason to finally make the switch to Hi-MD. I could fit a lot of music on one Hi-MD disc when I rip my CD´s using LAME --alt-preset standard, which is mostly transparant to me and has a much lower bitrate than Hi-SP, on avarage.

Right now, I´m happy I waited for a while before buying one. Somehow I knew there would be some hidden drawbacks. If I would´ve bought one, Sony´s trick (let´s assume it´s a trick) would´ve forced me to use ATRAC. So, I would be unable to use the feature I bought the player for initially. I call that misleading marketing, something Sony is famous for.

I love music and I love it even more when it doesn´t sound bad.

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Sony are neither deaf nor stupid.

Suggestive reasons why?

Sonicstage v3.x - contains suggested changes [from myself] which were posted here and sent to Sony's Canadian tech support people with the byline "Please forward this to your software engineers." Maybe I'm having delusions of grandeur, but [for example] they basically took my suggestion about autonaming uploaded tracks to the date and time of either timestamp from the recording unit or of upload. The thread is still kicking around here somewhere. Other suggested changes have made their way into there as well.

My bet is that if every one of us emailed Sony's tech support with a request to "please fix the defective MP3 support of gen2 units" and reasons detailing the problem, they'll probably take notice.

In any case, it doesn't matter that much to me. My RH10 is on its way, apparently, and I will be happy using it for its main purpose: recording. The only time I will likely be using for listening to MP3s is when I want to fast-dump tracks onto the unit to walk somewhere - a situation in which even an 8kHz 24dB/oct high-shelf wouldn't bother me that much. For tracks I actually want to 'keep' on HiMDs, I'll continue using Simple Burner and HiSP.

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The 2nd generation do exactly? as they claim - they support mp3. After that I think that you should let your ears do the choosing.

Sure, I'm not an owner, but it's a bit like the old SP/LP2/LP4 question. If mp3 sounds good to you then great - if it's not so good then put it in Atrac...

There's no point threatening Sony - I'm sure that they're quite deaf. Do it. Tell everyone what's wrong and hope that Sony will feel obliged to correct? it in time for #3. I'm holding my breath, but don't try this at home kids!  ohmy.gif

if it were only so easy. if i have an mp3 @ 192kbps, sonicstage will not allow me to put it into atrac @ 256kbps..it will only allow me to convert to 132 or less...so its a double whammy..because not only do i have to forfeit my mp3 capability, i'm also forfeiting atrac @ its top quality... i'd say this is reason enough to be upset as a consumer.

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Sony are neither deaf nor stupid. 

Exactly. They're cunning marketeers...

My RH10 is on its way, apparently, and I will be happy using it for its main purpose: recording.  The only time I will likely be using for listening to MP3s is when I want to fast-dump tracks onto the unit to walk somewhere - a situation in which even an 8kHz 24dB/oct high-shelf wouldn't bother me that much.

Thats good for you, but some of us thought we would be able to use a better lossy codec Atrac3+ 256k. Turns out we cant. Thats bad.

Edited by Breepee2
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3. You can't correct it with the EQ, which would make it intentional accoring to you? It just can't be coincidence, especially with Sony.

But there isn't concrete proof that its intentional on Sony's part either. If it was, you should expect to see the same behavior throughout the entire Walkman line of products, not just the HiMD units. After all, if Sony wants to say that "hey ATRAC is superior," why not carry this across for the HD1/3/5, the NW series, the PSP, and the D-NE series?

Until you have proof that someone from Sony directed that MP3s on HiMD must be crippled in one way or another, you can not say the poor output is intentional. For all anyone knows, it could be intentional. However, you haven't provided proof that it was planned as such, and the only thing we know true to be at this moment is that MP3 playback is buggy.

As a side note, the MP3/Atrac3 player in Clie was buggy out of the box, introducing noise to the output. That was fixed with a patch. I don't expect the same from the Walkman side of the line, but at least some sort of acknowledgement that there is a bug would be nice.

Finally, I should've made myself clearer, my initial point no. 1 about the roll-off behavior was regarding the RH units, not the MP3 itself. The point about my original post was that you can't necessairly infer from this that this behavior was intentionally programmed into the firmware or a bug... Which is the point of my whole post to begin with...

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And which is then irrelevant (at least to the whole thread), because it - was it made on purpose or is it a bug - doesn't change anything to the fact that the RH10 MP3 playback is buggy. (And frankly, a "nice", full effect low-pass filter like the one we see clearly applied to the signal could hardly be a firmware bug.)

Sony audio MD products are made for "enlightened music users", that ranges from casual amateurs recorders with a good walkman to journalists and sound engineers in need of an easy recording solution. On such almost semi-professionnal hardware, a major flaw such as this one must be corrected.

Edited by faelnor
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Until you have proof that someone from Sony directed that MP3s on HiMD must be crippled in one way or another, you can not say the poor output is intentional.

Sure. That's why I suggested to wait for Sony to come up with an official statement. Although in my opinion it is very likely that it was intentional.

By the way, if Sony gives a reaction, they will probably deny that it was intentional anyway. Sony will try to keep the damage to a minimum.

* EDIT *

I just thought of the following: there is a (small) chance that the roll-off is not applied inside the unit, but by Sonicstage, before transfering the MP3's over to the player.

Edited by bug80
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Well, Russian Sony support (I think there is no global support, right?) pretends to be deaf and stupid. But this was expected. "Quality is subjective, the unit conforms to the specs, frequency response is not quality, and of course, we don't have to read forums". No comments.

BTW, is there really a way to apply a filter without transcoding mp3?

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Well, Russian Sony support (I think there is no global support, right?) pretends to be deaf and stupid. But this was expected. "Quality is subjective, the unit conforms to the specs, frequency response is not quality, and of course, we don't have to read forums". No comments.

BTW, is there really a way to apply a filter without transcoding mp3?

That's not true, because of the roll-off the effective bandwidth is lower than as stated in the specs, when playing back a MP3.

Sure, frequency response is not quality, but as soon as people hear a significant difference between ATRAC and MP3 playback, which is the case, the frequency repsonse can be used as an objective explanation of that difference.

BTW, is there really a way to apply a filter without transcoding mp3?

EDIT: forgot to anwer your question. Yes, that is possible. During playback, the unit decodes the MP3 data to PCM. After that, any filter can be applied to that raw signal.

Edited by bug80
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After all, if Sony wants to say that "hey ATRAC is superior," why not carry this across for the HD1/3/5, the NW series, the PSP, and the D-NE series?

...

Until you have proof that someone from Sony directed that MP3s on HiMD must be crippled in one way or another, you can not say the poor output is intentional.

hm, not taking any stance in the discussion whether the MP3-crippling was intentional or not, but I just have to correct a few things here...

-Sony IS saying that atrac is superior (they still mention atrac3+ 64bps being superior to MP3 128bps in the presentation of the HD5 on the sony Belgium site

[attachmentid=337]

left in the sidebar: "Perfect quality: on the network walkman HD5 you can play MP3 files without conversion AND enjoy the superior sound of ATRAC3plus" and in the picture: "with atrac3plus at 64bps you can get more onto one CD(??)...and still in a better sound quality than with MP3 at 128bps"

-I would call "disabling the 6band equalizer on the HD5 when playing MP3's" (see also this thread) intentional crippling of MP3-playback quality/options (see my post up higher), wouldn't you? ok, it's not on Hi-MD, I guess (has anyone checked whether their eq-settings work when playing MP3's?) but it reveals Sony's intentions to ALLOW MP3 playback, so they won't be erased by all other HD-players out there, but they definitely don't feel obliged to make it sound as good as Atrac!

greetings, Volta

post-5301-1118050038_thumb.jpg

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EDIT: forgot to anwer your question. Yes, that is possible. During playback, the unit decodes the MP3 data to PCM. After that, any filter can be applied to that raw signal.

Actually, the question was about your own suggestion that the filter could be applied by Sonicstage. Sorry, I have to quote better. I will learn with time. So the question holds.

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Actually, the question was about your own suggestion that the filter could be applied by Sonicstage. Sorry, I have to quote better. I will learn with time. So the question holds.

Oh, sorry rolleyes.gif

Yes that it is also possible. It is a matter of adjusting the frequency domain coefficients in the MP3 file, transcoding is not necessary. But I don't think it is an easy operation, so it is not very likely that this is happening. Still a chance, though.

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Oh, sorry  rolleyes.gif

Yes that it is also possible. It is a matter of adjusting the frequency domain coefficients in the MP3 file, transcoding is not necessary. But I don't think it is an easy operation, so it is not very likely that this is happening. Still a chance, though.

Or it could be MP3Gain thing, in reverse. It can definitely be done in software if need be.

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hi !

I'm french, and I 've got an European model, with no-lcd-remote and no-custom EQ...

I found this forum while serching a real key-sequence to have the custom-EQ because of the bad sound of all presets or no-EQ modes.

The key sequence does not work on my model :

when the "113" value appears, there's no "DISTFL" but a big number (6/8 char long) that is changing every second !! When pushing vol+/- key, only the last character of this number can be modified and goes from 0 to F

somebody can help ? (I downloaded the service manual, but it only talks about "DISTFL" to change the "region code")

About MP3 problem, I can confirm : I have transfered some MP3 320Kbps on the RH10 (with the "mp3-without-conversion-sony-liar-mode") and listened them : they sound like 128Kpbs !!!??? Ok, i thougth it was because i was listening them into the subway, but reading you today, I think that sony made fun of us again !!

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welcome to MDCF supertonin,

somebody can help ? (I downloaded the service manual, but it only talks about "DISTFL" to change the "region code")

but this is an unrelated question to the topic covered in this thread... search the forums a bit, there are quite a few threads covering the region hacks of the 2nd gen Hi-MD's...please read them first and post your question (if it isn't answered already) in one of those threads (leeching on an existing thread isn't nice and neither useful for you as only a couple of ppl will know that there's a question relating to region hacks hidden in here, as this covers and the title relates to MP3-playback)

About MP3 problem, I can confirm : I have transfered some MP3 320Kbps on the RH10 (with the "mp3-without-conversion-sony-liar-mode") and listened them : they sound like 128Kpbs !!!??? Ok, i thougth it was because i was listening them into the subway, but reading you today, I think that sony made fun of us again !!

see, this part fits perfectly in here biggrin.gif

so please respect the structure of MDCF, that's what makes this place such a nice and useful forum

thanks, Volta

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I am wondering if maybe Sony licensed their firmware MP3 decoder from somewhere else.... I doubt that Sony would've spent the time writing their own. They probably licensed the source code from a 3rd party, compiled it for HiMD, and burned it into the chips.

Perhaps the reason it seems that RH10's have the problem while the other units don't -- maybe they burnt the RH10 PROM's first.. discovered the problem and fixed it.... and then burned the PROM's for the other units.

I have worked in the contract assembly business in the past, and I've seen this kind of thing many times. If Sony found a minor "bug" in the firmware after burning 100,000 chips and soldering them onto 100,000 main boards, they certainly would not have halted release of the units.

just speculation on my part.

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I am wondering if maybe Sony licensed their firmware MP3 decoder from somewhere else....  I doubt that Sony would've spent the time writing their own.  They probably licensed the source code from a 3rd party, compiled it for HiMD, and burned it into the chips.

Perhaps the reason it seems that RH10's have the problem while the other units don't -- maybe they burnt the RH10 PROM's first.. discovered the problem and fixed it.... and then burned the PROM's for the other units.

I have worked in the contract assembly business in the past, and I've seen this kind of thing many times.  If Sony found a minor "bug" in the firmware after burning 100,000 chips and soldering them onto 100,000 main boards, they certainly would not have halted release of the units.

just speculation on my part.

We don't know if other units have the same problem. The RH10 is by far the most popular model so almost everyone has a RH10 so that's probably why you only hear the problem of RH10 owners.

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I am wondering if maybe Sony licensed their firmware MP3 decoder from somewhere else....  I doubt that Sony would've spent the time writing their own.  They probably licensed the source code from a 3rd party, compiled it for HiMD, and burned it into the chips.

...

That's possible. It's known that the ATRAC decoder chip has had enough processing power to decode MP3 as well, and does in the D-NE line of PCDP (since 2003) and Clie PDAs. I thought I saw a post or such confirming that fact from a third party chip provider.

I own a RH910 and can confirm that this behavior exists, though my ears have trouble picking it out. But it is there on the RH910 as well.

It could be presumed that the DH10P and RH710 may hsre the same problem. DH10P may be less exacerbated due to the use of HD Digital Amp... But no one here has one, AFAIK. Unless Ishii got one in the meantime.

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That's possible.  It's known that the ATRAC decoder chip has had enough processing power to decode MP3 as well, and does in the D-NE line of PCDP (since 2003) and Clie PDAs.  I thought I saw a post or such confirming that fact from a third party chip provider.

I own a RH910 and can confirm that this behavior exists, though my ears have trouble picking it out.  But it is there on the RH910 as well.

It could be presumed that the DH10P and RH710 may hsre the same problem.  DH10P may be less exacerbated due to the use of HD Digital Amp...  But no one here has one, AFAIK.  Unless Ishii got one in the meantime.

We had a prototype DH10P for testing but sadly the mp3-playback wasn't implemented yet (gave the message "cannot play" when trying to play an mp3). So sadly I cannot comment on the mp3-playback-quality of the production DH10P.

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I was just fooling around with the headphones I own and was trying to get my Sennheiser MX400's to sound nice with my RH10. The MX400's are nice headphones but to my opinion they have a little bit to much highs in them and a they lack a nice punchy bass. With the standard EU EQ-presets I didn't get a nice sound.

Suddenly the "lack" of highs during mp3-playback came into my mind so I put some mp3's on a disc and plugged in the MX400's and guess what: almost a perfect match: Nice bass and nice highs. It seems like they almost match perfectly to get a natural sound when playing back mp3's.

Maybe personally you like a bit more or less highs, lows or whatever but with slight changes to the EQ-settings I'm almost sure you will get a nice personal preset. I also tested the standard presets and for the first time I think I found some use for them. With other headphones like the EX71's or my MDR-G82 they sounded ridiculous and are useless.

So maybe a tip for people in Europe that only have the standard 4 presets and want to get mp3-playback working nicely without the need of the EQ: find matching headphones with an inverse frequencyresponse to the RH10. For about 11 to 15 euro's the MX400's are a nice try!

So my conclusion:

- MX400's + RH10 + Hi-SP playback: can't get the sound "right" because of the lack of bass.

- MX400's + RH10 + mp3-playback: nice "basic" sound that is easily adaptable for personal preferences.

So if you buy a RH10 mainly for native mp3-playback, search a headphone that compensates the loss in high frequencies.

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Having my RH910 and using the way I use it, I don't think I'll ever notice a difference between ATRAC and MP3. smile.gif

Maybe if Sony ends up putting out a car deck, where I can listen to things AT VOLUME, I would be able to tell. Since I just plug my 910 into my computer at work and listen to it through the PC speakers, and I have to keep the volume down, I won't be able to tell a difference. (and they are decent speakers)

I'm just glad the MP3 playback functionality was added. Now for Sony to get the rest of it right!

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I can see it now.....

"Sony new In Car Hi-MD player, Output power 5.0mW per channel, euro model 1.0mW per channel"

Sorry, off topic but had to say it.

I have now given up on MP3 playback on the RH10 as I cannot get it to sound "right". I let SS convert all my MP3's into LP2 or Hi-LP depending on the source quality.

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