Richard Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 I'm a bit confused regarding Atrac Advanced Lossless. I can import a cd track as "Advanced Lossless - 256K Transfer)" (see below) [attachmentid=1016] - It transfers to the Hi-MD "as-is" and shows up on the unit as Hi-SP. Will this sound exactly the same as if I had imported from the CD directly as Atrac3plus 256K? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Does it take up the same amount of space as the same track actually encoded in Hi-SP? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted October 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Does it take up the same amount of space as the same track actually encoded in Hi-SP? Size on the Hi-MD disc is identical (or reported as so if you view the track properties on the disc direct from the transfer window) so I suspect they will sound the same. But it transfers instantly (ie. with no extra conversion). The size in My Library is different though (lossless being bigger).Also interesting is the recording quality drop-down box (even on "standard" Atrac 3 Plus @ 256) - where you can choose between "Normal" or "High" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Very interesting -- is the difference between normal and high discernable? I wonder if it does a second pass of the file, to find the parts that need extra encoding bits (e.g. Nero). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted October 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Very interesting -- is the difference between normal and high discernable? I wonder if it does a second pass of the file, to find the parts that need extra encoding bits (e.g. Nero). I will test this now. I can't hear any difference between the "lossless" and the Normal Hi-SP track on the player.Edit: File size on disk is identical between "Normal" and "High" encoded Atrac3+ 256, import time is marginally slower - not sure I can hear too much difference either - need to test with some more tracks with different types of music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommypeters Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Seems like a misuse of the word Lossless..."It doesn't lose any quality compared to Hi-SP when transferred to a player", maybe...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted November 1, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 Seems like a misuse of the word Lossless..."It doesn't lose any quality compared to Hi-SP when transferred to a player", maybe...? Actually for the Premium Members a possible explanation of Atrac Lossless is contained in the document we posted last week - explaining the different transfer modes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommypeters Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 Well, it seems good enough explained at this forum now as well... Lossless for playing on the PC, prepared for quick DL without conversion to Hi-MD. Instead of having one FLAC + one OMA file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblueraja Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 Well, it seems good enough explained at this forum now as well... Lossless for playing on the PC, prepared for quick DL without conversion to Hi-MD. Instead of having one FLAC + one OMA file.So let me get this straight... since I NEVER play tunes on my PC using Sonic Stage, is there any point to this 3.3 lossless stuff for me? I still like to use 132kbps for my MDs due to the amount of stuff I can fit onto discs, and still have decent quality. But if there's no difference between ripping a CD at 132, then transferring to MD at 132 via Sonic Stage 2.3 versus "lossless at 132" to MD, then I suppose there's no advantage here for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommypeters Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 As I understand it, though I haven't installed SS3.3 either, it would just use up more space on your hard disc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblueraja Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 As I understand it, though I haven't installed SS3.3 either, it would just use up more space on your hard disc.oh... wow. Can anyone else confirm this theory? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syrius Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 It does. It's just the equivalent of importing a track, converting the format to have a Hi-Sp file ready for transfer, and not deleting the original imported file from the database. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexis Posted July 23, 2007 Report Share Posted July 23, 2007 (edited) Hi guys!I've been recently playing with SonicStage 4.3 experimenting with various import format and bitrates, and transfer options. And I have come to the interesting conclusion that there is a difference between ATRAC3plus at any bitrate and AAL (ATRAC Advanced Lossless) at the same bitrate. I imported a full CD in ATRAC3plus and then transferred the tracks "as-is" and at a different bitrate. Well, the tracks transferred as-is were gapless, whereas the converted tracks were not gapless. Furthermore, when I imported the same CD tracks in AAL format and then transferred them at a different bitrate, the resulting converted tracks were gapless (no roots and everything will be alright tomorrow from Faithless, two albums where each track mixes seamlessly to the next). This means that in any case, the conversion routine from SonicStage 4.3 works differently for ATRAC3plus and AAL, even at the same bitrate.Looks like it is the first time that a difference can be measured between AAL and ATRAC3plus at the same bitrate.Does anybody have some experience with importing and transferring AAL tracks using SonicStage 4.3 or 4.2?Has anybody tested whether the rendered .WAVs or audio CDs created by SonicStage from AAL have better sound than the same created from ATRAC3plus?Has anybody tried what I describeed using a prior version of SonicStage? What are the results?I am using different formats to listen to music (Hi-LP for fully loaded Hi-MDs, Hi-SP for quality sound favourites, LP2 for legacy equipment), and SonicStage is not as flexible as I would like. So far, the option to import as AAL and then to let SonicStage convert to appropriate format is the only one that guarantees me gapless playing and sensible music library management.I will be happy to share my further experiments with the MD forum community, and will be happy to benefit from other people's knowledge on this subject . Edited July 23, 2007 by storm shadow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garcou Posted July 23, 2007 Report Share Posted July 23, 2007 (edited) Hi guys!I've been recently playing with SonicStage 4.3 experimenting with various import format and bitrates, and transfer options. And I have come to the interesting conclusion that there is a difference between ATRAC3plus at any bitrate and AAL (ATRAC Advanced Lossless) at the same bitrate. I imported a full CD in ATRAC3plus and then transferred the tracks "as-is" and at a different bitrate. Well, the tracks transferred as-is were gapless, whereas the converted tracks were not gapeless. Furthermore, when I imported the same CD tracks in AAL format and then transferred them at a different bitrate, the resulting converted tracks were gapless (no roots and everything will be alright tomorrow from Faithless, two albums where each track mixes seamlessly to the next). This means that in any case, the conversion routine from SonicStage 4.3 works differently for ATRAC3plus and AAL, even at the same bitrate.Looks like it is the first time that a difference can be measured between AAL and ATRAC3plus at the same bitrate.Does anybody have some experience with importing and transferring AAL tracks using SonicStage 4.3 or 4.2?Has anybody tested whether the rendered .WAVs or audio CDs created by SonicStage from AAL have better sound than the same created from ATRAC3plus?Has anybody tried what I describeed using a prior version of SonicStage? What are the results?I am using different formats to listen to music (Hi-LP for fully loaded Hi-MDs, Hi-SP for quality sound favourites, LP2 for legacy equipment), and SonicStage is not as flexible as I would like. So far, the option to import as AAL and then to let SonicStage convert to appropriate format is the only one that guarantees me gapless playing and sensible music library management.I will be happy to share my further experiments with the MD forum community, and will be happy to benefit from other people's knowledge on this subject . To compare byte to byte Two files imported/created/converted/transfered/uploaded with sonicstage, you can use this programme (15 days shareware):take care: the audio data is not the first bytes( those are the itag data) . you have to go down in the file, after some lines of "0"you also can compare two wav files, byte for byte with Audiograbber (freeware)HexCmp2_Setup.zipagsetup.zip Edited July 23, 2007 by garcou Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexis Posted July 23, 2007 Report Share Posted July 23, 2007 Hi!I have been testing those ATRAC3plus and AAL formats, and there is a difference, definitely. Funny thing is, converting a WAV file into an AAL 64kbps and rendering this AAL into a WAV file leads to... a different WAV file - so much for being lossless. However, this resulting file has been judged "better" (by my wife, which is quite younger than me and has undoubtedly better ears) than a rendering from a simple ATRAC3plus 64kbps.I then had a look at those files, and I could see that the original WAV and the rendered AAL had similar "low noise" artifacts, say, many sample values between -5 and +5, whereas the 64kbps rendering shows much smoother sample sequences. So it looks like although the AAL rendering does not lead to identical WAV file data, at least maybe it leads to identical frequency distribution or something.Being that my common computer is a Macintosh and that I don't have neither a decent audio card nor decent audio software, could somebody perform some more precise measurements for frequency distribution, or in any way analyse and compare AAL rendered WAV files?By the way, another funny thing: rendering an AAL track will give different WAV files if it is rendered alone or as part of several tracks rendered altogether. Why? Beats me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garcou Posted July 24, 2007 Report Share Posted July 24, 2007 (edited) Hi!I have been testing those ATRAC3plus and AAL formats, and there is a difference, definitely. Funny thing is, converting a WAV file into an AAL 64kbps and rendering this AAL into a WAV file leads to... a different WAV file - so much for being lossless.No, you must make an error .I've tested it with Hexcmp and audiograber: the two files are identical, byte for byte Edited July 24, 2007 by garcou Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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