gujarati Posted May 31, 2009 Report Share Posted May 31, 2009 I have this unique problem (I hope there is someone like me out here). I really like recording the tracks in SP in real-time. I would love faster Hi-SP transfer, but in my car I have MZ-S1 which is real tough and I think it is well suited for the car. So, back to the problem - I transfer in real-time SP using the USB-optical converter. I have to play songs on my laptop and then record via optical. The problem with this is my laptop gets tied to this job and hence I hate it. So, to curb this problem I recently acquired one of the sony CD walkams with optical out. My plan was to record songs from laptop to CD-RW and then use CD player to stream the optical out to MD. This did not work as the sony CD player does not play CD-RWs. And, the CD player is perfect as it works on 2 AA's and I got it for $20. Unfortunately it is useless. So, I am back to recording in real-time using my laptop. I had pondered the idea of getting a MD-CD deck, but I live an apartment and hence would not be able to go this route.I have not been able to find a good Hi-MD for the car which is as tough and takes AA battery. And, I think I like SP better but if I find a good Hi-MD player for car I might switch. I do not want to spend money to get a MD deck for the car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KJ_Palmer Posted May 31, 2009 Report Share Posted May 31, 2009 How about using CD-R's instead of RW's? Most players can read CD-R's even if not RW's. Obviously they're not re-usable, but they're cheap(er), faster to write to, and you could keep the CD-R as a backup. Just a thought, mind you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian10161 Posted May 31, 2009 Report Share Posted May 31, 2009 If you get an MD/CD Deck, you can actually record direct from a cd to an MD without the need for a receiver. The only problem I think would be getting one that can play RW's. I'm not sure if my MXD-D3 will play RW's. I can test this later if your interested. I don't think it will though, mine is an old deck.I see you have the S1, that is a Net-MD capable player. Why not use Net-MD to transfer tracks in SP? I believe it will record in realtime, plus it is digital. I record to my RH1 and my 510 with the USB cable in SP and I find the recordings sound just as good as I make on my MXD-D3 from a CD.I hope this helps out a little bit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 I think OP knows that the SP thus generated is Fake-SP and as such is less than wonderful.However my recent researches show that the weak step in NetMD is the CD ripping (at least for most people running Sonic Stage on most people's CD or DVD drives) depending exactly on how it is ripped. With good ripping LP2 should be fine for portable and in-car listening, in fact it is totally amazing to me. SP has also the disadvantage it uses a lot more battery.Try ripping to AAL (Atrac Advanced Lossless) and then convert that to NetMD LP2 using USB on your S1. Tell us (well, me) how you get on!Stephen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian10161 Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 (edited) Sfpb, maybe you can answer this question. Simple one I think. Does AAL conserve gapless playback? I can't remember if I have tried it or not, but I think I noticed slight pauses between tracks when I did this.SP recorded on an MD through SS isn't the same? I did not know this, learn new things each day Off to do some more reading. Edited June 1, 2009 by brian10161 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 No idea. Never cared about gapless, sorry.SonicStage's USB->SP is LP2 with blank bit padding ("Fake SP"). Better results with optical or on combo decks.I just reread my previous post. What a mouthful of initials, alphabet soup isn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian10161 Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 Oh really, I didn't know that. I been reading through the FAQ's and that and haven't found it yet. But it's good to know, I will re-record my MD's that were done from my PC later on. Just goes to show that I don't notice it I guess Lol, we all speak in abbreviations don't we? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gujarati Posted June 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 Barock: You are right about buying CD-R's. They cost around $15 for 100 CD-R's. I have thought about this option but always rejected the option thinking about extra cost of CD's.brian: Thanks for your willingness to test the deck. Any body have any suggestions for decks that work with CD-RW's.I hate usb transferred fake SP's. I could actually transfer in usb mode in LP2 and get away with listening in car. But, the MD's that I record in SP also get their time for headphone listerning. And I use ER-4P which made my ear allergic to bad quality music.I know I am limiting my options and shooting them down one after another. Maybe, I gotta stick with just doing real time optical transfers from my laptop. I am just curious if there is something that I can accept to live with happily ever after as I am not very fond of keeping my laptop occupied for optical transfers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 I hate usb transferred fake SP's. I could actually transfer in usb mode in LP2 and get away with listening in car. But, the MD's that I record in SP also get their time for headphone listerning. And I use ER-4P which made my ear allergic to bad quality music.Try my (new) method. I think you will be surprised. AAL->PC, LP2->S1. If they are perfectly ripped to begin with, maybe even the FakeSP will sound good.... after all, it's really LP2 by another name. But starting from what is already on your hard disk, no way, for now don't trust that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avrin Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 (edited) SonicStage's USB->SP is LP2 with blank bit padding ("Fake SP").Not quite so. The PC downloads LP2 ATRAC3, then the unit converts it to SP ATRAC (lossy->lossy). So, the final quality will be even worse than that of LP2.If you don't have a CD-MD deck with direct recording, then the easiest and best way to get good quality SP is to record a CD in realtime via optical out from a DVD player with all sound processing (enhancers, range compression, upsampling, etc.) disabled. Most modern DVD players have optical out, and read CD-RW perfectly. The only question is whether they output the original and unchanged signal on the optical out (most of them do). The easy way to tell it is to record a non-stop album with SYNC mode ON on the MD unit, and to look whether the original track marks are preserved. If they are - the player outputs the original signal. If track marks are lost (a non stop album is recorded as one continuous track), then the player changes the signal.On the other hand, practically any modern computer DOES change the signal on the optical out. It may resample it, change the level, or process it in some other way, thus the original track marks will be lost, and sound quality will be degraded.You may also use a good-old CD-player (like the one you have) with an optical out to record in SP, but most of them do not read CD-RW, so you are limited to pressed and CD-R media.And NEVER use AGC when recording CDs! On most SONY units manual recording level 23 corresponds to the original level of the signal fed via the optical in. So, setting manual level 23 helps to avoid one more sound processing step (with its unavoidable rounding errors), thus keeping the original signal quality right to the moment of SP encoding. Units by other manufacturers may have a different setting corresponding to the original level. Edited June 1, 2009 by Avrin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 Fair enough Avrin. Your detailed explanation as always right on the $$$. I must admit that all my current CD players will in fact play CD-R's that I have made but CD-R's are cheap enough that I don't bother with CDRW any more (I used to when CD-R's were a couple of dollars each).The transfer (to RH1) of SP via USB connection (from Sonic Stage) takes a very long time, so I actually thought more data was being transmitted over the interface. You're saying that the slowness arises because the portable unit has to do a lot more work. Clearly the better way is optical at x1, regardless of whether we are using deck or portable. The interesting question is the combo decks at x4, whether they throw information away. The fact that the MDS-W1 and the Denon pro copying double deck seem to copy at high speed suggests that the x4 somehow gets away with it. I'm not sure how.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avrin Posted June 1, 2009 Report Share Posted June 1, 2009 (edited) Portable units have less powerful processors. Powerful enough to encode to SP in realtime, and to convert LP2 to SP at whatever speed they are doing this (remember that LP2 already has its frequency range cut off at higher frequencies, so there is obviously less work to do), but hardly powerful enough to work at 4x over the full frequency range. Edited June 1, 2009 by Avrin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian10161 Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 I just tested an RW in my MXD-D3 and it worked. I couldn't believe it. It took forever to read, but it did read it. Unfortuneately it started skipping pretty bad around the 3 minute mark of Track 1. So, I don't know if there are just too many scratches, or the player just can't keep up with trying to read the disk.After this CD finishes recording to my MD, I'll just try letting the disc play through and see what happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gujarati Posted June 7, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 Thanks brian for testing RW's out. I might just get CD-R's if they go for cheap.Most of my collection is on a hard-drive in MP3 (320 kbps / 256 VBR) / wav / flac. Lot's of time I like to create SP discs of few albums and try them out in my car and delete/move tracks based on my preference. Because of this I did not like the idea of going CD-R route as I'll just be wasting them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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