I have just received my MZ-NH1!

[archmonde11]

Hi everyone.

I've got my NH1 for just a few days, and this is my 1st time using a MD. Before purchasing, I had googled and find out Sonyinsider, and the forum helped me prepare some basic knowledge about the MD player. Now I'm downloading my music files into MD. Questions pop out.

In Sonicstage mode box, I can decide between Net-MD and Hi-MD mode. I think that mode switching is some kind of "MD disk re-formatting", right? ... But do anyone here often use Net-MD mode? This mode can handle all the track I selected - 18 tracks, but all the tracks were converted to MDLP - low bitrate -.- I think this is unacceptable because I love the sound quality of CD, which is 1411 kbps. At least, it should be Hi-SP - 256 or 352 kbps (the different between CD quality and file's is acceptable)

Okie donkey, Hi-MD show time! But ... I can handle only 4 tracks (6-7 mins each) in both 256 and 352 kbps (Sonicstage 4.3 can convert files to lower bitrate, but < 256 kbps is unfavorable one, especially with a MD, designed for true sound audio). Now, I can play with 4 tracks only. So, what should I do now? IMHO, I think a Sony Hi-MD 1GB is indeed fit the place.

The disk I have now is Maxell plain style 80(min). It can handle the LP pretty well. As I said, 18 tracks ... lo-fi.

I suppose that there are many gurus here had experienced the 1GB and it can store well the 256, 352 or PCM. Well, if my music files are 6-7 mins each, originally PCM, and converted to 256 kbps, How many minutes (or songs) can 1 GB disk handle? The same question with 352 and PCM.

Ah ... btw, is there any discomfort when listening to 256 kbps on MD and PCM on CD player? I know the comparison is awkward here, but ... is it too much different?

But it's a funny experience ... I am starting to love my MD and the complicated down/uploading steps it creates

Okie! That's all my question (for now ). Searching for the pleasure ...

[archmonde11]

I decided to take a try on MD. About 1 year ago, I supposed that portable players can not create a good sound until the day I listened to a song played on a MD connected to speakers. The sound is as good as playing a CD. And it's true that over here, people prefer some vivid, multi-functional, fancy stuffs and their appearance than the performance and it's true value. Consequently, Ipod and some other "noodle" music players is prefered and Mp3 dominates. MD, classical music and so on ... are just for old men (or audiophiles )

[sfbp]

I recently posted some extensive discussion on LP4, no less (66kbps). As I believe that in most cases for portable listening, all you really need is LP2, I recommend you take a look at some of my posts recently (rather than having me rant on and on in your thread). Welcome to MD!

summary: unless you have EAC or something that does a really good job of ripping, relying on Sony's highspeed ripping of CD to WAV, followed by transcoding to almost any bitrate, really doesn't work. However using Sony's software to transcode (convert) directly to LP2, or coding VIA the intermediate form of Atrac Advanced Lossless (AAL) to the bitrate of your choice, seems to work rather nicely. If you have only 80m disks this advice becomes important rather quickly!

Stephen

[Azureal]

Hello and welcome archmonde11,

Regarding your questions about MD/HiMD formatting.

You are correct, this is a choice of the format placed on the disc. The original MD format using MDLP (ATRAC3 CODEC compression options) was designed for storage of 80 minutes of music at 292Kbps (SP mode) very good sound quality, but limited duration and capacity, 160 minutes of music at 132Kbps (LP2 mode) decent sound quality but with compression artifacts being more obvious or 320 minutes of music at 66Kbps (LP4 mode) so-so sound quality, not acceptable to some.

With HiMD, you are able to place the HiMD format on an older 80 minute disc, the HiMD format allows for the storage of higher duration of source material. The comparison is not apples to apples because Sony began stating the capacity of a disc in MB or GB versus minutes of storage space.

An 80 minute disk prepared with HiMD format has access to the newer ATRAC3plus compression options as well as the original ATRAC3 options. Using ATRAC3 you can store approximately 5 hours LP2 and 10 hours LP4, using the newer ATRAC3plus CODECs for compression, an 80 minute disc prepared with HiMD format can store approximately 2 hours 30 minutes of 256Kbps (Hi-SP), 10 hours of 64Kbps (Hi-LP). There are some other ATRAC3plus CODEC options as well, however some cannot be transferred to MD regardless of the format placed on the disk.

Using a 1GB HiMD disc, which can only be formatted using the HiMD format, you can store many more hours of ATRAC3 and ATRAC3Plus content. The disc is has roughly 3.25 times the capacity of an 80 minute disc and can hold around 8 hours of ATRAC3plus 256Kbps (HiSP) which is great. It can also store around 16 hours of ATRAC3 132Kbps (LP2).

PCM can be stored on both disk types as well, although at the cost of capacity. An 80 minute HiMD formatted disc can store around 30 minutes of PCM, a 1GB HiMD disc can store around 94 minutes of PCM.

I personally use new old stock 80 Minute MD disks in two modes, optical recording of SP (292Kbps) straight to disc for fantastic sound quality, but only 80 minutes of storage (same as CD). I also frequently use two other combinations of format and CODEC. 80 minute MD prepared with HiMD format using ATRAC3plus HiSP (256Kbps) for about 2.5 hours per disk with great sound quality as well as 80 minute MD prepared with HiMD format using ATRAC3 LP2 (132Kbps) for about 5 hours per disk with decent sound quality.

I own around 10 HiMD discs but find that I do not use them often.

Have fun figuring it all out, the RH1 is a sweet unit, I love mine and use it nearly every day.

[archmonde11]

@sfbp: Pardon me if I made you discomfort but the number of thread in forum is too many and I may skip your thread while surfing on too much information. I will find and read them carefully. To your reply, I think LP2/ 132kpbs is not sufficient as the sound quality is changed too much. And because I love CD sound, I ripped my CD by EAC 0.95 with Samsung DVD-RW (gonna be replaced by Plextor's, I'm finding a suitable one). Thanks for your reply and help.

@Azureal: Thank you for your advice and guide. It's a great help to me as I know a lot more about my MD and its specs. The "confusion" forum appears to me in a clearer way now.

[sfbp]

To your reply, I think LP2/ 132kpbs is not sufficient as the sound quality is changed too much.

I think you will be surprised if you follow my recommendations.

Added: by way of confirmation I just took the first disk I ever made at 352 kbps (A 1GB disk). This was made by ripping from CD to PCM (1411 kbps) format in SonicStage and seemed at the time very nice. I recall trying out different bit rates (by transcoding that to LP2 for instance) when I first got a HiMD portable about 3 years ago. On that basis I discarded LP2 (and of course LP4) as viable listening media.

Knowing what I now know, I just repeated the process with the intermediate step being AAL (352kbps import setting), and the destination LP2 (132kbps). Amazing! Not only does the complete set of 4 CD's fit on a single 80m disk (formatted as HiMD of course) with room to spare (I could have used a 74, I think), but the quality is great.

The music encoded was the complete Chandos Anthems (Handel) recorded by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen (see here for disk #1). Total of 4hrs 04m. This is a pretty good test, as it includes loud choral passages with fair size orchestra (alright, I know it's not Mahler) as well as solos, with the usual complement of strings, trumpet, organ - most of the sounds that might have been considered problematic in any analogue transcription 10 years ago. The dynamic range is terrific, quiet passages seem noise-free (and rests are absolutely silent), loud passages are undistorted.

I have yet to hear a serious flaw. I am a choral singer (and will be singing something similar by Handel in a few weeks) and I swear to you what I am listening to is not significantly different from actually being in the middle of such a chorus.

So I seriously question the talk of 352kbps. Logically some pretty discerning listeners were happy with SP (292kbps) 10 years ago just before MDLP, Type-S and HiMD were introduced at all. It is not entirely unreasonable to suppose that improvements in coding over the following 5 years might mean that technology using roughly half the data rate (LP2) could match that.

[Azureal]

It is not entirely unreasonable to suppose that improvements in coding over the following 5 years might mean that technology using roughly half the data rate (LP2) could match that.

This is one reason I am so disappointed that there is no way to transfer ATRAC3plus 128Kbps onto an MD. I think it would be the perfect combination of space to SQ. Any idea why there are a few such ATRAC3plus endoding levels which cannot be transferred to disc?

Stephen, regarding the additional information in your post, I have also read all of your other details of LP4 use as well, and I look forward to having the time to test it out for myself. The music I listen to is different in nature from what you are encoding and i'll be interested to see if I can produce acceptable results in the same fashion which you have accomplished.

Have you made a comparison between ATRAC3 LP4 (66Kbps) and ATRAC3plus HiLP (64Kbps), both stored on a HiMD formatted disc? If so, what is your opinion of that comparison?

As for archmonde11's desire to reproduce the highest quality CD like sound on MD, IMHO, he should stick with SP on MD formatted discs, HiSP on HiMD formatted discs, or PCM on 1GB HiMD discs.

[sfbp]

Have you made a comparison between ATRAC3 LP4 (66Kbps) and ATRAC3plus HiLP (64Kbps), both stored on a HiMD formatted disc? If so, what is your opinion of that comparison?

I know that my LP4 compilations sound great transferred to a HiMD.

I have not messed with Hi-LP at all. But I wouldn't a priori expect good results. Having said that, I recall buying a second hand unit (NH600D) complete with the owner's collection of MDs and being surprised how reasonable they sounded. Not my music, so I didn't expend time critiquing the sound.

I would probably want to try recording real-time HiLP as a test, rather than downloading.

So far I am working on the theory that the real-time recording is better than the transcoding (although it may depend what substrate the transcoding started from, as hinted in my post above). The second factor may be the digital filtering Avrin has referred to. If you transcode in stages it may actually be better than going direct - perhaps what happens is the high frequencies don't use up audible bandwidth (this way).

Perhaps Hi-SP (on hard disk) to Hi-LP might work. I really don't know. There are soooo many untried combinations and possible ways to do things, I tend to stick to one set of steps I know to work, and run with it for a while. After all, the source quality can be so variable, you cannot assess what you started with unless you do approximately the same thing to each piece of sound. Make any sense? It took me about 2 years to turn full circle on the LP modes, just because I didn't have the methodology down.

Stephen

[archmonde11]

well, all the thing started to be complicated *again*.

@Sfbp: ok, I can see that by using LP2/132 kbps, you saved a lot of space while the sound quality is still remained in *great* condition. Living in the MP3 era, I'm indeed a anti lo-kbps music, and I think I've brought that opinion to atrac format. MP3 + lo-bitrate = a ruined music piece, and maybe that wrong opinion is used here. I think I need to change that thought gradually, first by using a reasonable kbps or I may be shocked by a lo-fi music piece (to me, a lo-bitrate MP3 on my instrumental music is a catastrope).

@Azureal: I think I will stick with Hi-SP for a while as the bitrate seem a reasonable number (forgive me, I'm MP3-obsessed) and the storage capacity fit me as well. Nearly all the music files that I want to bring along (for now) when I'm not at home are fitted on two 80 ones. Since all my blanks are 80 and it's pretty difficult to get 1GBs here, I will use Hi-SP on formatted-80 as my temporary bitrate and I may lower/raise the bitrate to extent the capacity/quality (depend on my future pattern). BTW, I think that my NH1 battery will not last that long (4h4min as sfbp result - even though it's noted that NH1 battery lasts for 17h with LP2, I won't believe it) so LP2 will just help me not to bring some extra disks and change them often. About PCM, I'm not expect to reproduce it on a portable player now, so if I have such high demand, I will use my CD player system. Btw, I feel that a PCM should be played with a speaker, not a headphone (even with a good one).

[sfbp]

One (quite) small consideration about bitrate selection is that the higher the bitrate, the more power you use. This is well documented in the battery specs (see the equipment browser here).

I'm sure 132kbps ATRAC is way better than 128K MP3. I wouldn't go so far as to put an equivalence, but I was underwhelmed by 192kbps MP3 the one time I tried.