netmd downloader models sound quality

[netmduser]

Is it fair to say the netmd downloader only models have the same sound quality as other models? You only need 1 unit that can record with line in etc. The rest can be downloader only models.

Example n420d ne410 etc.

They play sp discs fine.

[sfbp]

I will do some listening tests with my NE410 and get back to you. I have a feeling the lowest models may have had some other corners cut, but who knows? The DN430 is a fine piece of equipment. But it and the NE410 both lack wired remote capability.

Added: I note the 410 does have the same main chip as the top-of-range 910, meaning it is Type-S. The main defect IMO was the supplied headphones had a jack that was not gold-plated. Right there is probably the single biggest route to a bad listening experience.

So far, it sounds nice. But will give it a good day's listening. I'll never forget my iPod-toting son trying the 410 with some classical chamber music and immediately commenting "Holy C**p".

[netmduser]

Thanks sfbp for checking into this for me. I have various models available to test. Would an NE410 sound different form Hi-MD 600D model?

If you could also point out how someone would go about evaluating sound from different models. Is there a good commercial cd or recording I could get to that you could recommend for this?

[sfbp]

Each of the different generations seems to use a different means to get from the chip to headphones. Study of the circuit diagrams will probably tell you better than me what to expect. In some cases (early models) there are separate D->A. In the HiMD there are some with digital amps, some with analog amps. To complicate things further different revisions of chips have special output for headphones right on the chip (eg the RH910, which is one of my favourite). The RH1 changes the game again by having special logic for the sound engine (including the dynamic Normalizer).

Really I am not the expert. You might get a more intelligent technical comment out of Avrin, but I haven't seen him here for a while.

It's purely subjective, but I get the impression that borderline recordings do better on playback when there is only one analog step. So I am playing with an opera that I made a CD of, copied at x4 using combo deck, to LP2. It sounds quite bad in places, but now I have to go back and check if the CD->MD step was the cause.....

Starting from distortion you can get anything. Starting from perfect sound you may or may not get distortion.

In terms of what to listen to, I know many afficionados listen to percussion instruments carefully. However for my purposes (there's not that much percussion in most classical tracks), I tend to listen to:

- solo instruments especially high in the register, such as trumpet, oboe.

- sustained passages by 'cello. Make sure there are absolutely no glitches in the long notes.

- solo voices especially any passage where the singer is "blastissimo" sustained (eg Pavarotti belting it out) or any very quiet passage high in the soprano voice.

- piano either on its own or in chamber music (small group) or in a concerto. Each different.

- human speech (mind you this is often bad at source, so be careful before drawing any conclusions).

Any sound which is smeared (Lots of violins playing together using vibrato, or a large vocal chorus) there are lots of overtones some of which can sound like distortion and some of which cancel - so that's not really a good test IMO.

Now, back to my test - I have the same two models as you. The problem was definitely in the source. I will try and see if it is better with x1 copying using the CD-MD deck. Download from AAL to 256kbps (NH600D) sounds much better on the passage that was causing trouble. As I say it wasn't great to begin with but that's the test, to try something borderline and see what the system (or conversion) does with it.

Stephen

[sfbp]

Well..... it's not clear from my experiment. I think the overall view is that the LP conversions work fine when the original doesn't have distortion of any kind, but that the codec gets caught up transcoding the distortion as real sound when going to lower bitrates.

I tried several things:

1. hispeed CD->MD in combo deck.

2. normal speed ditto ditto.

3. 256K HiSP (from AAL) using Sonic Stage.

4. LP2 "netMD export" (from AAL) using Sonic Forge 9.

3 is the best. 2 is not significantly better than 1. 4 is in between, maybe there are some smarts in there we don't understand.

I have seen the same effect trancoding old videotapes. The worse the recording, the higher bitrate you need to make it sound right. Maybe this is the end of the great LP4 debate, too.

Stephen

[netmduser]

How does the CD sound when you play it? I don't understand how the MD could sound that much different due to transcoding?

Commenting on your sons I-Pod I still don't understand why minidisc sounds better than mp3 players. I have several mp3 players and always prefer minidisc. Mp3s sound thin, on minidisc the same music sounds richer.

[sfbp]

How does the CD sound when you play it?

Sounds fine.

I don't understand how the MD could sound that much different due to transcoding?

It's exactly the transcoding which trashes it. My thinking is that what happens is too many bits are used to encode the garbage and not enough for the signal you want to hear.

Commenting on your sons I-Pod I still don't understand why minidisc sounds better than mp3 players. I have several mp3 players and always prefer minidisc. Mp3s sound thin, on minidisc the same music sounds richer.

Time to take a look at the frequency response. There's not much at either end of the spectrum. It's possible to compensate for it, a bit, but you will never be satisfied with MP3->WAV. Whereas ATRAC->WAV, even from relatively low bitrates, sounds :balanced: (can't think of a better word).

[sfbp]

I have now listened to the opera in question all the way through again. It's clear that the "problem passage" was just that. Most of it is fine at LP2, though I do tend to "cheat" and play it back on my RH910 which has the most luxuriant sound of all.

As I said before, garbage in, garbage out, and since the problem was in the original there's almost nothing I can do about it, except leave the whole thing uncompressed, sigh. Right now I prefer to put up with 30 seconds of "bad patch".

[THIS SUCKS]

How does the CD sound when you play it? I don't understand how the MD could sound that much different due to transcoding?

Commenting on your sons I-Pod I still don't understand why minidisc sounds better than mp3 players. I have several mp3 players and always prefer minidisc. Mp3s sound thin, on minidisc the same music sounds richer.

lp2 sounds very different from the original for certain types of music! Its easy to hear...

[sfbp]

If by "different types" you mean different original source quality, yes I agree 100%.

But currently I am leaning to the idea that if the original is good, then the compressed version will be good too. Sort of like the example I gave on compression of transcoded old VHS videotapes - the larger the file, the better, when the source has problems, as in my recent opera example.

Perhaps you didn't follow the discussion on LP4 that I contributed to. Started out not quite sure why some LP4 recordings are as good or better than other recordings at higher data rate. Frequency cutoffs notwithstanding, it's clear (to me, can't speak for anyone else) that many recordings sound great (and un-artifacted) with the proper mastering. Avrin talked about this business of digital filters even for CD-quality stuff.

I have tested a very wide range of different sounds that I expected to be tripped up on LP4, and were not. The really surprising one, I posted recently was some very loud organ music.

Stephen

[netmduser]

I didn't realize you had many portables. How would you compare the NE410 sound with HI-MD 600D with ATRAC or ATRAC3 (not 3+)?

[sfbp]

I didn't realize you had many portables. How would you compare the NE410 sound with HI-MD 600D with ATRAC or ATRAC3 (not 3+)?

I think the biggest thing I noticed was the NE410 came with very cheap headphones, not goldplated contacts on the jack - noisy, and I thought possibly might have coloured my view of it initially. Like everyone else I was frustrated at the lack of features, as it was my first portable.

Recent comparisons showed it worked quite well, and stood up to just the comparison you mention.

[Arr-Nine-Hundred]

Is it fair to say the netmd downloader only models have the same sound quality as other models?

No because not all Net-MD download-only models had the Type-S or Type-R feature. Type-R will encode SP recordings better than non-Type-R and Type-S (which includes Type-R) will also improve playback of LP2/4.

An example of a Type-S Net-MD download only model is the MZ-N710.

More info: http://opticalgarbage.com/minidisc/type-sr.html

For the dedicated recorder/fan, with the help of online auction sites it's possible to have multiple inexpensive recorders and players - keep a Type-S for playback and Type-R or S for recording. I personally have an N510 for recording (Type-S) and E505 for playback (Type-S).

[Ral-Clan]

No because not all Net-MD download-only models had the Type-S or Type-R feature. Type-R will encode SP recordings better than non-Type-R and Type-S (which includes Type-R) will also improve playback of LP2/4.

An example of a Type-S Net-MD download only model is the MZ-N710.

But what does it matter if the downloader has a Type-S or Type-R chip since all the encoding to ATRAC is done in the SonicStage or Simple Burner software on the PC *before* downloading the song to the MD-portable walkman? I do not think the USB connected portable MD unit does any of the ATRAC encoding internally (can someone confirm or refute this authoritatively?)

[sfbp]

Type-R, yes, you are right if the unit doesn't have a white socket. Type-S, no I don't agree. Still matters on playback.

Interestingly many members are coming to the conclusion that optical in is the soundest way to get good recordings. Possibly true but compressing sound properly and downloading works too. The trick is to find out exactly which transcoding steps work, IMO.

Cheers

[Arr-Nine-Hundred]

But what does it matter if the downloader has a Type-S or Type-R chip since all the encoding to ATRAC is done in the SonicStage or Simple Burner software on the PC *before* downloading the song to the MD-portable walkman? I do not think the USB connected portable MD unit does any of the ATRAC encoding internally (can someone confirm or refute this authoritatively?)

For NetMD functions then yes you are right the encoding is done in software (and therein lies another issue as I believe software encoded LP2 is inferior to recording done in other ways). But Type-S improves playback so there is a difference there. Also NetMD software does not encode SP (I think) so there are benefits to be had from the Type-R feature when recording in SP.

It's a convenience versus strict quality argument.