Hi-MD deck owners wanted

[PhilippeC]

On tapeheads.net forum a guy called R.Daneel should be sincerely and warmly welcome on this MD forum as MD specialist. Just have a look on his posts on this topic : http://www.tapeheads.net/showthread.php?t=7049

<<From my experience with minidisc technology, I can say I got better results when recording in standard Atrac format than in LPCM. There couls be many reasons for that - mentioned hardware designs, only 16bit resolution and the major differences in the decks used. There are no HI-MD high-end decks! there are many fantastic std-MD decks and a deck like Sony ES series will beat that Onkyo regardless of it's LPCM ability.>>

Reading that, I ask myself if he is true.

Does our good standard decks in SP mode sound better that an Onkyo Hi-MD deck even in LPCM mode ? Meaning that the quality of deck is everything, exactely like LP turntables or CD players...

The Wizzzzzzzzzzzard is wanted... but essaye quand m

[philippeb]

I second R. Daneel.

Here is another important quote from the same post:

"To my ears, best sound on minidisc can be obtained using a standard Atrac codec at 292kbps and recording done via analog inputs. If a md deck is a good quality with Atrac type-R processing and 24bit inputs such as the Sony mds-jb930, then it is way better to record via analog inputs."

I agree 100%, from my experience with the JA333ES.

[PhilippeC]

I second R. Daneel.

Here is another important quote from the same post:

"To my ears, best sound on minidisc can be obtained using a standard Atrac codec at 292kbps and recording done via analog inputs. If a md deck is a good quality with Atrac type-R processing and 24bit inputs such as the Sony mds-jb930, then it is way better to record via analog inputs."

I agree 100%, from my experience with the JA333ES.

Yes but he spoke about what ? An analog recording from a LP compare to a CD of the same album ? I don't have LP here in Vietnam. Only Flac files downloaded from torrent files (last ones 24bit-96kHz recordings, Linn and Chesky records) or original CDs or CD burnt from Flac files. I record my MDs in real time from my computer with my MZ-N510 or with my JB980 deck. So, in what case exactly are your recordings better with an analog source ?

[sfbp]

Funny, I was discussing this yesterday. The point (made to me) is that ATRAC has a wider dynamic range than LPCM. It's actually BETTER at dealing with sound, because essentially a floating-point rather than integer representation of the signal.

Make sense?

[PhilippeC]

Funny, I was discussing this yesterday. The point (made to me) is that ATRAC has a wider dynamic range than LPCM. It's actually BETTER at dealing with sound, because essentially a floating-point rather than integer representation of the signal.

Make sense?

Make sense for what kind of Atrac exactly, SP 292kbps ? LPCM is also worse than Hi-MD Atracs like the 352kbps ? I am a little bit confused tonight (for me) after all my tests on my 20 non-recordings, see my other topic). We talked also about the analog input feature, better than numerical input, if the source is 24bit ? Huuuummm, time to quit my computer and to get by myself.

[sfbp]

For ALL ATRAC.

[philippeb]

Yes but he spoke about what ? An analog recording from a LP compare to a CD of the same album ? I don't have LP here in Vietnam. Only Flac files downloaded from torrent files (last ones 24bit-96kHz recordings, Linn and Chesky records) or original CDs or CD burnt from Flac files. I record my MDs in real time from my computer with my MZ-N510 or with my JB980 deck. So, in what case exactly are your recordings better with an analog source ?

All recordings (from FM radio, CD player, DVD player, digital TV, or from another MD deck) sound better to my ears when performed via the analog inputs of the JA333ES (rather than digital inputs).

[sfbp]

That's because (probably) the ADC on the deck performs a reduction to 24-bit floating precision rather than 16-bit fixed. I noticed this improvement with my very first MD deck, the MDS-JE510, sadly departed this world now.

But for sound that's already digital, digi-in works wonderfully, for me. For example radio streams.

[paperclip]

.

[PhilippeC]

playing back through Winamp (24 bit out selected) and recording in real time via SP.

^

You can improve that 24bit recording using Asio4all or Kernel Streaming output audio drivers and the DFX audio enhancer for Winamp. Notice that if the sound is already quite excellent, DFX enhanced result could be worse than the original, just put it off.

[PhilippeC]

Since I only own lousy Onkyo Hi-MD decks & bookshelf systems that who knows has crippled SP compared to PCM?

Rare bird, the one with a good ES deck AND a Hi-MD deck... Any japanese member here ???

[paperclip]

Wiz:

Do you have any experience with Onkyo's CD player, the companion to the MD-133? I would like to know if it can do CD-RW and CD TEXT. If I can, I might part with my MXD-D400. I'm really liking the deck so far...

[paperclip]

,

[THIS SUCKS]

Thanks for the info on those decks, Wizard.

I've had the MD-133 for months now and am just getting around to using (and loving) it. I'm really excited about burning Hi-MD's at 352 kbps. Seems like the best way around the real-time shackles of SP. I'm looking at getting an Onkyo DVD player, but I can't find one that has 44.1 output to feed into the MD-133. I'd really like to try an Onkyo but if anyone can recommend a Sony CD changer or DVD to use with the MD stuff I'd like to try their recommendation out!

just get a usb optical adaptor for the computer and use winamp with wincue to put the spaces in. works great, digital transfers to sp and makes track marks too.

[sfbp]

Thanks for the info on those decks, Wizard.

I've had the MD-133 for months now and am just getting around to using (and loving) it. I'm really excited about burning Hi-MD's at 352 kbps. Seems like the best way around the real-time shackles of SP. I'm looking at getting an Onkyo DVD player, but I can't find one that has 44.1 output to feed into the MD-133. I'd really like to try an Onkyo but if anyone can recommend a Sony CD changer or DVD to use with the MD stuff I'd like to try their recommendation out!

The majority of new CD and DVD players have optical output.

I'm far from sure (from my own experiments) that 352kbps even beats 256 - and SP still has a nice "clean" sound to it that 256 doesn't beat. As explained elsewhere, the recording process is quite finicky - the success of the recording depends mainly on the "cutoff" frequency used for the mastering. If you have too many bits recording noise above 15kHz the resulting audible sounds won't be as good when using a lower rate codec. And so on. Remember, most analogue recordings (recording tape originally) didn't get much above 15k anyway, so you are simply playing a game with the noise bits. SP actually keeps the whole lot quite well balanced - so does MDLP, and even down to Hi-LP if you plan on portable listening.