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It's been a while! Reasons why MD is still viable ...

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Yep, I haven't posted for a while, but I'm still 'investing' in minidiscs!

After some other 'excursions' I thought that I'd share some knowledge (well, that worked for me!).

I've gone through many dap's now, and headphones, and amps ... my findings are:

1. the output amp is MOST important! (ok, presuming that the headphones are at least reasonable).

- I find that only 'wide-dynamic range' headphone amps can start to hide low bitrate (LP2,4) artefacts, from a listening experience point of view.

2. ALL dap's are all a muchness (i.e. good enough) in terms of sound-quality (as a line-out) nowadays.

3. crossfeed is a good idea (but not essential).

I know that the above revelations may seem 'lame' but so much of the discussion on this forum is about sound quality of the MD vs. daps (and its demise) that I now feel that the FORMAT itself was not really to blame - perhaps sony designed and tested it all with the very best amps in order to refine their algorithms :shok:

What do you all think out there? Agree?

Whatever, enjoy MD's, I am!

BTW, I'm still interested in downloading an ATRAC 1.0 recording ... doesn't anybody out there have an MZ-1 (or R2 say)? :( (I'd love to know how good sony's first attempts were.)

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BTW, I'm still interested in downloading an ATRAC 1.0 recording ... doesn't anybody out there have an MZ-1 (or R2 say)? :( (I'd love to know how good sony's first attempts were.)

Me too, I´ve never heard an ATRAC 1.0 encoding. It would really be nice if someone could record something with an MZ-1 and post it here. If it´s really that bad 30 seconds of material should suffice (so that it stays legal). This is a great suggestion btw...

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Yep, I haven't posted for a while, but I'm still 'investing' in minidiscs!

After some other 'excursions' I thought that I'd share some knowledge (well, that worked for me!).

I've gone through many dap's now, and headphones, and amps ... my findings are:

1. the output amp is MOST important! (ok, presuming that the headphones are at least reasonable).

- I find that only 'wide-dynamic range' headphone amps can start to hide low bitrate (LP2,4) artefacts, from a listening experience point of view.

2. ALL dap's are all a muchness (i.e. good enough) in terms of sound-quality (as a line-out) nowadays.

3. crossfeed is a good idea (but not essential).

I know that the above revelations may seem 'lame' but so much of the discussion on this forum is about sound quality of the MD vs. daps (and its demise) that I now feel that the FORMAT itself was not really to blame - perhaps sony designed and tested it all with the very best amps in order to refine their algorithms :shok:

What do you all think out there? Agree?

Whatever, enjoy MD's, I am!

BTW, I'm still interested in downloading an ATRAC 1.0 recording ... doesn't anybody out there have an MZ-1 (or R2 say)? :( (I'd love to know how good sony's first attempts were.)

Welcome back, good to see your continued interest in MD :-)

Ah, the voice of experience - I respect that over most other things in life.

1. Agree - and am I right in assuming the output amp in a typical Sony MD player/recorder is part of what makes the sound much "fuller" and richer compared to a typical DAP?

Can you explain more about what you mean by "wide dynamic band" headphones - do you mean those with rated frequency stats or do you just mean quality headphones like Grado-brand ones?

2. All the ones I have ever owned have been. Not really used "expensive" ones like iPod Classic though.

3. No idea what you mean by crossfeed, sorry.

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Can you explain more about what you mean by "wide dynamic band" headphones - do you mean those with rated frequency stats or do you just mean quality headphones like Grado-brand ones?

3. No idea what you mean by crossfeed, sorry.

- yep, I put that phrase in quotation marks; I think I mean '(frequency) spectrally-precise' :mega_shok: amplifiers optimised for headphone use; 'wide' meant precise in the frequency domain, dynamic meant precise in amplitude, 'band' implied also high bandwith. :lazy: also, dual mono's give a final touch (in stereo separation, if not cross-feeding). BTW. I should have said "external amplifiers" - none of my MD's have sufficient power to drive my larger headphones accurately - when not out-and-about, of course!

- (3) crossfeeding to simulate external speakers on headphones.

All in all, though, I'm trying to say that to perfect the end of the chain makes the encoding shine; I'm not an authority on the technics, so am using language poetically in the hope that I might be right!. Anyway, I am now convinced by ATRAC SP musically, on my arrangement; and need no more (stereo) encoders!

With Regards,

mdmad :hi:

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1. Agree - and am I right in assuming the output amp in a typical Sony MD player/recorder is part of what makes the sound much "fuller" and richer compared to a typical DAP?

Yep, for smaller phones, I haven't found a better output amp on-board than my MDs; albeit, I can't afford a COWON to compare. :(

maybe Jimma who own a very special MD :

I second that! go on Jimma, do a rapidshare! pleeeaase! :good: (if convenient).

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