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Old atrac better than new? standard MD vs Hi-MD in Hi-SP mode

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multiwirth

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Hi there!
i just played around with my minidisc portables and started to record my vinyl collection to a single 80min standard MD in Hi-SP mode.
The recorder is a sony mz-rh910 and sounds excellent when recording in PCM mode (lossless).
Actually used this mode to rip some vinyl records to my Pc.
Unfortunately the 80min disk can only hold up to 28min of lossless audio so i decided to use the standard Hi-SP mode to create a mixtape.
But then i noticed, there´s a lot of artefacts from compression going on, noticeable at the beginning of the recording while there´s just noisy vinyl.
Comparing this to a recording done with my non Hi or net md capable Sharp MD SR50, there´s no such artefacts noise noticeable.
It just sounds like the source.

So i wonder, is the atrac at 292 kbit/s actually better than atrac3plus at 256 kbit/s ?
Seems a bit odd since atrac3plus should do a lot better.
It´s also sometimes noticeable when actual audio is present.
I made a mixtape by using wav audio from pc and transfered it to a minidisc by using compressed atrac and there wasn´t anything like this noticeable.

I just checked it in sonic stage and it actually used a bitrate of 352 kbit/s so even higher than the best mp3.
Is there actually a way to use a higher bitrate when recording directly from the line input of the recorder?
It´s just not satisfying and for PCM recording, well i only have one 1GB disk and a lot of standard MDs but don´t want to have one disk for 3 tracks and change the disk all the time.Unbenannt.thumb.PNG.5c68d2d0e71e092317d26e3a93db3bab.PNG

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Just had an interesting idea...
Recording with both devices at the same time.
And still, the Sharp made the better recording with old atrac in SP mode.
Also when playing the recorded disk from the sharp on the sony sounds just fine.
So either atrac3plus is crap or my unit has a bad encoding...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVXl_dAZcM4

 

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Although I lack experience with atrac3plus, I can say that I've had some very good results with both vinyl & cassette (esp. the latter) using 292, Type R, with a decent ADC in place, and straight to MD via A.In. I think a good number of MD users believe that 292 SP often results in quality MD recordings from an analog source. In fact, some prefer MD analog input to digital.

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Hi!

This is interesting since I've also been shifting between MD/SP and Hi-SP and haven't decided yet what to use.

For stationary use MD/SP is the only choice but while portable I would like to use Hi-SP, according to Sony it "should" be better;
atrac_roadmap.jpg?psid=1&width=774&height=594

Not the whole truth I would guess.

/Per

 

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5 hours ago, bluecrab said:

Although I lack experience with atrac3plus, I can say that I've had some very good results with both vinyl & cassette (esp. the latter) using 292, Type R, with a decent ADC in place, and straight to MD via A.In. I think a good number of MD users believe that 292 SP often results in quality MD recordings from an analog source. In fact, some prefer MD analog input to digital.

Well the original atrac actually seems to do a good job here aswell, the sharp recorder has an amazing sound anyways with a nice DAC and powerful headphone amplifier,
The sony isn´t even close to this so yeah if the 80min recording limit wouldn´t be, a amazing portable device.

1 hour ago, Perus said:

Hi!

This is interesting since I've also been shifting between MD/SP and Hi-SP and haven't decided yet what to use.

For stationary use MD/SP is the only choice but while portable I would like to use Hi-SP, according to Sony it "should" be better;
Not the whole truth I would guess.

/Per

 

I also thought it would be much better, even since youtube music nowadays uses 192 kbit/s for their streams (i guess aac or something) and sounds just fine.
But i don´t know, maybe other Hi-MD machines did a much better encoding job than mine since it shouldn´t have noticeable artefacts whatsoever.

I´ve uploaded an example (vlc player can play this file).
Can´t upload the file from my sharp though, you know sony won´t allow...
The artefacts are noticeable through my headphones, not so much from my hifi speakers.
At least at the beginning, but sometimes also noticeable while audio is playing.
NOT CD quality, only PCM recording matches CD audio but also takes a lot of disk space.

001-2021-05-06 21_10_21.oma

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14 hours ago, bluecrab said:

Although I lack experience with atrac3plus, I can say that I've had some very good results with both vinyl & cassette (esp. the latter) using 292, Type R, with a decent ADC in place, and straight to MD via A.In. I think a good number of MD users believe that 292 SP often results in quality MD recordings from an analog source. In fact, some prefer MD analog input to digital.

I am one of them.

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