Quality loss in solid state?

[topojijo]

I've had my n707 for about two weeks now and I'm glad to say it's been one of my smarter purchases for years. *cough Iomega hipzip . Ahem. :roll:

There are issues that still puzzle me, however.

USB tranfers via net MD are analogue transfers, so I've gleaned. Whereas USB tranfers through my old no-name mp3 player were what, perfect digital copies? Are there ever cases of quality degradation with mp3 players?

And also: What is cd quality anyway? 128kps, 256, whatever?

Thanks for clearing these up.

[Sugo]

That's not true. NetMD transfer is done bit by bit digitally.

[topojijo]

So net MD transfers are just as good as optical out transfers on my sound card?

[Sugo]

Thanks to sony, netmd is as complicated as vi ...

For LP2 and LP4, netmd should give the best quality.

But because netmd doesn't do real SP, recording off the optical out from soundcard will give you real SP. Of course, the sound card needs to be good in the first place.

[Andy]

But because netmd doesn't do real SP, recording off the optical out from soundcard will give you real SP. Of course, the sound card needs to be good in the first place.

If recording from soundcard->MD then it *can* be real SP, but it doesn't have to be (you could tell it to record as LP4). The sound card doesn't need to good though, if it has a digital out and there isn't so muh jitter that there are errors then the digital out of a $5 sound card (if it exists) would be identical to that of a $5000 sound card.

USB tranfers via net MD are analogue transfers, so I've gleaned. Whereas USB tranfers through my old no-name mp3 player were what, perfect digital copies? Are there ever cases of quality degradation with mp3 players?

As has already been mentioned, NetMD transfers are digital. What I think you are not understanding is that although the transfer is "perfect", what is actually being transferred is not perfect. The sound is compressed first, and this compresed version is transferred perfectly across. The compression process will lose some of the info in the sound, usually just stuff you can't hear though.

And also: What is cd quality anyway? 128kps, 256, whatever?

CD quality is about 1378 Kbps I think (2 * 16 / 44100 = 2 channels of 16 bit audio at 44100 samples per second). Yes, that is a lot larger than most mp3s or any MDs - that is why compression is used - otherwise it can be impractical to store a decent amount of music.

Now an mp3 at 1378 Kbps would probably be able to store higher quality stuff than a CD, but not necessarily - if the encoder thinks that some of the stuff there isn't going to be heard, then even a 1378 Kbps mp3 could lose it.

For your purposes though, most people agree that ATRAC (or SP - not done by a NetMD transfer though) is near-enough to CD quality (some people can hear the difference, many can't). For mp3s, the encoder makes a big difference, I believe the LAME encoder usually gives fairly good results, for stuff approaching CD quality, I think aiming for >300 Kbps is probably best. Of course, if you are the only person listening to stuff and you can't tell the difference between a 64 Kbps file and a 300 Kbps file, then go for the smaller one.

[Andy]

So net MD transfers are just as good as optical out transfers on my sound card?

Actually, a NetMD transfer can never be as good as an optical out transfer. NetMD is limited to LP2 quality (the SP mode is actually LP2 quality, just that it is stored in SP mode so older units can play it back)

[highlandsun]

Actually, a NetMD transfer can never be as good as an optical out transfer. NetMD is limited to LP2 quality (the SP mode is actually LP2 quality, just that it is stored in SP mode so older units can play it back)

In fact when NetMD is used to transfer an SP track it actually transmits uncompressed audio to the NetMD unit. The reason it is limited to LP2 quality is because Sony's software only stores music in ATRAC3 format. You can program the hardware directly and send uncompressed audio to the NetMD unit.

[Andy]

Any evidence to back that up? I'd be a lot more interested in NetMD if that was the case, since it would only be a software problem.