gabsdad98 Posted May 26, 2004 Report Share Posted May 26, 2004 Sound quality question: Everybody talks about the amount you can record on on MD, but when you are recording at the highest compression, how is the quality of the music affected. Does is still offer a "richness" or is the sound "tinny"? Also I read that MP3's lose quality because of the Altrec process. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mAjEsTiC Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 LP4 sounds pretty crappy IMO...if u can avoid using it u should... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BJ Posted May 29, 2004 Report Share Posted May 29, 2004 Yeah, the box says 5 CDs on one MD, but I wouldn't do it. My girlfriend has a few MDs like that, and they sound like a barely-acceptable FM transmission. Not bad in the car with some road noise, but not something you can stand in headphones. I use LP2 for most of my stuff (almost 2.5 hours on one MD), and it's pretty slick. When I use a portable MP3 player for my MP3s (an iRiver, not a cheap machine) I hear artifacts once in a while, and it bugs me. Very rarely do I encounter any compression artifacts on my MDs, even at LP2. Having said that, I must state that (it could be my computer, but) I do hear more ATRAC artifacts when I use SimpleBurner or OpenMG/Sonic Stage to transfer music. I had a Gary Numan compilation I did completely through SimpleBurner, and I couldn't stand all the pops and clicks, so I re-recorded it in realtime on my stereo...solved that problem. So it may just be my computer. If you get picky (say you have a nice stereo and can compare the MD to the original CD in one sitting), you can hear a difference. The MD copy seems less full than the original. But without a direct comparison, it's hard to tell. MP3s do lose some quality, but again, without the original to compare your MD copy to, it's hard to tell the difference. If there's a Radio Shack near you, they may have a display you can fiddle with (but you'd have to bring your own MD). And if you REALLY want to mess around, download Sonic Stage or SimpleBurner and the NetMD driver (probably the NE410) onto a laptop, bring a few CDs and a CD-ROM drive, and rip a few discs onto a blank MD. Radio Shack salesmen are pretty indulgent (and bored), and will likely be interested in the process. Or, I suppose you could find someone to borrow an MD machine from... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.