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still a bit unsure about Hi-Md and MZ-NH900

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oluv

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i am planning to buy either a sony mz-nh900 or an I-Audio M3 mp3-player with 20GB.

i already owned a 20GB mp3-player for 1 month, and wasn't very happy with it. it was a kind of no-name brand, so i had firmware crashes quite often, the max. battery-life were ridiculous 5 hours, and the display got terribly scratched after only 2 weeks of use and i had lots of problems with returning this kind of crap.

now i was thinking if a hi-md player would be a nice alternative. i would have exchangable media, and exchangable battery with long battery-life, nice small design, and all the other features like, recording etc.

The MZ-NH900 would be my first choice, because it is cheaper than the MZ-NH1 and i can use AA Batteries with the battery case as well.

the problem of course is that i would have to encode my cds again. i was beginning to rip my favourite tunes and already have 7GB of mp3. i would need to carry around several minidiscs, to have the same amount of music, i would have with a 20g mp3-player.

my other concern is the audio-quality of atrac. although i have already read many postings regarding this topic and most of people ensure that HI-SP is nearly transparent, i would still like to hear some short samples demonstrating the difference of linear pcm and HI-SP.

i am usually listening to 192 or 256 kbps lame-encoded mp3-files and am very happy with it, and i assume HI-SP won't sound much worse, but i would like to hear this by myself. does anybody know if there are some short wav-files available that show the difference of atrac3+ audio and uncompressed music, maybe even in comparison to mp3 with the same 256kbps. if there is a link, it would be great to have a listen, as i didn't find anything until now.

another thing that makes me think is the "digital amp". i am not sure if such one is really cool, as i already saw a posting that was claiming the NH1 to sound bad even with linear-pcm.

and what about the 5mW output, or even 3mW for europe?! this is quite low i think. the mp3-player i had before had 50mW output and it was not too loud at all. i normally listened to 32-35 from 40. how loud does the NH900 sound?

i also want to use the sony mdr-ex7, but i know that these sound much softer than my usual headphones. has anyone heard the output of the NH900, is it loud enough? i mean sony already invented this stupid AVLS that always drove me mad with my previous cassette-walkman, maybe they are trying to do the same by limiting the volume-output?! why the difference for american and european market with 5mW and 3mW?!

i would be happy to read some opinion from a NH900 user, and maybe someone could share some short samples that compare atrac3+ with pcm or even compare the different atrac-modes.

maybe someone could help and clear some things up and help me with my decision to either try hi-md or stick with mp3.

many thanks!

o.

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i can clear up your output querie - the french have a law that doesnt allow for audio equipment to exceed a certain output. Because of this ALL sony european units follow this stupid law, thus the 3mW ouput. US, and the world do not have such fooking stoopid laws, thus the output can be what ever they want it to be.

THe high end model, nh1 has 5mW where ever it is sold, whether europe or US, hi-end units are except from the law.

Why Sony cant just make a French only unit is beond me?

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As for the audio quality

Download sonicstage from the links you will find in this forum and try encoding some of your fave tracks in the different bitrates & then play them back.

This will allow you to hear (if you use headphones rather than silly little PC speakers) the relative quality of the encoder and different bitrates

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thanks a lot for the replies.

i think i will have to test out in the store if the nh900 is loud enough.

and regarding atrac encoding: it didn't come to my mind that i can use sonicstage for this. i will try this out later, i am already quite curious about this. i was only a bit unsure, because i read some posting, where someone claimed that direct recording with the recorder through digital-in will sound better, than encoding with sonicstage. or is this only rumour?

thanks and best regards!

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Hi-MD is in its first generation. First generation products kinda suck.

Also, Sony has exceeded the boundaries of their insane DRMing of the last innovation to MD (NetMD) and have grown even more idiotic, if that is at all possible.

If you are looking for something to listen to music with, and don't have anything invested in MD (like blanks or MD home decks or whatever) I would go with a HDD MP3 player such as the iPod or the Creative Zen Touch. I lean toward the Zen Touch as I'm not overly fond of the iPod's aesthetics.

Both units have 50mW+50mW @ 16 ohms headphone amps. Both units have high storage capacity and are easy to use. The Zen is prettier though, imo. iPod uses FireWire to transfer music, Zen uses USB2.0. Both are fast, sleek, small, lightweight (relatively) units.

The reason MD units have low-output headphone amps and/or digital amps is power conservation. The HD Digital Amp in the Sony Hi-MD units is to save power (although the Auvi Digital Amp in Sharp MD units actually makes it sound better).

Btw, the Creative Zen Touch has a battery life of around 18-20 hours.

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"...Also, Sony has exceeded the boundaries of their insane DRMing of the last innovation to MD (NetMD) and have grown even more idiotic, if that is at all possible. '

In what way... other than the uploading issue (which is something that did not exist in any form with NetMD).

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" In what way... other than the uploading issue (which is something that did not exist in any form with NetMD).

Exactly that. I find it quite idiotic to add a feature and not to understand what that feature even is and thus find out that one has applied a feature that has no function at all.

Btw. there was uploading of songs to SS even in net-md except those that were recorded live because obviously the machine didn't apply copyright information with those recordings and no permission to upload either.

I find it quite ridiculous that they seem not to understand why people were crying after the feature: The upload of your own recordings.

There might have been an idea in SONY product planning section of how we could download our home / field recordings easily to the computer.. but then some other higher protective need will dictate and this feature will not be allowed to work as supposed. It will be just window dressing cause the feature is not actually there anymore.

They have kind of admitted this mistake by starting to build a tool for analogue line-in recordings. Why they have to admit this as a mistake? - Because their marketing section is as idiotic and gives wrong information and impressions of the new "versatile" Hi-MD, designed for note taking students and musicians

(but who deliberately will not be granted the permission to use their recordings!!!)

It seems that the innovations which could give too many people the freedom to create is a threat to their own big money productions. This is paradoxically exactly opposite than “go create”.

I know there is clever people working in SONY, but the structure of the company will affect so that they produce idiotic products (same way like Microsoft). Luckily SONY will never gain as much power in music industry to fulfil its idiotic plans and existence as a symbol of a capitalistic ideology.

mad.gif

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Agreed. The uploading thing is maddening and counterproductive (and I'm an amateur musician so that issue is important to me). But in terms of recording "commercially available" music - the restrictions are mostly gone - or at least are no more restrictive than other solutions.

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But in terms of recording "commercially available" music - the restrictions are mostly gone - or at least are no more restrictive than other solutions.

Not exactly... the devices still use ATRAC rather than MP3. Still means I have to transcode my music, or re-rip everything straight to ATRAC3. :whatever:

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But that's not really a DRM issue - that is a format issue. There are some advantages to ATRAC (the ability to edit files - split, combine, etc. - directly on the unit, for one). In an ideal world, MD would support both ATRAC and MP3. But I often wonder at what price. For example - fragmentation. I believe currently there is one large file on each disc, which negates the need for framenting the disc. I doubt MP3 would support that, nor would it support the things I mentioned above (I wouldn't think). It would also make for confusing documentation - akin to that for my Panasonic DVD recorder, which supports RAM and DVD-R, each of which support different functionality. But I think they have to go there, really.

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They don't really have to go there, mmp - the topic has just been bastardized by the media so much as of late that people are afraid to touch these new units - or any of Sony's music playing portables in general. I don't even like *.mp3 anyway, and I doubt that it'd really be that big of a deal if they DID support it. Now if they supported ogg or the like, that'd be a different story.

You're dead on about the single file, though.

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I recently bought a NH600 and so far it's been a big disappointment. It transfers music more slowly than the old Net MD, Hi-SP sounds significantly worse than what the old SP could deliver, battery life is worse, and you can accidentally make your recorded music unusable if you follow the onscreen prompt to unplug USB device. Turns out the manual says you should have ignored it. DUH!

Bottom line - if you are a MD diehard, stick with net MD. If you are a newcomer to the format - forget it

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"...the topic has just been bastardized by the media so much as of late that people are afraid to touch these new units - or any of Sony's music playing portables in general."

So true. The sad thing is - Sony more or less invented personal audio. I got into MD in 1999 - where was MP3 back then? I mean, it was around - but the devices really weren't.

I've read so much rubbish on this and other boards about MD that I really wish I could bring myself to stop looking at it. It just depresses me.

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in order to have a listen to atrac3+ i downloaded sonicstage2.0 and ripped some tracks for comparison.

first of all sonicstage is really clumsy, i had to fool around to find out how to simply convert tracks to atrac. and besides i have no idea why this stupid program has to use 36mb for installation. i don't like it at all!

then i did some abx tests and i must say that atrac3 132kbps sounds better than 128 kbps mp3 files encoded with lame/best quality. it sounds different though. although atrac has some problems with fast attacks, mp3 distorts the frequency more. i have a sample of an old jean michel jarre recording that has always been a killer, which clearly shows that atrac delivers better sound-quality in this case, whereas mp3 sounds terrible.

if someone is interested i could upload short wav-samples that demonstrate this.

atrac3+ 256kbps is very near to linear pcm and doing blind abx tests it's sometimes not easy to distinguish atrac from the original.

i would probably use atrac3+ 256kbps, but atrac3 132kbps files are nearly half that small, and the quality is not that bad at all. maybe i could consider even this one, because the difference to the original would be marginal with many recordings i have.

i would also like to test if there is a difference between files encoded directly within the md-player and encoded within sonicstage.

as conclusion i must say that the encoding quality depends a lot on the source. if i take modern recordings, that have a rich sound-spectrum with deep bass and exaggerated heights, these are more difficult to encode than more natural sounding recordings from the 70s or 80s, when they still didn't use exiters and enhancers and various sound-processing algorithms that excessively as nowadays.

in these cases you won't even hear much difference between atrac3 132 and pcm.

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as conclusion i must say that the encoding quality depends a lot on the source. if i take modern recordings, that have a rich sound-spectrum with deep bass and exaggerated heights, these are more difficult to encode than more natural sounding recordings from the 70s or 80s, when they still didn't use exiters and enhancers and various sound-processing algorithms that excessively as nowadays.  

in these cases you won't even hear much difference between atrac3 132 and pcm.

Totally agree. I have two Hayashibara Megumi albums (Iravati and Enfleurage) which were mastered in 1992-1996. I literally cannot tell the difference between PCM and LP2 (ATRAC3 132kbps) with these recordings.

I can, however, tell the difference (albeit slightly) with my Ueto Aya album "Message," which was mastered in 2004. My hearing's shot at high frequencies and high frequencies is what ATRAC seems to thrash badly. So even if it does gate the highs, I can't hear them anyway. :happy:

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I've read so much rubbish on this and other boards about MD that I really wish I could bring myself to stop looking at it. It just depresses me.

I know exactly what you mean. I put alot into shaping this forum because I've observed what such overzealous activity can do to a community. If we define what people want by giving them an unbiased opinion initally [instead of being blind and then having a mass enlightenment], put emphasis on the strengths of the format then it will truly succeed - at least to the niche group it can cater to, and the eccentrics. :rasp:

Oluv, I'm glad you've found peace with ATRAC3plus + co. I'm sure that if you do delve into the format you won't be totally discontent. I am glad you brought up ATRAC3/plus's ability to deliver alot in a small size - another perk to the format [but definitely not unique in that sense].

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I'll second what kurisu says. It's refreshing to see someone get into the codec on their own and form their own opinion-- because when it comes down to it, that's what's important-- what YOU think and how it sounds to you.

I'd like to see Hi-MD succeed and improve. It'd be sweet to eventually have a car deck, book shelve, etc-- gotta love that removable media wink.gif

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