I had written,
T> That was argued greatly to no conclusion in alt.audio.minidisc.
Rick asked,
W> Really!?
Well, yes. In fact, I think the leader of the no-reATRACking faction was a
member of MD-L, but don't bet on that. The leader of the reATRACking faction
was not.
T> [T]he other side held that since daisy-chained recordings didn't add
T> SCMS generations and one SCMS-penultimate source could be recorded
T> to any number of daisy-chained recorders, all producing SCMS-final
T> copies but none refusing to record, Sony would not pass up a chance
T> to discourage the practice by spoiling the results with additional
T> ATRACking.
W> They say "pass up the chance" as if Sony Electronics 1) likes SCMS and
W> 2) could arrange it by adding a few wires.
"Pass up the chance" was my recount of the story; I doubt that any of the
reATRACking faction used those exact words.
T> I suggested that people do listening tests; nobody did
T> except me, and with my tin ears I couldn't tell the difference.
W> Congratulations for making the effort David. You see though, nobody
W> wants to leave their desk :-), fortunately you can check the
W> schematics from your browser.
Thank you, Rick, but part of the problem was that it would take a string of
decks daisy-chained together, requiring several people to pool their equip-
ment in one location. After all, since most people cannot really tell an
uncompressed signal stored on CD or DAT from a first-generation MD copy,
any claim to hear a difference between the input and output of a single
deck that was monitoring or recording could be dismissed as psychological:
there would have to be enough decks daisy-chained that, if the reATRACking
faction were right, the signal would deteriorate noticeably to anybody's
ears.
Not yet owning a stripper, I took an SCMS-unlimited CD and copied as follows:
CD player->MD1 (saved as disc A)
MD1->MD2
MD2->MD3
MD3->MD4 (saved as disc B)
MD1->MD2
MD2->MD3
MD3->MD4
MD1->MD2
MD2->MD3
MD3->MD4
MD1->MD2
MD2->MD3
MD3->MD4 (saved as disc C)
and then this way, starting with disc A, with MD recorders 2 and 3 just
monitoring:
MD1->MD2->MD3->MD4 (saved as disc D)
MD1->MD2->MD3->MD4
MD1->MD2->MD3->MD4
MD1->MD2->MD3->MD4 (saved as disc E)
So the recordings on disc A, disc B, and disc C were known to have been
through ATRAC once, four times, and thirteen times respectively. If the
pass-through signal was not reATRACked, disc D should sound like disc A and
disc E like disc B; if it was, disc D should sound like disc B and disc E
like disc C.
But I couldn't detect a difference between disc A and disc C, even when I
knew which was playing, so of course I couldn't tell what to make of disc D
or disc E.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word
"unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
