Re: MD: HDMD?
--- las <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > If there is such a debate over the difference in quality between a > CD > and it's MD copy, why don't they use the same technology for Md > that > they use for the new HDCD? Are you really talking about HDCD - the extension to the Red Book CD format developed by Pacific Microsonics - or the higher-resolution digital formats like 24/96 PCM and SACD? HDCD supposedly encodes additional information within a pattern of least-significant bits on the CD, which is unpacked by a suitable decoder (or not, if you've got a regular player). My HDCDs sound very good indeed, but whether this is to do with this '20 bits into 16 will go' method or just careful recording and mastering isn't clear. > Funny, I really never heard any complaints aobut the quality of CDs > in > recent years, yet they still felt that they should improve them > even > more. I'm told that you can hear the difference. How much of this is politics and large companies trying to protect dwindling revenue streams, and how much is genuine 'progress' is unclear. DVD and its troublesome sibling DVD-A represents a major step towards high-fidelity multi-channel reproduction in the home (whether you want to go beyond stereo is another matter). SACD, to my cynical eyes, looks like Sony saying "hang on a minute", and trying to muscle in on the new money (those CD licences will expire soon) whilst responding to the calls of the music industry by deploying effective anti-piracy measures (doesn't SACD carry a physical watermark, at pit-level, whereas DVD-A's is buried in the data?). As for sound quality, the greater bandwidth and lower noisefloor of the new formats are something of a red herring (not entirely convinced I *need* playback over 25kHz, or dynamic range over 110dB), though they may well have genuinely beneficial side-effects like simpler filtering. The real deal is multi-channel from all that extra capacity. > If most people are happy with a regular CD then maybe an HDMD would > provide the quality to end the "how much better is the original CD" > debate? Well, 650Mb re-writable storage on an MD-sized disc has been possible for some time now, hasn't it? So, you could have an MD with no lossy compression whatsoever. Or, you could have an ATRACed DVD feed onto such a disc - maybe preserving the discrete multi-channel info? Of course, such things wouldn't work in the many thousands of MD units already in circulation... Mike. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MD: Sanyo unit: 50 quid in Dixons?
The Dixons branch in Welwyn (Hertfordshire, England... where I work) is closing in a few days for a refit, and, as a result, there are plenty of bargains to be in the realms of audio. One thing that really caught my eye was a sleek half-width silver MD unit, manufactured by Sanyo. The 'Manager's Bargain' card identified the item as a '007MD', though it actually looks as if it comes from one of their bookshelf systems. It's going for a mere gbp49.99 (ex-dem) - the cheapest MD unit I think I've ever seen (I don't think I've even seen early Sony portable players going for less than 55-60 quid on Tottenham Court Road). Now, this has all the appearances of a separate deck, but may well be next to useless for recording outside of the context of its bookshelf system. Can anyone shed any light on this (I couldn't see round the back of the unit; nor was it connected to the mains)? If it *does* have, at the very least, a TOSlink input and, hopefully, standard RCA ins/outs then it's a bargain - and would make a very nice cheap introduction to MD for someone. So, the Sanyo 007MD (or, more likely, the MD component in the X5CM system) anyone? Mike. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: CD quality compared to MD quality
--- Dan Frakes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Two speakers that are measured by equipment to have the exact same > specifications can sound remarkably different to human ears, even > in > controlled, double-blind testing. I'd be astonished if you could ever find two speakers (even a supposedly 'matched' stereo pair with adjacent serial numbers) that measure identically. The point is that it's almost *always* possible to measure differences - it's establishing at what point those differences become immaterial from an audibility point-of-view that's the tricky bit. Now, if a listener really does observe differences between components which measure so alike as to be predictably (from all we know about hearing thresholds) identical *to the human ear*, we should look for alternative explanations. Perhaps we haven't measured the right thing. Perhaps this observation has highlighted an electrical phenomenon not previously considered important in audio reproduction. Or (and this is usually the most likely explanation), the listener's observations are not entirely based up acoustic stimulus (i.e. it's a sighted observation, the listener knows the identity of the unit under test, the listener has been told that they're now listening to something different, etc). Double-blind tests aren't generally considered necessary for speakers, btw - the difference between different models are usually pretty gross. See also vinyl sources... > That's why audio magazines don't > just > publish measurements, and why we don't buy stereos by spec sheets. Absolutely - we *audition* them. Of course this typically involves straying away from the dictionary definition of that term and using our *eyes* as well as ears, so we may perceive differences where none (in the audible realm) exist. Those audio magazines do indeed include plenty more copy than just spec sheets - but how useful is any of their prose? How many of those conduct *proper* critical listening tests, free from non-aural bias? How many just seek to obfuscate and confuse with flowery subjective assessment (often riddled with a healthy dose of audiophile mythology), free from meaningful references? The British mag Hi-Fi Choice were in the habit of conducting some form of blind panel test for comparative reviews, but this practice would appear to have been dropped recently (frustratingly - just as they get their hands on some affordable DVD-A and SACD hardware!). So, yes - it's certainly not just about specs. If only for the reason that, contrary to what you say, specs show up differences between *everything*, while our ears are not nearly so sensitive (but are prone to other influences, unless we take steps to minimise their effect). Believe your ears - but your ears *alone*. Mike. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: CD quality compared to MD quality
--- PrinceGaz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Unless [a] I've completely misunderstood the principles of
> 'masking'
> > or [b] you're using an amp which really struggles to drive your
> > speakers at high volume, and fidelity decreases anyway.
>
>
> Maybe more like your ears being beaten into submission at high
> volume
> levels, I would have thought!
Perhaps, yes. The more I read the responses from Dan and Les (hi
guys!), the more I think we're just at cross-purposes regarding
working definitions of 'quiet' and 'loud'. I think of a system
playing "very softly" as one providing background music (at these
levels, I'm sure I'd struggle to distinguish cassette, LP and CD,
never mind MiniDisc), whereas "loud" to me is not PA levels, but more
like 85-90dB SPL ('C'-weighted) at the listening position. This is
loud as I ever dare play my system (yes, I know - what a shameful
waste of 125W Audiolab monoblocs...;). The SPLs I experience wearing
headphones are probably a lot higher - but, again, analytical
listening just isn't conducted at 'cranked' levels - it's more of a
visceral thing at that point. So, in that sense, perhaps Dan and Les
are right.
[I'm moving to a new flat in the next few weeks... good point: it's
away from the incessant traffic noise I've had to endure for the last
18 months; bad point: I'll have neighbours above and below. Back to
those headphones...]
Mike.
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Re: MD: CD quality compared to MD quality
--- Dan Frakes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > You can easily hear a whisper in a quiet room, or even in a room > with a > bunch of people talking softly, but in a noisy room you can't at > all. Not > the best analogy Well, not really an analogy at all. The whisper remains a whisper while the noise-level in the room goes up and swamps it. But here, we're talking about some kind of change in the character of the signal due to ATRAC (whether it's weird artefacts accompanying low bass, HF hash, loss of stereo imaging, whatever) - surely the louder the playback volume, the more apparent the deviation from the original reference? > if the artifacts of ATRAC > compression > are subtle, you may be able to hear them at low volumes but as the > music > gets louder it masks them. But you're raising the volume of the *whole* thing - surely the artefacts are preserved (rather than obscured) in this process. Unless [a] I've completely misunderstood the principles of 'masking' or [b] you're using an amp which really struggles to drive your speakers at high volume, and fidelity decreases anyway. I'm confused now. Mike. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: CD quality compared to MD quality
--- Les <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Try hooking up a JVC CD player in your system and compare that to > your NAD.. As I said earlier - all bets are off unless you compare like with like. In other words, the digital feeds from CD source and MD copy routed through the *same* DAC (and one that is good enough to be relatively immune to cable loading, jitter, etc). Without doing that we just can't say with any degree of confidence that the apparent degradation in sound quality is due to ATRACing alone (or even at all). > there > is near > zero difference when listening at any real volume at all. I'm still trying to get my head around this. If there are audible artefacts associated with ATRAC, how come they show up at low volumes, but all but vanish at high volumes? This seems pretty counter-intuitive. Mike. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: CD quality compared to MD quality
>Les <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>"Dan Frakes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>However, on >>higher-end >>systems (or even with very good headphones) the difference in >>sound >>quality between CD and MD is often immediately audible. > I would venture > to say > that if you had a Sony ES CD deck and A Sony ES MD deck you should > not be > able to so readily hear a difference. Well, there must be someone out there who could put this to the (level-matched, double-blind) test? The really tricky thing, of course, is comparing like with like. In order to know what difference ATRACing *alone* has made to the sound, we must play back the MD through the same DAC/reconstruction filter/analogue output stage as the CD. Now, I don't doubt Dan's experiences here, but I note he didn't say anything about a standalone convertor through which CD and MD playback was routed. If there are differences they could just as easily be explained away by a preference for the analogue electronics in the CD player over the MD player. I don't have a separate DAC either, so, while I can easily hear the quality differences between CD (Copland CDA266) and MD (Sony MDS-JE520, Sharp 701, JVC XM-P55), I can't be sure that they're down to the ATRAC algorithm alone. It's hardly night-and-day between the Copland and Sony; fill up some of that empty space in the 520 with the sort of high-end exotica found in the 266 and one would expect the gap to be narrowed significantly. So, anyone out there with a good DAC (good in this case = relatively immune to cable loading, source jitter issues) want to do some listening tests? Mike. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Edd's extra tracks
> From: David W. Tamkin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Another one is that the source CD's tracks are subdivided with > intra-track > > indices. The practice is rare, but the CD standard does support > it, and I > > faintly remember reading ages and ages ago on either this list or > its > prede- > > cessor that in an S/PDIF transfer an MD recorder will start a new > track at > > each intra-track index mark. Missed this post at the time. The intra-track marks are not replicated on the MD recording in my experience. I have a small handful of discs which employ this practice - one that I've very recently dubbed to MD was Autechre's "tri repetae", and none of the sub-divisions produced further track-marking. Little to add in response to the original poster's problem, other than to say that this has happened to me in the past and it was down to a faulty recorder (the Sharp 702's periodical problems when recording with the mains adaptor attached) and/or a dirty disc (each 'bad' sector skipped produced another track-mark, gradually reducing the capacity of the disc). Mike. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: JE520 transport mech repairs?
--- Alan Dowds <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Wow - Richer Sounds backdated the warranty? That's bloody fantastic > - did > you have to haggle hard or did they just offer? They just offered - it took me by surprise too. I don't know whether my off-the-cuff remark about this being the very first time I'd not bothered with their Supercare warranty (which was true - when I bought my first separates system from them 7-8 years ago, I paid the extra on everything) swayed the saleschap at all. What's more I've just had a phone call to confirm that my JE520 is already back - in just 7 days. > Now no-one on this list will buy an extended warranty - you just > wait till > the thing breaks, then pay the extra! If everyone tries it, they might revise their policy... ;) Regards, Mike. __ Do You Yahoo!? Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites. http://invites.yahoo.com/ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: JE520 transport mech repairs?
--- Simon Mackay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I would suggest not to scrap the 520 but to look towards buying a > 530 or > another secondhand 520 for your next MiniDisc deck. If a part > common to > either of these machines has bitten the dust and you need to > replace it, you > could use salvageable parts from the 520 for the other machine. Er, yes - but that pre-supposes that [a] I want to part with more than 130gbp for a new deck, with the non-functioning JE520 as 'parts backup' and [b] that I've have any idea of how to perform a parts replacement on the new deck should *it* fail. As far as I could tell, these slipping cogs were only accessible if one dismantled the entire transport mechanism and even then I couldn't be sure whether it was a case of worn-down plastic parts or simply a screw come loose. > if you scrap electronic equipment; don't throw it > in the > garbage, but keep it for parts that you may use in your projects. Perhaps I didn't make this clear, but I really had no intention of merely scrapping the machine (I imagine Sony would let me have the non-functioning deck back if they couldn't fix it - or perhaps not?), I was just canvassing on the subject of Sony repairs: how long, how much, etc. Anyway, this is all rather moot now. Richer Sounds sold me a Supercare Plan (30gbp) when I took the unit in and back-dated it to June '99 - hence I got a free loan machine (a slightly shabby JE500 with no remote or coax-in, but better than nothing) and the repair will also be free of charge. The JE500 actually seems a little more robust than the JE520 (the jog dial and loading mechanism in particular). I have to say, I'm not entirely confident that the JE520, when returned, won't fail in the same way again. If I do look at a new deck, it might be a JB9x0 model. Does anyone know if these units have a sturdier transport mechanism? Regards, Mike. __ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: JE520 transport mech repairs?
--- "David W. Tamkin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I > gather that > Mike means the cause might be recording into and reading from the > additional > area on 74s after 80s were cloned onto them, not the cloning > itself. > my cloning [...] has not involved trying to use the lead-in or > lead-out spaces That's exactly what I meant, David. The failures of the transport may very well have nothing to do with my use of enhanced 74min discs; now I come to think of it, I've probably only pushed such a disc to the limit on two or three occasions (one was a deliberate test to find the maximum, another was a Creation compilation CD clocking at 79' - the TDK could only manage 78'30"). I'm resigned to being without my deck for some time after taking it into Richer Sounds tomorrow... unless anyone's got any better ideas? By the relative lack of response both here and on a.a.m, my 520 looks like a very rare example of serious mechanical failure. Mike. __ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: JE520 transport mech repairs?
--- "J. C. R. Davis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I hope it WAS the 80 minute MDs that did this. I am about to > petition > Best Buy to special order a JE520 as a replacement to my junked out > JE510, and I would like to think that it will last more than a mere > 13 > months! I'm sure it will. There don't seem to be an awful lot of complaints about the JE5x0 series around* (unlike, say, the Sharp 7xx portables - though I own a 702 and it's a lot less trouble than the Sony deck!), which suggests that I've got a lemon (or I've *turned* it into a lemon). (* Excepting the micro-switch problem with the 500/510s). It was ill-starred from the off... I got a deck chiefly for MD-MD dubbing, easier labelling and to make digital copies with a coax input (my old Marantz has an optical out, but is prone to skipping), but as soon as I hooked up the 520 to my Copland CDP I encountered a terrible earth loop hum (not the Sony's fault, it should be said; only a minor irritation - doesn't affect the integrity of digital copies). Soon after I discovered that the analogue inputs on the 520 don't have sufficient headroom to prevent clipping from loud vinyl sources (my Ortofon MC/NVA pre-amp combination is a fair few dB above standard line-level), meaning I had to invest in an in-line attenuator. More recently, I've been getting weird drop-outs when recording to TDK Fine and coloured HiSpace discs (someone suggested the onset of optical block failure); the latter in particular are *still* faulty on playback though Sharp and JVC portables cope perfectly well with them. All indicators that I should've taken the thing back *well* before the 12-month guarantee expired. Oh well... Mike. __ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MD: JE520 transport mech repairs?
[I've been away from this list for some time, so forgive me if this is old ground] Hi folks, My JE520 has finally bitten the dust, I'm afraid. In the last two days, it started to have problems reading inserted discs, then problems skipping tracks and finally, last night, when I tried to skip several tracks backwards, went bananas (rapid clicking from the transport) and refused to eject. Eventually, I had to power the unit off at the mains and remove the cover to extract the MD. What appears to be happening is that the small white plastic cogs on the lower level of the transport mechanism (which control the lateral movement of the read/write head) are slipping. This only seems to occur now when the head is required to move from right to left into the first third of the disc (say, skipping from Tr8 of 10 to Tr3). Of course, this restriction to movement doesn't prevent sequential playback of an entire disc, but it does prevent ejection (the head returns to the leftmost position) or TOC-writing after recording. Pretty fatal. Unfortunately the unit is 13 months old and so out of warranty (which would've been voided by my removal of the cover anyway) - frustratingly it's the first time I've ever bought any major component from Richer Sounds without taking out their (very cheap) extended cover. I've been quoted 35gbp deposit by both RS and my local Sony Centre - that is then deducted from the cost of repair. I also have a nagging suspicion that the failure of the mech might've been accelerated by my occasional cloning activities (those 'enhanced' 74min discs certainly make a hell of a clunking noise when you try to record beyond their physical limits). So - to others who do this (and with 80min discs getting cheaper, I guess there's less of a reason to now) - beware! Anyone have similar experiences? How much did it eventually cost? Was it ultimately a better deal to buy a new machine? It's doubly frustrating because I can see the problem, figure it possibly costs less than 1gbp in parts to put right, but wouldn't trust myself to completely disassemble the mech (which is the only way I can see of getting at those lower cogs). Advice and anecdotes welcome... Mike. [This has also been posted to alt.audio.minidisc] __ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
