I've asked this before without a response; perhaps someone has come up with an answer since then, or someone new on the list knows. When I record a CD track to MD in mono mode by digital transfer, the levels drop noticeably from those on the CD itself (despite a 0.0 gain setting on the recorder) and from those on the MD recorder's VU meter. I've noticed this on several models of Sony MD decks. Now, if the input were stereophonic I could understand it: the peaks in one channel might come at the same times as softer amplitudes in the other, and the mono recording on the MD would have to average them out, so the MD copy might well peak lower than the CD source did. But it happens even when the CD source is monaural. Recently, for example, a mono CD track that peaked at 0.0 dB (in both channels at the same time, as the track was truly monaural), copied to MD digitally at 0.0 dB gain, produced a mono MD copy that peaked around -1.2 dB. The same CD track, recorded from the same CD player over the same optical cable to the same MD recorder in stereo mode, yielded a stereo copy that peaked at 0.0 dB (but of course it took up twice the space). If I turn the gain up a little, the VU meter goes nuts into the red, yet on playback the resultant mono copy won't come near 0.0 dB, much less clip. Apparently the attenuation is occurring somewhere in the MD recorder after the signal passes the VU meter display. Does anyone know what is going on here and how to get proper levels on mono recordings (short of waiting for the MDS-JB940 to come out and post-process- ing the track with Scale Factor Edit, assuming Scale Factor Edit works on mono data)? ----------------------------------------------------------------- To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
