----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Frakes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> OK, but the problem is that all of the above is a CD vs. MD sound
> comparison. I agree that MD doesn't sound as good as CD. However, your
> original claim, to which I was responding, was that high-bitrate MP3
> sounds better than MD.
Well, what I wrote was actually directly in response to someone else's claim
that "MD always sounds better than MP3s". I was merely describing a simple
test that compares CD vs. MD because, essentially, when I rip MP3s I don't
get the strange sparkly burbling sounds.
If you want to round out the experiment a bit more, then just do this
instead:
. Get a digital optical output card for your soundcard
. Play an audio CD in your CD-Rom drive thru the soundcard (using digitial
SPDIF connector from CD-ROM to soundcard) and out thru the optical output
and monitor that on your Sharp831 using Rec-Pause mode
. Record the audio CD from the second step on the Sharp831 (just take it
out of Rec-Pause)
. Play back the MD you just created
. Encode the CD as MP3 using what you believe to be a high-quality encoder
(e.g. 320kbps encoded using LAME or Fraunhofer)
. Play this MP3 thru your soundcard and out thru the optical output and
monitor THAT on your '831 in Rec-Pause.
The MD sounds the worst of the bunch because it adds the artificial fizzing
sound. Yes, it's perhaps a little subjective, but when you define 'low
quality' to mean 'sounds artifical because white noise is not recorded well
and instead sounds like a small jet of bubbling steam, as do complex sounds
like cymbals and essonance' then my experimental results seem (to ME) to
show that the MD recorded on the Sharp 831 is the lowest quality of the
three.
> >The 831 adds a layer of sparkly, burbling high frequencies to quiet
> >passages and high frequencies .. in fact, if you record anything with
> >a slight amount of background noise onto the 831 the background noise
> >just sounds crazy and artificial like a load of bubbles bursting
> >instead of dull white noise. DON'T come back at me by saying 'You
> >should get a better CD collection if all the tracks have background
> >hiss' because I'll just tell you where to go. That's my CDs, and the
> >831 cannot encode them as well as a Aiwa model at half the price, or
> >a Sony deck, or ...
>
> As for the above paragraph (and this is completely unrelated to the
> previous debate), I've never heard of any kind of "layer of sparkly,
> burbling high freqencies" or the like when recording from CD to MD. The
> MD never sounds as good on my equipment, but never because of such
> "noise." To me that sounds like a problem with your recorder.
I'm not the only one !! I just did a quick search on altavista and came up
with this:
http://minidisc.org/hearing_sharp_atrac.html
Although I did also find this as a kind of response
http://minidisc.org/hearing_sharp_atrac.html
Is it a problem with my Sharp831; or is it a problem with THE sharp 831?
And how can I find out, other than try a bunch of other Sharp831 units,
perhaps by taking my unit back to the store and complaining that it sounds
'broken' ?
dave
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