Mini disc

[baggins]

I am considering buying a minidisc deck (for convenient audio recording of material I have on phillips cassettes - I am not fond of cassettes mechanical abilities.

Out of interest how does the distortion introduced by the Atrac compression manifest itself compared to a CD?

[Bas Horneman]

Out of interest how does the distortion introduced by the Atrac compression manifest itself compared to a CD

Minidisc is not bad at all...ATRAC 3.5 is pretty advanced and much better I believe than say 192kHz sampled MP3. Most people can't hear the difference between the above sample rated MP3 and a CD. The difference between minidisc and cd is smaller and I suppose can only be heard in a good system with "golden eared" audiofreaks.

[baggins]

Thanks Bas ,

I was hoping that might be the answer .It wouldnt have stopped me buying one anyway because most of the source material I want to " rescue" is on phillips cassette and not of fantastic quality but is
not replaceable .I just thought I might also make convenience
backup copies of some of my favourite cd's and wondered if they would be very different . I,m 58 anyway so my golden ears days if I ever had any are over !

[Bas Horneman]

When I had Mission 760 speakers I could not reliably tell the difference..(I don't know even if I could today.... Unfortunately my minidisc player gave up...so I can't do the comparison with the stuff I've got these days.

[rfbrw]

Originally posted by Bas Horneman

The difference between minidisc and cd is smaller and I suppose can only be heard in a good system with "golden eared" audiofreaks.

Not if you listen to Orbital or Kraftwerk. Minidisc can't cope with electronic music. It significantly alters the tonal balance to extent that some sounds disappear altogether.

[nyatt]

The newer Hi Md format will record 16bit 44.1khz (full cd resolution). you can pick up a sony portable unit for ~$400.

[baggins]

Nyatt,

I was considering the ordinary 80 minute md deck something like a sony cmt-md1 or the sharp md-mx10 are these decks very inferior to the later hi-md ?

[nyatt]

I have played with the normal minidiscs, but these new hi-md's are quite a bit better sounding (again, full cd resolution!). I haven't seen any home units, but I would imagine Sony makes a few. Makes for a nice tiny portable.

[baggins]

Since I last posted I have acquired a sharp md-mx10 off EBAY for £60+ (I chose it because it fits my shelving under stairs) and i am very pleased with it so far. I am only using it as a deck ( ignoring the speakers and the built in power stages) to drive into the Leak 2000 receiver . It has phonos in for AUX, but for now I will have to use the h/phone out socket . Should I pad this with a resistor ? it seems to drive the Leak O.K. as is. Presumably low impedance into high impedance is O.K.?