>From the low end point of view.
Having heard a sound example where a very slight difference could be
heard in my good headphones I tried to repeat the failure. The
weakness in atrac is suppose to be best heard in fast attack sounds
that are broad in freq.
I recorded a sound bite from my local critters that best meets this,
the Northern Cricket Frog. It was recorded with a laptop computer
and a good low noise mic. The signal was then sent digital out to my
consumer walkman md and recorded back to the computer by analog. Only
the gain on the md segment was changed 3 db to match.
My good headphones have since died and not yet replaced. By monitor I
can hear a very faint difference in the attack but can not judge it
well without my headphones being replaced and would not want to pick
out which half was md. As can be seen on this segment it is hard to
even pick out the md by visual comparison.
The point is that you still can record quality on a budget.
This setup breaks down as:
minidisc= $75.00 used
mic= $150.00 used
laptop current value= $250.00, 133 mhz Pentium
editing software and recording software= ~$100.00
Misc parts= ~50.00
Time spent finding and recording this frog= Priceless
a 1.5 meg download at
http://home.comcast.net/~richpeet/mdtest.wav
Rich Peet
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