From: "digidandy" <>
>>> songs stored model has been a lesson for them. I do not expect sound
>>> quality to be improved by the directions things are going. Soon the CD=
>>> producers will realize they only have to make the music sound quality
>>> good enough for mp3...
>
>
>
> Well, yes and no. They included PCM recording in their latest Hi-MD,
> which is a (big) step up compared to the atrac3-compression in their
> previous models.
Actually uncompressed vs quality SP mode ATRAC is almost no step up, but
that's a separate subject. As everyone has found by now, having
uncompressed did not suddenly make high quality with the pre and the
rest of the recorder being the same.
Note that PCM applies to all, even ATRAC. It's a digital encoding
standard that's separate from compression or not. It's what comes out of
the A/D.
> And let's be honest: "the kids" never cared much for high fidelity
> anyways, and I think the specialist market will still cater their
> customers just fine.
The specialist market is going to hard disk recorders or solid state. We
are talking about the minidisc and what will happen to it. Until we see
some interest in continuing on beyond the Portadisc, the specialist
market is ignoring minidisc.
The recording market will not spend money it does not have to. Higher
quality sound costs extra. I've seen it in less rentals of MKH mics with
folks going for cheaper mics to rent. Because their customers won't
notice the difference.
>>> Actually, that's already happening.
>
>
> In the mainstream, yes. In the avantgarde and leftfield there is still
> room for sonic maximizing.
This is the same bunch that are busy refurbishing reel to reel tape
recorders. They might get into a hobby of building entire recorders
along that route. But it's not going to be much of a market for
companies like Sony. Particularly as it's the in thing to be anti to
large companies.
>>> No amount of software hacking will improve the preamp. That's always
>>> been the limiting factor for sound quality in walkman MD.
>
>
> True. But when you compare the price and the portability for a MD to
> many other recorders it is still a bargain. I mean, there seems to be
> suggestions that the Marantz 660 - an apparent dedicated field
> recording unit - has as weak s/n specs as a MD, and that seems rather
> ironic. And then there's the Edirol R-1, which also seems to be as
> weak (or even weaker?) as an MD.
That makes my point. All these companies see no need for high quality
pre's. Because the real money is packing as many songs into as small a
space as possible. The end customers are not asking for sound quality.
And you are talking the movement of low quality pre's into more
expensive machines. How soon before the cheapest field recorder with
good pres will cost like the Nagra used to. The current popularity of
nature recording is due in a large part to the availability of cheap
recorders of decent quality. It was a daunting field to get into when
the Nagra was the price of admission.
Now we are moving back that way. Just look at all the discussion of
buying a recorder and then buying a preamp to make it usable. The price
of admission is higher. Think when MD is no longer viable at all, I can
see that happening.
Walt
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