CD versus MD

unkel

Could any1 tell me what is the better audio quality format - is it MD or CD? Please specify details or links to relevant reviews.

Is there a difference between pre-recorded media (as bought in the likes of HMV) and recordings from high quality mp3's burned to either MD or CD audio.

Apologies it this has been covered already. I'm only a newbie in the home entertainment arena

Kali

CD is the slightly better medium, as its pretty much uncompressed audio... whereas MD are stored using a Sony-derived compression called ATRAC, which only compresses the extreme high and low frequencies which are not humanly audible... the later forms of ATRAC, LP2 and LP4 increase the compression by decreasing that frequency range.

as far as storage goes, CDs are just stored using a laser, which burns a series of pits on the surface of the disc, which directly relate to a 0/1 in binary... MDs use a combination of this, except use a magnetic disc, and afaik (i havent read up for a while) creates a series of positive and negative magnetic "pits" (a laser is used to help store these pits, and a magnetic head to read the surface).. if I'm wrong on my understanding, someone will point me right anyway.. more information will probably be found on sonys page i presume.

Is there a difference between pre-recorded media (as bought in the likes of HMV) and recordings from high quality mp3's burned to either MD or CD audio.

Yes definitely, both in the quality of the CD surface itself (a lot of cheap CD-Rs don't have a clear enough surface and a reflective enough backing) and can result in a slight difference in sound quality, whether this is actually perceivable or not comes down to the person listening and the quality of playback equipment.
Also since MP3s are a lossy format, you're always going to have less accurate information stored on the CD than an original copy... its fairly easy to notice the difference between an original recording and a burnt cd (using mp3s up to 192kbps)... the mp3 encoder plays a big part in this though.

unkel

Thanks m8's for the info. I am using WinMX (3.31) for ripping my cd's usually at 192kbps. I burn these then to CDR for playing in my car and on my home stereo which comprises of DVD, 10 year old Philips amplifier (back then very top of the range) and new Monitor Audio Bronze speakers (bought them off richersounds for €399 after Christmas and very happy with them)

In case you wonder why I go through all this trouble: I was foolish enough to keep 40 of my favourite CD's in my car until the day the car was broken into and my CD player (with detachable front which I had not brought into my house with me) and my carry case with all these CD's were stolen :-(
Also I like playing MP3 straight from my HD rather then searching for the CD, inserting it into the drive, etc.

I just built a new PC comprising of ASUS A7V8X, Athlon XP 2400, 512MB 3200 DDR, WD 80GB special edition 8MB cache, Philips DVD+RW, ASUS GF4 TI4200 (on order), Audigy2 and Philips 5.1 speakers (I know I should get Creative 6700 series)

I felt the quality of the copies wasn't quite the same as the originals in the living room, although I didn't notice so much in the car (decent enough couple of years old sony 10 cd changer with 9 year old BMW's 6 speaker setup).

Is this the case? And if so, is there any way of ripping CD's to MP3 that fully keeps the quality (I got your points that converting MP3's back to CDR keeps the quality). Or is the only way to ensure quality to directly copy CD's?

Kali

Just rip the tracks individually as .wav files, these are usually not compressed digitally .. and will give the best quality (if your creating a new cd from them) besides copying the cd directly.

unkel

thx for the info - will rip from cd to wav from now on and buy a new HD soon :cool:

Samba

Unkel, check your pms