Posted by martin on 10/24/07 09:19

(Sorry if this isn't the most appropriate NG, but I've tried others
and not got much of a response)

I recently bought a Sony NWS706 MP3 player and have been transferring
a few of my CD's to it via its own SonicStage software (I should
mention here that I'm a complete beginner when it comes to MP3 and the
like).

I used ATRAC 64kbps at first, because my player only has 4Gbytes of
memory, and I've lots of long works, like symphonies.

The quality seems fine, but according to so many people I've read on
the Internet, 64kbps is such a low sampling rate, quality *should* be
pretty bad.

Today I transferred a few short works using both ATRAC 64kbps and
ATRAC Lossless, and have been trying to hear the difference between
the two. I can't say I can detect any, but the few seconds needed to
switch between them makes comparison difficult. Also, I'm wondering
if I'd suddenly notice a difference should I happen to buy a better
pair of headphones in the future.

The convenience of having a lot of music on my player, and not having
to fiddle about transferring stuff as I need it, is very attractive,
but I want good quality as well.

With this in mind, I'd like to hear people's opinions on these two
formats - is the quality of ATRAC Lossless worth the extra space?

Or would MP3 be a good compromise between the two, in terms of
balancing quality with file size? And if so, what sample rate would
people here recommend?

Thanks in advance

Martin

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