ATRAC is not optimized for anything that other codecs aren't (and technologically it's quite bad, especially compared to Opus but even compared to AAC). And there aren't magically better DACs any more than there are better power cables; they're all good enough as long as they're electrically compliant with your headphones.
That's of course fair. I can't ship you my MD player (that thing is priceless for me), but I can share a triplet of files for ABX testing. If you wish, I can do the following:
- Rip a track from an album before loudness wars began to FLAC.
- Rip the same track with Sony's own MD studio to ATRAC SP.
- I can re-encode said ATRAC SP track to FLAC.
- Ship you three files (A, B, X) where A is FLAC, B is ATRAC SP and X is either of one.
I'm not claiming anything or hoping for any outcome. My aim is to test, discuss and broaden my mental horizon. I've written these things by listening same stuff in many formats through the same audio pipelines (audio cards, Hi-Fi systems and speakers/earphones) for many years and, I instinctively know how every one of them behaves with any combination. Also, I've played in orchestras (big bands and symphonies), so my ear is somewhat trained to find nuances.
Making the some tests and discussing these things will only make me happy, and I'd gladly stand corrected.
Thanks.
It won't always be transparent so the ABX test should still be passable on extreme content, but it'll sound good enough. Anything else would also sound good enough though.
> Also, I've played in orchestras (big bands and symphonies), so my ear is somewhat trained to find nuances.
How's your high end hearing? It tends to go once you're not a teen…
It can go up to 352kbps as Sonic Stage tells me. Will transfer one album to my MD player to see how it converts it to ATRAC. SonicStage rips your CDs to ATRAC3 Advanced Lossless by default and re-converts them to appropriate format for your device during "burning" it to your MD player. I'll use the files transferred to MD for ABX test.
> How's your high end hearing? It tends to go once you're not a teen…
I assume it's not bad. Can hear pretty silent stuff pretty well, including very high pitched adapter noise (not the capacitor whine, but the switching noise of the adapter itself, the one supposedly bothers dogs).