OT: Digital audio stuff (was Re: MIDI Monitor for Mac)

[Colin Fraser]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Curtin, Steven D (Steven)" <sdcurtin at lucent.com>
To: <grichter at asapnet.net>; "'harry'" <harrybissell at prodigy.net>
Cc: "Synth DIY" <synth-diy at node12b53.a2000.nl>
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2001 2:46 PM
Subject: RE: MIDI Monitor for Mac

> Lately I've been recording to MiniDisc instead of directly to hard disk,
but
> now I have a bunch of stuff I somehow have to transfer to the PC for
making
> CDs and putting on the web.  Has anyone used a digital PC audio card with
> the optical interface on an MD to transfer the contents?  I also worry
about
> what will happen if you MPEG encode a previously MD'd file, since the
> combination of the two encoding methods could result in nasty artifacts.

I use a M Audio Delta 66 soundcard, with the optical output of my Sony MD
converted to coax by a Midiman CO2.
Works great.
BTW Wavelab bit depth calculation proves the MD records all 20 bits onto
disc.
You can also use the MD deck as a sample rate convertor, and extra pair of
(44.1kHz only) inputs.
Never noticed any nastiness with 256 kbps mp3 encoding of MD material, tho'
the music I do has a somewhat limited dynamic range.

Maybe it's worth bouncing some audio samples thru the different processes
for comparison.
ie CD -> MD -> PC -> mp3 256, 192, 128 then recreate a 16 bit wav file from
each.
A blind test might be fun...

Colin f