31-08-2023, 11:13 PM
For full-size (430mm) non-portables:
Every MD recorder I've seen has S/PDIF in/out in some form. No-doubt there are exceptions, but I've yet to see one.
For CD players, the cheaper models omitted S/PDIF outputs, but once you'd moved up the range you'd get it. Usually with a gaudy logo on the front panel in the early days.
Every DVD player - even the very cheap ones IME - had S/PDIF out.
Likewise, going back in time, all DAT machines came with S/PDIF in/out. At least, I've yet to see one that didn't. I think the same applies to DCC, although there weren't a huge number of those.
So-called "outboard" DACs were all the rage for a good while, and most of those had multiple inputs. In a way, S/PDIF was a gift to manufacturers, as they now had a new product they could sell at quite a premium. At the time, DACs were not the mature product we take for granted today, and there were variations in sound quality between CD players as a result. So it definitely made some sense - for a while. By the mid '90s, DACs were considered mature, and they had to go chasing other unicorns in the pursuit of sales, hence upsampling (not oversampling) DACs and other such exotica.
As for AV receivers, that's obviously about multichannel. The S/PDIF interface has a bit to signify linear PCM audio or something else. That "something else" is most often Dolby Digital, which has to be compressed because the S/PDIF interface continues to run at the same throughput. DVD players will have the option to choose whether the S/PDIF outputs linear stereo or DD (or DTS).
So anyway, given that, of course you'd expect to hook up your digital gear, well, digitally. And that's why SCMS was invented, to allow legitimate/legal copying for personal use, but to hopefully deter digital quality distribution, which isn't legal.
Some early equipment, including Sony's first DAT machine - the DTC-1000ES from 1987 - didn't have SCMS. So while it saw and paid attention to the copyright flag, it didn't know about the generation flag. So you couldn't even make the 1 digital copy that SCMS allows, meaning you were forced to use analogue for pretty much everything. Unfortunately, that machine had a less-than-perfect ADC that did noticeably degrade the sound quality (they were a bit variable from sample to sample). I gave mine away via the forums over a decade ago.
I said "in some form" earlier, meaning either S/PDIF or TOSLINK. The same thing apart from the physical layer, obviously. My first MD machine only had a TOSLINK input and my CD player only had S/PDIF, so I couldn't record digitally unless I'd bought a media converter (easy and cheap today, not so back then). I did buy another deck which had both inputs which solved that. It was second-hand, and it cost less than a media converter did back then.
MD was most definitely not pointless at home (it might have been for you, but obviously that isn't true for everyone). It was meant to be a cassette replacement, and it did that job admirably. And while CD is technically better, clearly, by the time ATRAC got to version 4 (e.g. MDS-JE500, etc), I couldn't hear a difference between the CD and the MD. It really was that good. Though earlier generations were not so transparent, especially the first-gen machine I heard at launch. I probably played MDs at home about as much as I played CDs back in the day.
I also had an MD head unit in the car for many years. I did have a portable player, but hardly ever used it. So portable MD was pointless - for me. Amongst my friends and colleagues, I saw hardly any portables, nearly all were hi-fi decks. One friend used a portable MZ-R35 (I remember the model as I have one up in the attic) to record the gigs he did, but like the ones the journos used, it didn't cope well with vibration. That's reminded me - some in local radio did go back to Uhers until the Nagras came along. One poor lady couldn't because after years of carrying Uhers around, she had terrible problems with her shoulders. Just the thought of all those D cells makes mine ache in sympathy!
For a while I had a DAC which allowed me to remove all variables from the comparison. So by making a digital recording, then playing back digitally both the original CD and the MD copy, I could switch between them on the DAC, thus removing the converters in the MD and CD machines, and hearing just the effects of ATRAC. V4 and V4.5 never ceased to amaze me. Sometimes I'd think that I'd noticed an ATRAC artefact, only to discover that it was on the original recording but I'd simply never noticed it before. In a way, this subtracted from my enjoyment of MD. I had to learn to stop over-listening and just enjoy it.
Sorry, Jeffrey. I'd split these posts out, but I'm not sure how best to do it. The original topic is definitely an interesting one, but I guess it was never going to stay on topic.
Every MD recorder I've seen has S/PDIF in/out in some form. No-doubt there are exceptions, but I've yet to see one.
For CD players, the cheaper models omitted S/PDIF outputs, but once you'd moved up the range you'd get it. Usually with a gaudy logo on the front panel in the early days.
Every DVD player - even the very cheap ones IME - had S/PDIF out.
Likewise, going back in time, all DAT machines came with S/PDIF in/out. At least, I've yet to see one that didn't. I think the same applies to DCC, although there weren't a huge number of those.
So-called "outboard" DACs were all the rage for a good while, and most of those had multiple inputs. In a way, S/PDIF was a gift to manufacturers, as they now had a new product they could sell at quite a premium. At the time, DACs were not the mature product we take for granted today, and there were variations in sound quality between CD players as a result. So it definitely made some sense - for a while. By the mid '90s, DACs were considered mature, and they had to go chasing other unicorns in the pursuit of sales, hence upsampling (not oversampling) DACs and other such exotica.
As for AV receivers, that's obviously about multichannel. The S/PDIF interface has a bit to signify linear PCM audio or something else. That "something else" is most often Dolby Digital, which has to be compressed because the S/PDIF interface continues to run at the same throughput. DVD players will have the option to choose whether the S/PDIF outputs linear stereo or DD (or DTS).
So anyway, given that, of course you'd expect to hook up your digital gear, well, digitally. And that's why SCMS was invented, to allow legitimate/legal copying for personal use, but to hopefully deter digital quality distribution, which isn't legal.
Some early equipment, including Sony's first DAT machine - the DTC-1000ES from 1987 - didn't have SCMS. So while it saw and paid attention to the copyright flag, it didn't know about the generation flag. So you couldn't even make the 1 digital copy that SCMS allows, meaning you were forced to use analogue for pretty much everything. Unfortunately, that machine had a less-than-perfect ADC that did noticeably degrade the sound quality (they were a bit variable from sample to sample). I gave mine away via the forums over a decade ago.
I said "in some form" earlier, meaning either S/PDIF or TOSLINK. The same thing apart from the physical layer, obviously. My first MD machine only had a TOSLINK input and my CD player only had S/PDIF, so I couldn't record digitally unless I'd bought a media converter (easy and cheap today, not so back then). I did buy another deck which had both inputs which solved that. It was second-hand, and it cost less than a media converter did back then.
MD was most definitely not pointless at home (it might have been for you, but obviously that isn't true for everyone). It was meant to be a cassette replacement, and it did that job admirably. And while CD is technically better, clearly, by the time ATRAC got to version 4 (e.g. MDS-JE500, etc), I couldn't hear a difference between the CD and the MD. It really was that good. Though earlier generations were not so transparent, especially the first-gen machine I heard at launch. I probably played MDs at home about as much as I played CDs back in the day.
I also had an MD head unit in the car for many years. I did have a portable player, but hardly ever used it. So portable MD was pointless - for me. Amongst my friends and colleagues, I saw hardly any portables, nearly all were hi-fi decks. One friend used a portable MZ-R35 (I remember the model as I have one up in the attic) to record the gigs he did, but like the ones the journos used, it didn't cope well with vibration. That's reminded me - some in local radio did go back to Uhers until the Nagras came along. One poor lady couldn't because after years of carrying Uhers around, she had terrible problems with her shoulders. Just the thought of all those D cells makes mine ache in sympathy!
For a while I had a DAC which allowed me to remove all variables from the comparison. So by making a digital recording, then playing back digitally both the original CD and the MD copy, I could switch between them on the DAC, thus removing the converters in the MD and CD machines, and hearing just the effects of ATRAC. V4 and V4.5 never ceased to amaze me. Sometimes I'd think that I'd noticed an ATRAC artefact, only to discover that it was on the original recording but I'd simply never noticed it before. In a way, this subtracted from my enjoyment of MD. I had to learn to stop over-listening and just enjoy it.
Sorry, Jeffrey. I'd split these posts out, but I'm not sure how best to do it. The original topic is definitely an interesting one, but I guess it was never going to stay on topic.
