Did this obscure audio format REALLY sound better than MiniDisc?

Something that came up occasionally in early reviews of DCC and MiniDisc equipment was that DCC's sound quality was a bit better. The technical specifications of both formats' codecs suggest this is indeed the case, but look closer and things aren't so clear after all.
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Sources:
"Digital Recording Arrives," Popular Science, April 1993.
"DCC: The Adventure Begins," Billboard, July 25, 1992.
"Now Hear This!," The Morning Call, December 20, 1992.
DCC System Description document: archive.org/de...
ATRAC whitepaper: www.minidisc.w...
The MPEG FAQ: web.archive.or...
MPEG-1 draft standard proposition: www.itu.int/wf...
"DCC, MD, And CD-I Expected To Drive 1st Consumer CES," Billboard, May 30, 1992.
Sony interview with ATRAC developers: www.sony.net/P...
"The incredible shrinking disc," The Guardian, November 25, 1992.
"Sony Revives MiniDisc in Package Deal," Los Angeles Times, August 27, 1996: www.latimes.co...
Dolby patent used in ATRAC: www.minidisc.or...
MiniDisc FAQ about Dolby licensing: www.minidisc.o...
MiniDisc-related patents: www.minidisc.or...
"Studios Cautious About DCC, MiniDisc," Billboard, February 11, 1995.
"Sony MiniDisc, Philips DCC Downplayed At Winter CES," Billboard, January 21, 1995.
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[@Test_Card_Tom]

They sound almost identical. The most important thing is their editing abilities, and MD wins hands down with its ability to erase tracks or move tracks from one position to another and the ability to long play in stereo.

[@TAGMedia7]

Man, Minidisc was so cool (and still is)! It has always felt like a technology from some alternate timeline.

[@hyperdistortion2]

Right? It gets even weirder as an anime fan. MiniDisc being a magneto-optical disk and all, when 80s/90s anime loved to use MO disks to represent advanced or futuristic technology. So to me for example, MD still looks and feels futuristic even now.

[@Kalvinjj]

@@hyperdistortion2 As someone also into anime, but from a country where MD barely existed (I've never seen one in person even), it's really interesting to see how much they use it on shows as well. Not only the futuristic stuff but just normal 90s/early 2000s anime has the characters using it as a daily use device. If you've watched it, you'll recognize right away in Card Captor Sakura, Sakura herself has a recording model to grab the Song card's singing, and Tomoyo uses it during the school play, on a desktop deck to play the back ground music.

[@urbanknish]

I'm still obsessed. I have hundreds of minidiscs and a whole collection of the minidisc units. I wish they were still made!!!

[@jamesslick4790]

@@urbanknish Me too. I went "all in" on MD in the 1990s. I even had an MD stereo in my car (fairly rare in the US!). I'm never giving up the MiniDisc gear I still have and I am always on the lookout for discs! In my world the CD replaced LP and MD replaced Cassette. I prefer physical media!!

[@Dragon1276]

Sony never learns their lesson, though. Always creating excellent formats but wanting total control over them. Betamax, MiniDisc, Memory Stick, Universal Media Disc...

[@vwestlife]

When first released, DCC definitely did sound better than MiniDisc. The ATRAC codec tended to have metallic-sounding artifacts. DCC's PASC codec does suffer a loss of high frequencies above 15 kHz, but if you're an adult male, you probably can hear anything above that, anyway! But Sony kept improving MiniDisc after DCC was discontinued, and the later versions of ATRAC do have improved sound quality.

[@mossup-]

I was sat here listening to the comparison between DCC Original and MD and thinking DCC to me sounded muddy in comparison, then I scroll down and see this where DCC drops off after 15khz, I'm happy I still have good hearing 😂

[@hermanmunster3358]

I got that too, when listening to the comparison. And I'm 50 years old! So much for degradation of hearing as you get older. I have listened to sine wave sweeps, and can still hear frequencies from around 15 Hz to 25Khz. I guess I'm just superhuman!

[@vwestlife]

@@hermanmunster3358 The later generations of DCC recorders were able to have full 20 kHz frequency response. For example, Jeremy Heiden's "Blue Wicked" DCC was recorded on a DCC 175, and it has full response up to 20 kHz, just like a CD.

[@hermanmunster3358]

@@vwestlife I don't doubt you, but a lot of the DCC decks proved to be unreliable, and prone to breakdown. I still have a couple of MD portable recorders, over 20 years old, and they still work perfectly. I guess that is down to the mechanics being simpler than those of DCC. But I am used to MD, because I was invested in the format. And you can tailor the sound with a graphic equaliser if need be. But it is difficult to introduce higher frequencies, if they aren't there in the source material.

[@vwestlife]

@@mossup- Actually, looking at a spectrum analysis of this video, MiniDisc has a sharp cutoff at 15.6 kHz, while DCC does let some high frequencies up to 20 kHz through, depending on the music being played, although it often cuts off at slightly above 15 kHz as well. Again, most adults -- especially men -- can't hear much above that point anyway, so they both probably figured it's better to allocate more of the available bitrate on frequencies which people _can_ actually hear.

[@mabbaticchio]

They all sound great. I think whatever format was more appealing would end up making a final decision. For me, MD had everything I would want. A small form factor and instant tracking. Optical disks always fascinate me and I still spin CDs for that reason alone.

[@vylbird8014]

Success is as much about business factors as technological. Sony was a giant in both consumer electronics and music: That gave them an edge, because a lot of Sony-owned labels could be pressed into supporting Minidisc.

[@Kalvinjj]

@@vylbird8014 So did Philips tho, they owned (together with Siemens) PolyGram, those days were full of those format wars in all sides.

[@PlasticCogLiquid]

@@Kalvinjj CD's were always cheap and stupid, I'm so glad they phased out!

[@tookitogo]

@@PlasticCogLiquid I mean, the CD merely redefined what “hi-fi” meant, not bad for a “stupid” and “cheap” format… (and I guess you didn’t know that the record companies charged a lot more for CDs than tape or vinyl, despite actually the cheapest to manufacture.)

[@Kalvinjj]

@@PlasticCogLiquid low quality bait

[@slickshoesfan19]

I should also say that it's harder to tell the difference when using really hot synthwave tracks. Soft orchestral and jazz tracks with plenty of sound stage are the best tracks to demonstrate the loss from lossy codecs...

[@AlyxxTheRat]

Yeah but you can also make the case that people who buy MDs and DCCs nowadays are people who enjoy synthwave lol. It fits the aesthetic of the genre.

[@Rac3r4Life]

There's always an excuse why you can't hear any difference. Lol

[@Kalvinjj]

@@Rac3r4Life But it _is_ a factual one. Music is not all the same, sound waves can be far more complex in one or the other. It's simple to check that, grab something with lots of physical drums being played and you'll see the waveforms are pretty full of all kinds of harmonics, which do sound weird when you start to chop off here and there. Then again, synth stuff, by mere technical standpoint alone, already has a cleaner waveform. Synths just don't create weird unpredictable waves as high hats do, guitar distortions and so on. It really is way, WAY easier to compress and sound good. Back in the dreaded 4GB storage days I used eAAC+ on my phone to squeeze as much music as possible on it. Electronic music did sound decent enough (read: tolerable, "better than it not being there"), down to freaking 48 kb/s. Now metal? Forget 64, just keep it on 128 and don't bother.

[@Kalvinjj]

I was gonna comment that. Some genres (electronic/synthwave specially) are way more kind on compression. Now, metal (talking about the more symphonic and power metal stuff) kills it. One very extreme example I found was Nightwish's Live To Tell The Tale. That beginning sounds atrocious on anything under MP3 320, and that's not to say MP3 makes it sound good either.

[@hxhdfjifzirstc894]

Good point -- I first noticed how bad MP3s are while listening to Days of Future Passed (of which I had both lossy and lossless copies). I heard from the next room, as a track came on and thought "Holy #&*, that sounds terrible... what is wrong with my speakers, all of a sudden?", and when I went to check, I realized I was listening to an MP3 instead of a .WAV rip.

[@GustoTheGamer]

A Minidisc is awesome! It looks futuristic. That’s why a minidisc was used in the movie The Matrix.

[@Buttface1981]

Was also used in last action hero

[@muchosa1]

I'm 55 and all 3 sound similar to me. The age of the listener is a big factor.

[@RobGMun]

Mid-40's and it's the same to me too. And i can pick out stuff that others can't half my age. I do believe there's a little to no difference to the three. DDC sounds a touch warmer but it's so very subtle i think that's down to personal preference.

[@NetzDotCom]

I’m 20 and I agree with your opinion (even tho I knew what’s a MD since the elementary school (because at the AV room of auditorium there was a bookshelf system along with some recordables MDs, props and musical instruments in the same room) and still use them nowadays regardless of steaming services and FLACs).

[@blackpete]

Im sorry, what did you just say? Could you speak up please? 😛

[@CommodoreFan64]

I'm 42, and was born with hearing issues, but the only difference I could hear using my JLab Bluetooth earbuds was very very subtle, but not enough to make a difference whatsoever.

[@gww730]

It's not a coincidence that most "Audiophiles" are over 50. It's not just that they are the only ones who can afford $62000 speaker cables and $14000 power cables, but they are chasing the feeling and emotion that music gave them in their younger days. Not only can they not really hear minor differences in perceived quality, but believing that something is making a huge impact is half of the cause of perception.

[@PepijnSchoemakerWebinars]

MD is just so cool. I really felt so special to have everything on MD. At home or on the road. Car stereo, mobile player and home player. I could rent CD's and copy them in super quality. I really enlarged my music collection so fast. It was great!

[@thenonexistinghero]

I think it's still cool. Just the way they look and how you insert them into the device. Then with a satisfying click when you close it. So many different 80's and 90's devices are just fun to use, IMO. But digital is definitely a lot more convenient.

[@joeblankenship377]

I love being able to make a physical copy of streaming music.

[@tarantinoish]

You could rent CDs? Where?

[@andysmith1996]

@@tarantinoish Libraries loan CDs. My local library has a huge selection.

[@tim3172]

@@tarantinoish CDs were extremely expensive in Japan. As a result, they were commonly rented out, copied to MD, and returned. This is why B-side tracks are commonly associated with Japanese releases: the bands/studios showing appreciation for how much money they got from their listeners.

[@tides2002]

Back in 1992 or 93 my local HIFI dealer held an invitation evening where we could review the DCC and MD players back-to-back together with a CD player. I seem to remember thinking at the time the DCC sounded slightly better but I liked the formfactor of MD. In the end bought into MD in 1998 when the format felt more established.

[@tarstarkusz]

Had I been aware of DCC back then, I probably just would have balked at the price. CDs were old tech by this time and a CD player could be bought for under a hundred bucks and was the undisputed king of consumer grade audio quality.

[@hermanmunster3358]

I did the same. And I still use MD today, as I recorded some great music back in the day, that I don't have on CD.

[@hermanmunster3358]

​@@tarstarkusz MD hardware came down in price pretty quickly, and quite a few manufacturers adopted the format. Not so with DCC, which was manufactured by a small handful of brands, such as Philips, Marantz, and Technics I believe. And DCC remained expensive, and prone to breakdown! I have owned 2 portable MD players for over 20 years, and they still work perfectly, both in playback and record. However, Microsoft stopped supporting the Sony Sonic Stage software with Windows 7, so transferring music from your PC to MD is largely a tedious affair, unless you can find a reliable plugin that allows for the use of Sony's proprietary software. This allows the transfer of music at about 32x speed, and carrys over the metadata from your PC to MD, so you don't have to manually add Artist/Album/Track info later. kzbin.info/www/bejne/j36bfqGom9moha8 Also, if you had an MDLP equipped player, you could extend the recording length of a disc by up to 4 times, standard speed LP1 giving the best soubd quality, and LP2 giving decent, perfectly listenable quality, LP4 was the lowest quality, which did sound rough. And you could also record in Mono, in high quality, and this gave you double the time, so either 74 minutes in top quality Stereo with LP1, or 148 minutes in top quality Mono. So the format was really versatile for its day, giving users lots of options. I tended to record good albums in LP1, and mix discs or compilations in LP2. LP4 was just too much of a compromise, and what is the point of Mono? Except for voice recording, such as you would with a dictaphone.

[@tarstarkusz]

@@hermanmunster3358 Mono isn't that bad. People are just spoiled by listening almost exclusively to stereo studio music. Before the 70s, live music was a pretty regular occurrence for people. A lot of places people went to eat and have a cocktail would also have live bands. A live band will almost never sound like a stereo record. Not to mention the band might re-record portions of the song till they get it "right," whereas in a live setting, the band is what it is in one setting. Now it is very uncommon for people to experience live music in such a setting. People instead to concerts put on in the worst possible acoustic environment played at hearing damaging volume to fill the terrible acoustical building with the sound. For me, with recording music, cassette was always good enough. Plus, I rarely used headphones back then, it was almost always in my car. On the rare occasions I did use headphones, it was the cheap ones bundled with the walkman on an extremely noisy El car. Plus, at that time, I listened to music like heavy metal and pop, two genres which don't benefit nearly as much as other genres, especially classical which I now enjoy much more frequently. Classical is where you really hear the difference between a CD and even a Chrome cassette with Dolby enabled.

[@EgoShredder]

@@sub-vibes Is that when the lossless codec eventually appeared for MD?

[@Uploadingvirus]

I remember DCC and thought it was a no go versus MiniDisc because MD was randomly accessed and allowed editing the order of tracks, track labeling, etc. DCC was just tape but sounded "better". MiniDisc felt so futuristic at the time in comparison.

[@urbanknish]

It was the future and in a sense, it still is. Millennials are always 2 steps behind. They will get obsessed with them after vinyl becomes too boring. ;) Maybe Sony will bring them back! (wishful thinking)

[@IrishCarney]

All pre recorded DCCs had track titles. As for user recorded DCCs, although early DCC recorders lacked the ability to add track titles to user recorded content, later recorders did have this feature

[@IrishCarney]

DCC also allowed jumping to any track, playlists in any order, shuffle, loop/repeat, etc. Of course it took a lot longer to automatically fast-forward or rewind to a particular track compared to the near instant speed CD or MD but compared to analog tape that was a cool upgrade.

[@Din-nz9tl]

The Mini disc is also more reliable than the DAT, there are fewer mechanical parts in the players, that's not one. magnetic tape and it is not vulnerable to electromagnetism.

[@IrishCarney]

@@Din-nz9tl DAT and DCC are not the same

[@James-fo8rf]

They both sounded great. There were so much choice back in the day. Great times.

[@JacGoudsmit]

Thank you for another great video about DCC and MiniDisc! @3:40 "PASC is a minor tweak to MPEG 1 Layer 1" - "Ackshually" it's the other way around: PASC predates MP1. MP1 expands a little on the possibilities of PASC. In other words, PASC wasn't "based on a third party standard", PASC was what MP1 was based upon. It was Philips who came up with the MP1 standard, not a third party. Apart from the differences in supported bit rates and sample rates, the only difference between MP1 and PASC (and I only found this out recently) is this: when encoding at 44.1 kHz, because the number of bits per second divided by the number of samples per second is not an integer, MP1 and PASC use "padding slots" in (I think) 25 of every 49 frames. In a 44.1 kHz 384 kbps MP1 stream, each packet is either 416 or 420 bytes long. In PASC, those extra 32 bits in 420-byte frames are designated as "dummy" and must be zero (the PASC decoder chips choke on the data if they aren't), but in MP1 those slots can contain data. PASC couldn't do real mono because that would change the bit rate to 192 kbps and the tape speed is fixed at 384 kbps. But there was a Dual Mono mode that was intended to be used for audio books, and provided 4 x 45 minutes (instead of 2 x 45) on a cassette. This was only possible with prerecorded cassettes and the only cassette we have at the DCC Museum that uses this format, is a test tape used for development. As for those frequency bands: We at the DCC Museum talked to the engineer that worked on designing the PASC encoding in the beginning (Gerard Lokhoff; his name is on some of the patents), and I seem to remember him mentioning that they considered dividing the audio into more and/or unequal bands (like Sony ended up doing but of course they had no knowledge about this at the time). But they figured out that it didn't make a difference because the actual lossy compression algorithm would work equally good with equal-size bands, and equal-size bands made the chips simpler. They decided on 32 bands because it was a nice round binary number. I could never hear the difference between DCC and MD, not even in 1992 when DCC and MD came out, and my ears still worked reasonably well. And it's very difficult to compare the formats, because both formats are designed to do really well with music and sound that sounds "really good" or is "easily comparable". For example, a piece of music with lots of dynamic range and lots of carefully mixed instruments that all have different frequency ranges (for example Jazz music) can be encoded well because the frequencies are easily distinguishable and not a lot of sound is masked by your hearing in the first place. Also, obviously, pure tones such as a sinus sweep can be encoded on both systems with pretty much no loss at all because all the bits in the compressed format can be dedicated to an accurate representation of a single frequency, or a few frequencies. On the other hand, music with lots of audio with mixed frequencies, with noise, with sharp drumbeats, with distorted guitars etc. are relatively difficult to encode (i.e. they will probably cause lots of loss from the encoders) but that's exactly where the loss doesn't matter too much because your ears are overwhelmed with sound and you don't hear the distortions from the lossy compression anyway. It would probably be an interesting experiment to use a program like Audacity to subtract the recording with the lossy compression from the original source to find out what was actually taken out by the lossy encoder. But I bet if you listen to "what went out" and then listen to the original recording, you won't go "Oh yes, I recognize that". Both Sony and Philips put a LOT of effort into making their lossy compression sound as good as a CD, and Philips even argues that DCC could sound potentially better than a CD because the encoding is performed with a 24 bit algorithm, so 256 times better accuracy than a CD. We recently released some tapes with 24-bit 48 kHz music and they sound really, really good on an 18 bit or 20 bit player (no 24 bit players were ever made and the encoding was done on a computer). But would they have sounded worse with ATRAC encoding? I don't think I would be able to tell. 10:56 Philips WAS the producer of the MP1 format. I personally speculate that if DCC would have lived longer, Philips might have made improvements too, just like Sony did. For example, it's pretty trivial to encode a different data stream like MP3 on the tape instead of MP1. And for MP3, 384 kbps would be overkill so they could have run the tape at half speed for a sort of "DCC-LP" mode where you could record 2 x 90 minutes (instead of 2 x 45) of MP3 audio at 192 kbps on a DCC-90 tape. Or they could have used the heads of the portable recorders to record and play both sides of a tape at the same time while running that tape at half speed, so you would have 90 minutes of uninterrupted 384 kbps PASC music without the need to reverse the tape after 45 minutes. Or they could have put a DCC head in a microcassette mechanism and combine that with double-sided half speed recording and MP3 compression to get 90 minutes of 192kbps MP3 on a tiny cassette. All of these are possible future projects on my agenda. And then there are other possibilities for improvement that never came to be: For example, the tape used for DCC was basically the same formulation as video tape, but S-VHS used better tape already in the early 1990s. So maybe it would have been possible to use a higher density tape and record DCC with lossless compression at, say, 786 kbps. And by the end of the 1990s, some tape manufacturers started making thinner tapes (like the TDK MA110 tapes and the E300 video tapes where previously the longest video tapes in Europe were E240). That would make for a possibly longer duration if they would have been used for DCC.

[@ThisDoesNotCompute]

Could you cite a source about Philips inventing MPEG-1? I did a decent amount of research into that while putting this episode together, and couldn’t find a definitive link.

[@JacGoudsmit]

​@@ThisDoesNotCompute Good question! I searched for a while and, other than sources that are possibly influenced by myself, I couldn't find any authoritative claim that says that Philips *invented* MPEG 1 by itself. I couldn't even find anything that authoritatively states that Philips was part of the Motion Picture Experts Group (which I think they were, based on information that I barely remember from the time when I worked on an MPEG-2 based satellite receiver at Philips in Hasselt, Belgium in 1996). In your video, you show the DCC System Specification, which describes exactly what the format is of PASC-encoded audio data. It also describes how to encode and decode PASC (which is something that the ISO-11172-3 standard doesn't do, by the way: It only describes the format and how to decode it; not how to encode it). There should be no doubt that PASC and MP1 are very closely related. I admit that the history of PASC and MP1 is not very clear. My information from people who were there in the late 1980s and who we interviewed for the DCC documentary is that Philips spent a lot of time cooperating with renowned research institute IPO (Instituut voor Perceptie Onderzoek -- Institute for Perception Research) to figure out the acoustic model that was used for both MP1 and PASC. But again, I can't find an authoritative source for that on the web. What I did find is a couple of patents filed by Philips that appear to describe the PASC and MP1 encoding of sub-bands: For example patent 8700985 (April 27 1987) in the Netherlands, which is (at a glance) identical to US Patent 5,105,463. The patents don't explicitly mention DCC but they do claim that the encoding will work with digital audio broadcasts and digital tape. There is a lot of vagueness in the history of PASC and MPEG 1 layer I. If you start looking for the origin of the MPEG standards, you will find claims that the MPEG 1 standards originated with the "Eureka 147" project which was started in the 1980s to set a standard for Digital Audio Broadcasts and which ultimately led to the DAB standard. Wikipedia will tell you that Philips was part of Eureka 147 but I couldn't find any confirmation about this either. You will also run into the mention of the MUSICAM standard which apparently was an early form of MPEG 1 layer II. And there are sources that say MPEG 1 layer I was a simplified version of MPEG 1 layer II. I'm inclined to believe that; the "dist10" source code that was released by the MPEG group to encode MPEG 1 audio has a lot of overlap between layers I and II. Did Philips invent MPEG 1? MPEG 1 was both audio and video and I'm sure Philips didn't invent all of it though they were an enthusiastic implementer (they put MPEG 1 video decoders in CD-i players around the same time). But it's clear that they filed patents as early as 1987 that describe the way PASC and MPEG 1 layer I audio are encoded, which makes me think they didn't just take something that a "third party" already invented, and put it into DCC. There are various sources that disagree about when the MPEG-1 standard appeared; they mention dates between 1990 and 1993. DCC came out in 1992. So that might imply another "not sure which was first". But keep in mind that Philips must have worked on PASC encoding and decoding chips for years before DCC was finally released. Not to mention the release of DCC was allegedly delayed by a year because of the failure of Seagate to produce DCC heads for Philips. Was PASC the first sub-band based encoding method? Maybe not. Maybe MUSICAM and/or MPEG 1 layer II existed before PASC. But at least as far as I know, based on talking with people who were at Philips, it was definitely Philips who came up with PASC all by themselves, and they didn't base PASC on MPEG 1 layer I because when they started developing PASC and DCC, there was no such thing as the Motion Picture Expert Group. Thanks for reading!

[@fe3bal]

I remember MD being my first dip into discussing format quality with an audiophile. My explanation was this: I'm getting mp3s usually at 128-192kbps, so using LP2 on my MDs was absolutely fine and suited my use case to a tee.

[@grtitann7425]

Man, time is a soulless b****. Every time I see one of your magnificent videos makes me pounder in that question. Thank you for all the nostalgia trips❤.

[@hiddenmaterial]

atrac sounds so good, especially on clipped really hot recordings. I think what commenter said below about synthwave is correct- a genre that definitely is recorded very loud and it ends up sounding quite pleasant even though most of the program material seems to be recorded way too hot

[@vinylarchaeologist]

On the DCC I could hear some high-end “swooshiness”, like a combination between phasing and low-bitrate quasi-mp3-compression in the treble. The MiniDisc fared well compared to the uncompressed source. Then again, I’m lucky in that I can still hear up to 17kHz, so that may play a role as to why I heard a difference at all.

[@6581punk]

TBH, you need to hear the machines in person. KZbin compression is kicking in, then there's your speakers and so on. KZbin videos are a terrible way to judge the quality of anything.

[@vinylarchaeologist]

@@6581punk I understand your point about YT but I kinda disagree. I know that YT does data compression on the audio, but I was focusing on the differences, not the absolute sound. Also, YT’s compression ain’t that bad.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Yeah, the ride cymbal in the first one really loses intelligibility; becomes that swooshing swirling metallic sound. There aren’t usually dramatic spectral differences, it’s usually subtler things like noise sources or odd harmonics - and cymbals contain both!

[@vinylarchaeologist]

@@kaitlyn__L Exactly!

[@vwestlife]

DCC's PASC codec is the equivalent of MP1 (MPEG Layer I), not MP3.

[@James_Ryan]

10:02 Indeed, one of the audiophile magazines actually mentioned that MD recordings sounded better than pre-recorded MDs (yes, the fact that it wasn't aimed at audiophiles didn't stop the audiophile press from analyzing it to death, graphs and all!)

[@CrisisDog]

I totally agree with this, I think most of them were original ATRAC (1-?) recordings. Still sounded good, but when I made my own discs on an ATRAC3 deck, they definitely kept more of the audio bandwidth and fidelity.

[@IrishCarney]

These days we're all so used to MP3 and (inherently compressed) streaming and take for granted that it sounds fine. But when MiniDisc came out compression was basically new and the media introduction of it to consumers was excessively negative, creating and escalating FUD via an over-focus on a supposed loss of sound quality. Wealthier enthusiasts seeking bragging rights are key to a new tech making it out of the early stages to eventually reach the mass market, but they were put off. This played an important role in weakening MD's launch and establishment, preventing its becoming a status symbol and inevitable future item thus achieving critical mass and a new standard. But this problem was partly also Sony's fault because their early marketing and positioning emphasized pre-recorded albums, implied that MDs were a replacement for CDs (rather than cassettes), AND made MDs more expensive than CDs. Consumers weren't going to do a second replacement of their back catalog of albums (vinyl to CD, then CD to MD) on a medium for in-home use, especially when the new medium was more expensive and supposedly lower quality. Sony should have emphasized the portable use case and the idea of replacing cassettes, especially via boom boxes and car audio in the very beginning since their first MD Walkman was a huge clunky embarrassment that should never have been released at all, especially not as the launch device.

[@r__and__r]

I'd have been curious to see you take the digital output from both and put it into something like audacity so you can see side-by-side if/how the waveforms have been changed.

[@hxhdfjifzirstc894]

IMO that would likely be extremely tedious, without any exciting results. And to what end? If you can hear the difference, that's the point. Furthermore, do you even own a MD player and use it? I own one and haven't used it for 20 years. Any modern cell phone is a far more convenient music library.

[@SpookyDollhouse]

@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 Develop a personality

[@brendanmacdougall7833]

I really appreciate your channel! Your videos bring back so many fond memories for me. I used to daydream of owning some of these devices (Mini Disc, DCC, etc.) when I was a teenager in the 90’s, but I couldn’t afford them. Thank you for the trips down memory lane!

[@dreammfyre]

Why are you guys being super opinionated when the difference will be eaten up by the 128kps KZbin compression anyway?

[@hrmuadib]

Minidisc evolved, after Philips abandoned DCC. ATRAC codec evolved A LOT and this lossy format was indeed the same as "CD quality" in the latest ATRAC versions. But please, don't forget about the latest improvement on the Minidisc format, the HiMD minidisc format that recorded every audio in PCM linear. Yes, i still use minidisc today! 🙂

[@medes5597]

And Atrac kept evolving til fairly recently. Sony audio players used different versions of Atrac to fit more music in smaller space. A lot of the more recent changes to it were more about cutting size rather than improving sound quality (one of them is infamous for sounding fairly dreadful) but Sony took Atrac as far as it could go

[@johnpajestka5022]

At $50 a disc that MD PCM is quite the luxury these days.

[@DFX4509B]

ATRAC even got a lossless variant outside of MD use, and it was the first scalable lossless codec to ever be commercially released to boot, predating modern scalable codecs like DTHD or DTS-HD Master Audio. It would've been really cool had Sony updated MD one last time to support ATRAC-AL so that someone could've had lossless audio on standard MDs for decks that supported decoding the lossless correction stream, while still being backwards-compatible with legacy ATRAC3 lossy audio for decks that don't support ATRAC-AL in this what-if because the core codec for ATRAC-AL was ATRAC3, IIRC, and then they could've made HiMD its own high-end thing exclusively supporting PCM audio as an update of sorts for DAT, and even made HiMD WORM blanks for audio archival purposes as HiMD would be a PCM-exclusive flagship format in my what-if while standard MD would every support ATRAC iteration up to and including ATRAC-AL.

[@yasunakaikumi]

To my ears DCC lost some stereo detail for some reason at the second song while MD keeps those stereo wide from the original. kinda weird but I gues it's one of the traits of MPEG-1 audio and I notice it with MP3 also

[@kaitlyn__L]

Those early formats often used a system called “joint stereo”, which basically was mono with extra panning information much like a stereo vinyl record! (Or stereo radio.) All of which suffer their stereo separation as a result. MP3 was technically capable of true stereo but a lot of the encoders used joint stereo because it was more compatible with hardware decoders etc etc. And Layer I and II pretty much had to use it AIUI. So you mostly didn’t get true stereo back until AAC/Ogg.

[@andresbravo2003]

I'll prefer the MiniDisc because it was king. Product is king. Edit: well I know you guys saw my comment thinking that MiniDisc and DCC are quite great even for music lovers.

[@Gmastergun]

It was king.

[@ShawnTewes]

During that first test, to my ears the DCC had a very slight loss of that bright "sheen" on the top end, but was a bit warmer in the bass when compared to the original, while the Minidisc leaned closer to the original, though slightly colored with a bit more body and a slight edge in the treble. Atrac 4.5 might have been just slightly louder than OG Atrac, but listening over KZbin it's hard to tell the difference. P.S. That Seth Nova track is an absolute banger!

[@brian_castro]

I listened to both samples on my Bose 700 noise canceling headphones. There was a subtle difference between the original, the DCC and Mini Disc. When the track switches from original to DCC, there's a loss of higher frequency sounds. The track sounds less "spacial" than the original, but the lower frequency bass is maintained. What interesting is that when it switches to the Mini Disc, you get less bass than DCC, but the high frequency spacial sound comes back, maybe a tad less than the original, but enough to notice the difference between Sony and DCC. You can hear the differences more on the second track than the first and third. Either way, it's not that big a difference between the two formats. Especially if you're not listening with high-end headphones or speakers. One last thing Colin, I absolutely love the sound quality and engineering you put into your videos!

[@FatNorthernBigot]

I had a portable DCC player, back in the day, and it had the best integrated headphone amp I'd heard. The compression was almost an afterthought.

[@6581punk]

DCC machines played back standard cassettes very well too, the dolby seemed to work much better than on analogue decks.

[@FatNorthernBigot]

@@6581punk Honestly, if I compare my later generation, sleek-looking portable minidisk player to my old DCC player, the DCC sounds far superior. Compression doesn't even come into it.

[@GeneSavage]

Really, it's amazing how well the codecs work at simulating the uncompressed audio. Truly impressive technology. On the first track, I thought I preferred the DCC, barely, like the MD was punching tiny holes in the dynamics compared to the DCC. Ironically on the second demo I thought the stereo image was slightly less on the DCC compared to the MD, and the bass was a little more detailed on the MD, too... so no clear winner. Of course the worst part of this is that what we're hearing is how the KZbin compression codec handles what's left of the DCC and the MD audio... so what I "think" I was hearing could be the results of the KZbin codec, not the original codecs. On top of all of this, if you weren't A/B/C-ing these, there is NO WAY I could have picked up on any of this... and if it was a different day and / or a different stereo system, I could easily make opposite choices. They both are outstanding. When I'm not intently concentrating on the audio (like while I'm typing this message) my brain registers NO difference between the three. Thanks for demonstrating how really good both of these products were! I miss my minidisc recorder.

[@cdioaa]

I remember you could drill a hole in a specific area of a chrome or metal cassette tape and the DCC would think it was a DCC blank tape and you can record in that format. I had both systems at one time. Still today playing minidiscs.

[@michaelturner4457]

Well I couldn't hear any difference. As I wasn't expecting to, given KZbin's codec of 128kbps with an AAC codec, as well as the limited vaporwave music that was used in this video Maybe If I heard some original PCM samples, recorded on DCC and Minidisc using acoustic instruments.

[@shimtest]

I would never be able to tell in a blind test. Great video!

[@InfectiousGroovePodcast]

I truly loved MiniDisc. I had many players from home to portable to car decks. I owened a bunch of commerically released discs but mostly I had a ton of concert bootlegs on them. I never did get into DCC but I was always curious about it so it's great to have a video of a direct comparison.

[@roninxix4428]

Man I used to love Mini Disc, I had a cd/md player in my car and I would use it all the time in college. It was awesome to just record my favorite songs on a few MD's instead of lugging around a CD binder.

[@TheKillogicEffect]

I recall seeing DCC in the stereo shops when I was a kid and being in awe of the new digital tapes that I was sure was going to be the next big thing! Great work sir thank you!

[@niek024]

I had newspaper clippings about DCC and that thing called HDTV all over my room, as a kid. It's so cool to finally live in the future.

[@Sparky-Tim]

It was the convenience of MD that won me over, the ability to edit, name & shuffle playlists was a complete gamechanger. Also the robustness of the discs where they weren't affected by heat or just general day to day handling. Skipping tracks was almost seamless on MD whereas DCC took time to search for the tracks you wanted. Sound quality wise, i was ok with that because i didn't have good quality (read expensive) headphones to hand at the time. Listening was mostly done on the earbuds that the player came with which were fine. I still have & listen to many of the albums i created on MD, & i still enjoy the experience & the memories they envoke. I have many 12" singles recorded onto MD's that I can't find as downloads, so MD will stay with me for a long time to come.😎👍 Great video btw. It's nice to see older tech being aired via YT. Keep up the good work. 👍

[@cxb262]

I SO wanted a DCC deck back in the day, since I had quite a few cassettes. As for the question of, "do you hear a difference," the answer is yes, but the detail is so minor that you wouldn't notice it unless you were told you were looking for it, i.e. it felt like (for lack of a better term) some of the "shine" was lost on the MD versions vs the source and DCC. Regardless, both sounded great, and considering MD was more intended to be a portable format rather than your main set of HiFi gear, WAY more than acceptable.

[@rich1051414]

MD sounds like the mids are scooped out a bit.

[@MrSlackrick]

I was working at Philips when DCC was launched. I was so excited when I got my hands on one.

[@lutello3012]

Have you seen that BBC video about a similar prototype that supposedly used ordinary cassettes in 1984? I gotta know how they did that and how it differs.

[@volvo09]

Interesting... I wonder if they created a machine that would use helical scan (the rotating VCR or DCC head) to write digital information on a regular cassette tape.

[@tides2002]

The system shown in the BBC video looks almost identical as DCC in that it recorded multiple linear tracks. However, reference was made to the tape running at a faster speed to the analogue tape. I suspect without audio compression there was not enough room for a typical length album and that is why it didn’t see the light of day until 8 years later.

[@kaitlyn__L]

That was actually a DCC prototype! Very early though.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@tides2002 yep, the extra speed was to get the full PCM data rate. Probably at 32k rather than 44k though just to get a bit of extra run time!

[@joen9275]

I still listen to my mini-disc collection... About 50 discs with 4 to 6 albums on each. Also discs that I recorded tv tribute concerts after 9/11. I'll never get rid of my mini-disc collection! Great video... :)

[@marcorossen]

I love that Seth Nova track. Flashback to Scritti Politti and a hint of Tame Impala.

[@jazndex]

Great sounding audio equipment !!! i feel the MD sounded ever so slightly better but that just may be me loving my MD players , installed a MD head unit from Japan so i could enjoy all my old music on drives and i absolutely love it , great "shock factor" when i put on my aviators on and pop in a cassette looking cd in the dash

[@hxhdfjifzirstc894]

While toting around a bunch of individual discs of any kind is a hassle, there is a certain something about the tangible aspect of putting 'an album' in, compared to some soulless touchscreen BS. Additionally, I am reminded of a time a few decades back, when my buddies passed an album from the back seat, to play -- I took one look, knew it would be trash, and threw it out the window. That album does not exist anymore. Powder. It's way more satisfying to feed shitmusic to the open road, than to delete some files. It also gave them some incentive to be more careful with the music selection.

[@fallenshallrise]

Most people heavily rely on visual cues or predetermined opinions and impart that on the sound in a big way. When listeners compare things in an A/B test and know that one of the codecs has a bigger number or one of the devices is more expensive they will always say that they hear "more detail" or "depth" or whatever you tell them they should hear.

[@kaitlyn__L]

A lot of this is reminding me of how I recently reread “How Music Got Free” which is about the development of the MP3. Fraunhofer’s team were treated pretty badly by MUSICAM/Philips’ team in the early 90s at the MPEG meetings. Apparently they managed to insert MUSICAM’s filter bank into MP3 as well, and earlier versions were more efficient at encoding before standardisation. Of course it doesn’t go much into Layer I and II except that they’re less efficient than MP3! The second example sounds very close on all of them, but the ride cymbal in the first example was turned into a vague shimmery mess by DCC! The MD lost a little bit of clarity but preserved the overall “shape” of the ride cymbal. And that kind of tracks with how, if you divide the PASC bit-rate by 2 to compare against MP3’s coding efficiency, 192kbps MP3s also often destroyed ride cymbals. There just wasn’t enough definition in the high end of the filter bank for the ride at lower bit-rates, which the adaptive-length block size in ATRAC probably helps with. Certainly AAC, Ogg and Opus used much better filter banks, not MUSICAM/Philips’ design. And that’s a big part of their extra encoding efficiency! (The book also details how almost all of Polygram/Universal’s CDs leaked from the pressing plant for a decade, which is very fun to read and also quite nostalgic for the 90s ‘net. There’s stuff with Doug Morris, the music executive, too which I find less gripping but still provides interesting context. This isn’t an ad or anything, I just really like the book!)

[@vwestlife]

The third-generation DCC machines do have improved audio quality at high frequencies. First- and second-gen DCC recording cuts off at around 15 kHz while third-gen goes all the way up to 20 kHz. This improvement is still audible even when the recording is then played back on a first- or second-gen machine.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@vwestlife that’s good to know. Must’ve expanded the filter bank!

[@fretlessfender]

​@@vwestlifethird gen goes all the way up to 18bits 48khz... highest frequency would be 22khz...

[@JoshColletta]

Just listening on my ancient PC speakers at work... I can't tell much difference between the formats in terms of frequency response or detail, but there's an obvious difference in the stereo field. DCC sounds narrower, while MiniDisc seems to be more accurate to the width of the original, if not just a tiny bit wider. Which is interesting to me, because I worked professionally with MiniDisc in my radio career for quite a few years, and I don't recall ever noticing that before. I'll have to fire up my old MD recorder at home later and see if I notice the same thing.

[@Capturing-Memories]

It's called the placebo effect.

[@ianz9916]

@@Capturing-Memories Well it clearly isn't because that would assume there was a pre-existing expectation of a result causing you to believe that was what occurred. What he is saying is he was surprised at the result.

[@Capturing-Memories]

@@ianz9916 If it was a blind test it would have been wrong guesses, So I stand by facts, there is no difference.

[@JoshColletta]

@@Capturing-Memories "If it was a blind test it would have been wrong guesses." Well, first of all, that's not what you said. You said it was the placebo effect. Ian was correct in pointing out that if it were the placebo effect, I would have had a pre-existing expectation of a certain result. I had none. Secondly, blind tests reveal differences all the time when those differences are there to be found, so I have no idea what you're talking about there. Thirdly, I even stated in my original comment that I've worked quite a bit with MD in my broadcasting career, and I had never noticed this difference before when comparing MD to the source material (usually from CD or something I recorded myself). Further complicating the matter, most of what I was using MD for at the time was monaural, so stereo fields were barely a consideration. I never had any DCC equipment to compare quality with, so that would never have been a comparison I could have made. Finally, my lifelong career has been in media, primarily audio. That includes everything from producing live concert events in small and large venues to radio to music production and now video production (which includes audio). My ears are fairly well-tuned to hear these things, and I make an active effort to LISTEN, not just hear (and look up some of Bob Heil's talks about the science of audio if you're not sure of the difference). If I'm hearing a slight difference, even if minimal, there's a difference there to be heard.

[@Capturing-Memories]

@@JoshColletta In numerous blind tests done between mp3 and CD showed no one was able to decerne between the two, Cut the crap and do a blind test and see for yourself.

[@berndkemmereit8252]

MD was great. I had a MD player at home, a Car radio with MD player and a walkman. I loved the format. Basically CD quality on the go without jumping CD's.

[@MATTY110981]

A friend of mine had a Mini Disc car stereo. It as an area where the format shone and was suited it better than CD and even tape.

[@PeterShorrock-f7y]

Great review love you're work 💞

[@myghi63]

I could easily notice how worse the quality of MiniDisc is at higher frequencies (atrac v4.5), but it would be better without recompression (youtube, as you said :D). Awesome video btw!!

[@ogfuntimeTV]

To me, the MD sounds closer to the original source. With DCC I feel that the high-end is less present. However, I do really enjoy the sound of DCC. The differences are subtle.

[@richclips]

I followed these formats in the 1990s, Gerry Wirtz lead the design team at Philips, and was convinced that people wanted a replacement for the cassette tape that also offered digital recording, therefore DCC could playback analogue cassettes using its thin film heads. People soon realised that track access speeds and convenience were more important. Philips' idea what that DCC would be a companion to the CD, imagine their horror when Sony announced MD! DCC definitely sounded better, higher dynamic range of nearly 18bits. I had and used both, but long term chose MD. Never demagnetize a DCC head, it'll kill it instantly! Nice video x

[@alexmiller2752]

Thank you for introducing me to Seth Nova!

[@1-eye-willy]

Patric Baitman would say "Do you like , Huey Lois and thhe news"?

[@MrKurtHaeusler]

Surely a better way to compare the digital signals , rather than a listening test, would be to actually visualize the waveforms in software and compare them, perhaps after spectral analysis . What would also be interesting is to use filters representing the bands that atrac filter out, we could use the reverse of the filter on the original and dcc and hear what md listeners are missing out on. (You mentioned using digital connections but did you upload lossless? I feel like we are just hearing KZbin’s compression)

[@jvn.k]

Both MD and DCC aside, you have some great music taste. I like the first and the second track that you used for your audio test.

[@mossup-]

Excellent video ♥ DCC to me has a slightly more muddy sound to it than ATRAC, I wouldn't notice if I was just listening while outside but I did spend more time listening to music indoors than out.

[@IrishCarney]

And of course DCC and MD were intended especially for portable use. Cars, Walkmen, boom boxes. Sure there were indoor "deck" boxes just as there were for analog tapes but the idea was that indoor living room listening would have CD taking the place of LP as the top quality audio format that was physically fragile,. skip prone, vulnerable to dust scratches fingerprints etc, while DCC/MD would be, like analog tape, more physically robust and skip protected and recordable, thus better for kids and outdoor/mobile use.

[@thanosb.5403]

In my country (Greece) both formats were equally obscure!! I remember seeing a pre-recorded minidisc at a record shop once and was wondering what it was! As a passionate music lover, I kept on recording conventional cassettes till the late 2000s! I never had a friend who owned a DCC or Minidisc recorder (portable or otherwise). And, despite being a Philips fan, I finally succumbed to the Minidisc craze in late 2021, early 2022! Possibly after watching your other, very popular, video!!! Keep up the good work, pal!!!!!

[@dudemetoo2053]

Wow. What a great video. The production value was top notch. I could believed I was watching something from large studio developed for a cable channels. Great work 👍

[@c128stuff]

To the average consumer, both were higher quality than most people required, and for most kinds of music the differences are inconsequential. Things you may want to listen for are phase errors/shifts resulting in either removal of things atrac considers 'inaudible', unstable positioning of the mid/high frequency component of instruments, or subtle discolering of instruments with many harmonics. But such things are really subtle in most cases. The biggest differences in audio quality between those devices however will be due to different analog filters, not to the encoding technology.

[@jeffmpvd7689]

The quality of the original recording, and the techniques used in the studio is by far the largest determining factor of sound quality.

[@hermanmunster3358]

Of course, but not many of us have that luxury, as mere consumers.

[@supergimp2000]

Here's an interesting factoid about ATRAC (MiniDisc). I was an engineer at Dolby Laboratories in the 90's. If you look at the small print on a MiniDisc back label, you'll probably see "Manufactured under license from Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation". It seems that some of the technology used in the development of ATRAC overlapped with existing Dolby Laboratories patents (or patents they had acquired exclusive rights to) that were implemented in Dolby technologies such as Dolby AC-3. If I recall correctly, apparently Sony engineers didn't do their homework in the patent search process and got caught with an infringement far too late to do anything about it and thus paid a few pennies to Dolby Labs of every MiniDisc player at the very time that DCC and MiniDisc were competing with Dolby's own S-type noise reduction on cassette tape. Edit: You covered this correctly. I should have waited to comment. The only thing I'll add is that some of my colleagues at Sony (I dealt with engineering licensed technology so worked with many engineers from many different CE companies) told me it was a very dark day at Sony when the patent overlap was discovered with some very irate executives.

[@troyconnolly9053]

Nice to see your not just another Sony fanboy . A proper a / b comparison. Certainly The pre recorded MDS weren’t flash .but here couldn’t tell the difference . Well done. Great music to

[@tambarskelfir]

DCC was trying to answer a question that didn't need asking; the normal compact cassette was "good enough". It was primarily used in cars and on the go and in small handheld devices where slight hissing and non optimal frequency range just didn't matter - and for the people who wanted to squeeze out high fidelity sound from an audio cassette, they could opt for Chrome or Metal tapes along with high end recording and playback equipment. There just was no need for a "digital" compact cassette. I never even saw a MiniDisk irl they were so rare here, but as soon as CD walkman happened, that was end for that.

[@sixteenbitter]

In the mid aughts when every megabyte of flash memory mattered I remember compressing my music to ATRAC for playback on PSP, lol.

[@chrism2964]

The thing about early 90s reviews (and even somewhat todays reviews) of digital music is that reviewers were still stuck in an analogue head-space. They couldn't conceptualise how digi8tal worked, and so spoke as if it were analogue. Even now audiophile articles claim expensive interconnect cables make things sound better.

[@DarkDragonEWA]

The MiniDisc samples honestly seem fuller and closer to the original to me although the DCC isn't bad.

[@SethNova]

HEY, thanks for featuring my song! 😃

[@troublecluster]

Awesome video as always, Colin! I was a teenager when those formats started to get a foothold in Europe. MD was always going to be the winner for me in no small part because MD seemed to be so futuristic at the time. DCC was novel and impressive for what it was but the MD players got smaller and not having to deal with the foibles of a tape player was so welcomed. I went on to own the incredible Sony E10 when new and even picked up a second years later as a backup which is now in my collection of all things retro. That thing still looks like it is from the future today.

[@keithspillett5298]

I actually used minidisc professionally to record/edit spoken word projects 'back in the day'. The results sounded superb, and the editability of minidisc was well worth a slight quality tradeoff against PCM1610 compared to the editing costs of the professional format.

[@steveromain1239]

I have been using mini discs since 2008 It’s one of the best formats that I use

[@GrandPotatoe]

I love this history dive on obscure formats, technology, and company history. Keep up the great work 💪

[@Richard-bq3ni]

I remember doing a listening test with a friend in the 90's. He bought a DCC deck and borrowed a mini disc so we could compare. We used an analogue copy from a cd track so the A/D conversion was also part of the test. The DCC sounded as an identical copy but the minidisc was disappointing. Then we found out that the minidisc had the automatic recording level switched on. After correcting that, we repeated the test and the conclusion was that both sounded equal. Just a few years later, the CDR hit the market so both formats were rendered obsolete.

[@onerandomguy4832]

Thanks for adding the featured music in the description.

[@tookitogo]

10:41 The thing about most lossy audio compression based on perceptual encoding (which includes ATRAC, PASC, MP3, AAC, etc.) is that the decoder is fixed, but the encoder is not. The data created must be in the specific format so that the decoder knows how to play it. But the heavy lifting, so to speak, is in the encoder, which has to decide what frequencies to focus on, how much resolution to assign to them, etc., to produce the compressed data. This is very computationally expensive, so early encoders were comparatively basic. Since computing power grows in leaps and bounds, as time goes on you can design new encoders that use more computing power to make better decisions about how to allocate the available data rate to the incoming audio. The result is that for a given format, different codec versions (or even ones created by competing developers) can produce radically superior performance, all while remaining playback-compatible with every player ever made, because the decoder is unchanged. This is very visible with MP3: the first encoders were terrible, but we had to live with it because encoding took substantially longer than real-time. Just a few years later, with much more computing power at our disposal, we got encoders that sounded far better. CPU power grew faster than the encoder complexity, so by around 2000 we not only had great encoders, but faster than real time encoding, too. Sony did the same thing with ATRAC: the data format was defined so well (in that it had a lot of flexibility which decoders had to support, even if the first encoders couldn’t use it) that they were able to massively improve the encoding algorithms, to the point that in some aspects it actually exceeded CD. (By the Type-R encoder, it was actually capable of accepting 24-bit audio, allowing it to make better encoding decisions.) The MZ-1’s encoder was so computationally starved that Sony limited it to 15KHz, which is why to young ears, it sounded a bit flat compared to CD. (The version 2 encoder raised the bandwidth to 18kHz, version 4 to 19KHz, and version 4.5 to 20KHz.) Where incompatibility is introduced is when you want to make changes to the decoder. That breaks playback compatibility, but lets you introduce capabilities that allow better sound quality at a given bitrate. This approach (strictly defined decoder, loosely defined encoder) applies to almost all the lossy codecs we use regularly, not only in audio, but also in still images (JPEG, etc) and video (including all the MPEG flavors, H.264, H.265, VP9, etc). Video being by far the most computationally expensive, it’s why many video encoding programs even let you choose whether to prioritize encoding efficiency (giving you better quality for a given bitrate, or lower bitrate for a fixed quality) at the expense of longer processing time, or to sacrifice encoding efficiency to achieve a faster encode.

[@making-memories-nl]

Good compare of these formats. Did the gold plated optical cable also help to better the quality of the audio? 5:54 😁

[@mattm7252]

While I never had a MD player I always have had Sony Walkman mp3 players and would always convert my music to ATRAC to put it on them. I always found they would sound so much better than a regular mp3 at the same bitrate.

[@crabdonkey6381]

I agree the Mini Disc sounds a bit better, but noticed no remarkable difference between ATRAC versions.

[@DonovanChilders]

That MZ-37R brought back some memories. It was my first MD recorder and I used the hell out of it.

[@supralapsarian]

As an MD mega fan (I personally owned two portable players, one portable recorder, five decks [including the MD-CD combo with high speed dubbing-SWEET!] and an MD car stereo head unit-ALL Sony devices) I vigorously salute this effort. Bravo!

[@carstenhundt4515]

I started with Mini-Disc in the 90´s. It is the best format in my opinion for recording. Last week i bought one of the best decks ever produced. A mds-ja 50 from sony. A heavy weight and superb manufactured component. I hope it will last till the end of my days. Thanks for this Video and greetings from Germany !

[@martinda7446]

Where did you get the idea we are better at lower frequencies than higher ones?? The ear changes sensitivity depending on pressure levels. At very low levels toward the threshold of hearing the ear is most sensitive at 3.8khz. It is why sweet unwrapping in the cinema is noisy. In fact it is 80db more sensitive there than in the bass! That chart showed the Fletcher Munsen equal loudness curves. It is the reverse of what you said.

[@momomunsta8887]

Wow what great music choices. I am definitely adding these song a to a playlist

[@andreasglantz2294]

Loved the video as always, but THANK YOU for turning me on to Seth Nova! 🤯

[@flaguser4196]

audacity can be used to invert and align tracks to subtract the original from the reproduction and "see" any differences. that is assuming minor differences in gain, if any, is taken into account (not sure if how optical audio cables work, never used one).

[@ClaytonMacleod]

This wouldn't really tell you anything, though.

[@flaguser4196]

@@ClaytonMacleod right! forgot audio perception is not as simple as comparing signals in time domain. I had used this before to compare how lossless the "best" settings for some codecs are, but this makes little sense for intentionally lossy settings. comparing spectra would likely be a better benchmark.

[@ClaytonMacleod]

@@flaguser4196 If you're interested in whatever random stuff a codec throws away, it will definitely show you that. I don't know that this info is all that interesting, though. I don't know how you'd correlate that to how it actually sounds to you. It is possible to throw away a lot of information and still have it seem transparent. A different codec throwing away a different amount of different random stuff might still sound transparent, too. Unless you can hear a difference in the comparison I don't think you'll find much use in seeing what the difference is, other than out of curiosity, perhaps. When listening to the difference data of the original versus encoded itself you're likely to still be able to recognize what it is you're listening to, but that doesn't necessarily mean that what you hear there is actually important data. Recognizing it isn't the same as "I can recognize that and thus it should not have thrown it away." Discarded data might still be recognizable, but in the context of what the codec actually kept, that discarded data probably isn't that meaningful.

[@flaguser4196]

​@@ClaytonMacleod yep. I agree. thanks for the explanation! in non listening research applications perhaps. like verifying a lossless codec is truly lossless... I used to create soundfonts and checking the waveforms didn't change much when converting from wav to a compressed audio format ensures there's no clicks in the loop points. but the video is about lossy codecs, so the direct difference is not useful in this context.

[@LilaKuhJunge]

Interesting test, thanks a lot for sharing! I was able to notice a small difference in stereo imaging when switching to MD in the 2nd piece, but not when coming back from MD. Also the sibilance and hissing sounds were different on MD in a few cases - even via youtube compression. The first piece where the subtitle always said "original" had strong artefacts on sibilance, very typical for low-bitrate codecs of early days - you may ask the musician if he took some samples into the piece... I actually participated in the development of DAB and we did a lot of auditions to understand the effects of psychoacoustic compression. There were also major improvements in DCC, not only different decoders, but more importantly better encoders and a switch to 18bit/bitstream converters. You will find these in the DCC951 and the DCC730. I also worked with DAT at that time time and while it was lossless, it actually wasn't, because the machines of the early days really had lots of issues.

[@Christian-fu8vx]

Still using Minidisc, it's a very good sounding, extremly long lasting, temperature resisting and reliable format, also perfect for recording vinyl and tapes.

[@ZachariasEnislidis]

Oh that one was so smooth and informative video. Thanks for the effort you put, now i can shove this video to the faces of some of my friends who argue about different media quality and end the debate. The end result is the same we all get older and deaf...

[@allstar930]

Man, I loved my MD players. I even used to rock college parties with them as a DJ. I held onto my portable plyer for a long time until I switched to a Nomad Muvo mp3 player around 2003.

[@cody1804]

3:18 nooooo Why is the capacity of an MD always the same (74:59) while some musical passages are the same? The ATRAC codec is based on an indivisible unit of 11.6 ms and always tries to restore the best possible resolution in each part of the sound spectrum that it considers important to restore. For it, everything is just a sequence of bits, even in the absence of a signal during recording, or for a very simple signal such as pure tones, ATRAC will use all the available space allocated for each 11.6 ms slice. ATRAC only works with a FIXED bit rate of 292kbit/s. There is no concept of variable bit rate in the ATRAC codec on MD. The system is not as flexible as MP3 or OGG Vorbis where both modes exist (CBR for Constant BitRate and VBR for Variable BitRate).

[@BlitzkriegGT]

i always enjoy your videos i learn and have fun with retro computing its like a travel but without getting out

[@duprie37]

Having grown up in the mid-80s taping the Top 40 off hissy FM Radio onto even hissier cheap cassettes with my Philips boombox, any digital format is such a vast improvement in quality that any differences between them are on the proverbial Planck scale to me 😅

[@wojiaobill]

In high school back in the late 90s I worked part time at a gas station, and I saved up my pay cheques to buy an MZ-R37, which was my first of many MD recorders. Today I use Apple Music and Spotify, but I still have a special place in my heart for MD!

[@bartonlynch]

PASC was initially richer with upper frequency detail given the higher bit rate, while ATRAC was limited due to the one detail you overlooked, Colin, the fact that ATRAC 1 had a high roll off frequency cut at 15kHz. PASC was noticeably better than ATRAC only at launch. Unfortunately for PASC, the DCC did not survive the launch period and MiniDisc endured, giving the latter time to mature and evolve to the point where it gained true transparency against the CD, starting with ATRAC 3.5, and audiophile/pro level with ATRAC Type-R. Thanks to your video, Colin, I learned today about each format's band distribution budget, proportions and priorities. I ignored this crucial information about them. Thank you.

[@alerey4363]

Deceptive title; firs of all you have the mastering process: here lies the initial quality of the music (i.e. not being ultra loud, clipping by wrong gain setting, aggresive processing, wrong dithering profiles, etc); then you have the medium (coverd below), and the format, which judging by the title of your video is what you intend to analize here (and in this point it's been widley proven that 16-bit 44.1 Khz is perfectly fine for reproducing the studio quality of any musical piece for the human ear); last you have your output stage, i.e. amplifier-speaker/headphone stage which again plays a huge part in the overall listening experience. But going back to the digital formats, the key parts are: eliminate the analog steps from the equation (both tapes and minidisc use motors, heads, and electromechanical moving parts which are subject to wear, dust, magnetic interference, etc; at this point tape mechanisms are considered weaker than rotating discs, because they suffer from wow/flutter due to belts, magnetic head, etc); then you have the main point in digital formats: the compression algorithm; here basically it is a matter of lossy vs lossless: mp3 are lossy (they discard info in the original track by taking into account average-human hearing response; lossless on the other hand are totally faithful to the original track captured in the studio but require more cpu power to decode vs the mp3 smaller file; back in the 90s this was an issue; nowadays it's absolutely useless to compress audio files). In these mid 90s-early 2000s it comes to comparing algorithms, because both will probably take different (proprietary) routes to achieve smaller file sizes trying not to butcher frequencies nor generating noise in the process.That's what you really should investigate when comparing these kind of vintage formats.

[@S7EVE_P]

I'm still using Minidisc in my car. Still my favourite format ever. I record from a flac file over optical and cannot tell any difference from source.

[@Kinkajou1015]

During the second song you played I could hear a very very slight minute difference between DCC and MD. The MD was a touch louder and clearer vocals. I couldn't tell any differences any other times. But I also am not using good headphones right now. Overall, DCC may have been closer to the original source but I still preferred the MD due to making the vocals easier to hear. I miss my MD player, bought a NetMD back in 2002, I loved how it was one AA battery and gave a longer runtime than my portable CD player with two AA batteries. So compact, and I could fit HOURS of music on a single disc. It's honestly a shame MD never really took off in the states.

[@godzzwrath]

they both sound great! i prefer MD overall, it has a bit of a warmer sound that DCC doesnt. MD is also just a really interesting format, need to get my hands on a player and some disks some day 🙏

[@megan_alnico]

I was surprised. I was sure I'd hear no difference whatsoever. I have tinnitus, so how good could my hearing be right? But I heard differences in the vocals. I can't tell you if it was good or bad, but the simple fact that I heard something was shocking.

[@Akuzastar]

Maybe it's just my ears or headphones, but DCC's backing track seemed to dip down, almost slightly quieter (not much but noticeable if you really focus) the mini disc is quite similar to the CD though.. In a practical sense though, you'd never notice the difference unless you were listening closely and had comparisons like this. Great video

[@samuraijaydee]

I can't tell the difference. Thanks Colin!

[@brian_castro]

As someone who used to regularly rip CDs all the time and compress them into smaller file formats, the perceivable difference between the bitrate of Mini Disc and DCC is negligible to the average person. Although most iTunes songs and mp3's that were downloaded both legally and illegally averaged 128, from my experience, 192 bitrate is the minimum threshold for CD-like sound quality that pleases most people. Above that, you get diminishing returns in sound quality versus file size and portability. At least that was the the case in the mid to late 2000s, when broadband internet access was not wide spread, and early mobile devices had dial-up download speeds.

[@billmankin6204]

Definitely some contraction of the sound stage on DCC. I didn't think this would be noticeable over youtube.

[@ballyastrocade5672]

My own impression , from having both formats, is that the PASC compression used on the DCC is *slightly* more forgiving when it comes to things like vinyl surface noise than MiniDisc's ATRAC is -- but you'd really only notice if you're (A) making your own "mix-tapes" (mix-discs?) from analog sources, and then listening to them on a really good set of speakers or headphones in an otherwise-quiet listening environment. If you were listening to them on a portable unit with average headphones, or through a car stereo, you'd never notice it.