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I'm not sure we are understanding "directly" in the same context Philippe. You are focusing on his literal meaning, of playing the real MP3 file on a minidisc recorder. I'm not a great purveyor of MP3's and I have rarely converted from MP3 to ATRAC (sometimes the reverse because modern players won't play ATRAC). But I think that is part of what SonicStage will do, more or less routinely. it doesn't take a special conversion, the software will do it on the fly (which is what I believe the poster means by "directly"). We get so hung up on technical terms we omit to review their context sometimes. I just did it with a freshly imported MP3 which I then transferred from SonicStage to my MZ-N910 using NetMD. No problemo.....

Of course I accept that as your opinion. But you used the phrase "is horrible". Not "I think it's horrible". You say "is horrible" in the context of an article presenting facts in a scientific way. This in turn vitiates the undoubted strength of your careful analysis. What on earth are you suggesting? Please - I cut and pasted exactly from what you said. No editing. Review what we each wrote and you will see I simply played back your words to you. Only if you try to go straight from a CD or so (1411kbps or better) to 66kbps. Starting from a broadcast stream (of 128kbps) using Type-R recording (at least with a deck) at 66kbps is frequently excellent. As I've stated on this board before.

"What I say three times is true" (Lewis Carroll, the Hunting of the Snark). I utterly dispute that LP4 is of itself horrible. Perhaps when you tried it, and the way that you tried it.

Now there we differ. I can find no evidence that Type-R recording is inferior. I don't actually think it is. From everything I read, Type-S is a playback enhancement. My first hand experiences confirm that. Stephen

Start by turning off the feature which runs Sonic Stage whenever an Atrac Audio Device is connected (Tools->Options->General). Also... turn off Tools->Options->My Library->Play->File Settings, and uncheck ALL BOXES. When we see what that does, we can give you more advice. You may have stumbled upon the problem several others have (I don't own a mac) commented on, with your careful description. I can tell you're a techie.... well done! (what must be happening is that omgjbox a.k. SonicStage is being woken up every time the system sees a new HiMD disk. So if there's a way to make VMware or Parallels or whatever only ever invoke ONE copy of SS, we may be Ok). There's one more thing to consider. If you put the RH1 into DiscMode=HiMD, then it may work fine (its in the menu settings on the unit itself). However you may see crashes every time it tries to switch to NetMD mode ie when you insert a legacy MD.

You could look at (Sony) ICD-SX712 or PCM-M10 I have both (actually the ICD-SX750 but that's no longer current). These are both sold also through Amazon. To get mic to work at line level you need a "battery box" preamp of some kind.

There are lots of tascam 350 for sale right now. Dates from 2001.

Not according to Tascam see here: http://tascam.com/product/md-02b/

I don't think the RH10 is a particularly good example of one that charges the prism batteries. At the very least you may need to adjust the voltages at which charging cuts in and out (part of the service menu). Good luck!

I think any of them should be fine. You take a risk, but at $5-10 probably it's not worth your time (or mine) to even debate. What you DO need is something that properly charges them. Some of the Japan built Sony units seem to be good (R90/91 and some others probably), or the GP (Gold Peak) charger that specifically has sockets for the "prismatic" batteries. (yes, try googling prismatic),

My opinion is this: it doesn't matter if it's real or fake. Real ones may be dead; fakes may work perfectly. I agree that if the package was opened you should return it. But prepare for a dispute with hot words. Most of these batteries can be woken up. I have never found one that could not. But probably the RH10 is not the way to do it.

Chris there are plenty listed if you merely search EBay. It's not necessary to buy the official one for 44 $. Regards Stephen

1. This model is not in production - as per the link you sent. 2. The only model now for sale is the MD-CD1 Mk III, see http://www.amazon.com/Tascam-MD-CD1-Recorder-Wireless-Control/dp/B006LPEI92 3. Yes it has no SCMS (but I am not sure about the MD-CD1). But with computers and an RH1, most of us hardly care.... 4. Try searching on Tascam in this forum. Stephen

Is JavaScript disabled? That might stop the button from doing anything. Maybe you have to put that website into your trusted list if you turned off JS.

You can't run Android without a gmail account (no access to updates via play store), effectively. For whatever the reason, that would be my first guess. Can you actually get into the playstore?

I would be tempted if only for the S1. But I have my hands full right now. The R90 was what caught my eye.

Try this listing: http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/van/ele/3225910634.html

A rare beast, not particularly desirable IMHO - You'll find the CMT-M333NT/373NT to be more commonly available. - The speakers on the C7NT are special with weird connectors. - Finally, I'm not sure whether the C7NT has the (superior) Type-S DSP chip. The later 333/373 definitely does.

It's likely. I'm guessing this one would be purr-fect http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-MD-MZ-R91-Personal-MiniDisc-Player-Recorder-Faulty-Spares-or-Repair-/350588537299

R90 or 91 easy to find on eBay. The other possibility is to fix the charging circuits on th RH10. Its not so much about the battery as the charger, is ny point.

The NiMH batteries are eminently chargeable most of the time. You just need the right charger, mostly (more below). Also you can clean off the contacts of the battery by judicious scraping with a very sharp (penknife?) blade, and should swab (using a Qtip) the inside contacts (door and also the far end of the battery compartment) with isopropanol. To wake batteries up, you can either force charge with a regulated power supply (lab gear) or (maybe easier) charge by insertion in one of the japanese-made MD portables (eg R91) which seem to be much better adjusted for charging these batteries. Good luck Also you can buy some, more of that in a later post if you have no luck.

I actually think there's a REASON why SP sounds so good. Unfortunately that same reason causes it to be difficult to deal with as a codec (quite apart from licensing issues from Dolby). There's some magic in the choice of the 292kbps so that it's a very simple mathematical transformation for the data from 1411kbps to 292. I believe this, but cannot be sure of it. Effectively what I am saying is that somehow the choice of bit rate means that the transformation between ATRAC and 1411 PCM doesn't generate much dithering (interpolation) of bits. I think they kept most of this in the later ATRAC codecs but that there was something mathematically perfect about the original one. It's likely that much of that was in the ATRAC hardware. I emphasise again that this is just a layman's (my) "hand-waving" explanation - and it may be wrong.

No link needed. Here's what I know: 1. No portable (or deck? but I don't have Onkyo) can really take advantage of 352. On the portables I tried, there's no significant difference from 256kbps (Hi-SP). 2. Ripping to AAL 256 or 352 makes no difference except that converting from 352 to 256 takes more work - when you copy AAL/256 to portable SS simply throws away the "lossless" part 3. If you convert back to WAV from AAL either 256kbps or 352kbps will generate about the same result. That's why it's called "lossless" 4. No device actually PLAYS AAL - the ones that do simply throw away the lossless part. I may easily be wrong about this, so perhaps someone can provide proof that there's a difference. I don't think any of the devices that claim to natively play AAL can actually reproduce those frequencies anyway.

This topic has been done to death. Glad to give you the bottom line, though. For my taste, rip to Atrac Advanced Lossless (High Quality, not High Speed - somewhere in the settings) and save that on your PC. You can use EAC to make the rip, then import the WAV files into SS. After that I still compress to AAL. But the AAL is a pretty good start as about half the work needed to make a decent sounding MD is already done. Save things in AAL (use the 256kbps base, 352kbps doesn't buy you anything) on the PC, then extrude to LP2 or Hi-SP (if you have a HiMD unit). Don't use SS to rip CD's directly to WAV, however SS->LP2 is not too bad. Simple Burner can do that, too (but doesn't function under Windows 7 or any Windows 64-bit - there's a bit of ambiguity since we can not definitively say that W7/32 won't support it). SP is not a computer-friendly codec, for whatever reason.

Remember the whole generation of IT managers who had the mantra "no one ever got fired for buying IBM"?