sfbp

OK, so we are a bit further ahead. It looks like this is one of the models that supports native MP3 playback. So the only thing the software has to do is create the right packet and possibly checksum (I don't recall). Almost certainly this is the Hi-MD equivalent of the situation being discussed over in another thread, where the overwrite head is not working properly (or maybe completely dead). Time to get it fixed, prodjade. Most likely you should communicate with Jim Hoggarth here on the board and see if he could fix it. I'm guessing MZ-RH910... would you like to confirm?

Not likely. You should be returning this item to the vendor. Apart from Jim in England, we don't know of a US repairer that would make cost effective repairs. Sony will do nothing. There are many much better decks. If you can't return it, write it off to experience and buy something else. The 510 will probably be quite useful for parts, in time. Things like knobs, transformers, ribbon cables etc. Just saw your pictures. The part that's busted is the other side of the head, the part that comes from the top of the MD. Unless, as Jim says, it is bent over or snapped off completely, you won't be able to see the spot where the ribbon cable cracked (most likely happening to cause your symptoms).

You won't break the Connect Store encryption. Not in this lifetime. If the files were from some other source, eventually they should be readable.

Agreed. I think the *reason* Sonic Stage isn't good with MP3 (aside from commercial/conspiratorial considerations where some aggrieved party suggests this was on purpose) is that the software and design date to before the time when MP3 was enhanced by various means (DFXEnhancer and Foobar2000 to name a couple). Sony's ATRAC-to-MP3 conversion program is quite decent. But I am left with the feeling that the music I had just took a one-way trip, to which yours is the only solution. I record stuff to MD that is either AAC or MP3 when broadcasted. As you say, letting ATRAC compression do its thing on the decompressed (WAV) sound from such sources works quite well. The MP3 enhancers, also, lessen the quality gap between MP3 and MD. If you really want to compare converted files, I suggest playing with Sound Forge 9 or 10. It handles ATRAC and MP3 interchangeably. The only thing you must do is to decrypt any uploaded files from MD before you try to edit them. This is achieved with the File Conversion Tool that's supplied with (and is really an integral part of) Sonic Stage.

Thank you for the clarification. I apologise for missing the rest of the manual, I could have sworn there was nothing after page 2 when I looked before. It is now posted in the downloads sections. However.... at page 23 (22 of 28) it clearly states that the Sound Pressure check and Destination (sections 4-5-5 and 4-5-6) are "not used for the servicing". I think this means that at least the INTENT is that they are not changeable, just as everyone has been reporting. However the manual outlines that if the right firmware is flashed using a program "updating-mtp" (not sure of the suffix, whether .exe or someother executable type of file) the destination is set, along with sound pressure - see section 1-3, page 6 (5 of 28). However there are lots of different firmware versions corresponding to different countries and memory sizes, and all are presumably specific to the NWZ-E46x series of this manual. So the test mode, just as everyone has already stated, will not help you get around the volume limitation. It is built into the firmware. Sorry - this doesn't help OP. And I suspect the same goes for the FM frequency allowed, which others have asked about in order to find out if they can make, for example, the Japan version of these devices to work with radio stations broadcast in other locations.

increasing the write power will likely blow the laser and burn your disks. Be careful. Typically it's the read that needs adjusting, and since it's very small (1/10 of write) it's a very sensitive adjustment.

Your diagnosis sounds extremely probable. It's possible you can adjust your way out of difficulty. Unfortunately the adjustment is tuffer than replacing the head. I recommend you contact Jim Hoggarth (who will probably be reading this) and see about service. He runs an MD repair-for-fixed-fee deal which you can find on Ebay UK, but will probably respond to this message too.

Yeah, mentioned that in post #2........

1. This is an English language site. Sorry 2. The Sharp DR410 problem has been solved 3. You need the download of NETMD760.SYS from our downloads section

Dead overwrite head. Commonest problem on ALL minidisc decks/portables.

'snot even that complicated... just make a line or mic recording with portable (assuming that is possible) of a few seconds of "something" (eg your room noise).

I have found optical-signal-based track marking to be a somewhat variable feast, TBH. On my favourite device for recording, it sometimes divides correctly, sometimes not at all, and sometimes too often, depending in the latter case on the level I specified for division. Not sure if that's an option on the r50 though. Ah.... light dawns. You cannot combine manual recording level and track sync on some models. Certainly the R50. You might want to try turning off Manual record (which should apply only to microphones on that unit, I will allow) before you start any of this. As you say some sort of reset may be needed. There's no harm in taking all power sources out over night just to see if that fixes it. Finally, can you try some different optical sources? Perhaps there's some noise or jitter on the optical signal (that is new) that is causing the base level between tracks to be higher than the (predetermined, non-adjustable) level where the machine recognises a new track by the silence.

Jim Hoggarth can give you a step by step diagnosis to walk through. But it sounds at first sight, if you cannot play ANYTHING, that you have a problem with the laser head. The real question is: do you have a disk (just one) that you know has some music on it? If you can play that but not record anything, then you have a busted overwrite head. The behaviour you are seeing is utterly consistent with the overwrite head being bad, anyway. You'll never write anything on the disk. All you have done is to store (in the machine's memory) a bunch of track marks at times x,y,z.... and so on. One thing - most SonicStage disks will be LP2 recordings. This will never produce sound on the (SP-only) JE510. So unless you can make an SP disk with SS on your portable, the fact that you hear no sound with previously made disks proves nothing. If you can't play anything at all, the situation may be more basic yet, like no power to the Read-Write electronics. Jim should be able to help distinguishing this from the other case I mentioned. Whatever..... time to throw it back at the vendor. I wouldn't spend huge efforts repairing the JE510, they are one of the more unreliable models from everything we read here. The 520, or 530, or 630 or 640 would be much better choices. Sorry it's not good news.

Did you set "synchro-rec" before you started recording? See page 12 of the manual. Turning it on later won't always work right.

Sounds like you have not got the save location for WAV files set properly. Create a directory on a drive (example: c:convWAV), Right click the file in Sonic Stage display and select the destination you just created. The file should be converted to wav. If you need to convert automatically on uploading, there is a (relatively hard to find) option under Tools->Options->Transfer->(HiMD)Transfer Settings->Advanced->Import Settings (down at the bottom) where you can set the same folder as your destination. Unfortunately this will not preserve the folder structure you have (albums most probably), but will dump your file(s) into this one directory. So they should be easy to find. If you were doing all of this, try to explain to us what exactly goes wrong and what error you see. So far you haven't done that. doesn't tell me much, unfortunately. The sizes are about Windows minimum cluster size... don't take any notice of that.

There's self modifying code in there, IIRC, specifically tailored to Windows. So it probably can't be so easily ported.

what????? This is a couple of pages summarizing the user manual for a different walkman (actually several walkmen).

There's a guy in Kyoto selling an MDX-66XLP right now via US Ebay. It may well even be that he has access to several of these. When I got mine I discovered that there were folks in Japan that seemed to have LOTS of these that they'd taken out of people's cars (legitimately of course) and selling this and other popular items such as RH1 as a business.

If the drivers work for W2k, it's most unlikely that XP drivers would not work. The really sad part is that there was no equivalent made for HiMD. The LAM-X1 that Jim saw was unimpressive, apparently.

That driver is not needed, and not being used, the way you have it set up. That driver is for NetMD under Windows 64.What is crashing is the 32-bit driver (NETMDUSB.SYS) running under Virtual XP. Remove all traces of Sonic Stage. Including all the oem.inf files, .sys files and .cat files generated by your previous attempt. <REBOOT> Install Sonic Stage in Windows. Not in the XP virtual machine.

I've had a quick look at mp3 - nowhere do I see support for this statement vis a vis MP3. Can you please provide a reference so I may read? Thanks

My NH900 was 100% cured of its problems (similar to Philippe's) by doing the proper power adjustments. It's still not very good at charging batteries but (I suspect) that's mainly because I didn't have quite enough gear to do that part of the adjustment just the way Sony intended.

Don't worry, we are all confused here, myself as much as anyone. The advice I am giving is a mixture of science, supposition, and pure empirical 'It works". Most of the criticism of these formats comes, I feel almost certain, from people who assume that conversion will always work and that all digital formats are equivalent. Not suggesting that to be the case for you. However getting to the same place may depend on the exact route you used to get there.

Just remember - AAL is only a ***storage*** format. When you play it, or transfer it to MD, what you get is the ATRAC part. The "lossless part" is there so that during conversions you get correct transformations just as if it had been ripped to the resulting bit rate directly. The other thing (which I keep claiming, but at least one person denies) is that the AAL ripper works in high quality but the WAV ripper in SonicStage ain't that accurate (the former is slow, the latter quick). Maybe that's not really it, but going via AAL seems to give a better end result. Make sure you have AAL "recording quality" set to high (another configuration item), and the bit rate to 256kbps. (I think 352 may be the default, and I am unconvinced it makes any difference). 256kbps AAL converts nicely to LP2 if you have non-HiMD listening needs, and absolutely directly to HiSP (just throws away the lossless part). Forget SP when going via the computer, essentially you just get LP2 on disk with padding.