sfbp

Typically your unit will not charge the batteries to a full charge, and most people end up blaming the non-Sony batteries which is invariably what they bought after-the-fact. I figured it out, and Jim has confirmed, that adjustment to spec will make sure the battery charging circuits give you a full charge.

I can. But I'm 5000 miles away whereas Jim is barely 50.

Yes but this is a natural hoardING.

When the time comes, note that if charging is not great, don't blame the battery. Send the unit off to Jim and get the charging circuits adjusted (unless you want to figure out how to do it yourself!!!).

I see an advertisement coming on (woof woof at all those high freqencies!)

Not true, Oz. My only problem (hahah!) is that the one flash walkman I have doesn't work with SS, because it's too new. All the recent models that DO support Atrac, support AAL. Whether or not they use the information is another issue, cynical yours truly suspects that the playback is of the lossy part.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NH-14WM-Gumstick-1450mAh-minidisc-battery-Sony-equiv-/370442925822

I had a lot of trouble until I figured out why CD Text was not being burned properly. Seems there's no standard. It's just possible some of this is due to your Code Page (ie whether data is being transmitted as ASCII or something else). I definitely recall failures with CD-Text even not using Ctrl-A1 You could do worse than try to make a CD-Text disk with SonicStage. Make sure you click the button at the bottom right to enter the media info. You only get one chance and otherwise it puts in a (meaningless) jumble of useless numbers. If you read the notes on Ctrl A1-II in the JB940 manual, their answer is that all Ctrl A1 devices should work just fine, ie backwards compatible. They are at pains to point out the new features of A1-II won't work with the A1 devices (obvious!?). When you say making a disc with nero won't work, what do you mean? And one more thing: someone referred recently to a situation where a message occurred indicating the CD-Text was not copyable. But it turns out it's in the buffer in the MD deck regardless, all you have to do is edit it a little

I dunno if this is any help, but the JB940 was the first "straight" deck to support PC-Link protocol. So MCrew should work. You will need a PCLK-MN10, though. I agree, CD-Text should work, based on the specifications. Question: are you trying to do this with a keyboard plugged in? There's some very peculiar circuitry that enables that keybrd port as both PCLink and Kbd.... I'm wondering if with the keyboard there, the SLink stuff simply gets turned right off.

YES - this changer will work with any head unit that has the Slink/Unilink/BUS connector. Digital connection fairly unlikely. "IN" makes no sense, since you don't record on a changer

Not so fast. Nearly all the modern recorders back to the R900 generation have a 20-bit A->D made by AKM Semiconductor, with a number like AK5354VT or AK5356VN. The decks generally do have 24-bit A->D chips. I'm not convinced by your claim about SonicStage being only 16-bit. Transfers TO HiMD sound perfectly decent, and the HiMD OMA file can be played back (without using Sony hardware at all) from the PC with good results. Stephen

I apologize, you're right about the weight. Numbers I usually recall, maybe this mass was from one of its predecessors (the PCM-D50???)

Agree. The manual is dated 2011. As I mentioned, probably the thing to do is to get a battery assembly that will REcharge AAA-rechargeable. I am certain they are available, or someone knowledgeable could hook one together before you leave on the trip, Molly. (and the same thing goes for simply running it off the USB port by which it will charge them anyway, you can run off the "external" supply, which needs to be something close to 5V) The reviewer at amazon says the mics are better than the SX750. I recall ozpeter saying that the stereo separation (at least) was better on the SX750 than the M10. They have it on for just under $120 http://www.amazon.com/Sony-ICD-SX712-Digital-Flash-Recorder/dp/B004M8ST2W . The difference in price is probably due to the fact that this model does not include Dragon speech recognition software. How you purchase that from Oz may be more of a problem. But maybe there's a way, now we know about that model. It's also on Ebay and they will ship to you in Australia: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Sony-ICD-SX712-2GB-Digital-Flash-Voice-Recorder-/230609486153 Nice find, sir! Stephen The only part I feel sad about is the loss of ST-HQ, which is an amazingly good codec especially for the human voice. Pavarotti sounds amazing on it, I converted some complete operas. MP3 at any rate I tried doesn't come close. However.... it sounds like that codec, like ATRAC has simply got lost in the noise.

The PCM-M10 has bigger batteries, so they last twice as long. Whoopee! You really haven't checked this out, Jon. 8GB microSD cards are $40 or so, at least here, and may be easily twice that outside NA (we tend to forget this when quoting prices to strangers). They could easily spend more money on SD cards than the value of the machine. Why would someone travelling around a desert want to lug something weighing 1lb if they can take something that's 2oz? And surely 136 hours (at my preferred Codec, LPEC-STHQ) will be enough? Admittedly this means buying the 8GB model.

Unless I'm losing my mind here, ALL music when initially imported by SS (except in the Atrac Advanced Lossless format) is encrypted. The (minor) problem is that I tend to use MD backwards from everyone else, recording stuff on MD and uploading to PC and/or making CD's from it. Never mind my warnings. Just try it. Can you take one of your files on the (dead) hard drive and use it in Sonic Stage? Just one. Never mind the backup/restore step. "just" find the file, and copy it. Will it play? (the good news is, if most of your tracks are from CDs and you still own the CD's you have "no problem" except lotsa work).

I mean that you ran the File Conversion Tool and DEseleted the "copy protection" box. If not, and anything at all goes wrong you are up a creek without a paddle (actually a friend of mine has figured out a way round it, but this information is not public yet, and possibly may never be). You need to get that XP box up, at least temporarily, or you are in for all sorts of unpleasant surprises, IMHO.

I assume you already decrypted everything? IF NOT, STOP RIGHT THERE AND REVIVE XP FOR LONG ENOUGH TO DO SO.... If you did decrypt it (File Conversion Tool) then the files can be used in anything where you can actually install SonicStage. NetMD drivers are a whole separate issue, of course. All is well unless you need M-Crew and PCLink. I have never done the Sony-provided backup/restore. I bow to Azureal's expertise in this area. Stephen

That's great. As long as things get mastered properly (remember Avrin's discussion about how to CUT OFF the high frequencies to get a good result?). My LP4 recordings are typically only good when the source is already a. noise-free b. transmitted at 128kbps over the net. I have not experimented extensively, but I know that when I record much higher data rate stuff, it usually sounds dreadful. One of the English guys (I am ashamed I get them muddled and I cant remember which one is which) reproduced this business, that I had noticed, of getting tons of sibilants from the announcer, for example. Which is sort of odd, because people mostly have the opinion that LP4 is only good for speech. I think that CD optical (or internally, if Onkyo does that) to LP4 in may be your best shot, certainly. It may be that (ironically) you have to transcode to something in between, first. I really have not ever tried to convert to LP4 purely to squeeze things on a MD (or if I did, it failed!!!!). I suppose it's worth a shot (by me) with the MXD-D400 since that does CD->LP4, too. Stephen added: it does seem that the MXD-D400 does a surprisingly good job on a couple of CD's I tried. I have moved most of my CD's for the moment so won't get them and the D400 in the same room for a week or three.

Just remember that transcoding a SonicStage file to a compressed LP4 doesn't work at all well. So setting up a test regime is going to be quite a challenge. I look forward to hearing your observations.

Did you actually listen to any of the posts I made?

You just don't get it, Wiz. It's not about high frequencies. It's about (lack of) distortion caused by improperly generated high frequencies that overlay the sound and make it "not real". Until CD's came along, you had to spend thousands on analogue equipment that could reproduce those high (and low) frequencies without distortion in all circumstances. The reality was (then) that almost nothing actually had been recorded that you or anyone could hear above 14 kHz, which is a better estimate of the LP4 cutoff. Sure you can hear better than I can (given your youth and my advanced age). But I can infer those higher frequencies just fine by how the still-audible-to-me ones sound. Sure, LP4 sometimes lacks presence. But that's all (and we know why, it's the joint stereo compromise). I've done a wide range of recordings (including loud organ music, solo instruments, and vocal) all of which sound better at LP4 than their analogue counterparts. You never commented when I uploaded them previously, did you listen to them?

To be fair, NJ, you'll get a lot less sand in a flash recorder than in a MD.

I told you I would get yelled at. But I am unrepentant. More later, maybe..... I've recorded a symphony orchestra and it sounds fantastic. Yes, you can listen to it on the little inbuilt speaker of the SX750. Specs say 50-20,000. What use is a microSD card *without* a PC?

Advise strongly against second-hand RH1. Unlike earlier units, it's fairly flimsy (at least the jog wheel).

LP4 is not terrible. I have made the posts and uploads to prove it - maybe you missed them. LP2 is Pretty Darned Good. Hi-SP is excellent but it may not sound so good if transcoded from SP/LP2/LP4 (and vice-versa).