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I came to the conclusion that the only thing I did was to have the sliders on my PC sound card all the way to the top. I recall Avrin commenting that set to 30 on line out some component did strange things, weird distortion. So I took both Wave IN and Master OUT down a couple of notches. I have not been scientific about this: it didn't happen again, and frankly I don't like to mess with things when they are working. Maybe, just maybe, I somehow got a bad stream that day. Stephen

Thanks for the information - so anything I said about NetMD can be ignored. Pity that wasn't mentioned either in the original post. I will not debate this further with you; please read your own posting. I don't doubt that is what you intended to say - but it wasn't what you said. I also asked what you were trying to do. When you tell us, please stand by so we can tell you how and what to REMOVE from your disk so that you can get it working. Note that copying the music files from a previous Windows install will NOT work. Need a lot more detail to advise you. It may be that some of what you need to do will involve going back to your "old" computer running XP and following certain steps (nothing you can read about in Sony's documentation). If you can't do that, you've lost your music most likely. If you only want to install a new version of Sonic Stage on a new version of Windows and don't have any music you need to save then life should be easy. You must uninstall any remnants of SonicStage 3.1, for sure. Also when trying 4.3 recommend you use Avrin's "Ultimate" version which supercedes Sony's in several important regards. It's available somewhere here on the forums and no one has yet failed to get working with it. But to run on W7, you MUST download the "W32 compatibility layer" to install Sonic Stage on. It may or may not be possible to do that with Windows Home Premium 64-bits. There are posters here who claim to have done it. The official Microsoft site http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx claims that you need the Pro version. Good luck! You may find it simpler to go back to your old machine. Stephen

That is absolutely an untrue statement. Please stick to the facts and we will try to help you. What can be said is that: - certain aspects of Sonic Stage (NetMD) - certain versions of Windows 7 (Home basic or premium 64-bits only) - certain (hardware) units do not work together. I had great luck doing almost everything under Win7. Even NetMD. But I was running W32, which most people are avoiding (because the manufacturer of their new computer went ahead and installed W64). W64 under Vista was just as bad, but W64 was not the default version. Most people with Vista had W32, and so never noticed. Microsoft has handled this problem by coming out with a free download for the non-basic versions. This download allows you to run a Virtual PC containing a "free" copy of Windows XP that will host the applications, like Sonic Stage, that were designed for 32 bit operation. Sony is rumoured to be coming out with proper support for the MZ-RH1 "any time now". However it may well be that if you don't have one (or an MZ-M200 as they are known with microphone bundled) that you are out of luck. If you tell us - your MD Walkman model number - your Windows 7 Software version - your Sonic Stage version - what you are hoping to be able to do We will try to help. Stephen

Right. Of all the formats I have seen, it's the only one that seems to convert flawlessly both up and down. There exists no device that actually plays this format, however (other than a PC). It consists of a lossy (ATRAC) part and the "lossless" part which is what it needs to remember to rebuild (presumably) PCM that it was compressed from. In addition the transcoding to NetMD speeds seems fast, IIRC. Certainly if your "lossy" part is 256k (probably the best choice) then AAL->HiSP is very easy indeed.

I honestly don't know if I would trust the ANALOG input on this. So what you now need (to do really good A->D) is a nice Sony MD deck with digital out. Put it into A-to-D mode by pressing Record and feed the output of the deck to the little device that goes to your USB on the laptop.

MDLP is a different technology (twice as much audio on the same disk, and concomitantly lower bitrate) that the 320 doesn't support. Simple as that. NetMD defaults to MDLP (LP2 in fact unless you tell it otherwise). There's a special option in SonicStage to generate SP disks that will play in your 320. However the bit rate will never be the same as "true" SP because they simply pass LP2 and pad the data with blanks before writing to the disk.

Yeah I have one of these REAL cheapies and it works like a charm. http://cgi.ebay.com/External-7-1-USB-Sound-Card-Optical-Audio-Adapter-Cable-/170490529523 Mine actually is orange and came from China but it's the same device, I am sure.

If you are "only" doing speech I personally recommend a non-MD. The speech on the Sony ICD-SX700,750,850,950 is BETTER than on minidisc. And it takes MP3 files with drag and drop as well as being quite a nice little music player. If you're not already wedded to MD, then try this instead. Here it is: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-ICD-SX750-Memory-Digital-Recorder/dp/B00387E5D0 And if you want to transcribe notes to text there is a slightly more expensive SX750D which includes the Dragon voice recognition software, which those who have used it (I am not one) say is excellent. This is an excellent device, and I am speaking as a bit of an audiophile (I actually listen to music on mine). It accepts most MP3s without conversion, Linear PCM and has its own extra longplay codecs ("LPEC") which can easily be converted on the PC to something more familiar, using their software. 100% drag and drop, no DRM, and no complex program to learn. It even has 3 microphones and a small speaker built in. For that price you can't improve, given what I think are your parameters. Good luck (it may be a bit more outside USA but still worth every penny).

Sorry, wasn't trying (maybe succeeding though) to sound snippy. There are some real gems in that site, which goes back to the days when these forums operated there.

There's only one unit available for retail sale, the MZ-M200. This is the same as the MZ-RH1 with a microphone (that's not particularly good) added. Only second-gen HiMD units actually support MP3 on the disk. That's MZ-RH910/M10 and MZ-RH10/M100 in addition to the RH1. Sounds like you might have a lot of "old" MD's that at some point you want to upload to PC. Maybe the the RH1 is a good choice then.

I looked at the manual for this beast (about 5 years old) and sadly, yes, it looks like its of a "unique" design. Even the manual (which is for several similar walkmen) shows the connector as a normal stereo 1/8" (3.5mm) jack, with the comment that on certain models, yours included, that the connector is shaped differently. You're right, probably garbage time. But maybe someone here needs a spare pair. You never know who will read this, the membership is huge (and mostly silent these days). Don't throw away, just yet. What exactly went wrong with the player? Trampled by an elephant, drowned at sea, pierced by a speeding bullet or run over by your 3 year old's trike? The world wants to know..... Cheers

Yes, and the question arising you wanted to ask is.....? Cheers Stephen

TBH it's not a route (CD->HiSP) I normally take. However a lot depends on the ripping. Do you use SonicStage to do it? Sorry: (I reread) I'll rephrase. Do you mean not using the computer at all? I find that basically ANY digital sound is better recorded directly in real time whether at 256, 292, 132 or even 66 kbps. Once I've done that typically I will upload to PC and save in my library. The key is the ripping. EAC is a perfect ripper. SonicStage is a perfect ripper, If and only If you rip to Atrac Advanced Lossless. SS does a good job of putting stuff onto media, but the big problem is it has to start with something decent. Its own rips to PCM/WAV on the PC are basically useless, but you don't notice until you transcode to MD.

As long as its one of the formats Sony can read, no problem. Nice to put it in the "right" dir but you'll quickly figure that out. The only tricky one is DRM-protected pdf. Somehow it has to get authorized (via the authorization on the device) and that's when I seem to lose it sometimes. Epub is basically the reader's native format. But I think LRF (can't recall if that's Sony's own) also native. Amazon->Epub, you need some help, but it exists. Basically you get Kindle-for-Whatever (PC,Mac,Ipad) and then convert it. The Sony's own software works, but so does an open software called Calibre, which was actually written FOR the Sony (and recognizes both the Sony's slots as well). 350MB is a fair bit (the native memory) until you break down and want to put music (MP3, sigh) in there too. So a card is nice.

The main issues I had were nothing to do with the PRS600. The problem came when trying to convert some of the old books (things like Shakespeare, Jungle Book, Gibbon, etc) from other sources. The resulting format was lousy and in one case crashed the converter outright. But that's not Sony's fault. Another (silly) issue I had was losing authorization on a library book which I had checked out (Adobe digital editions). Something seems to deauthorize it at random. Haven't worked out what yet. Moving it around, possibly. You want to be careful with the Sync options so you understand what it's doing, as you may end up with too many copies filling up the memories of the device and SD card. One thing, an 8GB card is plenty - Flash seems to have gotten expensive unless you are lucky. And it refused to use the 32GB card I have (16GB is ok). Strongly recommend one of the rubber sheaths to stop it getting scratches on the metal case. The unit is waaaay too pretty for that. Stephen

I guess they're just as unsaleable now as last October, Chris.

Whoa, that is WEIRD. I have this problem on one HiMD unit, but I have never seen it on a "regular" MD deck. Please check to see if the recently recorded disk is playing correctly in other units, can be edited etc etc etc. Buffers in these machines can sometimes give the appearance of working when in fact they are truly busted. Stephen

That ain't the discs (you said they played OK). Something wrong with your deck. Never mind, they are cheap now. You should be able to get a nice one on Ebay or Craigslist. Welcome to the Forums.

Yes. You must ALWAYS uncheck the copy protection box. If the files did not need conversion, then they were (for whatever reason) already unprotected. By checking it you guaranteed that they were encrypted, and hence that no one except the original PC could ever play them.

Exactly

Forget the backup tool. 1. Decrypt the files using File Conversion Tool 2. Copy the resulting files (the encrypted ones will now have been changed from .oma to .OMA) 3. Import the entire folder (containing all the album folders from your music collection) into the new version of SS. Should work fine. I noticed this a while back, the "available" space is computed on some drive attached to the system, not necessarily the drive you actually have imported files sent to by Sonic Stage. I bet you will see that SS shows the "available space" close to 0. It's possible you might fix this by clearing out your C drive. But what I said above will work.

This was shipped with ***so many*** units (note that Sharp units, and the Sony MZ-RH10/RH910 are each of a different design!) that it's probably easiest to acquire an extra unit that happens to have this. They will pop up on Ebay from time to time but you may have to wait.

If you have an RH1 and you are not importing SP then there is a software problem. Again without a specific description of an error, I'm wasting my (and your) time trying to diagnose it. Please, if you want help, try to describe what is happening in detail. It's better to import SP as PCM rather than HiSP, especially if you plan on exporting the files to CD (WAV). Takes a lot more space but probably you won't keep the files on the 'puter forever, right? DSEE won't affect the volume. I don't know whether to suggest you look at the settings on your sound card's volume control, in case you've already done that. You could open the files in a Wave editor or Sound Forge, to see if the amplitude is severely reduced. As I say, USB "just" transfers what's there. So either a. the volume is reduced before you ever try to upload, or b. it's reduced on playback because of some (playback) setting, nothing to do with SS or c. there's nothing wrong.

1. The best way to preserve quality is not to convert anything. For SP this is not possible so stick to importing to PCM. Upconverting to WAV doesn't really buy you anything for the other formats. 2. To export to MP3 you have to run a different program, still you don't sound like you care (the MP3 export provided by Sony is reasonably efficient, reliable and easy to use). To convert to WAV, simply right click a track in the SS library on hard disk. You will see a menu "Save in WAV format". HTH.

Here. You don't state where you live.