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sfbp

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Posts posted by sfbp

  1. Simply clicking "Worldwide" isn't enough to show the items I get in my results. You have to go to advanced and choose "Located in" and select "Any Country/Any Region". This will even bring up results that don't specify they ship to your country.

    In my experience saved searches WILL bring up the whole lot. But doing what you describe does NOT. Possibly ebay.com is different but I don't see why, seems the other behaviours are mostly symmetric.

  2. AFAIK the only way to be sure to see everything on a particular Ebay is to go to that ebay (ebay.co.uk, ebay.de, ebay.ca, ebay.com) and sign in there. MyEbay is global but searches are not.

    For example there are lots of listings on Ebay US I never see unless I try real hard. However there are so many vendors who point blank refuse to ship outside USA (and outside UPS!) and don't respond to emails, that it is often an uphill battle trying to buy anything that wasn't intended by the vendor to be shipped "internationally" (scary word, that).

    HTH

  3. Sunday night's Henry Wood Promenade concert from London's Albert Hall. Handel wrote some 42 operas in his lifetime, roughly 1 per year over an extended period. This one is called Partenope, and has an amazing plot where the Princess Rosmira, disguised as a man, is challenged to a (bare-chested) duel with her former lover.

    Handel got a bit desperate after Beggar's Opera, and had to resort to shock tactics to try to get the public back in his theatre.

    I am posting the last 10 minutes as an ATRAC3 (LP4) file for anyone interested. I'm sure it needs to be removed at some point, but a snippet like this can hardly excite anyone's ire, especially in a nonstandard compressed format like this.

    I hope you will agree with me, even those who wouldn't consider listening to Italian opera in this lifetime, that this is a totally remarkable 10 minutes of listening. Especially since there are about 5500 people present (and totally silent throughout), the majority of them having been standing for the previous 4 hours.

    Extract from Partenope

    You will need to change the extension to .OMA when you save this, it is NOT a valid ZIP file. However somewhat to my surprise it played perfectly in Windows Media Player (probably something I did following Avrin's directions to enable Atrac3 codec), and for you it will play in Sonic Stage.

  4. The rumour is that the authentication server is up and running again. This error comes when you try to revive a set of keys from an old SonicStage install. A completely clean install on your new PC should be perfect and doesn't need the authentication.

    You only have this problem most likely because you have encrypted stuff on your old PC which you tried to move to the new one. If you can unencrypt (remove copy protection) first (go back to your previous PC) and then wait until SS is running fully before trying to import anything to the new setup.

    If you're not sure how the unencrypt works, go back to (working SonicStage) and run the File Conversion Utility. It will grind for a while and tell you there is 12 hours (or some ridiculous amount) to suffer. Uncheck the copy protection box, and it will recalculate, hopefully not too much this time. After it runs, the files should be good to suck into SS on the new machine

    What you canNOT do is try to copy everything especially the software, from one machine to another.

    We can help, but I will refrain from more details until you tell us the level of your knowledge.

    Sorry to miss this one, I normally manage to respond but I might have been away on holiday.

    Welcome to MDCF!

  5. Rebel, don't listen to him. Your issue has nothing to do with bass boost.

    Chris, please stop posting answers like this until you understand the answers just about everyone else on this board has given you explaining exactly what Megabass is and why a "soul" doesn't need it. The next one I will simply delete, no and's if's or but's.

    Rebel: of course you came to a Minidisc board, so those here are most likely to want to recommend that which they have most experience with. The Edirol (IIRC) was tested and performed very poorly by comparison with the RH1. Someone here who has experience of both can probably put you straight.

    The RH1's ability to record is superb throughout the frequency range. There are numerous reviews and someone here will be only too glad to point you to them. I'm in a bit of a panic right now so I leave it to them. I just wanted to make sure you don't listen to this nonsense by the first respondent.

    Welcome to MDCF!

  6. For the same reason that if you put a DVD with MP3's on it into a DVD player that recognises CD's with MP3's on them, the player won't play it. Silly (I have one DVD player that it works with and another make that doesnt do it), but a matter of the player's own firmware. Here, you have a codec that Sony had no intention of supporting under HiMD formats, namely - SP -

  7. I have done a fair amount of transfer from vinyl to cd (and then onto md for some things). I've been happy with the results. But in terms of whether md can capture the essence of vinyl, its a non issue for me as I only listen to md through headphones and I listen to vinyl predominately through a couple of floor speakers. It wouldn't occur to me to set up the md as a source player on my home stereo.

    Sfbp, I picked up Goldwave some time ago for $40 Canadian. I do not even scratch the surface of all the functionality it has but I do use the program to add and delete track marks and more importantly to filter pops and clicks. I find the track mark editing cumbersome but I love having the ability to edit pops and clicks, although I find that the best result comes from removing pops an d clicks one at a time which can be quite time consuming.

    Thanks, I'll check it out. My own approach to pops and clicks is very simple in concept: the ear cannot possibly miss 1-3 milliseconds of COMPLETELY DELETED sound.

    As far as playback through my stereo goes, I had to be content with SP until I finally got a decent unit that had Type-S, since I cannot afford and don't wish to live with a million SP discs. This enables excellent playback of LP2 (which is plenty for portable listening) and, in some situations, LP4. OTOH the JE640 which has now become my workhorse for capturing internet streams I want to playback later (rather than littering the HD) lasted about 5 minutes as a playback machine. It just wasn't good enough at the MDLP modes.

    Would be delighted to compare notes, particularly since I never even *tried* it your way. My philosophy was: if the recording to MD is so good (as claimed) why gamble or spend too much money on a computer sound card with essentially unknown specs if I can get the sound digitised by Sony first, then transmitted to the computer, later. But I'm open to discussion, for sure.

  8. Okay, wow you're the vinyl expert, you will have to pass your master skills to us here.....

    I really do enjoy hearing that occasional pop and crackle, it really does give that distinctive quality for mixed music. CDs often then not, give me that white room feeling.

    <blush> I think that's putting it a bit strong. I find from talking to Avrin and others that I have ended up doing the right thing mostly by trial and error, then figure out WHY it worked afterwards, lol.

    Maybe I should write it up, but it's not top of my project list right now. I do think that a decent editor is essential. I tried wrestling with the one included in Nero packages (that I paid for, not the completely free ones!) for the sake of a friend I want to introduce to this, and got frustrated very quickly.

    I was lucky enough to get CoolEdit96 for about $50 and it has served me well. I'm not sure if I would spring for its child, Adobe Audition, though. But you need something really decent.

    The other prerequisite is, IMO, an inexpensive sound card with digital In and Out, and the ability to ignore SCMS.

    One more thought - I only recently found out that ripping ***from*** CD is a most uncertain process. Could this be a clue to your listening experience?

  9. FWIW my whole focus for MD was to convert vinyl to CD, via MiniDisc.

    I think probably we end up doing a much better job than when the record companies did it in the 1990's.

    Cassettes, too. I laugh when I have converted a cassette and I can hear the vinyl-characteristic pops where they (big companies) transferred to cassette. Of course, I can get rid of those, too.

    Answer to your question: I dunno. I remember being very wary of CD's remastered initially. I think now it may be better, especially anything that was digitally recorded to start with, there should be no obvious problems.

  10. It's fairly well known (now) that USB doesn't provide as much oomph as a charger. The stand you need is BCA-MZNH1.

    To see one try typing this item number into your local Ebay: 150356922821

  11. My turn.

    How many people would be interested in getting an RM-MC40ELK? There is a supplier who says he either has or can get lots. Currently his x1 price is about $75 US plus relatively minimal shipping (under $10).

    I am willing to approach him if/when we have 10 purchasers.

    Note: these items are probably used, a new one (if it were available) would be around $110 (someone else may know different, please let's hear this information), I think.

    Comments?

  12. This only means that the CD is incorrectly mastered. And this has nothing to do with 16 or more bits.

    To create a perfect CD (or any other digital media), the signal must be prepared according to the Nyquist theorem, which requires that the upper limit of its frequency response be strictly less than half the sampling frequency. Since the preparation takes place in the analog domain (before the analog-to-digital conversion), and no analog filter is able to cut frequencies steeply to zero, the entire 20 - 22.05 Khz area is used for frequency cut-off. That is, the filter starts decreasing frequencies from 20 kHz, and by 22.05 kHz they have zero level. Remember that even the most expensive CD players have their frequency response limited to 20 kHz.

    This filter is actually required by the standard (to make it possible to perfectly digitize the signal, and then perfectly restore it during playback). And CDs made in 1980s (and later, if we talk about Japanese issues), actually have their frequencies cut off after 20 kHz.

    Nowadays, noone cares about sound quality, so no filter is used, and we have CDs with ranges going all the way up to 22.05 kHz. These CDs do not comply with the requirements of the Nyquist theorem, thus noone guarantees that they play as they should.

    Hahah so when I read something in from MD -> PC I inadvertantly do the cutoff at high frequencies because ATRAC throws those away, and actually miss having to do this step. That's amazing. Explains why the whole process I evolved (by trial and error) for re-mastering analogue recordings via MD works as well as it does.

  13. Note that most CD-music-reading programs (eg Nero and almost anything that copies a music CD) give you options for what to do about music "errors". There are lots of valid red book music CD's that are not perfect from the POV of a digital program. Thats what EAC is all about, I presume.

    Anyway the point for Chris is not about the transmission mode but about the reading mode.

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