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Anything that's HiMD will have an H in the name eg RH55 (which doesn't exist). So you are correct. Cheers

Broaden your search to worldwide. Lots there.

Take a look at the service manual, if it's here. Or look at some other model if not. I had a quick look and it seems very common for these types of equipment to be essentially one wire different (2 or 3 taps on the power supply) between voltages. I realise this may not be good from warranty POV but realistically you won't get warranty service in another country anyway. So likely you are stuck with getting a different mains plug for the cable (or replace the whole cable) and that's about it. Hope this helps.

Some more info: - I put the JE630 in place of it, no problems, so it's not the environment or setup. - I opened the lid of the 640 (not plugged in to anything except AC power) and recorded silence on the Analog input. As soon as the write head descended, the noise started (on playback there is no noise, and the write head doesn't descend - learn something every day) - There appear to be two cogs (gears) one of which is attached to the positioning motor, the other of which is much larger and goes to the head transport. It's a gear down arrangement, the little one moves a fraction and the big one moves 10 or 20 times less. These two gears are permanently vibrating at what looks about the right frequency (I was exaggerating, it's not right at the top of the piano, only 2 octaves above Middle C), however they are vibrating when playing back too. If I had to guess, I'd say the spindle has developed a wobble and the servo manages to keep up with it but at the expense of making this noise. Stephen

Well I turned it off pretty quick when I heard it. It sounds mechanical, and builds up after a few seconds of recording. Its somewhere at the top of the piano keyboard and a bit wobbly, if that helps. Maybe I should upload a recording of the noise? I can insert and remove disks fine. I can play disks fine. The short passage that I recorded with the noise going, had no obvious ill-effects in the recorded sound. I like the idea of spying on it. Stephen

Very weird, my "new" JE-640 (one previous owner, beautiful condition) suddenly started making a high-pitched "whistling" noise when recording. So far I have only tested with SP as I am not anxious to blow it up. I tried several disks, too. No problem on playback. Any ideas please? Thanks

I am firmly of the opinion that the RH1, whilst nice, does *not* give you a lossless copy, and certainly not at high speed. However there is some doubt about this position, and the RH1 does "ok" by most people's standards. Claims are made that it goes at faster than real time, however I have personally failed to do so with any setup I have tried. If you really want to get it out digitally, I think your best option is to get a MD (very very old portable, or something like 75% of all decks made) with optical out, and record into your 'puter equipped with an optical (Toslink) input. You'll still be stuck with titling everything though. Hope this helps. Stephen

Looks like you might be right. It might have even saved mine (too late now). http://www.sparepartswarehouse.com/Sony,La...Backup-RTC.aspx About $23 but you would have to figure out which one to use, the numbers don't match.

update: Check any of the service manuals: you will probably find that C13 means "Laser Power Check". IIRC this error happened to me when the head wouldn't drop onto the playing surface. I'm sure the expert hardware fixers here will be able to explain this. But I would suggest you check to see if the head is going down onto the surface of the disk as it should. Not doing so, was exactly what was wrong with mine. I gave up on fixing it... in fact I'm sure I bust it forever. But it's quite possible you *can* fix it if you ask the right people here, and are very very gentle.

FWIW this is roughly the sequence I recall when the drive in my JE-510 died. It may be nothing more (or less) complicated than the head either a. losing connection (as described in several threads here) or b. out and out dying. You might want to read all you can about repairing the head connection, because a complete replacement drive module (they refer to it as the BD board, I think) runs around $300. Sorry to be discouraging.

My point was that, especially if the Sonic Stage and Roxio software are attempting to use different versions of the same engine, that you might have trouble (it's known in the trade as DLL Hell - there is no one version that works for both). I recall that earlier versions of Roxio were very very non-portable across different hardware platforms and drives. It looks as if Sony offers some "improved" version of PXEngine. I imagine it might still break whatever other version you had, from an old Roxio CDCreator. Or I may be completely wrong

I wonder what's wrong? Maybe that connector is USB 1.1 and the streaming behaviour only occurs with USB 2.0. Let me check.... Nope, strange. I'm on a machine with about the same clock speed as the tester (2.6 Ghz) and using a USB 2.0 port. Is there a definitive way to tell (hopefully quickly) if I am operating in USB 2.0 mode?

One more thing: I just tried out uploading LP2 for the first time, using the RH1 (of course the NH600 won't upload it at all). It seems at least as slow as uploading SP. The audiotstation topic seems to suggest that transfer between PC and MD is basically PCM, either with extra headers or encrypted, or both. I'm guessing that even LP2 is the same when uploading. Can someone confirm this? So the only thing which is relatively fast in pre-HiMD is PC-->NetMD, as advertised by Sony. But (of course) they locked it up.

Take a look here: http://www.audiotstation.com/forum/showthr...p;threadid=4748 I think everything I have seen indicates that uploading SP from the NetMD to the PC is going to be at best Real time, because what is transmitted would be essentially encrypted PCM. At least that is what goes from the PC to the NetMD. (Honestly, I didn't yet read all 15 pages but the stuff on the first page tallies with my observations about the presumed properties of the system and its formats). So this explains why, if you take "real SP" written by a MD deck, it can be uploaded from the RH1, however very slowly because what is being transmitted is the same size as PCM. But if you put a NetMD-written SP disk in the RH1, even the RH1 cannot upload it. My deduction is that the data on a given NetMD is encrypted. There are no SP codecs in a PC, because (?) of Dolby licensing restrictions. So what you will never get is FAST upload of SP. In addition (I recall someone explaining this but I admit haziness here) it seems that PC-->RH1, although not encrypted, is some sort of "Fake SP" (in reality LP2 with padding); if this is true, you will never get audiophile quality with any SP tracks you sent TO a non-deck recorder or NetMD or even RH1. This surprises me. This is overall in accord (though I cannot prove it to my own satisfaction) with what I have observed - the best results (without PCM or HiMD) are using optical in and out from a deck to the PC. This is x1 transfer speed, but up- and down-load of SP ain't much different from that anyway because the USB is actually carrying raw (or encrypted) PCM. Presumably this is why there is no deck with HiMD and optical out - they really really don't want us making world-class recordings with these consumer devices. Not to mention Sony's agreements with Dolby. Stephen

ahhh.. there's nothing except control in the remote. Thanks for the explanation. I guess I might not have asked such a dumb question with the unit actually in my hand.

Send the guy an email - he's very reasonable. Usually not in the office if you try to call, but I'm sure he will respond.

That's weird. I assumed the headphones were plugged into the output of the radio, not the output of the MD. In which case there's no such loop?

try here http://www.minidisc-canada.com/shopdisplay...t=Blank+Hi%2DMD

Interesting! So there is some intelligence in the MD unit apart from just supplying power. Looks like the NH700 might be a special case, but of course when my NF610 arrives I will probably switch everything around just for fun, unless you think I might damage something.

I think pxEngine is something from Roxio. Probably taking over SS's ability to interact with the CD driver. You might have to deinstall CD Creator. My experience is that Nero, OTOH, co-exists quite nicely with SS. Stephen

I am about to take possession of a Sony MD with a radio remote. I have a couple of questions: 1. Will that radio work in anything except the model it was designed for? Including *other* radio-included models and also the plain ones? 2. The manuals repeatedly state that you cannot record from the tuner. Is it not possible to take a 3.5 mm cable from the tuner to the line input (assuming that there is one)? I realise that might be a silly way to do it, but I am (just) curious..... Stephen

*That* I would be interested in doing. Someone will doubtless correct me, but I think that when the RH1 makes an LP2 or LP4 disk, the files are copyable to the PC (though only from RH1). That's what made me think they had encrypted it. Jumping to conclusions, again...... Tell me where to read about TOC cloning. There's another situation I think it's going to be useful, maybe time to learn how Cheers Stephen

Even the RH1 cannot upload "real NetMD" data files because when they got downloaded to the MD they were encrypted. Normal SP and MDLP data (recorded by mic or using MDLP deck), no problem. The remaining NetMD devices are not able to send data TO the USB port. The code simply isn't there in the firmware. I think it is safe to say that no NetMD-only device has ever sent data to SS except to allow the regaining of transfer authorization. Right, guys? Hi-MD players, that's a different issue. I wonder if the pre-RH1 machines can be tricked into sending (unencrypted) LP2 and LP4?

Naw, I was just being grouchy! Inability to take compliments. Ever watch "House M.D"? Think of me as a bit like Hugh Lawrie, though I am shorter and stouter than he is. Stephen

Peter, if you only want to record pre-recorded CD's to MD and play in your car, you are totally provided for by Sony's hardware and software. After all, in the car, how much quality can the ear actually hear? I suggest you compare aurally the result of playing CD x1 into the optical output of your MD (if you have such) with CD via USB. Problem - most of the NetMD's especially the cheaper ones, don't have optical input. I've looked at the waveforms, and there really doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence one way or the other. But to me (and others, it appears) my ears tell me that the steps I outlined are the way to avoid losing any quality when uploading from MD and back to MD. That's probably Sony's intention - to allow slightly downlevel copies always, but to make it hard to make perfect bit-wise copies. That's probably why you see people all excited about the ability to copy "raw" MD on the dual minidisc deck. But I think any high-speed copy is going to be iffy. Just my opinion.