sfbp

At the time, there WAS no RH1. Now, that's exactly what I do.

Could be. The issue doesn't arise on the MXD-D5C since it's all in one package.

That was never actually true, at least for me. I started making recordings of vinyl to MD in 2001 with an MDS-JE510, the only deck I owned that ever went completely belly up. From the 510's optical output I had a weird and wonderful optical->coax converter made by some Turkish fellow in Germany, and then convinced my sound card's input to record from that coax input. Subsequently I bought a series of optical-in (and -out) sound cards. Caveat Emptor, however, since at least 2 that I bought never had the software to actually read optical into the computer at all. The optical sound cards permitted the transfer of those MD recordings to 16-bit WAV files on the PC, which I then edited with CoolEdit (later it became Adobe Audition and cost hundreds of dollars instead of the original 60).

Well done! The major utility of this rather nice device (despite its generally poor physical presentation/build quality) is in UPloading (MD -> computer). As you are running 64-bits, you should have no problem making other NetMD devices (from your collection) install using THE SAME driver, which is what I'd recommend - use them rather than the RH1 for writing MDs.

You've inspired me - I just recorded a 2-CD set to MD (at LP2), and to my surprise it even copied all the CD Text (using the amazing MXD-D5C). This is a first for me - I've never gotten that feature to work before, and I read here many times people complaining that using SonicStage was the only reasonable way to get metadata onto an MD. Mind you the D5C does have a little light that came on and said "Cd Text". I expect you read about all the wars by disk manufacturers who have "uncopyable" CD-Text information. Clearly these commercial disks I inserted were either post-war or by a company that never indulged in the practice. If I could only hack my "export" D5C (120V) to (instead of the keyboard port) use the PS/2 port on the back to respond to the PC-Link dongle.... the Japanese one clearly is labelled PC-LINK if you look at pictures, I would abjure many other devices. M-Crew is a very very useful piece of MD software, in some ways more than Sonic Stage (although the latter's library and conversion functions are amazing).

I'll try this music/sync button. Maybe the problem is I almost never (lately) did Music CD->MD copies, so perhaps my memory is faulty. Originally when I got into all this I went the other direction, namely MD's as a way to make archive CDs. How obtuse of me is that?? I do know that utilising the volume level of a broadcast via optical is iffy at best. But most CD->MD copies I do using a computer, because the gracenote plugin will capture the metadata for me. Edit: when I feed optical output to receiver, and back to MD there's no drop in the signal, so no track mark. There must be something special that the CD player(s) does when it sees a track mark. I don't think ALL CD players do it, either. My guess is in this case, the receiver has a buffering thing that it does, so the signal, once set up, doesn't "glitch". Curious, more investigation required.

It only actually matters if you have an RH1. But on general grounds it's better to use the same driver for all NetMD units.

I wish I knew how to package in the universal driver.... this setup still doesn't solve the multiple-units-RH1-slow-upload problem, before too many people get excited. You probably should put that in and get rid of the existing 32-bit drivers, freddy.

I'm curious what you used (I know you mentioned it but I'm too lay-zee) to copy that CD. I've never had any luck reproducing track marks where there's no silence and I am intrigued.

This is not really the right forum, sadly. At a guess I'd say some combination of Windows Update and your various anti-spam anti-malware anti-virus. The really "good" malware will never be stopped by any of these products. So I would recommend not using any of them, but simply practise "safe computing". I think maybe you have to hit f8 (function key 8) as the machine boots and see if there's a restore option.

My only 900 arrived busted. What about the 909??? That seems a killer on build quality.

No. It is possible that a coax connection might be picking up something from a ground loop. I've certainly seen that on un-buffered S/PDIF circuits such as my first attempt to get data from a CD player off the 2-pin digital connector. However all the difference in the world may come if the source CD player is designed to drop the signal completely to -infinity between tracks. Or not.

1. it's not "supposed" to work on optical input on most units. However you have to turn it on, the associated term is "level sync". You can test out "level synch" on analogue operation. 2. A few units, it does - the MDS-PC3 is a case in point (one of the least interfered-with/protected). All the function does is to drop the signal completely when it goes below a certain level. IE -50dB (the default) is considered to be -infinity. This should generate a track mark, but not stop recording altogether (you'd complain about that for sure!). 3. Even on the MDS-PC3 and other units, there are problems with this scheme. If you set the level too high (too small negative dB) then essentially there are so many transitions that the system cannot keep up and the track marking stops. However sometimes it generates zillions of tiny tracks, which is very annoying too. Of course setting the level too LOW (larger -ve dB) results in recording continuing as your signal is always over the trigger level. This is why (IMHO) the manuals usually said you cannot do level synch on digital signal. You can find it on the 940 under the Setup menu, the entry looks something like "LS(T) -50db" in its default state. Smart space was then supposed to cut in to compact long periods of space into a single 6-7 second track. If you have a reasonable level of digital signal, you'll usually want the level between -40 and -50 dB. Unfortunately this level CHANGES if you have a method of changing the digital gain, or if the digital signal comes from sources with different background levels of noise. So it's really only useful when you are recording for long periods from the same source and can get it set up right. Hope this helps.

Yeah if it's Windows 7 the "standard" 32-bit driver likely won't work as most people have opted for 64-bit Windows with V.7

I just re-read your first post - it sounds like many of your disks were already bad. One design problem with HiMD is that (especially with 1GB disks which doesn't apply in your case) Sonic Stage tries to recover any "authorization" it had on a disk. This means scanning the disk for tracks that have been deleted. This is up to a point fine but it fails when the disk is having trouble being read. The other complicating issue is that HiMD units will often attempt to switch mode from HiMD to NetMD, such as when you insert a disk. If you didn't actually bother to install a NetMD driver (yes, you thought you couldn't because it's Windows 7/8 and the driver was for XP), there will be lots of trouble at this point. Don't worry about the NetMD driver for the moment. But it will occur with any disk you made with the R37 that is not entirely blank. To initialize your disks, you should: a. Set the Disc Mode (under options) on the NH600 to HiMD b. Choose Format (under Edit). Funny things will happens when blank disks are inserted that cause you to doubt your sanity. In particular all sorts of things will appear to have been transferred to the disk when they are not. This is fine (it's just Sony buffering everything), except that when the unit is broken (or no driver), you will be fooled into believing that something worked (when it didn't), and then failing shortly after. I actually think you need to work on the NetMD driver. If you're running Windows 7 you will need to visit our downloads section (I uploaded and still maintain the current version of them) to get the (only) driver for all NetMD operation. The tell-tale sign that the NH600 is switching modes (hiMD to netMD) is that you will hear the USB link go down (di-duh) and up again (duh-di) when you insert a disk. Honestly it's not that bad. It beats going to the A**le store.

Sorry to hear of your difficulties. That's why we're here... to help. Aside from a hardware problem in your MD portable, there's only one way to achieve the wholesale destruction of disks as well as crashing SonicStage. There's a simple bug and it is quite simply avoided. The known side effect (of the bug, not of the fix) is to crash SonicStage. When you try to delete multiple unlabelled tracks from an md using Sonic Stage, it gets very confused. The best thing to do is to label all those itty bitty tracks you want to delete, thus: a,b,c,d etc...... I realise this is too late but I'm pretty sure it would have saved your disks and your temper. By the way, the "bad panning" you observed is presumably due to joint stereo rather than left and right channels. LP2 uses separate l and r. LP4 does not (no idea about LP3 but I believe you). Mp3 encoders have all sorts of options and I think that on lower bitrates they default to joint stereo, presumably not on 320 since you commented so.

I don't think there's a single person on the board here who would agree that 128kbps mp3 is better than ATRAC. In fact I would go so far as to say that the reverse is true - there is no ATRAC bit rate in use which sounds as bad as 128kbps mp3.

To quote Winnie The Pooh, "Crustimony Proseedcake". Actually a piece of sandpaper does a great job provided you don't overdo it. You may need to work on the other (-ve) end of the battery too.

For my vote, bigger is better, and no need to reduce, Sergio. I love your site! Stephen

Huh? That article goes on and on about how the R50 is better, doesn't it?

Two words in that short quote I take issue with: "just" - in my opinion there is never any "just" in technology. Amps have had digital input for 7-8 years and are now easily available on ebay for way less than the cost of the fancy DAC OP refers to. "normal" - receivers mostly have digital IN these days. Ten years ago, I agree it was not "normal". If you don't believe me I'd be happy to take a scan through ebay.co.uk and point out a couple. Here, for example: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sony-STR-DA1200ES-7-1-Channel-100-Watt-Receiver-/161438029899?pt=UK_Sound_Vision_Home_Cinema_Receivers&hash=item259674d84b You may find that this is actually the same model as the STR-DG1000 I refer to (and own). Update: the model I linked to is not available where I live, and when I checked, the closest model to the DG1000 is in fact the STR-DA3200ES. Nevertheless the digital input feature is present in the DA1200ES, priced (for the record) on eBay at a rather reasonable 95 pounds. That's only about 4 pounds per pound, quite the bargain in HiFi, IMHO.

This article may be of interest vis-a-vis R50 vs R55. http://www.minidisc.org/repair_info.html Everyone seems to say the R50 (and its contemporary/near-relative MZS-R5ST) is the best portable Sony ever made. As this is SP-only I have developed preferences on models with the newer codecs, and I think the second generation Hi-MD (RH10 and RH910) sound really good. Unfortunately the RH910(M10) seems to have a lot of problems in almost every case. The drier all-digital amps in EH70 and NH1/RH1 are some people's choice, however the analogue side of the RH10 has a very warm sound. Generally the Hi-MD units play all previous recordings very well. The reason for this may be the use of the more recent Type-S DSP chip in every Hi-MD.

You didn't mention that the C14 was on the 530. In which case it's just possible the error is there. However I still think you have to do an adjust of the IOP value on the CL5MD. I think this condition can result from inability to switch from reading to writing and back again quickly enough. If the BD board is properly adjusted it doesn't happen, and the only thing I ever had to do with a drive that had this fault was to fix the IOP value. Not sure why it happened now though. Has your mains voltage changed recently? Despite all appearances, I think it's the READ not the write power on the CL5MD which is wrong. The read->write->read sequence messes up somehow.

I'm referring to the fact that now you have a standalone DAC with cables to the power amp. Then finally cables to the speakers, right? With an AV receiver you have one cable from MD to unit, and speakers right off the back with speaker wire. So, at the price of having to find space for a big heavy unit (for all the interconnect stuff allowing multiple types of I/O) you get everything nicely shielded, a single massive power supply for everything thereby avoiding hum loops and glitches. In other words, its usefulness is limited by whatever (RCA output, I looked at the back of the ARCAM to be sure) cables you have from the DAC to the power amp, and wherever the weakest link is, there come the possible problems. I once upon a time (when I got the Onkyo) tried out a phono pre-amp for my turntable/cartridge. Admittedly nothing fancy but I tried 2 or 3 before giving up completely and going back to the all-in-one Kenwood which had a PPA. They all had ridiculous problems with signal levels, noise, and on and on, even with fancy cabling which I bought at great cost. Not until I finally got the massive Sony STR-DG1000 was I able to move to a (mostly-)digital amp when using LPs.

C14 nearly always means the laser read power is in need of adjustment. When you record, the disk gets read both before and after the writing. Blanks disks probably read much easier than disks with data on. So it's quite possible to make a decent recording but be unable to finish it because the READ process doesn't work right - you can imagine that to close the TOC, it has to read, write and read again after making the actual music recording.