Arr-Nine-Hundred

Same here, the Icelandic Volcano has delayed it's arrival from Hong Kong though. I had hoped to do a thorough write up about it. coral, the next best thing may be to refer to this chaps write-up, he has configured Windows XP to work with it and has described it in detail with screenshots: http://www.dansdata.com/xitel.htm

scarrabri, very impressive :-) BTW where did you get the portable minidisc mount from? Looks like a smartphone mount that you might get from Halfords or something? Thanks!

You got that right. I couldn't live without Radio 4. Stephen, I'm curious about those LP4 samples you've given out. May I have copies please? I'm also happy to host them and link them from here: http://opticalgarbage.com/minidisc/download.html

Realised that I cannot do this as the portable has no optical out. Now I understand your /rant Stephen in another post ;-) Wonder why didn't add it as a default, I would guess space limits, cost perhaps and that most people would have a deck for optical-out purposes. The smallest device I have with optical out is a slimline PS2.

Very interesting stuff Stephen, thanks. 99% of the time I listen with headphones on a portable to MP3's recorded digitally in LP2 in a quiet environment so the Type-S is definitely something suited to me. I have no deck yet but I do have a Logitech 5.1 surround [1] system with optical-in and 3.5" minijack headphone-in and might do a listening test between a source MD I know well from one of my portables. Agreed. This is somewhat analogous to software versus hardware RAID in the IT world perhaps. In this era of cheap GHz CPU, one could say that a dedicated hardware RAID card will not perform as efficiently as the CPU. About the encoding algorithm improving with the CPU being used, hmm, I doubt it. You will see an improvement in speed but I always regarded the encoding algorithm as "fixed" (eg. a crude analogy is that 2 + 2 will compute as 4 on every CPU but will compute some nanoseconds faster on a Quad-core than a Pentium III 800Mhz). Of course, I am happy to be corrected! Anyhow, you've compelled me to give SonicStage LP2 another go as it will be fun to compare it to digitally recorded LP2. I'm going to use SonicStage 4.3 "Ultimate" release 2 for this as referenced here: http://forums.sonyinsider.com/index.php?showtopic=24405&st=20&gopid=172325&#entry172325 I will let you know :-) [1] http://www.logitech.com/en-us/speakers_audio/home_pc_speakers/devices/224

Summary of differences between Type-R and Type-S: http://opticalgarbage.com/minidisc/type-sr.html

Hey scarrabri, I find the equipment browser a good resource for info about any unit: http://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html N707 build date Looks like March 2003: http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-N707.html I never really noticed this one before. When I read the topic I thought you were referring to the N710. The differences between this and it's "posh cousin" the N710 seem quite significant: Type-S, Ni-MH (vs. Ni-Cd), longer battery life, aluminium top etc. Don't let that stop you from enjoying a fine MDLP unit though :-)

There could be all sorts of reasons for this but a good virus checker will have something like "silent/gaming mode" or similar. I use Avast! Free and it is has such an option, not sure about AVG Free. I think SonicStage is more CPU-bound than IO-bound (virus checkers tend to be the opposite) so I would fire up Task Manager while transferring and observe the CPU resource graph. If it peaks at or near 100% then the encoding process *might* be a cause of the gaps. I record directly from PC to MD via digital optical and get gaps occaisonally. Annoying. I have not got to the bottom of it yet. I use Foobar2000 to stream my music from a LAN Samba share with the buffer set to maximum. Might be network latency in my case.

Very cool! I must say that the RH1 looks very futuristic in the shot above, more 2020 than 2010. It's the sleek blackness, LED level meters and that stereo mic that do it. We can add this to "The Matrix", "Strange Days" and "Smallville" then. See: http://forums.sonyinsider.com/index.php?showtopic=25305 Incidentally, while researching Sony Walkman DAPs for another thread, I noticed that Sony sort of keep the MD flame alive by listing the RH1 on their website http://www.sony.co.uk/product/paw-minidisc---net-md-walkman

I'd like to think that this forum will not see rabid "fanboi-ism" that you might find on, for arguments sake, an Xbox 360 forum where someone admits to owning a PS3. This thread made me evaluate my little Sony DAP again by trying out some music... and it sounds pretty damn good. I then got thinking about buying a more "serious" Sony DAP and was looking the their X-series. These have digital amplifiers and other gubbins to make sweet sound. Yes, they also look freakin cool too, with OLED screen and lovely design. Very tempting but cannot afford it right now :-) While googling for "best sounding mp3 players" I found a CNET article interesting (sorry, I cannot find it atm), their gist is that technical superiority does not translate into the best listening experience. It's about "what sounds good to YOU".

Azureal, that stash is awesome. I especially like the wooden-topped towers, the Bianca and Sony ES 80's and the neatness of the layout. Makes me want to source a few packs of Bianca's right now as I have none. Thankfully, my wife is pretty indifferent to my MD addiction but she appreciated some of the compilations I made for her. She would sometimes hear a song on the radio and ask me to add it to an MD. Back in my MD heydey I created several compilations of the best Bollywood music set-pieces... recorded straight from the DVD so I would get a bit of dialog at either end of the scene. I had a Kenwood in-car MD [1] at the time and among my family I was popular for having a good selection of music in the car. This was 2003/04 before this era of headunits with USB ports for DAPs so it was pretty unusual for people to hear a custom-made compilation in CD-quality. Anyhow, about MD was/is popular in the UK. I'm not sure, I see everyone with an iPod these days (or at least white headphones which I assume are connected to an Apple device). In shops I do see the occasional 5 or 10 MD pack for sale in Dixons, HMV etc, strangely they are sometimes a bit on the expensive side. I think they were popular but around the iPod Mini launch (2003/04?) I think the decline started. I recall helping a few friends list their N710 on eBay. They went for ~£75-£100 versus about £10-20 these days. There is a huge PC World store near me that also sells DAPs, I'm talking aisles upon aisles of shiny DAPs. The sales droids there are always eager to help and I'm tempted to sometimes ask them if they have "anything MiniDisc?" just to see the reaction ;-) [1]

Hey bluecrab, A quick Googling does not get an official answer but most of the confident answers are that UK-tuned Sony equipment, signified by the red label, is tuned to match the sound to UK listener preferences. Check the review below in [3] in which the reviewer remarks on it in the first few paragraphs. Many moons ago I had a UK-tuned Sony QS-series Home Cinema amp and thought the sound was perfect, exactly what I wanted. I'm in the UK. So it really does seem to work? :-) From [1]: "I remember Japanese hifi always sounded bright but with a big bass too. If it said 'uk tuned' on the unit it would mean less emphisis on bass and treble giving a more balanced sound ,thats from my experience with sony products at least." From [2]: "... changes to the power supply and higher grade capacitors compared to the standard model for the rest of the EU. Just tweakery really I spose to alter the characteristics of the sound." The remark above is a bit suspect but I do vaguely remember reading somewhere that the UK-tuned Sony gear having differences in the toroid/transformer/power supply area of the electronics. Also, I think Sony hired a UK specialist who was well-known in the UK audiophile community to assist them. Personally, if I was after a JB-980 I would not look at anything but a UK-tuned version. Yes, I'm a bit of a snob. Black too, silver has been over-used so it's become hackneyed. Black is the new silver. :-) Sources: [1] http://community.whathifi.com/forums/t/240111.aspx [2] http://www.avforums.com/forums/av-amplifiers-receivers/197020-sony-uk-sound-tuned-question.html [3] http://hcc.techradar.com/files/reviews/WVTV/103_WV_0704.pdf

*grabs pitchfork* You... bought a DAP? Get 'im boys! Just kidding. Are you likely to be turned? I'd say let your ears be the judge and see how convenient the management of music is comapred to the MD. Some years back I had an iRiver H10 and the iRiver music manager software was mediocre. To be honest though, you might find that the DAP is suited to certain applications like podcasts or a other high-turnaround material. Thats what I do, I have a Sony B135 2GB DAP that I use exclusively for podcasts. Your iRiver T30 looks like it's in the same class. The Sony was ~£20 so it's not either-or anymore with DAP versus MD. One can reasonably own both. Yes I own a DAP, please put that pitchfork away. :-) After selling off my MD gear a few years ago, I went through an iRiver H10, Sandisk Sansa and iPod Nano 2nd Gen. The iPod was by far the best of those and I thought it sounded OK. Then one day I listened to an old MD player that I had in the cupboard for a nostalgia reasons, the sound quality of that blew everything away, the music sounded more alive and vibrant. Thats why I went back to MD. I don't really lament the loss of being able to transfer music. Less is more sometimes and I now like creating compilations. They mean more because one has to put more work into creating them. I'd be curious to hear your impressions of music on the iRiver versus your MD.

I'm a bit of an eBay demon and also like to monitor auctions just to see how much they go for. Recent purchases have been a mint condition blue R900 for approx £15. It really is a beautiful machine "in the flesh", here's a photo of the actual unit: I also bought a great condition N510 for £15 and a boxed, complete E510 for £10. As MD is so cheap these days I can justify having specialized MD for different purposes (this is my recording unit, this is my everyday playback unit etc). Often folks offload ALL their MD gear which they find in the back of a cupboard when doing a house tidy or when moving. This means you often get 10 or 20+ discs thrown in. A good way to stock up on spare discs I guess. I've also bought a couple of Vapex brand gumstick Ni-MH's (1450mah), brand new for a £1.50 each. It's an ambition to own a Sony JB980 deck one day but right now I cannot justify the space and cost! A UK-tuned, good condition black one recently went for almost £200: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110514979613&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_1182 I find eBay a great way to source new and uncommon discs, I have bought several Japan-only packs through and outside ebay from this seller: http://shop.ebay.co.uk/chiebesson/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25 She has none for sale at the moment though. I also sell stuff, I sold a good condition N1 (unit only) recently to a friendly chap in Australia. I'm thinking of buying one of these as I'd like the 12 character width rather than 9 that my MC33EL does. A bit on the expensive side, I think £10 is the most I'd pay for one: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130379980056&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_2065wt_1217 How about a Xitel DG2 for under £4? Were these not £50+ back in the day? I've made an offer for £2.50 for 2 and will report back here on how I get on: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280394420253&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_4580wt_941 I currently use optical to record MP3-to-MD but these gadgets supposedly support the auto-track marking without resorting to a manual ~2 second silence gap. Update: the seller agreed so I get 2 Xitel DG2's for £11 delivered. I'll report again on the quality after living with them for a while.

And TV, in the Smallville season 1 episode "Kinetic" [1] the bad guys find a data disc in the Luthor mansion holding data about a secret particle accelerator project [2]. I guess MD is sufficiently unknown among the general audience that they can use unaltered discs and get away with them being an exotic and high-tech storage medium (which it is ;-) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallville_(season_1) [2] Sony should have used this in promoting the format - "MiniDisc: Entrusted to store secret Luthercorp projects since 2001." As an IT professional, looking back I facepalm that the data was not encrypted.

This is a great thread, I enjoyed reading your stories. Lets keep it going! In 2001 I travelled to Japan for 3 weeks [2], I arrived in Tokyo with my R900 and a selection of favorite discs. Halfway through I decided to travel via the high-tech Shinkansen [3] "bullet train" from Tokyo to Kyoto. I knew it would be an unforgettable ride so I put on one of my favorite discs, a self-made [1] recording of the Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere soundtrack. The soundtrack is superb electro-ambient with track names like "The Protocol", "Miles Above", "Lithium", "Black Lotus" and "Transparent Blue" [5]. It perfectly matches the near-future scenario of the game. So there I was, in bright sunlight, relaxing back against the plush seat and the soundtrack kicked into my favourite tracks as the train accelerated to high speed. It was an amazingly smooth journey, truly futuristic and matched the music perfectly. I felt like I was flying Concorde at supersonic speeds. A few years after, I sold all of my MD gear except that disc, I could not bear to part with it. Now I'm back to MD and I am so glad I kept it with all the memories linked to it. [4] [1] Self-made in the sense that I extracted the tracks from the Playstation1 disc myself and recorded those via analogue to MD. I also remember using MAME to convert those wav's to mp3. I remember an oddity in that the wav's were 38Khz instead of 44.1Khz like I would expect from a CD audio track. [2] I bought a bunch of retro and new videogame stuff on my trip but was not sufficiently into MD to think about buying some lovely Japan-only MD gear. I regret that now! If I went now I'd be hunting down "designer" MD discs like TDK Bitclub etc. [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen and http://members.shaw.ca/deanchamberland/Victoria/shinkansen.jpg [4] Here is the original disc photo I took just now, a white Sony ES (maybe I can get theblueraja to whip up a snazzy disc label for me): http://opticalgarbage.com/minidisc/img/ac3md.jpg [5] Soundtrack selection:

The Type-R will definitely help but remember that it's the Type-S feature that also "gets extra" out of LP2/4 recordings on playback. I maintain this http://opticalgarbage.com/minidisc/type-sr.html and have updated the "Enhanced Recording (encoding)" column for Type-R to show it supports LP2 and LP4. As I understand it, the LP2 encoding in SonicStage software is technically inferior to the hardware DSP method. I can't remember the specifics now but there is a technical reason. This is why I never use SonicStage or any NetMD functions. But. Transfer of track names would be great though but I can refer back to the playlist I recorded them from or http://www.freedb.org/ if I was desperate.

I was about to jump in say that Type-R only benefits SP, not LP2, recordings but it seems you are correct: http://www.minidisc.org/type_r_atrac.html Some user comments suggest otherwise: http://www.minidisc.org/brian_youn/MDLP_usercomments.html

That would be very cool indeed but according to this chart it is not possible: http://www.minidisc.org/hi-md_faq.html#_q93

baturjan, sorry to hear you're leaving the fold. Please consider mothballing all your MD gear rather than selling it off. I went through a similar thing and sold off all my gear and disc (including some MD compilations that were very dear to me). I regretted it and wished I'd put it all in deep storage instead.

I think the simplicity of just having a "limited" set of very good encoding options is a plus of MiniDisc. If I was faced with loads of tweakable settings like in the LAME encoder I'd be forever changing things or wondering if I could have done better by using a value of 100 rather than 99 for some factor. So it's easy - if recording from mp3, wma, mp4 or another format OR a double CD album then LP2, if recording from an outstanding CD album then SP (eg. RaTM's "The Battle of Los Angelos" lends itself to SP so one can hear every snarl in de la Rocha's lyrics). So to answer the question: I use LP2 most often, followed by SP. LP4 I never use. I always encode with Type-R and decode with Type-S.

Consider one of these http://trust.com/products/productdrivers.aspx?artnr=12950 I have one, it cost me approx

For about 10 years now I have been creating monthly mixes based on the best from OC Remix (ocremix.org). This site features remixed videogame music by talented amateur and pro musicians. If you want an easy way to check out the back catalog there is also an official torrent downloadable from the site of 1000 tracks of it's catalog.

The N510 is a great unit, it has Type-S, optical recording in, it has nice button feel and is easy to use. Note that it takes a single AA battery not a gumstick type and is thus rather bulky compared to other units. I think this is actually a plus as I also have plenty of hi-capacity NiMH AA's. There is no mic input. I use mine solely as a digital optical recording unit. Like you, I make heavy use of LP2 and am searching for the best player. I bought a E510 which is a Type-S player-only unit. While sounding great it has a horrible cheap feel to the case (aluminum cover only) and ugly buttons. I'd avoid it. I'm now trying to source a N910 which is probably the best for our needs. It also has a larger, more robust eject mechanism switch which is going to be used more often in a player unit. I had a blue N910 years ago which is a great little unit, before I went over to the dark side and bought an iPod Nano 2nd gen and now back to MD. It's just a shame there seems to be nothing in the UK that is a N910-ish, compact, svelte Type-S player only. The closest is the the E909 which looks great but does not have Type-S

I just did a quick comparison of four discs: Sony ES (gold/white high-end), TDK XS-iV, Sony Shock Absorbing Mechanism and a Sony Neige. My conclusions are: 1. When shaken the ES and Shock disc are slightly less noisy than the other two. 2. The case of the ES disc seems very tough plastic, followed by the Shock, then the other two. 3. The "pro" discs are those with probably both a sturdy case and some "shock absorption" gubbins inside. I have a MiniDV camcorder too. In that arena, I understand that it is normally best to match the brand of the MiniDV casettes to the camcorder due to the chemicals they use on the tape surface. MD is a magento-optical so the same rules do not apply.