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Manufacturing. Neither you nor I have done the analysis on this particular unit. It's possible that adding a screw here or a clip there would contribute to more e-waste, not less. Besides, the battery life on these devices is pretty good and USB ports are fairly ubiquitous. Perhaps it isn't as inconvenient as you would believe. I own three 1gb capacity sandisk "clip" players (OLED display, btw) that have the same "problem". So, let's go back to my "glorified battery" assertion. You can have 2 or 3 of these amps, they are certainly cheap enough. If you run out of juice, go to your spare--just like a battery. You're also keeping them out of the landfill longer by distributing use across more than one unit--but that's stretching the argument a bit, but only a little. It's true I would've been more impressed with Apple's argument if the battery life had actually been significantly longer. The battery life gains was supposed to be the answer to that riddle, too. Unfortunately, it was smoke and mirrors and--as you pointed out--more about the sex appeal than utility. Did I mention I'm not an Apple fan? Here I'm optimistic about the future of e-waste recycling. I see the E5 absolutely less harmful than a laptop battery--no doubt about it. I know it's a bit of putting the cart before the horse, but I really believe e-waste recycling will help here a lot. I largely agree with you here. I'm hoping battery endurance increases or some other paradigm shift takes place (something like fuel cells, but that has its problems, too). I still think that with the evolution of integration and miniaturization that it is inevitable that we'll see more of this, not less. I don't think we can stop it, but we can effect a real change that can minimize the impact. Invest in ewaste recycling research and infrastructure. While not a big deal for me, for others it is apples and oranges. The E5 has the bass boost switch and the E3 does not.

A couple of things that are worth exploring here. These days, the rechargable batteries we replace aren't merely batteries. Guess what? They're actually gadgets unto themselves with not a little bit of circuitry built in. Have you ever taken apart a Dell laptop battery? There's more circuitry in there than that little amp, I'll guarantee you that. If the FiiO E5 is little more than a glorified battery that just happens to have some amplification circuits built-in, it changes the picture a little bit doesn't it?I'm not a fan of Apple--not by a long shot--but I was moved by their explanation that the components that make a battery user-replaceable take up a significant amount of space which could be used for more battery. Anyway, that's become a moot point. There are videos all over that show that the Macbook Air battery is at least enthusiast replaceable.

The discussion on the FiiO E5 headphone amplifier was moved: Moved to phones section here (by Moderator)

I think it's possible I've heard of it before I googled it just now. According to what I've read, it didn't have very much market share. My grand plan is to have the capability to access likely media formats that might pop up now and again in someone's attic, etc. I'm not supporting wax cylinders either.

AEP must be some acronym derived from a Japanese phrase. When I search on references to combinations of these acronyms it always points back to Sony. AED = Northern European--huh?

My best guess is AEP refers to US-AEP, the US-Asia Environmental Partnership--but that doesn't make much sense because AEP is some European reference, and EE stands for Eastern Europe. On the other hand, it's looks like it would blend in quite well as an MZ-RH1 accessory and it is rechargable via USB(always a plus).

Awesome. I'm glad to see you're inspired to keep using your RH1. Stay with us, Chris.

Oh, I also may be assuming too much. The receive data could be coming out over the same pins (2 and 4). Pin 1 is probably ground.

I know that the details of the sending parts of Sony LCD remotes over pins 2 and 4 are well documented, but is there technical documentation on the received data on pins 1 and 3? I think it might be fun to play with that.

Interesting. When I enter MZ-RH1 into Sony North America's Depot Repair Request form it says "no matches found"--but it does recognize MZM200, which is equivalent. I wonder if this person is still active and what his pricing would be: Sigma D.O. Electronics (David Popovits) It looks like he's got a website: Sigma D.O. Electronics Website It's worth a phone call or an e-mail. He's got to be cheaper than Sony.

Is there any indication that the receptacle itself is damaged? That is, if you wiggle (gently!) the mini-USB end of the cable while it is in the unit, is there any movement of the female receptacle in the unit itself? Whatever you do, don't throw it away. If you have to actually send it in for an estimate, make sure they'll send it back to you if you don't accept their estimate. After that, if you're out of options, try to find a reputable local electronics repair person who has surface mount soldering experience--assuming it's simply a broken solder lead on the receptacle. If that doesn't pan out, let us know how much you want for it as parts.

Someone mentioned this 20$ gadget over in another topic: FiiO E5 Apparently it can make Kate Bush sound like Barry White. Maybe it'll work for you. Just kidding on the Barry White comment, but apparently it can boost the volume on your headphone jack and give you the bass boost you're desiring. It can be had for as low as $12.00 shipped on ebay.

I remember reading the French version specs of some unit and while everyone else had 4-5 watts the French had 1. I guess they just have more sensitive hearing. Can someone confirm this?

Anybody have $700-800 USD burning a hole in their pocket? There's a brand new Sony Vaio PCG-NV99M/BP laptop (rather old by laptop standards, obviously) on the Yahoo Japan Auction site: (Google Translated) SONY VAIO NV Series PCG-NV99M/BP The primary picture isn't very interesting, but if you look closely at the other pictures and the specs, you'll see the words "NetMD". A NetMD unit integrated into a laptop module--the PCGA-MDN1--the topic of many discussions on this board already. There is one other listing for this computer on Yahoo! Japan, but if you read closely, you'll see that it only has the floppy module. There's also a listing for this module alone on ebay currently here: Sony pcga mdn1 mini disc drive -- this obviously is the more desirable option, assuming you could get it working. See below. Allegedly there's a way to do a little soldering and get this working via USB on any computer by loading this driver: Vaio NetMD Driver. The hack was discussed here: (Google Translated) PCGA-MDN1 to non-Sony Notebooks, but the details seem elusive (at least to me) and the gallery links are dead. Perhaps someone with more ambition could contact someone on that forum to see if they still have the details. I would suggest that if you get as far as having the module modified, don't spend too much effort trying to get it working under Vista or Windows 7--stick with XP. You can use an older machine that wont cost you much more than the module itself, or less. That is, until you start adding things: Imagine a computer outfitted with this thing in a custom wooden chassis and a decent sound card with optical in and out. I see something fashioned like a classic 70s stereo receiver with analog VU meters. Go for it.

That is very amusing. Remember those are linked from the equipment page gallery. Are they press release photos or something?

So, the bottom line is there is no such animal, correct? AAL isn't nearly as neat as I thought it was. What I'm observing is when doing the transfer to MD, SonicStage is consistently exercising its "second-option"--to convert to LP2 rather than transfer the AAL. The description would have you believe that the AAL file will be accepted by the MDLP compatible device and it ignores the lossless component of the file. I understand now, though--they intended it to be a convenient way to store two different qualities in the same file--on your computer, not your media player. With today's processing power and low storage costs that's become largely irrelevant. You can store everything in PCM and convert when you need to.

I wouldn't have thought so either (I felt kinda funny posting that when I posted it, too). I am doing some more experiments.

It's not that I want LP2 as a compatibility base, it's just that is what SonicStage seems to be layering with the lossless track. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I have an idea what the problem might be though. I wanted this disc to be playable on a non-HiMD unit. Maybe SonicStage will only use LP2 when importing a CD into AAL while in NetMD (vs. HiMD) mode.

Okay, so I've done some tests. Apparently it is layered with an LP2 track. So, to answer my own question is that the unit must at least support MDLP. Am I missing anything? Keep in mind that my question is where can you play an AAL disc with any particular MD unit and not whether you can convert it to anything else via Sonic Stage. Okay--so I'm a little slow. Let me know if I have this right. There is no minidisc device that can play AAL, only the LP2 layer it encapsulates. However, the information is still present and if you chose to you could take that disc and import it into SonicStage and jump to other low-loss or lossless formats (such as PCM, high-bit-encoded mp3, ogg, etc) and end up with a higher quality result than if you were to only transport a strictly LP2 recording. Am I catching up?

It sounds a little tinny through the speakers, but I think the fact that the sound quality through the speakers wasn't stellar was a known quantity. Unless you're listening to lectures, I'd say you'd still need to hook it up with headphones or better speakers. It's not really metal, so it is surprisingly light until you add the batteries. I am happy enough with it, though--I'll post more detail in a separate thread in the MD/MDLP forum later.

I received the MZ-B10 about 2 days after it was shipped. A satisfactory transaction with no hiccups. The seller is pleasant and professional, too. Oh and a thanks to skogens for the referral.

The shiny one has arrived. Is there an older thread in the feedback forum for this particular seller?

Yes, I can understand the tendency to suspect this. I suppose it might even happen from time to time, but I think it is more rare than you believe. There are people who cannot put an accurate value on an item to save their own life. I would also tread extremely carefully and not bring your suspicions to a level where you actually make the accusation. Especially for a low priced item such as that, I'd be less inclined to suspect hijinks because sellers have listing fees and if they accidentally have to buy their own item they just have to list it again--it costs them money.

I picked up my second HiMD unit--an MZ-NH600D--for $51 USD shipped. It came with some buds, an empty plastic disc case that can hold 6 discs, and one sealed blank (another 80-minute Sony Gold). Initially I thought the sound quality was a bit flat compared to my RH1, but after I tweaked the equalizer settings it was almost indistinguishable. I expect this is going to be my workhorse playback unit so I can preserve the RH1 for things only the RH1 can do. I'll try to get the non-US version of this as well so I can have line-in, but I'd like to be patient and see if I can find a better deal than is presently available. I may or may not post pictures. I think it's been done well enough already. See the equipment page linked below in my signature.

I know Wikipedia isn't the end all of references, but it's handy--so I'll quote it here (emphasis is mine): If I convert some tracks to AAL 352kb, how far the does backwards compatibility go? Does making the encoding rate that high make it less backwards compatible or is the format layered such that older units would still be able to play a version of it? Please don't speculate--answer only if you know. Preferably, I'd like to hear from people who have a wide enough range of units to try (or have already tried) this. Don't forget to format your disc as MD. Thanks.