Hello everyone!
Like everyone else, I want an RH1. This all started recently when I was going through my boxes of "old stuff" and found my old R91... I bought it probably ten years ago and used it exclusively to record and play my DJ sets, and loved it. I seem to recall it could be a bit temperamental (it had to go back to the factory twice for read/write head realignment) but I loved it all the same.
Snap to 2010 - I am having a personal music crisis! Being a scientist I did some quick and dirty experiments to compare my ten year old MZ-R91 with my 2007 ipod nano (yes, sorry, an ipod!). I put an AIFF ripped from a well mastered CD onto my ipod, then copied the same CD to my R91 (ATRAC 292kpbs, correct?) and played them though my (beloved) Sennheiser HD25 headphones and couldn't believe my ears - the minidisc sounded BETTER than the ipod! No, i though, surely the minidisc's headphone amp is just better designed to drive these low impedance (300ohm) headphones, let's find some earbuds... but lo and behold with the earbuds supplied with the R91 the result was the same. The ten year old MD had better dynamics, less hiss and a richer low end than the three year old ipod. Pants.
So now, like everyone else, I want an RH1. I've read at length the pros and cons of transferring music to and from the device, irritating encryption and protection, little manufacturing niggles like the probably-needs-fixing-at-some-point jog wheel, and still want one. I'll use the recording for gigs, conferences and lectures and the playback quality beats by ipod (which I will sell!) by a country mile so I reckon I can justify it... but I want some info from you guys on here!
1. Can someone point me to the thread which discusses the speed etc. of transferring files recorded to the computer which were recorded on the device?
2. My main computer is a mac, though I have enough PCs knocking about running windows and linux - am I severely limited by using a mac to transfer files? Apparently when connected to a mac all ATRAC files downloaded are immediately converted to WAV - is this done on the MD or the computer? Does it mean transfers take longer on a mac?
3. Is it gonna break down in three years? Nah, don't answer that. That's why I joined the forum But seriously, how many of you have had an RH1 for a long time? When spending