goodsound12

I have never heard of an RH10 without the OLED display so I was suspicious of the photo as well. My "NO" to you was only in regard to the photo in the link definitely not being an RH910. No offence intended. You have been extremely helpful in your postings to me and others here and your knowledge of all things mindisc is quite impressive, so my apologies if you were offended in any way, that was not my intention. I wasn't intending to buy from or deal with this person I just saw the photo and was very curious if indeed a non OLED display RH10 had been released by Sony perhaps either before or after the OLED version was releasesd or perhaps in some other part of the world.

Enzo Heavenly I have sent you a PM.

No, if you cick on the link you will clearly see that the photo is of a RH10 without an OLED display, not a RH910.

I was parousing through e-bay and found a listing for an RH10 that appears to have a conventional LCD display and not the OLED display. Does anyone remember a version of the RH10 without the OLED display? Here is the link. http://www.ebay.com/itm/SONY-Hi-MD-MZ-RH10-Walkman-Digital-Music-Player-Recorder-/271121201182?pt=US_Personal_MiniDisc_Recorder&hash=item3f2015381e

Thanks for the reply. The thing is, like I mentioned in my previous post, I am able to get the batteries to charge now, well two of them anyway, so that's not really my main concern anymore, if a concern at all. I have performed no cleaning whatsoever of the contacts on my RH10, they were already very clean with no signs of corrosion or buildup which was detremined by a close visual inspection under magnification. I have never left a discharged gumstick battery in the battery compatment for any extended period of time, nor have I ever operated my RH10 in any environmental conditions that would have caused corrosion or buildup on the battery compartment contacts. Using the tin foil has shown that the batteries themselves are not the primary issue. The main problem now is that the batteries are not making electrical contact when inserted into the battery compartment. It appears that this was the reason the batteries were refusing to charge in the first place, not that the batteries themselves were defective or used up. With the tinfoil in place not only will two of the three batteries now charge, at least partly, they will power the player on their own for playback and other functions. As soon as I remove the tiny little square of folded tin foil then I get no power to the RH10 whatsoever under battery power. This is the part that is perplexing me. Tin foil in place and everything works, charging, playback, the OLED display, everything, no tin folil and nothing works. I am at a total loss to explain this bizzare phenomenom, as the issue never existed previously and now it occurs on both my RH10 and my MZ-N1, which also uses the same Ni-MH gumstick battery. Yes I tried the folded tin foil with the MZ-N1 and with it in place the MZ-N1 also functions. How could the same condition, which was not previously present, suddenly occur with two completey different devices, at the same time? If the tin foli is not merely allowing the battery to make physical contact within the battery compatment, then what is it doing? What can I do to correct this issue as like I said before, I don't want to always have to have a little square piece of aluminim foil stuck in my battery compartment? Also, and I hesitate to mention this, but disclosure of this issue to potential buyers has affected my ability to sell my RH10, which frankly I find a little strange as I have operated my RH10 in this manner with no problems at all for the better part of two years now by utilizing the AA piggyback power sourece. BTW, that is an absolutely awesome and invaluable feature. Without it my player would have virtually been an unuseable dud in regards to portable use for the last two years since this issue first began.

This thread has been dorment for awhile but i have an update, sort of, and another question. With a litle more research I found a suggestion online from someone who folded up a small piece of tinfoil wrap and placed it on top of the positive terminal of the Gumstick and then closed the battery compartment latch and got the battery to start accepting a charge that way. I thought what the heck I'll give this a try. Well what do ya know, it worked. One of the three Sony gumstick batteries I have still refused to take a charge but at least I could get the RH10 into charge mode , it would just not stay in charge mode very long. I think that particular battery, which is the one that came with my MZ-N1 and therefore is the oldest of the three batteries is truly toast. One of the remaining two would stay in charge mode a little longer but would drop out of charge mode after five or six minutes. I continued to re-start the charge mode with this battery several times and eventually I was able to get it to about half charge. The third gumstick charged fully on the first try but went down to about half charge almost immediately after disconnecting the AC adaptor and beginning playback of a minidisc, but it continued to play for at least an hour before I stopped playback and the indicator on the display showed that it still had plenty of charge left. I then removed the piece of folded up tinfoil and closed the battery compartment lid and could not get the player to respond in any way. It appears that what I have believed all this time to be an issue with the gumstick batteries themselves, most probably in fact, is an issue with not being able to make electrical contact with the gumstick. Like I posted previously in this thread the contacts inside the battery compartment and on the underside of the battery compartment lid are squeaky clean with absolutely no signs of corrosion or buildup. Upon further inspection today It appears that when inserting a gumstick battery in the battery compartment it seems to be sitting a little lower than I remember it to, and that when I close the battery compartment lid the elctrical contact of the battery compartment lid is not making contact with the little nub on the positive end of the gumstick. I notice the same thing with my MZ-N1 as well. That's why the batteries wouldn't charge in either machine and that's why, understandably, I automatically assumed that it was the batteries themselves that were the issue. The batteries are not making electrical contact with either machine. Has anyone else experienced this? Can anyone offer a proper fix or suggestion to work around this other than a little piece of tin foil which puts presure on the battery compartment latch and makes it difficult to close? Any other insight to offer? Could it be that the batteries have shrunk? I mean why else would they not be making contact now when they always have before? I noticed that there is a small amount of springiness when I push down lightly on the inserted gumstick when the battery compatment lid is open. Is it possible that the spring under the electrical contacts located in the bottom of the battery compartment have compressed somehow? Folded up foil wrap is far from an optimal solution. It's all a bit of a mystery to me. Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to offer.

I'm not sure if you are reffering to an LP or a CD. If you are talking about an LP record, recorded directly to your RH10 from a turntable, or more correctly from the outputs of your phono pre, then I would have to say no the RH10 will not automatically insert a track mark between songs. Truth be told I have never attempted this, so I could be wrong. Now if you are transferring the LP recorded from your computer and you manualy inserted track indicators when you first performed the needle drop, then those track markers should transfer when porting the file to your RH10. As far as recording a CD with an optical connection directly from a CD transport/player, then yes the vast majority of the time the track markers, which are digitally encoded in the CD, will be transferred to your MD recorder while recording. Even if transferring directly from CD in analogue, for the most part the RH10 will recognize and insert track marks betwween songs, but I have had issues with certain CD's where the tracks blend together or where there is a very short pause between tracks and no track marks were created between these songs when recording from the analoguen outputs of a disc player. In this situation, or in the case of recording directly from the phono outputs, you will have to manually ad track marks. Refer to your owners manual for instructions on how to do this. Hopefully this answers your questions.

Have posted an auction on e-bay for the RH10 without the discs. High bid already above $200US as of the time of this psting after just twenty-four hours, so RH10 itself is no longer for sale here. Discs are stil available for now but may soon post them on e-bay as well. Make an offer for the discs if interested.

Azureal; In terms of the sound quality differences, it also occurs to me that this should not be the case. I fully concede that it is entirely possible that the difference in sound quality I hear is not actually real. I did say that it was a "perceived" difference and to elaborate a little further, it was very subtle. I Doubt if I could consistantly identify which was which in a controlled blind test, although I have recorded the same source material to both disc types in PCM and did some comparsion listening to come to this conclusion, however I admit this was a purrely subjective evaluation and some expectation bias may be at play here. I found the same between recordings done in PCM and the next best option available except when the source material was of a higher resolution, say recordings of SACD and DVD-Audio media directly from the analogue outputs of my universal player, then I found the difference to be slightly more pronounced. This one would seem to make a little more sense. Despite the shorter word length used in PCM in comparison to Atrac3plus (16bits compared to 24bits) the lack of any compression with redording in PCM should still theoretically more than compensate, but perhaps my logic is faulty on this.

Thanks Azureal. Yes I had forgotten about the lack of a practical line level ouptut, most likely due to the fact that I have never attempted to use my RH10 in that fashion. I see how that could be a limiting factor for many users. BTW just for the sake of clarity, I would like to point out that my $275 asking price is for 17 Hi-MD discs not 10, two of which are factory sealed. The Hi-MD discs, back when they were available at retailers, sold for around $12 a piece, or more, up here in the Great White North(Canada) while the last two five packs I purchased from Sony directly online, at the tail end of their inventory, cost me $55CDN funds each. I put some effort and research into the whole process before setting my asking price for the discs and feel that they are priced somewhat if not significantly lower than what is avialable now and consequently reasonable when you consider how scarce they are becoming and what I paid for them originally. Regardless of all that I am open to offers as long as they are reasonable. With all due respect to everyone here, and at the considerable risk of alienating some, it has been my experience that quite often high level enthusiasts, such as those that frequent sites of this type, are more often than not looking for the extraordianry deal and are much less interested in items priced at fair market value or slightly below. This is just a personal observation and not meant to insult any of the members here. There are plenty of people who are not enthusiast members of sites of this nature who operate in this manner as well. I understand that everyone wants to get the best possible deal that they can, it's only human nature, but I'm simply not interested in giving this stuff away at well below current market value. I too have utilized the standard 80 minute Sony Premium Gold mindiscs in Hi-MD mode on my RH10 but find that when recording in PCM( my favoured method) the severe reduction in available recording time combined with a percieved loss of sound quality, in comparison to the 1GB Hi-MD discs, made that option highly undesireable for me.

I know it's early, sort of, but no real bites yet.

Maybe I should start an e-bay auction for mine. Check out this auction from Califronia. Just the Rh10 itself and the matching AC adaptor, nothing else. No Sonicstage, no USB cable, no remote, no carrying pouch, no original packaging, no AA battery power source. It still has over 25 hours to go. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-Minidisc-Recorder-MZ-RH10-HI-MD-/111001865924?pt=US_Personal_MiniDisc_Recorder&hash=item19d83a0ec4 Wow. Now I know I'm not asking too much for my unit that is in similar condition and comes with all the original packaging and accessories and extras and freebies. The thing is I'd really rather not go the e-bay route. I just want to find an enthusiast who wants a fair deal on a great little portable without a lot of fuss.

Well, maybe I should put mine up for auction on e-bay. Check out this auction from California. Just the machine and AC adaptor and nothing else. It still has more than six hours left to go. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-Minidisc-Recorder-MZ-RH10-HI-MD-/111001865924?pt=US_Personal_MiniDisc_Recorder&hash=item19d83a0ec4

Ahhh, I see. That makes a lot of sense. Funny, for me the analogue type of sound from my RH10 is exactly why I picked it over the RH1's crisper sound. By the way I completely agree with your asessment of the basic sound characteristics of those three players. It all comes down to personal preference when it comes to ones perception of sound quality. On another note it would appear that I may indeed be out of whack for what I am asking for my RH10 and the Hi-MD discs that go with it. There is a current auction on e-bay for one right now, that ends in a couple of days, but that one is for the player and AC adaptor only nothing else, so not really a fair comparison. Still it will be interesting to see what the final bid on that no reserve auction is. Any suggestions on what would be realistic, FAIR, prices for these items?

I have to admit I am curious as to why the MZ-RH1 is considered to be the holy grail of portable MD walkmans in comparison to other models, specifically the RH10. I remember vividly when I bought my RH10. At the time the RH1 had just been released, so I had both players available to me at the time new from an authorized retailer. I spent a lot of time in the store that evening putting both of the shops demo models through their paces and agreed with the sales associate that the RH10 was the better performer in terms of sound quality, with the material I had available at the time. For me as an audiophile ultimate sound quality has always been the single most important factor in the consideration or purchase of any music playback device. The salesman explained very clearly to me all the reasons why he felt that the RH10 was the better machine. Now I am fully open to the idea that since the RH10 was about to be discontinued and the store probably wanted to get rid of it's last couple of units, I did get mine for a lttle less than the RH1 was going for, but certainly no drastic discount, that this was purely rhetoric from the salesman to facilitate the sale of the item the store's owners wanted to move first, but rememeber I was able to fully audition both models prior to purchase and I felt that the RH10 was the better machine. Now several years later, with both products long discontinued, it is the RH1 and not the RH10 that is highly sought after and I am curious as to why this is. Is it because it was the last of the Hi-MD portables? Is it because of some function or feature that the RH10 and other Hi-MD walkmans didn't posess? Is it because it is rarer or harder to find? Is it some combination of these factors, or is it something else altogether? I realize in the light of the fact that I am currently in the process of selling my RH10 that this may all seem like nothing more than sour grapes, but it is not, I am just truly curious as to what has accounted for the RH1's climb to almost mythical mystique and the high prices they now command in the marketplace today, particulrily in comparison to other Hi-MD walkmans such as the RH10.