damnspynovels

Not that obtuse - especially from the perspective of recording analogue stuff for eventual archival on a CD.

i doubt it's as simple as swapping a chip.

well i'm really surprised you've ever had issues with this. i mean from memory, when I used to record cd's via optical to my old r30 way, way back in the 90s, it copied flawlessly - with accurate total run time (i.e. if a cd ran to 63:23, so did the MD), and full track marks dropped in automatically - and it didn't matter if it was a live album where the crowd noise would run over the end of one track into the start of another, or a DJ mix CD where the sound was of a continuous level - tracks all got marked accordingly. And my JB940 is no different. I just tried it with a CD by the dance act Orbital - where it's pretty much a seamless piece of music for 80 mins but with multiple tracks obviously - and it marked everything. the only weird thing that is different is what i've been going on about all thread, that it doesn't stop when the cd stops. so what am i using? an arcam cd player connected via optical. nothing special - it's supposed to do this. as long as you start the recording with the 'music sync' button on the remote, which puts it into rec/pause - and then hit play on the cd player (and that'll start the recording). it marks all the tracks every time. it just doesn't stop at the end. this is all as per the manual too.

Ok so i can confirm now that my deck exhibits the behaviour exactly as it's meant to be as per the manual. My cause for concern was because its the first time I've noticed the deck continue to record after a CD has finished. I picked a CD to try that is a continuous piece of music - but with track markers - and it copied them exactly as it should. Once finished, the deck continued to record (nothing) for an additional 30 seconds. It then went into Rec/Pause mode, and removed the previous 27 seconds of blank space - resulting in a run time that's approx 3 seconds longer than the CD.

Oh I have it hooked up optically - so it's ok. I'll investigate the level sync dB tonight.

Does it make any difference if the digital signal is electrical? I'm now wondering if i've inadvertently increased the Level Sync db. However I didn't think it affected auto track marking from a CD source via digital.

not sure. it does say in the manual that if you're recording via digital using Music Sync - smart space etc is on by default. are you using music sync or cd sync?

I'm just quoting the manual as to what it's 'supposed' to do on my deck. i'm going to try it tonight and watch - as apparently the display changes to say "smart space" etc, when that's happening. I've seen it do that before but never paid it an amazing amount of attention. But just to recap what I meant: if there's a gap of sound for less than 30 seconds before the sound starts again - it'll reduce that gap to just 3 seconds and continue recording. If the silence is longer than 30 seconds, i think it appends 3 seconds of silence onto the last track, removes the rest and then pauses? So this is what would / should happen after a cd is finished. Then if after 10 minutes there's been no sound, recording goes from pause to stop.

I'm just looking at my manual now - and it looks like it's meant to be this way, ie. it says that to do a sync with a non-sony cd player, you use Music Sync - and it will start, but not stop - unless you manually intervene. It does however say that Smart Space and Autocut will operate regardless of their setting (i.e. if you have them turned off) in these conditions. It doesn't say if it only works thru optical or coaxial though. I'd be interested to know if that's a factor. So it would seem that once my CD is finished playing, the deck continues recording - and as smart space and autocut are active, it'll detect silence of less than 30 seconds, replace it with a space of 3 seconds and continue recording. I'm guessing then that as it's going to continue recording 'nothing', auto cut will kick in after 30 seconds, remove all the blank space (again!), and replace it with 3 seconds - and then pause. So the crux of it is if you're using a non-Sony cd player, your decks will ALWAYS append 3 seconds of space onto every last track of a CD. I suppose that's no big deal, but if you want to make a mix-MD of individual songs from different CDs - it's really annoying to either have to wait 30 seconds after every track for the deck to do it's thing - OR hover over the stop button to do it manually. It's all very weird considering portables don't do this. I can see some logic in having this flexibility on a home deck, but the ability to turn it all off would've been nice But still, mystery solved.

There's always (in the 940's case) the option of using the smart space / auto cut function that detects when theres 30 seconds of silence, removes it and pauses the recording. But that's not really how it ought to be. I swear also it never used to do this.

Oh so you think it's typical behaviour? Weird. I mean I swear that back in the day when I was using portables to record CDs via optical - they'd stop dead on.

Thanks, but yeah - not really the answer I'm hoping for.

I just noticed last night when copying a CD via optical that the MD doesn't stop recording immediately after the CD has finished. I'm pretty sure it should, correct? Is there a setting that I've inadvertently changed that would cause this?

This is all true - I'm not even that bothered by recouping to be honest. If i get enjoyment out of something I don't mind spending money. I just have to justify it to myself Plus I have a very supportive partner in that she doesn't mind the fact I have over 2000 vinyl LPs and almost as many CDs, so she'll support my whims and fancies. But then she's the same with clothes so I guess it evens out

the worst part is throwing good money after bad. I mean, I'm spending more to justify it?

I know what you mean. I'm still on the fence about it all if I'm totally honest. I successfully removed myself from MD at the right time originally - in 2001 - when I got the first iPod. For some inexplicable reason, I bought a home deck last year on eBay. Love it at first, all the nostalgia etc - grand plans of recording / archiving radio concerts etc. It never happened, and as it was I recorded one MD - of a playlist I made on Spotify - go figure. That period lasted about a month - in which time I'd found I'd bought 80+ blanks. Weird huh? I moved house in February and the home deck went in storage - the whole time wishing I didn't have this £100 piece of useless kit in my attic. I mean it's not an amazing amount of money to write off, but it still felt a bit of a waste. But I was sort of relieved that I was avoiding falling into the trap of having to continually spend money on tracking down discs and machines that might not work. Until a month ago. Once again, I've got the same grand plans of archiving concerts on the radio (6music do a great one hour program in the middle of the night rebroadcasting old sessions. I record them on my tv's set top box each night, and delete them if I'm not interested, and keep the ones I am until I'm ready to record them onto MD - something I've actually yet to do). And as such I've bought another 20 blanks - to add to the 80 unopened discs I already have. I've also bought two portables. WHAT AM I DOING? I'm someone who hates mp3s - and as a result don't actually have any. My on the go music solution is to pay for a monthly Spotify subscription for my iPhone. At home, I have a mix of a large vinyl and CD collection that I love equally. Where does MD fit in? I'm trying to find the gap. I don't need an on the go solution for CDs or vinyl - i.e. copying them to MD because I can't play CDs on the go, because Spotify answers that problem. I don't have the time to sit over my deck with a load of records making my own compilations - I wish I did. But I do see a gap for things like radio concerts, sessions etc. I have dreams of having a huge archive of this kind of material that I can refer to in later years. Ironically, for me recording these to MD seems less cumbersome than recording them to a computer. Plus I get to look at my amassed collection on a shelf. I need to get over trying to justify it being anything else.

oh so it does. i get them mixed up. i can see why the guy thinks the r50 is the best one made, considering his thoughts about putting buttons on the casing where there's fragile parts beneath etc. i just don't like the look of the r50 personally. i had an r30 and it seems pretty similar - although i will admit the jog wheel was great for titling.

it's not so much that - more that I've gotten more equipment than I had before. So i'm waiting on a 3 to 1 toslink switch and extra toslink cables etc.

well to be honest i don't know what i want

These are great - though I think I'm hoping for something that will blend a little more into a room. I realise I have no idea what I'm imagining this might be!

Not yet - my home deck has been in storage for the past year, and I'm just getting around to buying all new cables for it.

Probably - i do sort of keep panic buying 80 minute Neige discs. What's the deal with those anyway, are they old stock or are they still being manufactured?

So I think I've probably amassed about 100 discs in the last year - most of them 80min Neige - but I've got no real way of storing them. I misguidedly bought a flight case on Amazon that holds 80 discs - but not only is it kinda ugly, I've also now outgrown it. Does anyone have any tips for tidy storage using every day things - maybe something you can buy at Ikea?

Well, all my gear is quite old other than the DAC - which is brand new. It's all Arcam Alpha stuff from the mid to late 90s, and the reason I bought the DAC was because whilst I love the Alpha range, both in sound and looks, I recognise the CD player I have is very old and could quite easily be improved on. I discussed it with Arcam themselves, as to whether the entry level CD player they offered at the time (since discontinued) - which itself was about £600-700 - would outperform my Alpha CD player with their new irDAC. They said it wouldn't, so I bought the DAC. It made a vast improvement to my CD player without losing the Arcam 'sound'. But obviously my integrated / power amp combo is old too - way too old to have digital inputs - but i don't want to replace it. So I'm using the irDAC with its many inputs for my digital needs.

Settled then, I'm on the look out for a relatively mint r55.