Leland

Fine unit, not bad for live recording, limited ability to change recording level on the fly, compared to newer Sony units, No MDLP. Depends on price. I had one. good unit.

Upgrade to the new Sony N910 when it comes out. Great unit for recording. If you are outside of Japan, the support for Sony is better than Sharp.

Yes, where did you get this "patch". This is important. SPEAK!

It depends a little on what kind of music you are going to record. If it is loud rock oriented music, the bass rolloff might me needed.

Aha, I assumed that since the stick works as both the volume and the ff fw buttons, it could not be done, but you are right. I just lean down on it while pushing it forward and backward and it works: My N10 is also version 1.1. I bought mine the first week they were available in Tokyo, probably 2 or 3 days after the first units hit the streets, so I suspect 1.1 is the first version released. The unit was actually delayed a few weeks based on the original announcement, so perhaps they found a bug in 1.0 that held up the first shipments. Might be related to the fact that the battery life specs changed between the first press release and the final product release.

I will not answer you directly as I hope others will. Let me say this: When you get your unit, install the SONY software, then the SONY drivers, make sure it works, then worry about workarounds later. Many have had problems getting their units working and I suspect it is because they try SimpleRecorder or RealPlayer first rather than just getting the standard stuff installed. Also, check for updates on the Sony support site.

SimonMagus, I would agree with your comment if you were referring to the E10, but the N10 has the external battery pack that would give you unlimited power through the purchase of AA batteries if you ran out. That said, travelling with a charger is not a big deal. I carry the battery pack and a small travel charger with universal voltage capability (100V-240V). You don't need the cradle.

I looked inside my N10 with a flashlight and couldn't see any plastic. Metal screw drive for lens etc, motor to spin disc, can't imagine what other mechanical parts there are. I'll try to remember to look at the DR-7 next time I am at BIC to have a better comparison. I think the N10 is very well built and will be robust. Remember, I am a Sony bigot

I use Open MG Jukebox Backup Tool, which is installed with OpenMG Jukebox to do the backup and the restore. You have to be connected to the internet for it to work. Before restoring, I delete the folder that contains all the .omg files. They are in folders. In the default install, this folder is called "Packages" but when I set up the program, I direct the files to another folder at my root directory to keep it out of the user files in the system folder as this causes problems for a system roll back utility I have. This means I am deleting all 18 Gigs of *.omg files on my HDD. During the restore, the system over-writes the copyright information (at least it says it does) and all the checkout counts revert to what they were when I made the back-up. Therefore, I make sure everything is checked in when I do the backup. As you can see, this will not increase the checkin count above 3. Using this restore technique, I can duplicate my music database on multiple PC's. Keep in mind, if one PC has had music added to the database, I will lose that when I restore, so I keep one system as a "master" where I do all my updating, then use that to do a backup. If I make a MD with one computer, it will check in to the other computer and will increment the check-in count. I can therefore increase the check-in count by restoring the database to a second PC, using that to make MD's and use them to add any missing check-in's missing on the master. Considering the size of the database, the backup and restore processes are relatively quick (say one hour for my DB which has about 18GB and nearly 5000 songs), as long as you use two Hard drives. Once I backed up to the same drive and that slowed it considerably, which is understandable. There is no limitation to using a directory mounted as a network drive, which is great as I can keep my backup in one place and restore to other PC's over the network. The backup/restore program also supports removable media, so I could backup the database to a set of DVD-RW's if needed. Considering the amount of time I have put into loading all my CD's, downloading CD cover artwork, cleaning up CDDB title and genre errors or preferences, I am happy to have a backup. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Guest, how did you find the version number for your N10? Did you enter service mode and if so how?

MDLP, especially LP2, is a great benefit for MD. The increased playing time is usually worth the quality trade-off. However, it is still not perfect. The improvements between LP2 before and after Type S might be present, but they are definitely not dramatic. There is still a marked difference between SP and LP2, if you listen for it. I personally wouldn't fret over it or make it a decision point regarding a purchase. This comes from my use of an R900 for about 2 years and my recent upgrade to an N10. In all my notes about what is good about the N10, somehow I have never thought to mention the Type S upgrade, so that is the kind of impression it made on me.

After listening to LP2 almost exclusively for a couple of years, I have to say it is fine. I often listen in a fairly noisy environment, airplanes, trains etc. but I use sealed in ear phones (etymotics) so the noise is reduced. In this setting, I think LP2 is optimal. In a quiet environment, with good speakers or headphones, SP does sound better. In my life, I get almost no uninterrupted time for that kind of critical listening any more so I use LP2 and some LP4 (similar uses as described by ramblin man) in the interest of greater portability.

Do you play acoustic or electric? If the input is loud, it is more difficult to record without some sensitivity settings. No portable recorders today have a digital output, so they would be roughly equivalent there, assuming they have a line out. You would have to record with an analog connection to your sound card to get it to your PC. If you had a deck, rather than a portable, you could get optical out, so if your sound card has optical inputs, you could make a digital recording. Problem is most decks lack a mic input. Otherwise, it is up to your preference of Sony vs. Sharp and how much you are willing to spend. I like Sony.

As an owner of both a N505 and a N10, let me go on the record saying the 2 x recording speed of the N10 and N910 ranks high on the "instant gratification" scale. It really is a nice feature. SP recording is faster also, around 1.7 x

My 505 seems to be a snug fit with no play. It is possible you have a defect.

Seems like the stuff inside wouldn't matter. If you drop it, the case will protect the internals: a lightweight plastic part would not "self load" enough from a drop to cause damage. I wouldn't be dropping any of these, however, unless that is an upgrade strategy

For the first question, try the Nero/Simple Burner method. You can search this site to find references to it: I don't use it but others like it. I have plenty of HDD space Regarding where the files are stored: search for *.omg on your HDD and you should find them. The default is deep in the users folders on systems like Win 2K or XP. You actually have a choice of where they should go, but it seems this is easy to miss during installation. After doing a data backup and restore, I changed the location of mine to have them in a easier to find place and to get them out of a system folder.

I'm not offended: I'm not Japanese. Just making sure you knew for your future reference. Peace.

The add on battery will only start working when the internal battery is fully drained. This is stupid, but true, as I have tested it. I wish it would give priority to the external battery so I could preserve the internal battery when I wanted to by using the add on battery pack when in situations where size and weight are less important. In the case mentioned, the display will indeed say "add on" or something to show it is being used.

The way I do it is easier. I have a master backup of my OpenMG Jukebox database. I update this backup every time I make major updates (add more music etc). When I make the backup, I have everything checked in. Then, I can just delete the database, then restore it with the backup and viola, everything is back to 3 checkouts remaining, no worries. I also have tried this: I have the program on another computer (and the database, which was a restore from the backup described above) I can make a MD on one computer and check it in on the other to top up the tracks. It doesn't seem to know or care.

In reply to comments from SimonMagus: The jog dial on the N10 is very big and sturdy, not to worry about it being fragile. Also, the portability of the N10 is fine. The battery life is very good, and you can simply carry the external battery case and use AA's in a pinch, which I doubt you would need to. I have carried it on long trips and have been very happy with the battery life.

I have an N10 and it DEFINITELY WILL change the record level on the fly during recording. You set it to manual recording level when in record pause mode, then start the recording. Once you start the recording, you simply turn the knob on the side of the unit that is usually used to select menus. The display will show the record level going up and down as you do it. I tried this a month ago and verified the recording afterward as having had the record level go up and down according to my turning of the knob. Anybody who says it cannot do this simply does not know how to operate their player. Also, the quality of the N10 is excellent. It is very robust. I cannot imagine the build quality of a Sharp being substantially better.

How much are you willing to pay and how long are you willing to wait? I have two MD head units(should be in my sig), Not the ugly Xplod ones, that I am not using. I can't get to them until around Feb 18th (thats a long story). PM me if you are interested.

Is the statement made by Pengin that type S is a DECODER improvement accurate? Where did that informaiton come from? That would be a big departure from the original concept of a frozen decoder and continually improving encoder to allow upgraded recording quality with backward compatible playback capability.

I have never found a "compact" speaker that I liked. They all sound too thin or contrived. I would use earphones.