A440

Most of the Hi-MDs (except NH600) have line and mic in, so you're set on those fronts. They have headphone out, not line-out, but it's probably switchable to line-out in at least some of the units. And it may not matter because for uploading, if Sony's promises are true, you'll be able to do direct uploading instead of realtime recording. (Right now, you're not uploading .wav, you're recording analog compressed ATRAC out as a .wav file). Hi-MD promises seriously higher-quality recording--uncompressed PCM, which is the equivalent of .wav. So it should be an improvement over the current situation in two ways: uncompressed recording and digital upload instead of compressed recording and analog upload. That is, if Sony ever gets around to actually selling them.

The original headphones mentioned, Sony NC11 and Shure E3, are made to shut out external noise. NC11 does it by adding a signal to cancel external noise and E3 does it by working like earplugs--same amout of noise cancellation. Etymotic 6 also work like earplugs, though reviews suggest that Shure E3s are better. I don't think the others on Netonion's list shut out noise. Haven't tried NC11s, though I haven't been impressed with other Sony phones like V5 or EX71. Sennheiser also makes noise-cancelling headphones (PX250) in this price range that might be worth a try alongside the Sonys if you want to go that route. I once spent some time listening to the highly touted Etymotic 4P ($220) and thought they were extremely sterile and had weak bass, as well as a very fragile cord. I like the Shure E3 much better, both for sound and because they're built for actual use. I like the E3s conceptually because they're not adding additional processing to the original music, as the noise-cancelling phones do. In practice, they sound quite good, and are also extremely comfortable with their soft flex sleeves. Fit is everything, though--had to try the seven sets of included sleeves to get good sound with only one. I think Shure sells them with a guarantee if for some reason they're just not compatible with your ears. The down side of earplug-style phones is that with the tight fit in your ear any sound transmitted through the cord (like bouncing when you run, unless you clip carefully) or through your jawbone (like chewing) comes through loud and clear. But at a desk, or in a plane, or on a subway, they provide great isolation. If you're using other non-noise-cancelling earbuds and trying to drown out the outside world by turning up your music, then yes, you're threatening your hearing. But if the headphones are reducing outside sound, then you don't have to crank them so high.

Hope you have broadband, or downloading gets pretty frustrating. For incredibly cool indie bands (including many great ones) , there's www.epitonic.net, 100% legal even in the USA. For jam bands that permit live taping, there's www.furthur.net, which offers high-quality downloads, 100% legal in USA or elsewhere. For nearly every mainstream song, there's Kazaa Lite: http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=kazaalite This is better than the official Kazaa because it doesn't put ads or spyware on your computer. Kazaa sued Kazaa Lite, so one place to still get it is from oldversion.com. To stay strictly legal, disable file-sharing (uploading) from your computer, which means changing the default settings. Kazaa's main drawback is that you may also get garbage files uploaded by record companies for new albums. Make sure your computer is also set to show all file extensions (in View) so you don't get phony mp3 files (XXX.mp3.vbs or XXX.mp3.anything) that are actually viruses. For more obscure stuff, there is the wonderful soulseek. http://www.slsknet.org/ Whole albums neatly arranged in folders or individual songs, your choice. Use that website only; there are counterfeit soulseeks out there. For live shows recorded (in many cases) by intrepid minidisc-ers, www.sharingthegroove.org. You'll also have to download bittorrent, and boy is it worth it.

Check this out: http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?p=21315#21315 and this: http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=4712

Phew--I was getting worried there. But this is another one you diagnosed yourself. I guess the lesson for others reading this is to keep the recording and playback path as uncomplicated as possible--the fewer gizmos the signal passes through the better. For that matter, keep junk out of your computer, too--run SpybotSD to make sure your computer's not wasting power on spyware/adware. http://download.com.com/3000-2144-10194058...tml?tag=lst-0-1 Waxing philosophical: Since computers keep getting faster, programmers and hardware makers keep taking more computing power for granted. That means they put more and more fancy graphics and elaborate features into programs and make the plug-in gizmos more power-hungry. If you have an older computer, it has to struggle to keep up. Like me, you probably have a processor that's running at under 1Ghz, when current computers are now 2 Ghz or even 3. If you want to watch the struggle, you can always go to Settings-->Control Panel-->System-->Performance and look at System Resources. Plug your six-port USB back in and I'd guess that free system resources drop to a minimum, so your computer was hiccuping to try and handle it. For myself, I'd rather have a less elaborate program that zooms along on any machine and gets the job done fast--look at all that Audacity can do with a couple of MB. Same with websites that take forever to download all the graphics you're going to click through in a second anyway. But try telling that to the techies. Different definitions of progress, I guess.

The Extigy takes some of your computer's processing power, and if the computer is trying to run other USB ports at the same time it might well be choking on the load, especially if you're running other USB devices at the same time. How fast is your computer (Mhz or Ghz), and how much memory does it have (you can find memory--256KB or whatever-- in Settings-->Control Panel-->System-->Performance. ). Does playing a regular CD in the computer give you the same problem? If so, definitely try taking the docking station out of the circuit and plugging the Extigy into your poor lonesome USB port and see if that resolves the problem. You don't need to plug in the MD's USB cable at all while recording through the Extigy--just the headphone to line-in connection. So make the soundcard your sole USB device while recording. The crucial thing is to get a high-quality recording into the computer so you can burn it to CD, and once that's done you can try the docking station again and plug in all the printers and scanners you want. But six USBs sounds like a lot of potential problems, especially if your computer complained when you installed it. And getting faster ones might take even more computer power, so don't do that yet. Especially if you have an older computer.

With all the tests you've done, it pretty much sounds like the record head is messed up. Possibly throwing good money after bad, you could get a Recording Head Cleaner (Maxell or other brand) and see if it knocks the head back into position, but it's a longshot. (Of course you can use it on your next MD.) Please post if it works! If you're in a big city you could try taking it to a Sony place and finding out about rates, but it's probably more costly to fix the MZ-N707 than to take another shot on Ebay. If you want to get a new one, you could wait for Hi-MDs, which will be in the $300 range, or get the Sony MZ-NF810 ($200 at minidisco.com) or the Sharp-IM-DR420, which has all the features of the MZ-N707 and more, $260 at www.minidisco.com. If the Ebay seller guaranteed working condition, you could try for a refund, too, or resell the MZ-N707 as a player only and recoup some of the loss. Anyway, full sympathies. Hope your next experience is better.

It doesn't sound like you're doing anything wrong on recording. And if the Table of Contents (TOC) is getting updated and End shows something is on the disk, it's very odd that the disc should then turn up blank. When it says END and shows the time, can you go back before turning off the power and replay what you just recorded? Also, push the Track button while recording and see if you can jump from track to track afterward. If mic definitely doesn't work, have you tried recording through Line In--just get a stereo-plug-to-stereo-plug cable and play something out of your CD headphone jack into the white jack. See if that recording stays on the MD. If neither Line nor Mic records, then it's possible your playback head works and your record head doesn't, and you do indeed have a dud. You mentioned that there's a mic sensitivity setting. That means someone hacked the MZ-N707 to add features--something that usually works but could create problems. (And while the hack does give you a mic sensitivity setting in the menu, it doesn't actually give you adjustable sensitivity due to the hardware). If you're brave you could try to enter service mode and hack it back to the original values (which are the ones mentioned in the hack instructions) and see if that makes any difference. But take your time, work in good light and read the instructions carefully because you could screw up the unit completely. http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t...ght=mzn707+hack

That's pretty bizarre. The question is whether the recording you made has the noise or whether the playback is somehow adding it. What are you playing it with? Windows Media Player, Creative Playcenter, something else? Open it with Audacity and play it back, watching the waveform to see if the noise is in there. Or try downloading winamp (www.winamp.com), perhaps the final version of Winamp 2 (2.92) rather than Winamp 5, and use Winamp to play it and see if the noise is stilll there. If it's definitely in the recording, try recording it to the PC again (or just a minute or two to test) with Audacity rather than whatever you used before, and see if the problem goes away. It's possible it could be the cord, though if I remember you already tested that. It's also possible it could be a sound coming from one of your programs running in the background that's getting into the soundcard. Have you turned off program sounds? (Settings-->Control Panel-->Sounds, change most of them to (none) ). Try some of these, and see if it disappears (I hope).

The quality of the mic is paramount. If you have good mics and place them well you can get a pretty impressive recording through mic in, assuming the music is not so loud it overloads. If you then want to make a modest additional improvement, you could get a preamp, because mic-in does add a small amount of noise. The quieter the music you're recording, the more a small amount of noise matters. A preamp does not always provide extra headroom with loud music--sometimes it provides less. You have to get a preamp with a switch that allows different amounts of gain, so that loud music would use minimal gain and quiet sounds would get more. It's a toggle, not a volume control, so you'd have to decide in advance which level to use. I have a preamp with just an on-off switch. It did well when I recorded a quiet concert--voice, guitar, percussion. But when I recently attempted to record a loud show with it the result was disastrous, distorted on every loud note. When I saw that the record level was peaking, I turned down the manual level control and ended up with a quieter recording of the same distortion. I got in touch with the pre-amp manufacturer and was told that this particular pre-amp, without variable gain, was only for quieter sounds, and a battery box is better for loud music. Many places sell more flexible preamps with different levels of gain, like Sound Professionals. And I see one now and then on Ebay for $49.99 by Crown Audio that also has a gain switch--I would love to know how it works if anyone has tried one. If you're recording a string quartet, you'd want to add gain; if you're recording a Mahler symphony, maybe not. The real question is, how dissatisfied are you with your current recordings? And how good are your mics?

LP4 is no good for music. I record most shows in LP2 because it eliminates the need to change MDs partway through. There's a small increment in quality with SP, but not that great, and for me it's outweighed by not losing a song when you switch (or losing a bunch of them when you forget to keep an eye on the time). You should start with a basic pair of binaurals, especially if you're recording in small places or with the music surrounding you. Cardioids are more for big theaters or arenas where you're in the middle of a big crowd and you need to aim them. You're going to get some audience noise because audiences are noisy, but with any luck the music will drown it out. Cardoids will also pick up audience noise in front of you anyway, though less to the sides and back. You should stand wherever it sounds best to your ears, and try to put the binaurals as close to your ears as possible--on glasses, or a hat, or who knows, on little barrettes (but don't let your hair brush against them). The higher they are the better, because the people around you aren't just blocking your view--they're muffling the sound, too. Listen objectively. Often the clearest sound is not up close at center stage, where you'd want to be to see the show; the PA is pointed further out to reach most of the crowd. Sometimes the best sound is by the sound booth, which is where the guy mixing it hears it. Old hands at concert recording often advise to point the mics not at the stage but at the speaker columns, which often give you a clearer mix. But if it sounds good to you and you have decent mics, the recording should sound good too.

Look through the Program-->Playcenter menu, and see if Wavestudio is in there. Or do a Find--Files and look for wavestudio. But if the card didn't install Wavestudio anywhere in the whole Playcenter menu, then don't bother with it and get Audacity. Here's the link again: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ It'll easily do the job and it won't mess anything up, and all the icons and settings are sensibly arranged.

If the MD you're using is the NE410 you're going to have to get the music into your PC first because the NE410 only has USB in--the only way to get stuff into it is to download it from the PC. So follow the excellent advice above on PC recording. Higher-grade MDs have line-in and mic-in jacks for direct recording.

Congratulations, Linda! And very glad to help. (Especially since I missed Willie at SxSW.) Now if you really want to tweak, you can move the card off the footstool and bring the speakers closer and see if it was the sampling rate all along or if it was some mysterious electromagnetic effect. I don't know if 48,000 is necessary, since CDs are lower, but that's entirely up to you. Your CD burner will convert them to 41,500 anyway. Editing: The Creative Playcenter includes a sound editor called WaveStudio, which probably has more features than Audacity. Again, I haven't used it, but it probably asks you to open a file--whatever you called the Willie recording--and then you can play it back while it displays the waveform. Applause will look different from songs, so you can probably find it pretty quickly. You'd go to the spot where you were talking, highlight it (probably by holding down the Shift key, like a word processor) and delete it (probably in an Edit menu or with the Delete key). Another thing you can do is make each song a separate track. WaveStudio may allow you to make separate tracks--look in the Edit menu or Help file and see. If not, you'd highlight each song, open a new file (Willie-1-Whiskey-River.wav), and copy the song into the new file--just like cut-and-paste. Then you could have your CD burning program burn the songs you want in any order. An alternative way (for your next recording, probably) would be to edit the MD itself before you record to the PC. You can place a track mark before and after whatever you want to remove, and then erase the track. I usually do that to cut out applause, etc., before recording to PC, since my hard disk is almost full and I want to save MB as well as recording time. Happy recording, and you should be proud that you weren't daunted by all the tech details. Now that you've found good settings, I hope the next one is a breeze.

You can record with mic-->preamp-->Line-In. Whether your particular mic and preamp will sound any good with the MD is a matter of experiment. I got a nice recording of a quiet show through pre-amped mini-mics and Line-In, and an awful one of a loud show. You're not likely to short out anything--all you'll get is distortion on the recording.

Get a mic on a cable. The plug-in mic is just doing its job, picking up nearby vibration. You can get smaller, better mics than Sonys from the usual suspects-- www.soundprofessionals.com and www.microphonemadness.com And if you're recording music, you're better off with a pair of mics you can separate for a fuller stereo image, rather than the one-point stereo mic. Look for full-spectrum frequency response (20-20000 Hz)--those little Sonys only go down to 100, losing some bass.

Linda-- Something else occurred to me. You mentioned speakers. Speakers have magnets in them that could conceivably affect the cords or the card. If you can move them away from the computer setup by the length of their cords, do that. But I still think your sampling-rate question might be what's going on. I only have the Creative Playcenter in my other computer and haven't used it, so I don't know where to find the setting, but it sounds like you do. Before you switch to Audacity try resetting the sampling rate to 44,100. And if you have recording-level control settings and they look low, turn them up too, since you said there wasn't much volume on the recording. Can you plug your headphones into the Extigy while recording and monitor what's coming through as you play with recording levels? And then see if what you hear as you record is the same as what comes through on playback. That might isolate where in the chain things are going astray.

Anont-- Couldn't agree more that if the card doesn't work, now's the time to find out while it's under warranty. But if Linda is getting good sound out of the speakers via the card, I'd guess there's a good signal in there somewhere waiting for the right connection. How's it going, Linda?

Hey, you're turning into a real tweaker, and maybe you've found the problem I think the number you're referring to is the sampling rate--how many times per second the computer samples the sound. The higher the number, the higher the fidelity. (Like a movie--the more frames per second, the more detail you capture.) You want it to be a high number--44,100 is the rate for CDs, so use that. If a low number was checked, I'd bet that was the problem. If you're using Audacity to record, you can do it in Audacity's Preferences. Also make sure under Audio I/O that Record in Stereo is checked and the Extigy is Playback Device and Recording Device.

Have you actually tried recording with a mic? The MZ-N505 only has a Line-In jack, which means you will need to provide power for the mic with a battery box or preamp. A battery box may not be strong enough to record something as quiet as voice. If you have been able to record your lectures, the only way to transfer them from the MD to your PC is by recording them in real time from the headphone jack. There's no quick conversion. There are instructions at this thread. http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=4073

If you're recording loud music put the battery box through Line In. It's the white jack (on Sonys at least) next to the mic jack. Or skip the battery box and use the headphone volume control trick. "Get a Radio Shack Headphone Volume Control, $5.99, a volume knob on a cord. Plug the mic into the jack [on the HVC], turn the volume all the way UP and plug it into your mic jack and you'll be able to record all but the loudest concerts without distortion. If there is distortion, you can turn it down like a level control." You'll have to experiment to see if it works better with low or high sensitivity--I use it on an MZ-N707 that doesn't have a low sensitivity setting. Battery box gives a richer but sometimes quieter recording. Don't combine battery box and HVC or you'll get a really muffled recording.

Search Ebay for Stereo Lapel Microphone for Minidisc, like this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...3092109189&rd=1 It's the same as the counterfeit Sonys from China that are also on Ebay, and it works fine for recording speech and decently for music (though the case is noisy if rubbed or moved around). Can't beat the price.

Executive summary: Get omnis/binaurals to record ambience. Try them first without a battery box. And there are alternatives to the N10, including the imminent arrival of Hi-MDs. Longer version: If you want ambience you'll be better off with omnis (a.k.a. binaurals) rather than cardioids. Here's why: Omnis pick up in all directions, like your ears. Cardioids are directional, good for pointing at a speaker or performer and eliminating noise (that's ambience) off to the side or back. They're called cardioids as in cardiac because the pickup pattern is heart-shaped, with the mic at the point. Of course, the quality improves as the budget goes up. Look for wide frequency response (20-20,000) and, especially to pick up quiet ambient sounds, a high S/N (signal to noise) ratio. For mostly quiet ambient sounds, you may not need a battery box at all, because the N10 has a mic sensitivity switch that helps eliminate overloading from loud sounds. For nature sounds you may want to record on high sensitivity anyway. The extra controls on a battery box are to minimize the heavy bass sound of some concerts; you obviously don't want to eliminate bass notes from thunder. On the other hand, a battery box into mic-in or line-in may give you a warmer sounding recording in general--you'd have to test and see. But a good mic is really the key element, and that's where you should start. The N10 places a premium on thinness, and makes some compromises to do that--the USB port (if you also want to download MP3s from your computer to MD) is on the charging stand, not the unit, and it has a special battery that has drawn some complaints for shorter life. Check the reviews under the equipment browser listing for point/counterpoint. Also look at the N910 as a possible alternative. http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-N10.html http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-N910.html Although I've only used Sonys, you might also want to look into Sharp recorders. There are many recommendations among the folks on this forum for the Sharp IM-DR420. http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sharp_IM-DR40...R410+DR420.html And at this point, you might wait just a few weeks to see how Sony's new Hi-MDs perform, because they will upload recordings to your computer, too. One thing that may affect ambient recordings is motor noise from the MD--a problem on Sony's N1 and some older models. When you do ambient recordings, you may want to wrap the whole MD in something soft to muffle it, and keep the mic as far from the unit as possible.

If you're handy with a soldering iron, here are some preamps, even better than a battery box. http://www.taperssection.com/yabbse/index....;threadid=17363 (you may need to register--free) http://www.minidisc.org/mic_preamp/Simple%...ic%20Preamp.htm Though a battery box should be enough for Einsturzende Neubauten.

A caveat: I've only used mic/battery box to line-in on N707, R900 and R700, so I'm extrapolating that the S1 will work the same on the assumption that all Sony Line-In jacks expect the same strength of signal. If anyone has an S1 and had a different experience, I hope they'll chime in. Meanwhile, looking at the Mic Madness site, they also have a combo pack that will save you a little money and do the same job. http://store.microphonemadness.com/mmcomcommadp2.html Sound Professionals also has equipment around the same prices, and might have its own combination offers--click around. Make sure you test the setup before the concert. Blast your home stereo and see how it records with various settings on the battery module. And don't forget fresh batteries for the show. Incidentally, I got my R900 and R700 used on Ebay, and had no problems with them at all. A lot of people seem to get MDs and then lose interest, so barely used ones often turn up. It helps if there's a clear picture.