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A440

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  1. The MZ-RH1, also called the MZ-M200 when sold with a microphone, will upload. It is the only unit that will. The other two methods are realtime recordings. If all-digital quality is not crucial, you can also just record in realtime out of the headphone jack from the original recorder or any but the oldest minidisc units.
  2. We've all done something similar. At least you have your memories, and PCM quality....
  3. Read the post you quoted. There is no flash upgrade. As the post reads, it is hardware based. Sony has basically abandoned minidisc, but there were never any flash upgrades for the units themselves anyway. But the MZ-M100 is already supposed to play mp3s natively. With Windows, you transfer mp3s via SonicStage--not drag-and-drop. With Mac you use Music Transfer, which should be on the disc that came with the MZM100 or downloadable somewhere on the Sony website or available here: http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/details.php?file=95 http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/details.php?file=98 I don't know the difference between the two files (other than size). The MZ-M100 is the Mac-compatible equivalent of the RH10. Here's the manual: http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusin...acv20manual.pdf
  4. Guitarfxr, you are the definition of a rare individual. I mean that in a good way.
  5. No argument here about the near-mono sound of the Delta. I don't think either mic is a great choice. but I figured that given the tradeoff between the Sony's self-noise, size and lack of bass and the Delta's lack of separation, I'd go with the Delta. Glad to know Minidisc Canada is still going. I can't find Reactive either.
  6. There's no basic mic that will just work with line-in. You need power somewhere. That battery module should work fine, but I don't recommend either of those two mics. Theyre' chunky--imagine them plugged into the battery module. You'd have to hold it in your hand, which would give you handling noise. Seems that all Minidisc Canada offers are one-point mics--those two are the closest thing to what you need, and they would work if you're desperate. The Delta is the better of the two. But the Delta is a weird metal thing that's heavier than it needs to be and not particularly stealthy--shiny aluminum? hello?--and the Sony is even clunkier. Get a stereo pair of itty bitty mics, like the Sound Professionals BMC-2 or the Microphone Madness equivalent or some separate pair of mics that you can clip to a shirt collar, glasses or a hat. Module and recorder go in a pocket, mics themselves are dark against dark clothing--you're not standing there holding something for security to see. Also, make sure Minidisc Canada still actually exists by calling them before you order anything online.
  7. USB connection to Windows/SonicStage or Mac/Mac Transfer is a digital out. And a heck of a lot faster than realtime. You can upload files digitally from Hi-MD, convert them and listen to them on your bit-accurate stereo with your analog ears all you want. Why you would demand the ability to also copy them as slowly as realtime is beyond me. Is your DAC lonely or something? All the nails in the coffin are from the layer of encryption built into ATRAC and the buggy, unintuitive, unreliable version upon version of SonicStage. Sony should have done simple drag and drop when it introduced Hi-MD, if not years earlier with NetMD. Sony engineered its own coffin with an almost magnificent stupidity. But a digital out? it's important to such a minuscule minority of users that I'm glad it's not built in, because it would probably have required more processor load, bulk and/or battery power. Now, backlighting on the MZ-NH700--that would have been a useful feature.
  8. Recording via optical is unnecessary. You can send .wav (or PCM) versions of your CDs to minidisc via Simple Burner, on your software CD--much faster, no loss. Though why you would want to use a whole minidisc to hold just one-and-a-fraction albums on CD is a mystery to me when you could just carry a portable CD player. You can also rip a CD to 320 kbps .mp3 and transfer a bunch of albums via SonicStage to a minidisc, which is more sensible. If you can genuinely distinguish .wav from 320 kbps .mp3--and I mean in a genuine blind test, not knowing which is which--then you are a rare individual indeed. The X5 shows up refurbed now and then on Ebay from Cowon itself, a.k.a. jet-audio. There's a whole Live Recording forum here. To record speech or ambient sounds, yes, you can just plug a stereo mic into the mic jack. But anything loud or bass-heavy (even acoustic sources like pipe organ) will overload the mic preamp, so for anything but recording speech or quiet sounds you are better off recording through line-in with either a battery module (loud sources) or a preamp (quiet ones). And you will want to learn how to use Manual recording level rather than Automatic. I use the small, stealthy, cheap Sound Professionals BMC-2 binaurals (though I am disenchanted since Sound Pros revealed that it considers the two mics matched if they're less than 3dB apart, which is a huge gap) and the Microphone Madness Classic Mini battery module. About $120 at most. But you can find other and considerably more expensive options depending on exactly what you want to record. To see some of the many possibilities and price ranges look at Live Recording here or, for true madness, try www.taperssection.com . Hope you Rockboxed your H120 if you intend to record with it. That's line-in only if you expect to get any kind of decent quality.
  9. Actually, after reading on this board lately that Sound Professionals doesn't match its mics beyond 3dB, I'm taking back my recommendation of them. That's just not well-matched enough. You should take up Guitarfxr on his offer of advice. I'm sure buying electronics in Japan offers many different options from the US or Europe. Ebay Australia seems to offer some preamps made there as well that might be worth looking into. It does seem that all you need is little binaurals. So you could get super fancy ones like DPA or you could contact Greenmachine (PM him through this board, or go to his website) for his mics. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showt...aded&start=
  10. The quick reply is that only the very first portable MD units--the MZ-1--had optical out. Optical is a digital stream that needs to be converted, sooner or later, for your old-fashioned analog ears. Optical in--recorded through a special cord from an optical output--is a good thing to have when recording. Optical is not so important on playback--though it would have been useful, before Hi-MD offered digital uploading, in making exact copies of music in the old MD formats (SP, LP2, LP4) before the RH1 allowed those to be uploaded. But to get an optical output into your ears, you would need a Digital-Analog Converter in the signal path, which would be expensive and, for a little portable player used in the real world, kind of ridiculous. You can look at this page -- http://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html -- to see what units offer what outputs. Many "line" outputs are a switch in the menus that, as far as I know, just boost the headphone output into a higher-volume output. The RH1 is a step up from the N910 in many ways. Its headphone output is better. It plays uncompressed .wav. It plays mp3 files without having to convert them to ATRAC--a step that is lessening the sound quality of any mp3s you are running through SonicStage to play on the N910. But it's a lot of money to spend for a portable player. It's really made for recording. You don't need line-out for a headphone amp. A headphone output should be strong enough. A headphone amp will do for minidisc what it does for any CD player, mp3 player, etc. I use a little Cmoy in an Altoids tin when I've goofed and recorded a concert at too low a level, or I want to hear all the detail for home listening with my wonderful Grado SR125 headphones. But since it's the size of the MD unit, I mostly do without it. The true sound-quality nuts go for the now discontinued Cowon IAudio X5 or M5, which can play .flac files. The X5 has some odd design notions, like a non-user-replaceable rechargeable battery and a separate little plug that needs to be used for recording, transferring music or recharging. Depends on whether you consider sound quality to be the one and only criterion.
  11. I have to say that I am really disappointed to read that Sound Pro mics are considered "matched" with anything less than a 3dB difference. From Wikipedia: Similarly, an increase of 3 dB implies an increase in voltage by a factor of approximately √2, or about 1.41, an increase of 6 dB corresponds to approximately four times the power and twice the voltage, and so on. So with a 3dB difference, one channel could be 1.4 times as loud as the other! That to me is not a matched pair of microphones. The BMC-2 I regularly use--and have recommended to I don't know how many people--read as matched on the little display of my minidisc recorders, but I recently ran them into a soundcard to the much more detailed readout of Audacity, and lo and behold, one was quieter. I'm paying SoundPros $25-50 for raw materials that cost a few bucks, plus labor and expertise. I would have thought that the expertise would extend to matching the mic capsules in a meaningful way. Does this 3dB tolerance extend through the whole Sound Pros line, including the much more expensive ones? Because if I were paying for professional quality and got such mismatched capsules, I would not take it kindly. It's bad enough with budget mics. And by the way, where is the option to get them matched within 1/2 dB? I don't see it on the overview or specs pages. Of course, there's nothing anywhere about how or whether the capsules are matched. I guess I was naive to take that for granted. I wonder what Microphone Madness considers matched.
  12. Well, do what works for you but this doesn't make sense to me. CD is high-quality sound that you are compressing to SP, which is fairly high quality. MP3 is already compressed and you are compressing it to LP2, which is decent quality at best. When I tried compressing mp3 files to LP2 I got horrible artifacts, particularly on percussion sounds--cymbals and sometimes snare drums were unlistenable. Seems to me that to preserve what quality is still left in the mp3, you should also use SP. At this late date I really don't see the point of transcoding mp3 to ATRAC. It's not like the Nano is the only choice among mp3 players. The old Cowon X5 is really prized among sound-quality maniacs, since it also plays .flac (it does have limited battery life, though). And the cheap Sansa Clip (no screen) and Fuze (like a Nano) are widely praised for sound quality. Do you really want to go through all the rigamarole it takes to make minidiscs? Take a look at http://www.anythingbutipod.com
  13. I record just about everything with Sound Professionals BMC-2 mics and a Microphone Madness Mini Classic battery module. For classical music, you might have to boost it a bit, or use a preamp instead of the battery module. That's a low budget setup but very stealthy. For something more elegant and pricey, you should take a look at http://www.quietamerican.org/links_gear.html He likes DPA mics, but with some second thoughts. I can't get excited about that Reactive Sounds Preamp. I had one, I think the SPA-1, and it is an unnecessarily bulky design. The box has empty space inside, and what was he thinking of with that spiral telephone cord? As I remember it, the clipping light didn't tell you that the MD was overloading, just the preamp itself. And it happened all the time with any amplified music, making the preamp useless for most of what I record. I'm sure you can find smaller preamps. Since you're in Japan, and shipping from the US might be expensive, look on Ebay.
  14. The R91 has no computer connector. It was made before Sony put USB connectors into MD units. It is supposed to be an excellent recorder for its only mode: SP, which records in a compressed but high-quality format. To get your recordings off the MD, you are either going to have to record to your computer in realtime out of the headphone jack (an analog recording) or buy the MZ-RH1, the only minidisc unit that can upload recordings in SP mode.
  15. It's the European division of Sony Media Services. Use them if they are closer to you. I believe it was only no cost when they were testing it out, and I doubt that it is still free two years later. Using minidisc means you are using an encrypted format. No way around it. No one can read .hma files except Sony. The few hackers who tried eventually gave up, and now that minidisc is fading out, I doubt anyone else will bother to try.
  16. Because of the idiotic Hi-MD encryption, which places the entire disc contents in an encrypted .hma file, you probably need to get Sony to try and decrypt it. That could be expensive, $40-$50 if they get your recordings back. However, they were able to save a disc for me. http://www.sonymediaservices.com/
  17. You can hear my results in the Gallery. Also look through the Gallery for people with different setups. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?autom...um&album=56
  18. Kino, you're still talking about realtime recording, right? Even though it's optical. I have the feeling Marco is looking for a file transfer. And for that, he'll need the MZ-RH1--which, if it can be found, would probably be about the same price as two decks.
  19. Le Chiffre, let's go back to a basic question. What are you recording? All you mentioned to start was "general purpose and field recorder." But then you have XLR mics, probably a phantom power unit and mixer, only want to record in PCM.... So are you recording: Live music? Studio sessions? Songwriting ideas? Interviews? Surveillance tapes for use in high-profile blackmail cases? ------ Rather than .html the quotes, I'm just going to bounce off some of the points you raise. With XLRs you should probably rule out Hi-MD. Either get a unit with XLR inputs or prepare to carry a preamp that's probably as big or bigger than the unit. I think there may even be flash recorders with phantom power for those mics. But there are people that just carry a stereo electret mic, plug it into the unit and do interviews and field recording with it with it--like journalists, even radio journalists. For them, a noisy built-in mic preamp is a deal-breaker. But it's not for you. Little recorders do have level adjustment. But how it's controlled (button or knob), what the display is, etc., varies. "Like a tape recorder." You may think that's a simple request, but it's not. Everything has a different interface. None is like your tape recorder. On the other hand, you don't really need rewind for digital media. Some of the genius flash recorders are made with a built-in rechargeable battery. Battery dies, no more recording without AC or external battery pack. For instance, the M-Audio Microtrack II (forget the original) has a built-in battery that lasts (they claim) 5 hours. That's not gonna go a long way at a music festival like Bonnaroo. So you need to check about batteries, because you don't want to have to end your session when the battery runs out. My MZ-NH700 takes one AA battery that runs more than 8 hours on Hi-SP. When it dies, I pop it out and replace it, losing no more than 30 seconds of recording. Something to think about, depending on your usual recording situation. The Edirol R09 does take AA batteries (a plus). The display is backlit but small and hard to read--especially compared to the display of the MZ-RH1 (which, however, only takes its unusual gumstick battery, not AA, so you'd have to own and keep charged and carry a replacement, or a 4-AA external battery pack). Do you want to be moving the unit around and peering at it while you record so you can read the display? With Hi-MD, the RM-MC40ELK remote is my display during recording: backlit, very clear level indicator, not so clear track number indicator but it'll do. Maybe it's a remnant of the tape days, but I like to keep the unit still and look at a remote. To me, a remote is not as useless as it might be for you. SonicStage is a stumbling block to say the least. SonicStage killed MD. The Amazon poster was pretty extreme, but not totally wrong. When you've got a digital file, you should be able to drag and drop it. Not 1) open SonicStage 2) connect USB to unit 3 ) wait for SonicStage to list contents of disc 4)upload at less than USB 2.0 speed 5) hope that SonicStage didn't choke on any tracks (which sometimes upload just fine on a second try) 6) start File Conversion Tool, which checks your entire SonicStage library as if you want to copy-protect it (slow), tells you how long it would take, requires you to un-check copy protection, re-reads the database, gives you a new conversion time (7) run File Conversion Tool to remove encryption and (8) convert the resulting .oma files to something a non-Sony device will play, like .wav or .mp3. All that is now routine for me, and I move the converted files out of the SonicStage library so it doesn't keep re-checking them every time I want to use File Conversion Tool on something new. But while Sony did at least include the encryption remover, it could have let you un-check the Add Copy Protection box BEFORE the first check of the database. Stuff like that is annoying. SonicStage is almost entirely reliable in its latest versions. But it just shouldn't be there. That's what I mean. And that's why, much as I enjoy Hi-MD, I don't recommend it to anyone who's not used to MD's many quirks. One other thing about Hi-MD recording. When you're done recording, you need to press the Stop button and let the unit write the recording to the disc. Otherwise it's gone, pffffft!, like you'd written your novel in a word processor but closed the program before you hit the Save button. Takes, oh, 10-40 seconds. But until "Data Save" and "System File Writing" are done, you don't have a recording. If the battery gets loose during that operation, your disc is wrecked. Quirky.
  20. Short answer is, no, Hi-MD is not worth getting into now as your first digital recorder. But you do want something that records well. If you're recording through Mic-In (with your mics), using the built in preamp, then you may want to put up with the inconveniences (SonicStage) of MD. If you want to be able to make track marks while recording--which is a great feature--then Hi-MD is also very useful, though I think some of the flash recorders now have that capability as well. MD is pocket-sized; units with built-in mics are slightly bigger. "As easy to operate as a tape recorder"--how about level adjustment, track marks, remote operation? Depends on the unit and your sense of what is intuitive. Easy to transfer: Well, it's two or three steps (open SonicStage, upload, File conversion) instead of drag-and-drop. But all the flash units have various good and bad points. What I haven't seen yet is a unit with Hi-MD's compactness (no built-in mics), remote control and on-the-fly track marking combined with the simple drag-and-drop that would have kept MD alive. MD also has great battery life, at least on compressed formats. I have used an Edirol R09, and while its display is awful, it does do the job otherwise. The ideal digital recorder (for my purposes) is technologically possible, but no one has yet put together all of my favorite features, which would be, basically, Hi-MD--remote control, track marking, replaceable battery (instead of built-in rechargeable)--plus a better display plus drag-and-drop.
  21. MZ-NH700 is the same as the MZ-NHF800 except that the NHF-800 has an FM radio in the remote. It has both Line-in and Mic-In. Depending on your budget, you may want to splurge on the last and best Hi-MD unit, the MZ-RH1. It is the only unit that will upload the recordings you have already made on your MZ-R700. The other Hi-MD units will upload only their own recordings, not the MD recordings. Even with the USB connection, NetMD units will not upload any recordings. Their USB connection works from computer TO MD, not in the other direction.
  22. I should point out that my 5 disc failures are out of at least a hundred Hi-MDs. They are still far more reliable (not to mention better-sounding and more versatile) than cassettes. Remember tape jams? A disc going bad is a worst-case scenario, not a regular event. I'm just saying that as they do disappear from the market (and regular MDs will too), you'd best stock up. The deep problem with MD, and one that we have been willing to put up with for its other good features, is that MD recordings are all encrypted, to be decrypted by SonicStage. If you look at a Hi-MD in Windows Explorer you see one giant file, DATAxxx.HMA. That is everything recorded on the disc. One bad bit and....hasta la vista. Sony didn't even have the intelligence to encrypt one group at a time, so that even if your latest recording went bonkers, you'd still have the previous ones. One corrupt section and the whole thing has to be sent to Sony, which will charge $40 or so IF they can get it back. But having filled up all those discs, for stealthy concert recording I see no reason to switch from Hi-MD until my units wear out. This is probably not the place to ask about memory-card recorders, though if you look for guitarfxr's posts he has tried a bunch of them. Which one you'd get depends on how stealthy you want to be, how much you intend to use the unit's built-in mic preamps (which are mostly lower quality than MD/Hi-MD preamps), whether you like built-in mics (I don't), whether you want a remote control or on-the-spot track marking, whether the unit is being kept still during use (apparently a Tascam problem), what you want in the display, and on and on. . To venture into the realm of near insanity you can check out www.taperssection.com . They are fanatics, and often very well-informed. They agree with you about PCM--they just want at least 24/96.
  23. Feisty, don't know why you revived this ancient post, but the original poster wanted to UPLOAD voice, not download music. And uploading (as a file transfer) from legacy MD units is not possible. For realtime recordings, an outboard sound card is unnecessary if there's a line-in jack on the computer. Audacity (free) will record that input. Even a clean mic-in jack will work. A Griffin iMic is a cheaper line-in substitute than a soundcard, and can also be used with Audacity. And Creative software, at least back when I used it, was very intrusive and made itself the default for everything audio, which greatly annoyed me.
  24. It depends on how much your mic is putting out, and that varies with every mic. But I find that my Sound Professionals BMC-2 mics and a battery module (I use Microphone Madness mini-classic, just for size, but have worn out a few--not recommended if you're not stealthing) will record close-up voice adequately and are ideal for anything amplified. http://www.microphonemadness.com/products/mmcbmminminc.htm Your mic may be less sensitive. But the fact that it got anything at all through line-in is encouraging. You can also look at eBay. There are some cheap mic preamps on there, though I can't vouch for quality. But you can probably find a Mic-in legacy minidisc unit on eBay for the price of a battery module--if, and only if, what you intend to record is unamplified, because anything amplified will overload Mic-in.
  25. Le Chiffre, I wouldn't depend on just 4 or 5 Hi-MDs. One by one they will fail on you. I just had one decide that it will only record either a certain number of groups or a certain amount of music--I'm not sure which it is. Luckily I could upload what it did record. Then I formatted it, hoping that might fix minor disc errors. No way. It failed again at about 2.5 hours into the disc (at Hi-SP, 8 hours). It's not getting another chance. I've had a couple go completely unrecoverable (though Sony fixed the one I sent in). I've had another one or two just not work. That's five right there, and post-traumatic stress probably has wiped my own human memory of other disc failures. I'd say 10 at a minimum--get them in quantity from Tape Warehouse if they still have them--and keep your fingers crossed. Looks like Tape Warehouse still has them. http://www.tapewarehouse.com/catalog/CatFrame.cfm How to Order/Go to Internet Catalog/Digital Audio/Mini-Disc Audio/SCM HMD1G HI-MD DISC. Which is why they still have them--nobody can find them.
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