A440

Tools/Options/Transfer/Hi-MD/Transfer Settings/Advanced No wonder you can't find it!

Until or unless Sharp makes a Hi-MD--and if I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath--the contest is over. NetMD is obsolete. Hi-MD: uncompressed recording, faster-than-realtime digital uploading, huge capacity in compressed formats. Despite the annoyance of having to go through menus to set Manual recording volume, Sony is the only maker of Hi-MD recorders. Go to Minidisc Canada and get a NH700 while the bargains are still there. Everything else is bells and whistles: the recording and uploading are the same. http://www.minidisc-canada.com/shopdisplay...iniDisc+Players

For what you're doing--collecting sounds that need to be on the computer--there's no question whatsoever that you should get Hi-MD. NetMD would end up with lower fidelity (compressed sounds recorded to the computer through an analog output) and infinitely higher frustration. SonicStage isn't drag-and-drop--it's more of a drag that should be dropped--but its latest versions are adequate and it will give you fully usable files. For what you're doing, you might be better off with a Sony ECM MS907. MS stands for mid-side: it has a switchable pickup pattern and can give you true mono for those interviews. Downside: not much bass response, since it only goes down to 100 Hz. But for a computer slideshow you're not going to need boomin' lows. SoundProfessionals also makes what claims to be an improved-specs version of it, though I'm not sure if it's actually switchable like the Sony: http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-PSM-3 Take a look at this post: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?s=&sh...indpost&p=47556

There's a service manual on this site: http://www.minidisc.org/manuals/sony/servi...vice_manual.pdf Maybe it will have some of your EPROM values.

The NH700 package doesn't come with a mic, but it is such a bargain that the lack of a mic is no big deal. There are plenty of good affordable ones. Sony mics tend to add more self-noise than some other alternatives. How important is stereo depth to you? You obviously don't need it for interviews, but you might want it for ambience. For maximum realism, the best solution would be a pair of small omnidirectional mics. Separate them 6 inches--like your omnidirectional ears--and you'll get a very realistic soundscape. Put them together, and you can put them on an interview subject's collar. I use these all the time for music, but they're also sensitive enough for speech. http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-BMC-2 Get them with the clips attached. Are interviews rather than ambience the priority? Then you could use a one-point stereo mic, which won't give you a realistic ambient soundscape--the elements are too close together--but will give you the added warmth of stereo. http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/.../item/SP-SPSM-1 Don't plug it directly into the MD, because it will pick up the whir of the machine. Put it on an extension cord. Or hey, here's an all-purpose compromise, since you don't have to worry about stealth. http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/...item/SP-SPSM-4F Microphone placement makes a big difference in your results. Put it close to your interview subject (like on a TV talk show) or it will pick up room resonance and your interview will sound like it's happening at the bottom of a well. Eventually, you may want to get more specialized mics for each purpose. Cardioid mics, which are directional, will provide the maximum clarity for an interview. But they shut out sound behind you, so ambient recordings with them sound odd.

The ball of wax uninstall directions are here. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=8071 The section you need is as follows: 2. If you run Windows XP/Windows 2000 Professional, proceed to delete the following directories: - "Documents and Settings/All Users/Application Data/Sony Corporation/Sonicstage" - "Documents and Settings/All Users/Sonicstage" - "Program Files/Common Files/Sony Shared" - "Program Files/Sony/Sonicstage" - "Program Files/Sony/Personal Audio Driver" Similiar directories should be found in lesser Windows operating systems. 3. Start -> Run -> regedit. The 'Registry Editor' utility should appear on your screen. Delete the references to OpenMG located under 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Sony Corporation/Sonicstage' and 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Sony Corporation' by right-clicking on the entries.

Try not to be too cranky, Zombi3. This is an unofficial, strictly volunteer site and we don't have access to the inner (non)workings of Sony software. The FAQ and the Mdac repair tool (in Downloads) seem to solve most problems, though apparently not yours. Congratulations on editing the registry. As long as your computer is rebooting, there's nothing to be scared of. You could try clicking on the live chat site at Sony http://esupport.sony.com/EN/feedback/feedback.html and see if they can identify exactly what those error numbers mean. You'll have to be patient and persistent and demand to escalate. Any answers you get would be welcome here. Usually uninstall problems have two causes. 1) Something is preventing the installer from altering the registry, or 2) some module is not found. 2) is something you'll have to decode from the error message. For 1), you could disable anything security related: antivirus, firewall, anti-spyware, etc. Norton, Kaspersky, Trend Micro, Black Ice, Aluria, Spyware Doctor, Microsoft Anti-Spyware, Spybot, Black Ice, Zonealarm, and a long etc. Some start automatically when you boot up and keep going even after you disable them (like Black Ice Firewall), so before diabling anything you might: Run: msconfig and look in the Startup Tab and uncheck anything security related. That doesn't disable currently running programs--it prevents them from starting automatically after rebooting. (Norton's programs are under Symantec, BTW. Google program names that aren't obvious--ignore the sales pitches for WinTasks or whatever.) Unless all your startup items are currently checked, make a list of what you're unchecking so you can add them again next time around--their order will change. (If they are all checked, you can just recheck them all, of course.) APPLY, disconnect from internet and reboot with those items unchecked. Then try the offline installer and see if something was getting in the way. Run: msconfig again, recheck what you unchecked and reboot before going online again.

Audacity (in Downloads here) will also amplify. But as you've found, you're also amplifying the background noise. Better to have a recording with more signal, less noise to begin with. The mic jack should provide some power to the mic. How did you make your initial recording: what mics, what input, what settings?

The OLED is a backlit display on the unit, by the way. Purely cosmetic, but if you want to show off.... I still favor NH700 or NHF800 because they run on one AA battery for a very long time instead of the smaller, more expensive gumsticks (plus clunky attached AA battery pod) of other models. Do check out the shipping costs from Minidisco and Minidisc Canada.

A headphone amp isn't strong enough to be used as a preamp--that is, if you want to send the mic signal through line-in. It's a different level of amplification. A headphone amp does boost the signal coming out of your headphone jack. So if you have a quiet recording and want to hear it louder, you'd use a headphone amp. Look online for Cmoy, which is the basic design for portable headphone amps. A lot of people make them themselves or sell them in small quantities. Perhaps you can find one for a telephone order in Canada. Probably about $50 to $70 USD.

a: The software is now SonicStage 3.3 and Simple Burner. Both are stable for transferring music. Just don't use the software disc that comes with the unit--download the newer version either from Sony (online installer) or Downloads here (full offline installer). SonicStage is still an annoying piece of s...oftware, with a very clunky and un-intuitive interface. If you're transferring a folder/album full of mp3s to MD, you might have to put them back in the right playing order when they get to the MD. (Copying CD to MD with Simple Burner is, on the other hand, easy and straightforward.) But I have had no problems either uploading from MD to PC or downloading from PC to MD since SonicStage 3.2. b: USB 1.1 . Depends on the speed of your computer and what you're transferring. Simple Burner takes a CD and compresses/copies it onto MD in about 4-7 minutes per album. c: Where are you? Can you order from Minidisc Canada? If you can, get one of the first-generation (2004) Hi-MD units (NH700, NHF800, NH900), which unlike the RH units (2005) can also record live to the same formats used by your old MD player. Amazing prices. http://www.minidisc-canada.com/shopdisplay...iniDisc+Players

The MZ-R70 is one of the old-school, SP-only recorders. It's pretty old, so something might be wearing out, but from your description it sounds like it's a defective disc. If you know anyone else with any kind of MD recorder, they all play SP. You might try playing the disc back on another unit, and see if you get lucky.

In Sonicstage: Tools/Options/Transfer/Hi-MD Make sure transfer is either Standard (As Is) or at a high bitrate, minimum 132. If it's at 64K, no wonder it sounds garbled.

The MZ-R700 is a good solid recorder for mic recording--try it with that sometime.

You'll get better sound by loading the original CDs with Simple Burner. (It's in Downloads here or on your software disc.) The reason is that mp3 files on your computer have already been compressed and information has been lost. When you turn them into LP2 you are compressing them again, losing more information. With Simple Burner you'll be going direct from CD to MD: You insert the CD, it gets track and title info online from CDDB, and it transfers to the disc. Click on CONFIG on the upper right to make the recording format LP2. And click OPEN on the bottom to see all the CD info and what's on your disc.

Under Tools/Options/General you can turn off the stupid animations. That's the least of the problems with SonicStage.

Your processor speed (233 Mhz) is under the minimum required (500 Mhz). So all bets are off, but it can't hurt to try.

I do most of my home listening through Grado SR-125 headphones, which are quite accurate. Hi-SP rips of CDs sound fine through them, and I'm pretty picky. But it's hard to guess what your stereo system is like or what your ears are like. Hi-SP is compressed--it's not CD-quality sound. Conceivably you could detect the difference. Practically, I doubt it. Hi-LP is another story. There I can detect the difference with headphones. But when I'm out walking around or listening to music in the car, I use Hi-LP and it's fine. I don't know how you transfer from a CD player to an mp3 player without a computer. CD music in is .wav files. They have to be converted into mp3s, usually in a computer. Do you have an mp3 player that does that? Maybe the problem is just terminology. Transfer, to me, means faster than realtime. If you want to record in realtime from your CD player to your MD player, no computer is necessary--just connect CD out to Line-in. But it's a lot quicker to start Simple Burner, put a CD in the drive, and let Simple Burner transfer it to MD. Takes about 3-4 minutes, as opposed to the full length of a CD. For mic recording, MD is an affordable miracle. As a portable player, its only disadvantage vis-a-vis the iPod is its size. If an iPod or mp3 player sounds good through your home system, MD will probably sound better.

The M100 is for uploading to Apple/Macintosh computers, and is extra-expensive because of that. All of the Hi-MDs that record will upload to Windows computers--anything without a D in the model number. (MZ-NH600 and MZ-RH710 only have line-in recording, not a mic jack.) Look in the Browser tab at http://www.minidisc.org for detailed information on Hi-MD models. By the way, you still won't be able to upload your old recordings--only new ones made on the Hi-MD.

I don't know if this will work, but have you tried connecting the USB again and just playing the disc with SonicStage? Sometimes SonicStage is able to read the disc in the unit when the unit itself won't. Try installing SS 3.3 first. If you can play back the disc with SonicStage, then you can do a realtime recording with TotalRecorder. Look for the TotalRecorder section of this: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=6330

Run, do not walk to Minidisc Canada and get an NH700 at this ridiculous price. http://www.minidisc-canada.com/shopdisplay...iniDisc+Players It's last year's model and it's everything you need. It has superb microphone recording, runs for maybe 10 hours on one AA Duracell, and does all the transferring of any other Hi-MD. Unfortunately, you can't transfer directly from MD to an mp3 player. The computer has to do the converting. Easier to just rip your CDs again. The next-generation units (RH-) all have gumstick batteries, and while they are removable and rechargeable, you'll have to use an outboard pod for maximum battery life. These cheap ones have Australian AC adapters, because that's where they were imported from, but it's no big deal: you can get a generic 3V adapter or run it from the battery. Hi-MD is better than NetMD because it is capable of uncompressed PCM sound--NetMD at best was SP, which was very high-fidelity but still compressed. PCM needs bigger disc capacity: 90 minutes of PCM on a 1GB disc, compared to nearly eight hours of Hi-SP, which is likely good enough fidelity for portable and possibly home use, and 34 hours of Hi-LP, which is fine for portable use. Unless you're in a very quiet place with very good speakers or 'phones, you're not likely to hear much difference between PCM and Hi-SP. Look in the Browser tab on the www.minidisc.org homepage to compare models. Note that models with a D are for downloading, not mic recording. I have an NHF-800, which is the NH700 plus a radio in the remote; I never use the radio. I've been using it just about constantly for a year and it's going strong. Make sure you don't use the software that comes with it, also a year old. Get SonicStage 3.3 from Downloads here.

What computer do you want to upload your recordings to? The only reason to pay the premium price for the M10 is to use it with a Mac. With a PC you can use the RH10, it's the same unit except for Mac compatibility. And the RH910 is the same unit minus a fancy light-up display on the unit. Some people have gotten artifacts from an AC adapter--it probably depends on your power mains. But one AA Duracell (in the outboard pod) plus the gumstick should last you the length of the disc, if not longer. You can put track marks in the file as you record it or place them afterward. The only thing you can't do, because of a bug, is remove track marks on the disc after placing them. It will still play back, but the upload may not work. But you can upload tracks and then combine them on the computer with SonicStage. Once you have uploaded the wav files and gotten them out of SonicStage (convert to .wav), you can burn the .wav tracks to CD, gapless if you prefer. Whatever unit you get, make sure you install a version of SonicStage that is at least 3.2. An earlier disc may come with your unit--don't use it.

Then welcome to Minidisc Land. One word of advice: Don't install the software from the disc that comes with the NH600--it's more than a year old. Go to Downloads here and get the latest SonicStage 3.3 installer. You'll also find that for transferring CDs, Simple Burner (either at Downloads or on your disc) is much easier and better. But SonicStage has to be installed for Simple Burner to work.

Greg the R-- Don't save your gadget lust for Etys. Even people who love them say they have meager bass. Also the cords are fragile and that twisted-cord arrangement gives you a lot of cord noise. Get Shure E4 (or 4c for Ipod-clone white) instead. Great sound, sturdy build. I think CNet called them the best in-ear monitors ever, and I do love mine. PM me if you want a link to get them for $178 shipped to the US. E3 is pretty darn good too, and you can find them for around $130. As for Grados, in a quiet store I found a significant difference between the SR-80 and the SR-125, which is what I got. Just as dorky though!

.oma is not a good archive format because it's keyed to your individual SonicStage installation. If that computer dies, your .oma files become unplayable. Once the files are in My Library, use Hi-MDRenderer to convert them to something more portable like mp3 or, better (but bigger, because it's lossless) flac.