Benny

You're absolutely right. The only reason I can think of is perhaps the Sony are trying to entice American buyers to spend more money and get the next model up. But when you think about it, it must be costing Sony a pretty penny to make two different versions of the same model. 'Not thinking' and 'Sony' are now three words synonymous with each other.

I have just checked out the new Winter 04 copy of Sony's Pulse magazine here in Australia which includes a two page spread of the new Hi-MD equipment. It lists the MZ-NH600 as having "...Record Level Control, Optical In, Analogue In...". The accompanying picture also has the optical/analogue input visible on the side. This may prove to be further evidence that there will indeed be two different models of the NH600 worldwide.

A great looking remote I must say. I've been waiting a long time for Sony to finally abandon those hopeless stick remotes, ever since the MZ-R50 - I hate, I hate, I hate twist controls! They are the bain of my existence. My favourite remote until now has been the MZ-E3 remote, it wan't backlit but it was exeptionally well designed and easy to operate. The Hi-MD remotes seem to be going back to that old design and I'm most pleased about that.

I see absolutlely no reason to wait for Hi-MD to arrive in Australia. With the Australian dollar being somewhat valuable again on the world market you will be able to get Hi-MD units at almost half the price in Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Also as usual the Hi-MD units released in Australia will come with 240V only power adapters instead of the 110-240V adapters that come with the 'world model' MD units. The 240V power adapters supplied in Australia are usally bigger and heavier to the the multi-voltage ones to. So you're essentially paying twice the price to get stiffed on the power adapter when buying in Australia. No thanks.

I'm actually going to buy two units - the MZ-NH600 and the MZ-EH1. I very rarely do any live recording and even if I do I'm still going to have my trusty old MZ-R909 anyway which quite frankly is not worth selling (the last one I saw on Ebay went for around AU$120). Also the R909 is in my view the most attractive and best designed portable recorder from Sony thus far - closely followed by the MZ-R50. As such I'm not going to blow my money on a high end Hi-MD recorder/downloader instead I will get the bottom end downloader and the top end smaller, lighter and FAR more attractive EH1 for portable playback use (which is represents 95% of my MD use). For the most part my NH600 will be perminantly connected to my PC as such I will have no need for a line input, no need for a fancy cradle charger, no need for a magnesium casing and no need for a remote - so no need for an NH1 and an extra US$200. Furthermore there will be absolutely no difference in the downloaded audio quality in the NH600 compared to the NH1 - it's all 1's and 0's. The NH600 is also in my view a little more attractive with a better front panel layout than the other low end models although the fact that I'm yet to see any photos of the back of the unit suggests that it may have one of those ugly AA battery bulges - but given that it will never be going in my pocket I don't really care. It must be said that none of the Hi-MD recorders/downloaders are particularly attractive - even the NH1 and NH3D which are clearly the better ones have that really ugly black button panel pertruding out the side. Whoever designed the MZ-E50, MZ-R50, MZ-R909 and the MZ-E10 should be re-imployed by Sony post haste. I will probably end up getting mine from BlueTin or Team Digital - hopefully one of these two companies will get the Japan only EH1. There's absolutely no way I'm waiting for Hi-MD to arrive in Australia - the price will be nearly doubled compared to Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore and we will get stiffed on the charger (as usual) - no 110-240V charger just a 240V only (and a heavy one at that). You would think that it would actually cost Sony more to do this - go figure? I would dearly love to see some more photos of the EH1 though before I commit myself to a purchase.

Everybody's attention seems to be on the recorder/downloaders so there's very little information on the humble playback only HiMD. I haven't seen the EH1 for pre-order at any US retailers - does this mean that perhaps it won't be available outside Japan? Personally given that I do very little in the way of portable/live recording I'm gonna get the NH600 (i.e. the cheapest downloader) for downloading and a smaller, lighter EH1 for portable playback. The downloader unit is going to spend all of it's time connected up to my PC and is going to be used exclsuively for downloading so I see little point in splerging on an NH1 top end downloader/recorder. And the end result is there will be absolutely no difference in the downloaded audio quality from the NH600 compared to the NH1 - it's all 1 & 0's after all! Does anybody know whether the EH1 is made of plastic or metal? Hope Sony releases HiMD soon - I'm getting extremely grumpy & impatient!

Now most people are aware you can't make a direct digital copy of a Dolby Digital or DTS soundtrack, however there are DVD players such as mine that are capable of converting DD & DTS to 16/48 PCM. Also there are also quite a few DVD discs (mostly music) with PCM soundtracks; like the latest video collection from U2. I have found in my experience that the majority of DVDs seem to have SCMS or something similar encoded into the soundtracks (be they DD, DTS or PCM) which prohibits digital recording to MD. I've only been successful once in making a digital copy of a DVD (via the DD to PCM conversion in this case); it was the Sarah McLachlan Mirrorball DVD. So I have established that it is possible to make a digital copy of a DVD but it is highly dependent on the particular DVD title. Does anybody know exactly what form of audio copy protection is utilized by the DVD format? My MD recorders (JB940 & R-909) seem to think it's SCMS as they display NO COPY. I know the majority of DVDs have Macrovision but to my knowledge that only effects the video. Is there another form of copy protection for audio that is beinig utilized by DVD producers that I don't know about? What ever it is the MD recorders recognise it. Better yet has anybody discovered a way around this problem so I can make digital copies od DVDs? Interestingly I recently had a play with the new Pioneer DV-S733 DVD-Audio/SACD player. I discovered that the player would actually down-convert DVD-Audio 24/96 MLP soundtracks to 16/48 PCM through the digital output. Naturally I had to just had to try an MD recording and much to my suprise it actually works! You can make a digital copy of DVD-Audio 24/96 MLP and I assume 24/192 MLP but not of most DVD-Video discs. Strange huh? No luck with SACD though, no digital output at all, but that was expected.

We have only two ears but in the world around us sound doesn't just come from two directions it comes from all around us hence surround sound. Here's some food for thought... The idea is not too far fetched. What I'm proposing is two fold. For the people with home MD decks multi-channel MD will allow you to record your favourite songs off DTS-CD, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio & SACD and be able to listen to them in the surround sound format of the original disc. Perhaps Sony could install Dolby Digital & DTS convertors into the MD deck allowing you to send the bitstream signal directly into the digital input. For DVD-Audio and SACD they will have to provide 5.1 analog inputs. You would then have ATRAC 5.1. Connecting the multi-channel MD to a reciever is one sticky issue though; digital or analog. There's currently no such thing as multi-channel PCM so the technology would have to be changed (all current MD decks with digital outputs output PCM). Do you upgrade recievers with new decoders to handle the ATRAC 5.1 or PCM 5.1? Do you convert the outgoing digital signal of the MD deck to something common like Dolby Digital? Do you only use 5.1 analog outputs on the MD deck like SACD or DVD-Audio? For portable listeners they could use the Dolby Headphone technology (or something similar) and install virtual surround DSPs into the portable units (and the home decks for that matter) allowing the listener to experience something close to surround sound via headphones. Having listened to the Dolby Headphone technology before I know it works and it is something that Sony is playing with now with DSPs in their latest portables. On another side note isn't it about time they upgrade the sampling rate convertors to allow for 96khz input.

I would like to see Sony adopt the 650MB MD Data2 disc technology for a next generation MD recorder. Or perhaps with the Blue Ray technology looming around the corner a multi-gigabyte blue laser MD, either utilizing the current ATRAC encoding or newer generation ATRAC encoding with the same non-LP bit rate or higher. NO MORE LOWER BIT RATES PLEASE! Finally this may be far fetched but how about multi-channel MD: 5.1 channel recording with Dolby Digital & DTS converters.