MDX-400

Hey that is pretty fast, just 9s? I'm curious what CPU is your machine using?

Didn't really know what forum to post this in, but I came across a very interesting little device that allows you to control a Sony NW-HD1/3/5 from any Sony UniLink (changer control) car head unit. Here is the thread I made about it over on the T-Board: http://www.audiotstation.com/forum/showthread.php?p=318384 Since the unit works through the HDx's remote/phones port I would imagine that it works with any unit that works properly with the RM-MC40ELK remote that is useable on both HDx and MD units. The Connects2 UK site also depicts the adapter as being useable with MD as well, so it is quite an interesting little device for anyone that wanted to add car-compatibility and control to their HD/MD unit(s). There are no Hi-MD units for cars as of yet so this might be very useful for people that have Sony head units in their cars already!

It seems like Sony have stopped making any new model pro-MD decks. It seems doubtful that Hi-MD will ever "go pro" since it is aimed mainly at MP3-using consumers/the masses. I dunno if Sony still manufacturers pro MD decks like the E12 but there certainly aren't any Hi-MD ones that I've seen nor have I heard about any announcements for any. Hi-MD is on the 2nd generation now and still no pro units. I guess only time will tell if they will, but I wouldn't hold my breath--I don't think Hi-MD was meant to go to the professional market. Furthermore, although more recent pro decks had MDLP, I don't think any of them had NetMD which is pretty much a requirement in Hi-MD. That would seem to further the assumption that they won't make pro Hi-MD units.

If the CD has trackmarks and you can make an optical recording from a std. CD player to the MD recorder, I don't understand why there is a problem??? Why not just make the recording like that and leave it at that? I.e. If you can already make the recording to the MD, what's the point in worrying about trying to record the MD via the PC? Are you purposely trying to make things difficult for yourself or am I missing something here?

I know this is an old thread but since it is stickied... Why was everyone so concerned about the 5V that the original cable was outputting? Because newer MD units, including pretty much all the NetMD models have a degree of protection on their DC inputs. Since the original cable worked I would say that there wouldn't really be any problems with using it that way. At your own risk of course... But the truth is if you apply about 6 or 7V to the DC in on a newer unit, it won't fry it. Instead you'll get a message on the MD unit saying "Hi DC In" and the unit activates its protection circuitry. Certainly, given enough voltage you will likely fry the unit but 5V DC, even constant, isn't going to harm anything. Unless you have some sort of power surge through your PCs power supply you'll be okay, plus motherboards usually have some kind of regulation for the USB ports too--if you did get enough voltage through the USB to fry an MD unit your motherboard would probably be fried as well.

Haha, no I don't think I'll be going to Warped Tour--it isn't much my scene really The Barrie show is at the end of the month, right? Hmm... I'll be in Ottawa rafting that weekend anyway... I don't think I've heard of 90% or more of the bands on the bill. I dunno if that comes as a surprise or sounds funny though? LOL... I do like a couple emo/punk bands quite a bit though--I'd have liked to go just to see Something Corporate but I don't think they were ever on for the Barrie show and even if they were, due to Andrew's very unfortunate recent illness they wouldn't be playing anyway. As for staying on-topic (haha) here's some eBay finds: First off we have some cracked out liquidator claiming that the E90 they are selling is "valued at $500" what a laugh! The E90 wasn't even anywhere near that when it was released I don't think. At least they aren't trying to sell it for that much, the auction started at $0.99. Not very much of a "find" but the claim of $500 value is a little funny: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=5791856342 Also there is a super old-skool 1st gen MZ-2P I'm kinda interested in that will probably end up cheap but I think I'm going to hold out until I can find a complete 2P with the box, etc.... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=5791862694

Sony essentially put an AAA NiMH battery inside the casing for an AA battery. That is why the capacity is so low. A move to save a few cents on every MD unit with this type of battery packaged with it--and obviously a stupid move by Sony. Also, if you are going to be recharging the battery in the unit (via plugging it into the wall and hitting the stop/charge button) expect charge times approximately 3x longer than it used to take to charge the Sony-provided battery as a higher capacity AA will require more time to charge to full capacity.

This isn't entirely correct from my knowledge of battery chemistries. To store either an NiMH or NiCd battery, the best way to do it is in the discharged state and disconnected from any equipment/load. Furthermore it should be stored at a lower temperature (as in the fridge or freezer). While it is true that being discharged too far is not good for the battery, this is because of the danger of voltage reversal--literally the positive terminal becoming negative and vice versa. If you get a battery in that state (which is caused by such things as leaving a discharged battery connected to a device or load) then it may not be recoverable. Storing cells in a charged state, particularly at room temperature or higher (as in summertime temps), will result in "rock"/crystal formation in the battery which will only result in such things as commonly referred to as "memory". However, batteries that have rock formation can often be recovered using deep discharge/charge/repeat cycles to refresh the battery. As greenmachine says, the same is true of Li-Ion batteries in terms of storage conditions, though with Li-Ion you'd usually want to keep about 30-40% charge on the battery before low-temp storage. Also deep discharge is never desired for this chemistry type and Li-Ions which lose capacity because of room or higher temp storage while fully charged can never be recovered.

One commonly forgotten thing about SCMS and digital recordings is that if the original digital recording is considered an "original" then you can indeed make a copy of that MD (just not a copy of the copy). For example if you put a CD in a computer and play it back through the digital output there, the MD recorder will not get SCMS information (because PCs don't conform to SCMS standards). Therefore regardless of the fact that the first recording was digital doesn't matter--the MD unit still flags it as an "original" recording and that MD can be copied, even on SCMS compliant gear. If the same recording were made on a consumer-level CD player then it would be flagged with SCMS and the MD would be considered a digital copy of a copy-protected original and that MD could *not* be copied by SCMS-compliant gear. (Keep in mind though that copying through a PC soundcard's S/PDIF output isn't always "pure" nor can you get track marks out of it.) Also the original (nameless??) poster in this thread asked about copying the MD to a PC--SCMS will have no effect here. Even if the MD is flagged with SCMS copy-inhibit the PC will just ignore that and you can record to the PC anyway.

Well this is actually one of the quirks of MD decks. For some strange reason Sony portables will always automatically sync the beginning of a recording--as soon as the playback device starts the MD starts recording. However decks do not do this for some strange reason! If your deck has the "Music Sync" feature then you can use that to start the recording, but there is a problem with that because that automatically activates two other features, "Smart Space" and another one (I think it was Auto Space) which are kinda undesirable in most recording situations. Don't ask me why Sony made it that way but it is a gripe of many deck owners. Hmm this one is a touchy issue. You can't do this unless you use 2 to 3 second silences between tracks that are playing back on the PC. There are two ways to accomplish this--either use a program that can insert variable pauses between tracks when playing back or put a "spacer" file of dead silence of about 2.5s between each item on the playlist. If you do that and the T.Mark option on the deck is set to Line Sync. (T.Mark LSyn) and then set the Line Sync. to about -50dB, then you'll get the tracks separated properly. If you are trying to get gapless playback on the MD then there is no way to do this from a PC automatically (unless you use a Xitel DG-2 and WMP 8 or *earlier* and set the DG-2 to discrete mode). If you want to do that you pretty much have to sit there and track mark manually when songs end or go back and divide at the proper points. I wouldn't say it is God that is making these things hard, but more of a combination of Sony's strange strategy on deck recording and also the fact that PCs cannot output track marks over an S/PDIF stream. Furthermore, there are things a *LOT* worse than having to record an MD in an inconvenient manner.

Nice pics So Hi-MDs from Sony only come in like 2 colours right now? Original and "new" blue? Kinda strange considering they could make them in all colours/designs just as easily--I mean what is the difference the screened writing on the disc/shutter and perhaps a detection hole (or absence of one), compared to a std. MD? At the very least they could make them in the venerable "colour collection" colours--Onyx Black, Topaz Yellow, Sapphire Blue, Ruby Red, Emerald Green, and whatever they called the purple one... Strange that they are on 2nd generation units but still pretty lax on making different discs!

Yep that'll do it, a regular line out is analog only, you need a player with an optical output. hahaha LMAO

Just looking at the mods quickly looks like all you need is a relatively low powered (maybe 20-30W) soldering iron, a screwdriver and a drill. Parts, you'll need some light gauge wire (high wire gauge number--probably something like 22ga or near there), a compatible Toslink emitter (the main part which goes for around $8-$15 from what I've seen), solder and perhaps some electrical tape. The emitter should not be too hard to find they are usually available in standard pin arrangement/configurations, if possible go with a Toshiba made one as I think that is what Sony uses on their boards to begin with--it will match the input receiver right beside it. If you don't have too much experience soldering, perhaps you have a friend or relative that does? If so it would probably be better to let them do the mod and just provide them with the parts and instructions and it should be relatively easy for them to follow. The hardest part is probably putting the emitter on--the holes/location for the emitter will be already present on the board however they will be solder-filled meaning you'll have to heat them up to push the emitter through. Another note be careful with the 3 points you'll have to solder to on the board, for the wires. If they are very small (can't really tell from the pics), just *TOUCH* the iron, solder and wire to them quickly enough to connect them and no longer. IF they are small points and you leave the soldering iron on there for any appreciable time then you're sure to mess up the solder pad on the board. The points actually look normal sized so it shouldn't be a problem but if they do happend to be small, just be careful.

Hmm that sounds right, do you see the red light coming through the line from the CD player with the toslink plugged into the CD player and it playing? (With the MD player side unplugged so you can look into the cable end). If you're not seeing the red light when it is connected to the CD player then either the CD player's optical out is disabled, turned off or it is not working properly. If you are seeing the light through the cable and you then connect the two and the plugs are properly connected at both ends and you're getting the "No Signal" indication there might be a problem with either unit. To know for sure you should try to test it with another audio device with optical output, if possible. Since you mention it is a portable CDP you are using, ensure that the optical out jack on the unit is clean and free of any dirt which may be blocking the port. If it is somehow blocked you may try some compressed air to try to clean it. That's okay... S/PDIF stands for Sony/Philips Digital InterFace it is the standard "language" of consumer level audio devices in transferring/receiving digital audio information. S/PDIF comes in two "flavours", electrical and optical, also known as coaxial and toslink, respectively. Coaxial is an electrical connection using RCA-jacks/plugs which (when used properly) uses 75-ohm coax. cable to transfer the information. Toslink (which is short for Toshiba-Link because Toshiba invented it) is the same information carried over an optical cable (which is what you often see on MD units and what you are attempting to use) and is converted to/from electrical S/PDIF information on either side of the cable. [Often times people will refer to coax. as "S/PDIF" and differentiate it from "optical" that way; but really the way I think of it is S/PDIF being the language/protocol and coax. or toslink as the medium that carries it.]

Yep this is certainly a very nice unit, the E10 I'm curious as to how much you paid for yours, andysnap. I see them going new, on eBay, these days for $130 US + shipping. This is definitely a unit I hope to one day add to the collection but I'd only want the gold/champagne version--a version that is getting increasingly difficult to find.

No you don't have to get a special cable--every Sony device has these cables listed from MD Walkmans to CD Walkmans to home audio gear. Sony optical cables aren't anything special either, you're actually better off going with another brand. I'm wondering, when you got the No-Signal indication, what was the other end of the cable connected to? Because if the other device was not on/properly outputting S/PDIF info then it might indicate "No Signal". Note that on *some* devices even the presence of a red light may not mean that there is a carrier signal on the Toslink cable. I know that my soundcard does this for example. The red light on the optical output is always on, I believe, even if the soundcard's S/PDIF is set too "off" in its mixer/control panel. If it is set to "off" an MD unit (or other digital input device) will indicate there is "No Signal" or that the "DIN" is "Unlocked" despite the fact that you can see red light through the cable. Setting the S/PDIF to on in the mixer/control panel relieves this error and the input device will then get the signal lock. Did you try the optical cable on more than one optical-output device to see if it wasn't a problem with the optical output on whatever device you were using when you got the "No Signal" error? Did you try starting playback on the digital out device and seeing if the No Signal error went away upon playback start?

The answer is Yes and No. It depends on what combo unit you have and how it records in high-speed. One such example is the Sharp Auvi SD-NX10 bookshelf unit--there were some complaints about this unit when recording in high speed--people could notice a decrease in quality. However the NX10 isn't all that popular I suppose. And Sony units with high-speed are likely less prone to such an audible difference. When speaking about more popular units, like Sony MXD-Dxxx decks the answer is that in MDLP the quality is about the same as doing the realtime recording. However when using SP there is a difference. Even the Sony combo decks which use ATRAC Type-R for SP recordings cannot do so when they dub in highspeed. When dubbing in high-speed these decks will revert to ATRAC 4.5 for the SP recording which, as you know, is not as good as Type-R. Type-R involves double the processing as 4.5 and I guess Sony did not want to go to the trouble of developing ATRAC chips which could run at double the clock-speed simply to retain Type-R at highspeed.

Hmm, did you find the thread(s) regarding why (unfortunately) you won't get track marking to/from a PC? That thread might be over at the T-Board though... But the short of it is that PCs neither "understand"/interpret track marks in the S/PDIF stream (they go ignored) nor are they capable of outputting track marks via S/PDIF either. It's like has been said here--you have to monitor it on your own and start/stop recording appropriately. There is no application that will pick up track marks (I'm pretty sure it is a hardware limitation). Sorry.

Uhh, the E10 definitely does fit the bill, but it is a bit of overkill, no? For what he wants, that deck is great but the price of it is going to be killer and there are many MDLP decks that have optical out for much less. As touched on above, any of the MDS-JE440, JE470 and JE480 (all which pretty much go for around $100 US) can be modded for optical out for like $10 in parts and a little soldering knowhow. The mod really isn't that hard--3 wires plus the TOTTX emitter to solder and then a hole to drill and you're set. If you do a quick search, there are a few threads around about modding a 4xx series deck, including one that was very recent (where I suggested the exact same thing, lol). As for actually going from MDLP to the PC, I'd hope you're at least recording it to WAV (or a lossless equivalent) because copying it to another compressed format [transcoding it] is only going to make the quality even worse. I mean not to offend anyone that likes MDLP but LP2 really isn't that great to begin with and LP4? Well LP4 is just horrible! (Also the MZ-1 with its ATRAC 1.0--I can't see how that is possibly helping preserve quality of those SP recordings! I Don't mean to nitpick, but ATRAC 1.0 even as a decoder-only wasn't too great.)

Hmm, according to a lot of people nearly everthing I own could be classified as a "gadget" LOL. Personally I think the most "gadgety" of things I have are MD units (though they aren't too gadgety compared to a PDA for example--I don't even have one of those). I think by "popular opinion" though the most oohs and aaahs might come from the TP504 2-way touchscreen remote that I bought separately to use with my DA4ES receiver. Here is a pic of it: Note that I stole the above pic from an already expired eBay auction I found so it probably won't last long, lol.

This is an interesting topic. Time changes never really seemed like a big deal to me. I remember my dad once told me a story about how they tried just leaving the time as-is (and not changing it from standard) one year in England. Apparently there was a lot of backlash from farmers or something and therefore that "experiment" did not go too well--they went back to using DST. DST makes things less depressing too I think, because there is "more" daylight things like SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) isn't a big issue. (Though one might argue SAD exists or is "enhanced" because of time changes I suppose; because if you didn't save daylight in summer then the lesser amount of daylight in the winter would not be as pronounced.) The expansion of it in the US is an interesting idea, I wonder how well that will go over with people and if other countries (particularly Canada) would follow suit?

Interesting indeed, especially considering he's gone through *three* sets of EX71s due to cord problems The only thing I can think of is to use electrical heat shrink tubing over the headphones cord wherever you can. This would certainly decrease the flexibility of the cord though, and I'm not even sure if it would extend the life of the cord/headphones. I guess decreasing the flex of the cord would help but I'd think if anything it would be make them more inconvenient!

Most are but there are some exceptions. Most of the units using a 3.6V lithium battery instead of an NiMH gumstick (such as those like the N10 IIRC) use a different connection and there are a few other exceptions (perhaps more now with the Hi-MD units) but for the *most part* they are the same.

Yep, the above is the way to go Greenmachine is right, NiMH AAs aren't expensive, and the NH700 actually came packaged with an AAA-inside-AA-casing NiMH meaning it has about 1/3rd the capacity of a standard NiMH AA! If you replace it with 2100-2500mAh AA NiMH battery, Play times of 4/7/9/7/9/10 hrs (PCM/Hi-SP/Hi-LP/SP/LP2/LP4) should be increased to more in the neighbourhood of 10/21/25/20/24/27 hrs instead, which is an appreciable jump

Ahh one of these threads, eh? My saved eBay searches are still there so I hit one up and found a few rarities... Makes you want to start buying units again eh? hahaha! Reminds me of the good ol' days Here's a rare one (well for North America anyway, though it is in Australia): An EP10! Nothing special as an MD unit really, besides its heavy/tough construction of yesteryear, but the EP11 was the unit we got in NA; the EP10 was identical except the metal design... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...eName=WDVW&rd=1 Here's an E3 no one is probably interested in either, LOL... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...eName=WDVW&rd=1 If it had all the original stuff I'd probably at least bid...