Gary

Medic911--Good idea! I have a friend who reads Japanese & I'll see her in a few weeks. Mystyler--Thanks for your tips. I've made some progress on my own, after I switched to a spoken-word recording with lower-level background noise (really important!). Here's what I discovered: SENS. set to HIGH detected the quiet gaps and, with S.BEEP set to ON, beeped to indicate the starting point of the sentence to repeat. Also, the repeat counter on the remote starts flashing a "?". If MODE is AUTO, playback continues until the next gap is found. Another beep, and playback starts from the beginning of the passage, incrementing the repeat counter on the remote. Pressing PLAY/STOP will restart the playback before it gets to the end of the phrase. After the number of repeats set in COUNT (1-9) is complete, playback continues from the end of the phrase, with a delay set by PAUSE (0-9 sec.) If MODE is MANUAL, starting gaps are detected as before, but the end of the phrase to repeat is set by pressing PLAY/STOP, unless another gap is detected first, which sets a new starting point. To cancel Sentence Repeat, press and hold PLAY/STOP for >2 sec., go into the SENTENCE REPEAT submenu and select CLEAR, as you said. Now I just have to dig out details in the fine-kanji-print! MANUAL mode will work for me very well, and the PLAY/STOP button on the left earphone is handy. If it were just a little bit longer, I could use it for a foot pedal. :wink: Imagine complaining about headphone cords not being long enough! Maybe I can find some of those new 4-wire mini-plugs like the DR8 uses and make my own. Thanks for the help, guys. I'll post any new discoveries after I spend some time with my Japanese friend. I like Leon's idea of volunteered translations of Japanese Domestic manuals and think they should be posted on minidisc.org. If the Japanese manufacturers offered the manuals online, at least we could discuss what we thought the Babelfish version really meant! :wink:

From what I've read, the "backlight" on the MZ-N1 promo literature is due to the "creative" use of studio lighting, like those pictures of cornflakes that never get soggy in the bowl and ice cream that never melts--in a word, nonexistent! It's a deceptive, but firmly established, tradition. On the positive side, think "increased battery life." :wink:

From the Aiwa site (www.jp.aiwa.com/corporate/report/2001_e/am-hx400e.html): "New sentence repeat function is convenient for playing back MDs while studying languages. The function repeatedly plays back a sentence in between silent portions that are longer than 0.5 seconds up to nine times. With the new function, users can select either manual repeat that repeats only the part they want to hear, or auto repeat that automatically repeats it. In addition, the memory function starts to replay the part previously stopped at, even if the disc is changed. " I think the "new" part is the manual repeat. I'm hoping it will be very handy for doing transcriptions, also, assuming that I can get it to work with Mystyler's help (TIA!-- ) The HX400 comes with a separate instruction supplement sheet printed on both sides describing Sentence Repeat and Group functions, in Japanese, with English button names and prompts. The Sentence Repeat sub-menus are MEMORY?, MODE?, SENS.?, S.BEEP?, PAUSE?, COUNT?, and CLEAR?. MODE? is AUTO or MANUAL; COUNT is 1-9; PAUSE? and S.BEEP? are ON or OFF; SENS.? is HIGH or LOW. Now it's just a matter of setting them correctly and invoking SENTENCE REPEAT! :wink:

I just got an Aiwa AM HX400 (HyperJack, 4 days to California!), partly for the "new, improved" Sentence Repeat feature. The all-Japanese instructions have me looking at pictures and scratching my head. Navigating the menu system and setting options isn't the same as actually _using_ the feature! Does anyone here use this feature (available since the HX70), or know how to use it, or read Japanese? I have Aiwa HX30s and AM-F70s--not much help! The HX400 is a neat little machine, and having English-language instructions for it posted _somewhere]_ (anywhere!) might help improve its popularity outside Japan (and Australia). Maybe we could even lure Aiwa back into the foreign MD maket--do you think? :?: Happy Thanksgiving!