lacobo

About a year ago I bought a Sony NAC-HD1 (ATRACK) and a (2nd hand) NW-A808 walkman (the last one that runs ATRAC). For playback this is an ideal combination. It has the soundquality of Minidisc and I can connect the 808 to the NAC and move music over. The NAC has now stored +200 CD's (with sleeve pictures) in lossless format and works like a charm. The NAC has also an internal AM/FM radio. It can schedule recordings and even editing is possible. I've sold my MD-LP2 deck about two years ago. I still have 2 portable records (NH1 and RH1) but I hardly use them anymore, because of the A808. That little fellow runs ~30 hours on one battery load and combined with a speaker/loading dock it's very handy in use. So no, I will not use MD forever, I use it now a few times a year to record something. That's all. Bert

Yesterday I received a full refund of the price difference (349 Euro came back), so now I only paid 342 Euro's. What a price

Strange news: Sony stops producing the NAC-HD1. Two days after I bought it the price dropped from 691 to 342 Euro's at the same shop! I'm now trying to get back at least a part of the money. My guess is that Sony-music didn't like the "endless (but limitted) copy-possibilities". That's the disadvantage of a company with such a strong connection to the music-industry.

Ok, I have it "in tha house" now and I'm quite happy with the first results. It's a very silent machine. CD's are copied to the harddisk at a high speed. Textediting is a bit of a nightmare, you can't connect a keyboard, so it's in SMS style. After 5 CD's I'm getting handy Titles are retreived from the internet (using a wifi-usb-stick (used an ASUS stick and it was accepted without any problems)) and I can add CD-sleeve pics from a USB stick, but that's a very slow process. But after the pain of editing every title, the playback is very nice. When it's in standby it analyses all music and sorts it in "moods" like morning, evening, slow, fast etc. Then you can play it using x-DJ. Cool! I've hooked the machine to my TV and it looks awesome! A more serious review will follow in a few weeks, after I've looked at all bells and whissles.

It will take a lot of soldering to get the same quality connectors on it as on the NAC-HD1.

Yes and no. Yes, you can build a PC for this money, but do you then get the same build- and sound quality? I doubt it. I also compare its features more with the never brought out Sony HiMD Deck then with a media-server. It "speaks" Atrac, lossless, has a 24bits, 196 KHz soundprocessor etc.

I will get the unit friday or saturday and then I need some time to set it up etc. So it will take some time to answer these in-dept questions. But by then I'll see what I can do to answer them...

I first spotted the machine in a store in amsterdam, but the price was 899 overthere. Then I started searching the internet and found bestekeus.nl. More then 200 Euro's in price difference! I'm curious if the transfer function also works with my HiMD unit(s). I have to wait until friday...

Maybe not entirely on-topic, but still... As many of you I am still waiting for a (Sony 43 cm) HiMD deck. But I don't think Sony ever will create it. But a few days ago I discovered the Sony NAC-HD1. It is relatively new (april 2007 in Japan, july in Europe) and there's hardly any (English) information on the web about it. But what is it: It's a CD-Player, AM and FM radio and an audio-server (with a 250 GB harddrive) in one. It has a 4 inch display which shows the machines activities and an USB-port to hook up an MP3 or Atrac player to send music to it. It's able to record from the radio and from external sources. It can also store +300 CD's on the harddrive in lossless PCM format or even more in Atrac or MP3 format. It can retrieve CD-track titles from the internet (wired- or (optional) wireless). It sounds like a fine machine to me. I like the idea so much that I ordered one, which I can collect next friday. I will create a review when I have it. The price was another surprise: The listprice is 999 Euro's, but I can buy one for 691 Euro's! I'll keep you informed. Bert.

Happy to report: Version 4.2 works fully under Vista! I've installed it today on my Vista Ultimate PC and it works as normal (At the download link there's not a word about Vista, so it was a guess).

Yes, the quick mode is on. And ofcourse there's nothing wrong with the contents of the disc, but it doesn't remember that it should start at f.i. group 9 track 5. No, it goes back to group 1, track 1. My good old NH1, N1 and even the R50 didn't do that.

On my NH1 the unit remembers where I stopped the disc (if I don't remove it) and continues at exactly that point when I press the play button again. The RH1 however often starts with track 1 in group 1. This is somewhat annoying. If I connect it to the USB connection it resets to g1t1 (after disconnecting), but also in half of the other times I use this fine device. Then: - I haven't removed the disk - It was not on USB - The quick mode is on Anyone else experiencing the same? Bert.

Same here with my RH1 and SS4.0. I will try the NH1 later... NH1 gives the same result. Tried also converting the file before the transfer, but that also doesn't work.

Bought one this tuesday at the Sony-Overtoom shop in Amsterdam-the Netherlands. 330 Euro's. Not very cheap (some shops sell it for 289 Euro's) but I had it in my hands and didn't have to wait any longer. It's a nice unit, but I think I'll keep my NH1 as well. The NH1 seems to be a bit more sturdy than the RH1. The Oled-display is verrrry nice, especially the spectrum analyse modes. SonicStage works fine, transfer is faster. Now I have to try some live recordings... I still have over 10 blank 1GB discs (and the same number of filled 1GB's), so I can do some testing Bert.

Be smarter and record it at 64 kbps or higher. In this way the sound quality is better (48 kbps is verrrry low, specially for classical music), and you are not reaching the limit at all. I have Hi-MD's filled with comedians (32 CD's with all long track titles!) and never had this problem. Have fun! Bert.

For a couple of years I am using a just-fit bag from an unknown brand. It's from a stretchable material and I can fit the MD unit, a spare battery, one MD (without the casing) and all the lefover wires in it and that's it. I can wear it on my belt. When I walk with it I move it to the front of my waste, when cycling it's on the side. It is the most lightweight and small bag that I could find and it shows hardly any evidence of the almost daily use in the last few years. I bought it at a Sony store, but I am sure it's not from Sony. Does anyone recognize it?

There are a few small problem with the NH1 compared to the other model if you want to use AA's or AAA's. First the connector, and second the NH1 runs on 6 Volts in stead of 3 Volts (for the 900 and lower). So a dry battery case would (almost) outgrow the whole NH1. And what if you take a 9 V battery, get a spare connector somehow and connect it? How long would the 9V battery last? I don't think it will blow up your NH1, because the adapter gives way more than the 6 Volts listed (I measured once the 3 Volt adapter of my N1, it gave off 7 Volts!).

Sure you can do so, but with Simple Burner you can do this at high speeds. Although many people are sure that the hardware of the MD is better capable of a quality compression then your PC. Good resources? Try this site and forum. Tons of information! But also using the gear helps you to understand it more. So start using your Hi-MD gear and test things out.

As far as I know the MD Simple Burner 2.0 can only record in Hi-MD mode (256 / 64 / 48). SonicStage 2.2 can record in Hi-MD but also in LP2 and LP4 mode on a formatted disc.

For music from Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, John and Vangelis and the Dutch Marco Borsato, Herman van Veen etc. Ill use Hi-SP, because that music is too ritch in itself to loose any details. If only Sony had thought of an inbetweet to Hi-LP and Hi-SP it would have been perfect. But we don't live in a perfect world, don't we?

Oh what a joy to fit 30 CD's on one disc. Maybe not for serious music, but for comedian oneman (or onewoman) shows it's a great invention. I have now 3 discs with all my comedian stuff on it (close to 100 CD's). I remember the day's of the 1st generation minidisc gear: I recorded a show in mono, ripped out the songs and replaced them with the stereo versions. A lot of work for 2 hours fun. And now: The complete shows in (almost) stereo on one tiny 11 dollar disc (this includes mail costs from Japan to the Netherlands). As I stated in the subject: I'm one happy Hi-LP user!

Here in the Netherlands we have to wait 'till November(!) before the HiMD disks are available :wacky:

Isn't there a virtual audio CD Write application? I know Nero Imagedrive and Alcohol 120% can open images and emulate a CD-ROM station. If we can trick SonicStage to think it can write to such an emulated CD-Writer (if existing) then we could write the tracks at a high speed to the virtual Writer and use a CD extractor to convert the created CDA files into Wav's.

After installing the complete software (including OpenMG jukebox) the problem is solved. With only the drivers installed (the second option in OpenMG setup) the listings are black. It's probably a build-in safety issue: No Jukebox, no proper SB listings.

After reinstalling my PC (and Simple Burner) SB now shows black listings! Only when a title (black text on a black backround) is doubleclicked I can see a title. Anyone know's what I can do about it? To show you what i see I have posted a picture on my website: http://www.lacobo.com/simple.gif