King Ghidora

The MS907 is a very popular mic that has probably peaked as a top performer in it's class. A few years ago everyone was suggesting it was a top choice for a small, self powered and rugged mic just abour perfect for use with MD. I bought one back during those days largely based on advice I got on this board. Now there are other mics people suggest in the same price range and in the same size range. The AT Pro 24 is often listed as a better alternative to the Sony. There's also the MS908c which is a slightly better version of the MS907 but it's intended more for use with video cameras. Then there's the Sound Professionals binaural microphones which are quite popular, there are single point stereo cardoid mics like the Nady CM-2S which are becoming popular and there are the ever popular Giant Squid omni's with a battery box (if you want to record loud music) or without for voice or possibly softer music. GS makes some very popular mics in different forms. They are great for stealth recording because they are so small but they still sound great. The battery boxes are also a big plus if you're looking for even better quality. Again there is no one perfect mic for every application. It all gets back to what your intentions are. For the stuff you mention the GS's would do nice even without the battery box and they are quite cheap. If you want a mic to mount to a stand I might suggest the Nady. They are quite good for the $119 price they sell for. You might also go with the MS907. It's still a very good mic IMO even if it isn't likely the best mic for money any more. I have all 3 of these mics so I guess I must have liked them enough to buy them. I'm sure there are other good choices too. The plain fact is there are just lots of good mics being made.

The SM58 is a dynamic mic with an XLR connector so you would need an adaptor which are pretty common and pretty cheap. They are very forgiving but their frequency response, like all dynamics, have certain limitations. The SM58 is also tuned specifically to sound good with voice. They make voices sound warmer and stronger. Most people use condensor mics with MD equipment because they provide a stronger signal and they have a better frequency response. But if you want a solid, durable mic that you can hold in your hand without creating a lot of noise then the SM58 is a good choice. They are the most popular mics in the world for live performances for singers. The SM57 is also a good choice that doesn't have the frequencies tuned to accent voice like the SM58 does.

Another self powered mic that has a very low self noise level is the Nady CM-2S. For a budget mic it's really pretty good. It will cost about $119. It was made to emulate the Audio Technica AT822. It has nearly the exact same specifications and looks almost identical. People thought they were actually the same mic for a while. They aren't but it's a very good mic and it can be argued that it is better than the AT. Low self noise is probably the best feature of this mic. It's a little big for stealth recording but if you need a good stereo cardoid this could be a very good choice.

I think you already did A440. I will say that things can get mighty unfriendly on the first of those two boards. Flaming seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

Not all groups are so uptight about their recording policy. You can check around the net and find out whether a band allows taping or not pretty often. There's a board that deals specifically with this kind of thing but I'm not sure if the people who run this board would be ok with me mentioning them by name. I'm sure you can find out some info on band's recording policies here on this board. Maybe someone else knows if it's cool to mention another board here because that board has a lot of info on this subject.

I hate to say it but the ship has sailed on using MD as a primary audio device. CD was effectively marketed many years ago and MD wasn't. There just isn't enough of a base to get MD players like we want. The technology has always been great and still is. But there are new technologies that are taking the markets away from MD that traditionally MD has owned. People who want to record live music are moving away from MD every day. The Edirol's are the current favorite of people doing live recording. Even a rock boxed iRiver is becoming more popular. That all spells bad news for MD unfortunately. I've loved my MD recorders and players for many years now. I just bought one too so I haven't given up on it. But the writing is on the wall. MD is living on borrowed time. It's a terrible shame because the quality is there in so many ways. I don't expect to see Sony get their heads out of their rears long enough to realize what they are letting slip away. I'm not even sure they could save MD if they addresssed all our complaints (SS free uploading and downloading etc.) and sold MD cheaper than the competition. Ipod's have taken the mobile market, CD's took the major market many years ago and now Edirol is taking the live recording market. That doesn't leave anything left for MD IMO. I still think MD could be made into a top notch pro recording platform and sold as a cheaper alternative to other recorders. If Sony did that they could keep a big chunk of the live recording market. But without 24 bit sound, a better computer interface (as in connecting as a hard drive), larger HIMD capacity to avoid the problems with swapping discs in a concert and a few other things MD is going to lose almost all of this market.

Something that hasn't been mentioned is the 1st generation recorders use AA batteries as their primary battery. Other 2nd gen units use AA's but only with the use of a second box that holds the batteries. In the 1st generation units the AA battery goes inside the recorder. The new models won't use AA batteries at all. When your charge is dead your player is stuck unti you can charge it again. You can buy backup batteries for the new models but you can't get them at any store on earth like you can a AA battery. To me this was a major reason to get a 1st generation unit. You will always have quick and easy access to backup batteries with a unit that uses AA's and IMO it's far better to not have to deal with the second box to hold the battery. Ten years from now if you need a new battery for your 1st gen HIMD you just go down to the 7/11 and buy a 4 pack of rechargeables. Buying the proprietary batteries that many HIMD units use will not be so easy. I think this is an often overlooked aspect of HIMD recorders. I love the features of the RH1 but IMO the lack of the ability to use commonly sold batteries is a major drawback. I still have equipment from the 1960's that I use once in a while (I have a Slyvania Super Set that works perfectly). I'm not at all sure I will be able to buy batteries to fit a RH1 40 years from now if it's still around and working. I am pretty sure I will be able to get AA's though. It's something to think about.

I picked up a MZ-NHF800 used with a whole box full of discs. Aside from some inital hiccups on the operation of the unit things have gone well with it. I have bought my fair share of goodies in the recent past including a Nady CM-2S mic, a Giant Squid omni lav, more lenses for my Panasonic camcorder, a fluid head tripod and lots of other stuff depending on how far back we're talking. I'm in the process of getting set up to shoot a documentary and I've had to buy quite a bit of gear to make that work.

Noise cancelling phones are designed to cancel noise that is steady and constant like motor noise or a constant hum. They will not cancel noise that is random. For example my Aiwa noise cancelling headphones will cancel out noise from my room air conditioner great. You put them on and flip the switch and it's like the noise from the air conditioner is gone. The same goes for noise that comes from the motor on my lawn mower. I can't hear a thing if I try to listen to music while riding my lawnmower until I turn on the noise cancelling feature of my Aiwa's. Once I turn it on it's like I'm riding a silent lawn mower and I can hear the music just great. They don't cancel all of the noise from my mower but they cancel enough so that I can hear the music quite well. What noise cancelling phones won't do is cancel someone talking in the background or a dog barking or a tv going or anything that isn't a steady type of noise. They aren't designed to work with noise like that and they won't do a thing to remove it. The only kind of phones that can reduce that type of noise is the kind of phones that fit tightly over your ear or plug your ear like ear plugs. Those can block noise but they don't really cancel it. Noise cancelling technology is designed to put out a cancelling noise for any noise that is going on steady. So any noise that is steady the noise cancelling technology will pick up on the noise and create a cancelling type sound. If the sound isn't constant then the technology can't anticipate what kind of noise is going to happen. The bottom line is that the good noise cancelling phones will block out any steady type noise like a motor. Bad noise cancelling phones won't even do that well. No noise cancelling phones can cancel noise that isn't steady.

First Chris you didn't believe a word I said so why wouldn't I go to Paypal? You had to know this MD was defective. You're right it is obvious. Yet you still claim it isn't. Why? So you can keep my money. That's why. I gave you plenty of time to respond. You didn't. You answered my posts very quickly when you were selling me the MD. Yet it was several days before I actually went to Paypal over you and that was more about your attitude. You haven't heard one word I've said. Either you aren't capable of understanding plain English or you just refuse to believe me. We both know it's the second. Despite my posting of proof you still deny it has a problem. You come back with some smoke and mirrors crap about fake web sites. Yeah fotop.com is a real weird site. I ask anyone to check it out. They host photos. Wow that's weird stuff. (sarcasm intended) Then you go on about me using a different email address. Earth to chris. I didn't have my web site address when I signed up for Paypal. Sheeesh what a bunch of crap. Here's the facts. The MD is off by as much as 8 minutes an hour. That's far from being in the realm of proper. You had to know this but you refuse to admit it. I can prove it easily to anyone. My other MD's don't have this problem. They are both dead accurate. Neither is off more than 1/29th of a second in an hour. Yours is off 8 minutes. That's seriously flawed. The more you deny that fact the more you just prove you have no intention of making it right. I'll let people judge you based on that. I'll let anyone test this MD that isn't you. You would never send me the MD back or my money. I can make it work if I must by using Time Warp in Goldwave. But that's a giant pain. I trusted you. You make up stupid reasons not to trust me. How many of us use the exact same email address all the time. Have you ever heard of switching ISP's? Don't you ever use any other address? If I set it up so I can use my web site address will you send me the money? The bottom line is you don't want to believe me because you are hard up for the money. You just don't want to do the right thing. You make up crap reasons not to believe me based on what? You really think I wanted to borrow your MD for a week? Get serious. You can check my commitment to what I'm doing easily by checking Camcorder Info or Panasonic 3CCD. I post on both boards every day. I have a video business. I don't need to borrow a MD. I need to buy one that works. I guess I'll have to buy another one. Yours sucks. BTW truth is a defense against libel. But libel is what newspapers do. Ordinary people slander. Truth is a defense against both. I'll be glad to prove the truth of my claim in court. It's easy except when people won't listen. Anyone can check the screen captures I posted on that spooky weird site fotop.com. I even used my screen name there like I do all over the net. You can check my character anywhere but you won't. You don't want to. You can check my screen captures at http://www.fotop.net/KingGhidora/MD_problem Click on each photo to see it closer. They show the overall file in Sony Vegas, the start where I synced the files and the end where they are seriously out of sync. That's proof chris. But go ahead and ignore it. I know you will. You've made that obvious. While you're at it check out the photos of me and my kids and my dog at http://www.fotop.net/KingGhidora. Yeah that's real sinister stuff there.

Boy did I jump too soon. The MD player he sent me had serious flaws. He probably knew about them.

I don't think "cynicism" is an appropriate description of what I posted. What I posted was disappointment that no one even bothered to respond to this question I posted. Being a cynic has nothing to do with that.

Thanks for nothing.

I bought a used MZ-NHF800 from twoheadedboy from a post on this board and it looks like I made a mistake buying it. The speed is off considerably. I have to set Time Warp to 83% in my sound editor to get the sound to match what I get with my camcorder. The camcorder matches my other camcorder exactly and my other MD exactly so I know it's the new HIMD that's off badly. I mean the other stuff matches to within half a second over an hour. This new HIMD is off by 4 minutes in half an hour. Is there possibly a speed adjustment in the service mode or some other option I'm not thinking about? I bought this to record audio for my video projects and it's going to be a pain to have to convert everything I record before I can use it. If I don't get the ratio perfect I will still have problems. I believe I worked out the proper ratio but this shouldn't be necessary. Any help would be appreciated.

Excellent person to deal with. No problems at all. Actually got more high capacity discs than mentioned in his post. Thanks again twoheadedboy. Great doing business with you.

The biggest thing here is that DAT wasn't around when audio gear really started to be updated for computers. If DAT had been we might have some reason to suggest it was better than HIMD but even then it would be a toss up IMO. There are advantages to both even taking away the computer angle. But for a secondary audio device for video there's no doubt about it HIMD rocks. DAT isn't even a distant second. Other new devices make it not even a contender. It's too bad really since DAT was once a great medium. Maybe someday some hacker will come up with a way to upload DAT material but unless that happens it's a dead platform for computer work.

I bought this MD so please be advised it is not still for sale.

I can always use some new discs.

What kind of discs are they, how many of them are there and how much do you want for them?

I am sending you a 2nd email. I forgot to include the MD's in my first offer.

I still have a working 8 track player. Some things were just built to last.

That's the one I saw before. Here's the link I couldn't find earlier. This seems to be a very promising technology. And yes I spaced on the original MD being recordable. Oops. I was thinking of the original portable, walkman type MD's.

I know the Edirol is an early adoption of a technology. When MD first appeared it wasn't recordable at all. The Edirol is just one of several devices I've seen lately. And the price isn't $600. It's around $440. Yes you have to buy a card but the price on those drops every day. This is just one example of what is to come and the price is on the way down. Then there's this Korg which is $350. No it isn't pocket size but it sure is powerful for an entry level recording device. And what about the Archos line? Add a pre-amp to a 20 gig hard drive Archos and you have a dynamite setup that will fit in your pocket and doesn't cost much more than a Hi-MD setup. Then there's the Tascam on this web site. Obviously it won't fit in your pocket but what do we really want, a walkman or a recorder. Look at the power of this machine for less than $700. It's a portable recording studio and it doesn't cost that much. And we all know there are portable walkman type players coming that will accept a mic. I saw one recently but I can't seem to find the link for it. If Sony really does get out of the pocket recorder business that will leave a huge gap and someone will fill it quickly. It's a popular item and when combined with the new technologies it will be awesome. If Sony is getting out of the MD business it's because they see the writing on the wall. Let's face it. A 1 gig disc has advantages. But a 40 gig hard drive has some too. And so does solid state recording. With the incredible popularity of walkman mp3 players there will be a push to build a recording version in the future. I've seen one already as I said. Archos essentially makes one already. I nearly bought an Archos last year but I decided to wait for the built in pre-amp. It will come. MD's days are numbered IMO. Technology marches on and no amount of nostalgia will stop it. And that is really what we're talking about here. I expect MD to last a few more years because it really is a wonderful technology. It's just that it's seen it's prime already and the future is coming.

I've looked through this thread since I posted my first comment and not one person has addressed the real issue here. There are other recording devices being sold NOW that are equal with MD in quality and superior in features in some ways. I know this is a MD board and MD has devoted fans. There has always been good reasons to be devoted to MD. But we all know Sony dropped the ball with marketing MD and they crippled MD because of their split imperatives. There are now devices that get around the limitations Sony built into MD. There are BETTER technologies available NOW that cost about the same as a good MD. I've been a huge fan of MD for years because there was nothing else that matched it. That is no longer true. Yes the new technology isn't proven to be as robust as MD but isn't solid state recording going to be far more robust than any moving device recording will ever be? Yes it will be hard to match the battery life of MD but is that really all that important with the advent of NIMH batteries? The future is here guys. If Sony doesn't decide to keep up they will lose the loyalty of the musicians and recording junkies. So what if they kill off MD. There are better things out there RIGHT NOW! I can't believe no one is talking about this. Doesn't anyone visit sites like The Musician's Friend or zZounds? MD has had a great run. It will hold a special place for me for the rest of my life. I will keep using my MD until it just won't work any more. But hey I thought the same thing about my AIWA portable cassette recorder with Dolby. The truth is MD is showing it's age. Technology marches on. It's time to move to the next big thing. MP3 will never be it. Multitrack hard drive based and solid state recording are here NOW. MD won't do what these things will do. I guess there are still people who say we should all be listening to vinyl and they have a point to an extent. But the truth is vinyl is dead. Cassettes are dead. DAT is dead. DCC is dead. CD's are dying. And MD is nearly dead. We just don't need it any more. There are better things available. They already do Moose. And this is just one of many to come. MD can't do what these things will do right now. And the technology is just getting up to speed. In 5 years we will look back at MD like we look back at cassettes right now. I've posted on this twice in this thread already. It's amazing how many people just aren't looking at the future. It looks like me and you and not too many more.

I've not read this entire thread so forgive me if I cover ground that has already been covered. The bottom line as I see it is this. Sony shot itself in the foot with MD years and years ago. They had the product that could have owned the market and they hamstrung it so badly that no one wanted to bother with it. I have been a huge fan of MD anyway. There just weren't any other types of devices that would do what MD can do. Until now anyway. Have you looked around? It is already possible to buy a small, multi-track recorder that is either hard drive based, solid state based or CD based. Yes MD has some advantages over all of these formats. But it has some things it doesn't do as well too. Sony could have eliminated these obstacles years ago but they didn't. Why should I now be loyal to Sony after they have treated us so badly over the years. So who cares if they kill off MD. It's only a matter of time anyway. Technology marches on and the chances of another 100 year run are almost nil. Prices are already down on high quality, portable recording devices that use compression free recording and transfer uploads over USB2 or Firewire and can record on the overwhelming standard of CD or on motor noise free memory chips or on huge capacity hard drives. I can buy NOW a hard drive recorder that will do multi-track recording without Sony's stupid legal hassles over copyrights. I don't think I would buy another MD now. MD has some serious advantages for sure. MD can be recorded in rough conditions. It has a very small form factor. Data can be stored for a very long time on cheap media. But those advantages will grow smaller and smaller over the next few years. Memory chip recording can be done in even the roughest conditions. Hard drives can record huge amounts of data and can transfer it quickly. Why should I be shackled to a dying technology? It would never have died if Sony hadn't stuck their head in the sand and denied the future. The future is now. Look at the recorders on this web site. And these are just the tip of the iceberg. If you want a walkman type device get an Ipod type device. If you want to record, which is what most MD fans are doing with their equipment, get a CD recorder or a hard drive recorder and skip the Sony hassles. I'll keep my MD for quite a while because it really works great but it has it's limits. There is a new wave of technology already being produced. The prices will come down and the quality is already up. The king is dead already. Long live the new king.