Rumz

Damn straight Just kidding. Honestly I have no attachment to any specific format. I disliked the sound of the NH1 the day I heard it, and that was long before I cared for any iPod. My *opinion* stands in contrast to many who find the NH1 / RH1 to really sound good to them. I could never get it to sound a way that I liked it... fatigued my ears really quickly. My point is not "iPod vs. MD", it's just that, as MD users go, I tend to find that they really prefer the sound of Atrac and/or the sound of Sony's HD amps or other units, and because of this they also tend to make non-objective blanket statements praising the sound quality of their beloved Hi-MD / MD / atrac unit (which is fine) and bashing the iPod (typically people put down other things to make the thing they prefer look better. Why do you think people have to belittle other things to make their point on any subject (not just this one)? It's a little immature if you ask me, and often a sign of some type of insecurity--or maybe they just don't know any better. They also usually fail to mention anything else in the DAP market, though I understand-- nothing else has the market penetration of the iPod and hence they probably haven't tried as many other units.) If you knew me, you'd know I enjoy the RH10 (whereas most MD users tend to NOT like the RH10) much more than the RH1 or NH1 (given I haven't tried any of the other Hi-MD units). You'd also know that I love Atrac Type R and Atrac3plus @ 352kbps-- the latter sounding excellent on my Sony *flash* players. I've used a variety of players in the past-- MD, Sony, Sharp, and then onto the flash / hdd based stuff from Sony, iRiver, Apple, etc., so I'd like to think I'm not completely shooting from the hip on my opinions. You'll also never find me claiming that iPod has the best SQ or this player or that player has the best SQ. It's a purely subjective argument and there's no point in making it. I'll say what I prefer and what I enjoy, but I'll never claim it to be the best. It's just the "best" for *me*. Does this make sense? It's a mentality, an attitude. As you pointed out, there are a lot of variables (in codecs, in different models of both Hi-MD and iPod, etc) to really make an objective argument that "Hi-MD is better sounding than iPod". It really depends on what aspects of sound the user appreciates most, and it's just preference if you like one more than the other. It's one thing to say "yeah I really don't enjoy the iPod but love the sound of my Hi-MD", but another to make a blanket statement as if it's fact that one is the best. There's just no way to prove that one is absolutely better than the other, nor is there any use in doing so. You really need to go with what you enjoy most, not what the majority say is "the best". Unfortunately pretty much everyone has pride/an ego and are set on being right and having their preferences validated. Share what you love, folks, not what you hate. I enjoy my RH10, my 5.5g iPod, and my Sony NW-A608. And I really wish Sony would step up their game in the portable audio market.

Seriously. To come here and see Ray-- gives me warm fuzzies. I've missed ya, Ray

Ehehe. I'm here to offer a differing *opinion*. The RH1 is great if you like lots of treble (and therefore you think "detail".) I personally can't stand it-- much prefer the sound of the RH10, even if I have to bump the treble when playing mp3s. Maybe my ears are a little sensitive to treble and thats why my sound preferences differ... As for the iPod... yeah. To each his own. I'm told the Cowon's sound great, but mostly I think that Minidisc followers and Sony fans in general are biased towards Sony's sound signature and not necessarily "quality". It's kinda like, whatever you're accustomed to hearing, that becomes your reference point. I used to love MD, too. I might still if they had something more than 1gb as a storage option (like I said-- the RH10 is one of my favorites for sound). But I disagree about the iPod-- I don't need an amp (nay, I rarely use an amp with my 5.5g iPod) and it sounds great with the KSC-75 and the Sony EX90. I'll conceed that I do think it sounds boring and uninvolving if I don't use the right headphones... I think Sonys are a little more diverse with how well they pair with headphones. Alas... I don't expect MD / Sony fans to be reasonable about SQ (p.s. yeah I'm not big on the Nano's sound either... I do enjoy the full sized iPod's sound, tho.)

I have just had diagnostics run on it at a local pc shop to be certain of what the problem is. What am I doing next to my PC? CANABALIZING IT, YAY! Ram, Vid Card and CPU gonna have to go up on ebay. The mobo went south— so maybe I’ll sell the XPC SN95G5 as-is on ebay for anyone that wants parts or to try to fix it. Sometimes I hate computers.

Right, well I didn't mean "true" drag and drop (because I know how the format works) but more like the mp3 file manager program that some Sony mp3 players utilize-- instead of using a library like sonic stage, you just drag and drop in the program... not bad

Are you able to play back Hi-MD discs via USB > PC optical out > home stereo? Legacy MD is not an issue for me because decks with optical out exist. They do not exist for Hi-MD.

Hello MZ-RH10. Welcome back to the fold indeed... I might actually enjoy the sound signature of the RH10 more than the RH1, though the jury is still out on mp3 playback (I think it sounds fine so far with EQ, but I'm concerned that songs might end up sounding more processed than I'd like. No EQ on Atrac recordings is just excellent, though). I guess I hate goodbyes All my units stay with me.

I'll have to give this a whirl. Drag and Drop would be slick-- and why is this not on the front page of minidisc.org while a story about some fancy blanks is? Not knocking the blanks, I want some too, but hey-- this actually makes Hi-MD usuable as a music player on Macs!

I'm not sure if any of those formats will preserve the gapless nature of music with any of the programs you're thinking of, though I haven't tried them. I know mp3 is not gapless (though it seems I've heard of a round about way to get them to be gapless, it just seems like it's not worth the effort to me). Personally I like mp3-- simply because it works on everything. Gaps are really the only drawback to the format for me. I have iTunes set up to rip and encode using LAME at a pretty high quality setting (though I'm using a Mac-- you might want to use EAC to rip and encode with LAME on a PC). Most people say if your mp3s are above the 192kbps bitrate that they should survive the transcoding process in sonic stage and still sound pretty good, so perhaps you could use LAME at a quality setting of 1 or 2 (or 0 if you want the highest possible, but the files will be bigger). You could also get a Hi-MD unit that plays mp3s natively

Nabbed a like-new RH10, ordered a game keypad, and getting close to pulling the trigger on a psp+memory stick pro duo (can get the psp 20% off next week). Ah, I hate this thing called patience =P

I'm sure we'll hear about it here first when it becomes available

Very cool stuff, makes me wish I took more time for photography and weren't selling my dslr

Hello MZ-RH1, Hello Hi-MD (again).

That's about on par with my experience. I uploaded a 73 minute long disc yesterday-- actual upload took about 7 minutes, then it took another minute or so to convert to "wav"-- between 8 and 9 minutes overall.

No idea. The Canada Post tracking info only has that the post office received it on June 23. The USPS tracking page only says that it arrived at a local post office at about 5:50am this morning. Almost no tracking information about its progress. Did they send you another one?