defiant

I bought a MZ-NF610 and a Sony ECM MS907 mic to go with it. The combo records pretty well, but it seems kind of soft, as in, not loud. The recording level is on auto, and sterio. I listen to it on headphones and I have to crank it all the way up to get any kind of a listen out of it. The subject was no more than 20 feet away, and loud, so I would think it would record louder. Should I just go manual recording level? The actual recording quality is nice, just overall it seems that it should be listenable at say, 15, instead of 30 volume level. I was going to get rid of the thing, but now that I got the line out to record onto my computer, I am going to keep it. It is a pretty neat little gadget. thanks

Well folks, I am sure you all love questions from idiot newbies. So here goes a few. Any help and pointers would be appreciated. Flames are fine too. I just bought an MZ NF610 and a microphone, with the intention of recording various bits and pieces. I am sure you have figured the problem out already. I kinda wanted to be able to use the sound for other than listening to on my minidisc recorder, I wanted to be able to put it on cds, edit it, etc etc. As far as I can tell, I should either return the thing, or buy the right sound card, and then I can put it on my computer etc. Why is there not an easy way to do it? Why does sony not provide for reverse downloading? I will admit I didn't do enough research. I saw the good folks as NPR use the things, so I figured they must be easy to use and easy to access the sound. Should I just go buy a tape player or what?