tekdroid

Agreed. The fine sound quality on decent cans WITH DECENT VOLUMES. My one real criticism of Sony Hi-MD portables (and most of the rest of their portables) is their low power output. Cowon, iRiver, Meizu and the rest all have far higher-power amps (but many don't sound as good...)

Debatable But congrats.

http://www.amazon.co.jp sells for a bit less than US$100 difference, but still mucho expensivo (relatively speaking).

what makes you say this?

I like the trend of in-camera stabilisation, rather than in-lens. Olympus, Sony and Pentax are doing great things in their respective price ranges, IMO. It would be hard for me to ignore their cams in my next purchase.

that's why you accessorise, dahling! Different remotes for different purposes / moods / days / nights / clothes. Sometimes you need the bulk, other times you travel light. Oh that remote is 'you', dahlink. Yes, wear it like that. etc etc

IMO, the fact that you have to unscrew the thing to get to the battery kills all the usefulness of a replaceable battery. Shame SanDisk chose to implement things that way. Very unfriendly to 99.9% of the market who expect to switch out a battery easily. FatFish If gapless playback is important to you, you'll be missing it in the Sandisk. (Not to mention other MD-centric features you may use).

Maybe someone that's used the MZ-S1 Sports model can comment, but I would imagine that would be sealed up well and quite quiet compared to the rest.

MZ-RH1 also misses out on some features earlier models had...so I don't view it as the best choice or ultimate recorder, especially not for just PC-to-MD transfers. The MZ-NH600 is the best choice on a bang-for-buck basis. It has USB as well as LINE and OPTICAL. The MZ-NH600D omits these in favour of just the USB. Move up to the MZ-NH700 and you get a MIC input, too. These are all first-generation Hi-MD models that can be bought new or second-hand, depending on where you are (lots were sourced from Australia in the Great Hi-MD Clear-Out of 2005/2006)

Yeh, I owned a deck... None were as fast as DAT, tho. There was a big debate within Philips as to whether they should go disc or tape with their product. Active discussions, etc. Many in the company wanted disc, but tape won over. There was an interview with Jan Timmer at the period it was released in one of the magazines. I forget which. I remember the guy basically decided on the backward compatibility as something people would like when transitioning from analogue tape to "digital recording". Turns out he was dead wrong. Anyway, the product choices they made with DCC ignored the fact there was a BIG shift to CD by 1992 (I boght my first CD unit then, too), and people will never find tape attractive in a new product after experiencing instant track access. Though they loved to trumped just how popular cassette was, their statistics were meaningless because of the rapidly shifting sands, so to speak. Guitarfxr, There are still DCC tapes (and decks) on ebay .

Philips did a fine job on their PASC and to my ears was worlds apart from MiniDisc for many years. I dunno how they would compare today but it's pretty irrelevant now. The two formats were so different, I think only a minority chose them on sound quality (and DAT was always around). By 1997, CD-R started to get affordable, too...and the rest is history. IMO, Philips made a terrible mistake sticking to tape. Sony asked them to co-develop what would be MiniDisc but they refused. Oh well.

http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/09...myfirstsony.wmv

was probably just the unit buffering the audio in its shock-resistant memory before playback, which explains why you heard the clicking and whirring well before the silence gap

What is your budget? Why are you giving up MD?

the downfalls of the RM-MC40ELK are: 1) weak backlight 2) no dedicated GROUP buttons (nothing can really replace these) but damned if I'd use another remote to search for a particular track I want; the three lines and rolly wheel rule.

Simply name your groups like this: Artist - Album1 Artist - Album2 Artist - Album3 Unless I'm missing something, this will do what you want.

what you should have should be listed in the manual: http://www.css.ap.sony.com/consumer/templa...=Personal+Audio Select Hi-MD walkman in the first drop-down. As far as I remember, only the Japanese versions come with a long and short USB cable. (at least that's what I heard a while ago)

yeah, they've been selling for a while and as far as I can tell, people have had no issues with those selling by "liebflea" and others on ebay. I'm unsure if this seller sells fake batts, headphones, etc. What I've found on ebay is that most buyers don't even know when it comes to fakes, particularly in areas where the sound quality of headphones, for instance, sez they should... BUT As far as I can tell nobody has had issues with the Lithium-Ion gumsticks tho. Could be dead wrong on this, but I think swelling batteries and whatnot were confined to the Ni-MH gumstick fakes..

I just searched the MZ-RH1 PDF manual for "release" and it doesn't seem to exist in the manual. Yet another odd feature/design choice of the RH1, it seems? What's weird is I don't think anyone has discussed this in the past, or I may just be going senile.

saw them here too, while browsing for an unrelated purchase: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/4415...3_Minidisc.html Same price.

This just in: Sony to release Hi-SD. All the features of Hi-MD in a smaller size SD-based portable, with removable batts & media, too - just like Hi-MD. In a shock announcement, Sony have abandoned all forms of MemoryStick in favour of the more widely-adopted SD flashmemory format. Stay tuned. (sorry, couldn't resist) To be serious, the encryption (get rid of it) and filesystems (UDF please), speed (Zzz) and capacity of Hi-MD are the only really substantial things I think they can improve on (and allowing straightforward copies of copies of Hi-MDs to Hi-MDs, for instance). The rest is nit-picking. The choice of remotes is awesome, the editing on disc is awesome, the removable batts are awesome, the input choices are great, the sound is good, the recording chemistry seems robust.. Even if they did nothing but get rid of the encryption and/or allow native drag n drop with new models, that would be enough for me to invest in the format. There is still nothing out there like it. Hell, who am I kidding? A cheaper price is enough for me to invest in my fourth unit

Hi David Thanks for your calm reply to my sometimes smartie response. I was going in to this article expecting more relevance on the MiniDisc side of the equation, so I guess that part made me a little underwhelmed. My apologies if it came off as a tad abrasive. Recording lectures wouldn't need much more than what you're doing, you're right. Nice tip from richyhu about the WAV converter. I never tried SonicStage in Vista so I assumed for some reason or another the WAV conversion process inside SonicStage wasn't working in there. Good to see it's fine... I think Sony have taken MiniDisc pretty much as far as they can cost-effectively take it. I think we're all hoping for a cool portable recorder sharing many Hi-MD characteristics but some with some new horizons bursting forth from the slow-moving Sony. In fact, it seems like all the Japanese manufacturers are taking a back-seat when it comes to portable audio these days. Anyway, I wish more people would investigate alternatives like you did when shopping around for new portable audio. Thanks for putting your blog in context here in the forums - it puts things in perspective. (and thanks for taking some ribbing from me

except it's not an article saying that. Credit where it's due, he's a guy who was trying to make an informed decision about his music player. I must admit I expected a somewhat "MiniDisc-versus-other" article to be linked here, but I guess Webmaster linked to it simply coz it linked to minidisc.org and that's how it was discovered. It's barely relevant, IMO. 'Cause it doesn't go into a half-decent comparison between MiniDisc and anything, really. It sorta just mentions it in passing. I have no doubt. And seeing all the manufacturers are essentially using the same (or similar) displays, flash, HDs, batteries, etc... I doubt there is much difference between many brands reliability-wise..., aside from the usual sound/ firmware/ manufacturing/ materials choices in any particular model.. I really was joking, btw. I know it's an often-discussed point that brings people to their sides, which is humorous As for me, I might be interested in Apple's products one day, but that day has yet to come (and I see many many competitors doing a better job than they are for what I look for in a player). But as long as Hi-MD exists, I won't be interested (which I think does more of what I want than any single portable audio device out there).

so is he happy with his Creative Zen V Plus? Was that the point? A meandering article, to put things nicely. I read it all then forgot what I read...and why I started reading. Then again it could be just me? Also, he mentions MiniDiscs record to ATRAC (which he converts to WAV then to mp3 (!), but doesn't mention linear PCM recording as an option at all. That article could do with a lot more clarity and focus, IMO. I would also like to know how his second son (Eric) came to the conclusion that Apple's hardware is durable Joke. And yes, it would seem we all know that some bundled software can suck, and that Apple ties-in with iTunes. Being that he buys CDs, he can do what he wants with countnless software, including iTunes. Where is the lock-in if he has the music on CDs and his HD(s)? Aside from Apple encrypting things. Get a mass-storage compliant music player and you're good to go. Was that the point of the article? Also, Cowon and Meizu were not mentioned at all, nor was FLAC (or Ogg Vorbis), so this article gets no points from me

if this is the end, the replacement is...? Sony sure haven't released a feature-equivalent replacement in Hi-MD's price range. ...and they haven't announced the non-production of the format as they did DAT a while back. Until I see a feature-equivalent model in the same-ish price announced and until I hear official word that they are stopping production, I'm kinda doubting this is the end. If it is, it's been a good ride, and will continue to be for me, personally. I think I picked up some fine recorders that I'll be using for years. countdown to removal on Sony Business & Broadcasting site: http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusin...;p=10&sp=83 countdown to removal on: http://www.sony.com.au/walkman/category.jsp?id=21995