mmp64

I know before it didn't work - but I just succesfully placed an order on the Sony site. Yes, I know they are supposed to be cheaper at Wal-Mart, but they are not there yet. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get them.

Thanks. I'll give that a shot. It may also be a USB thing, which I'll also mess around with.

I may have solved one problem - by disconnecting and reconnecting the USB when it hangs after trying to initialize - but obviously that would not help when it hangs when transferring.

I am having MAJOR problems with both SS2 and Simple Burner, using my new 600D. Anyone else experiencing any of these: 1) SS2 locks up when formatting a "standard" MD as Hi-MD; 2) SS2 locks up when transferring tracks to a disc in Hi-MD mode; 3) Simple Burner locks up when transferring. I resinstalled but to no avail. I have a new PC - Pentium 4 with 1 GB of RAM. I never had these problems with SS 1.5 and NetMDs. I'm about ready to cancel my pre-order for the 900 and give up on MD period, though I've been a heavy user for 5+ years. I have no patience for poorly QA'd software.

What he was trying to say is that ATRAC is a superior CODEC to MP3 - so you can get equivalent sound with a smaller file (i.e., LP2 roughly = to MP3 192 kbps). I've done a lot of experimenting with MP3 vs. ATRAC and am currently of the opinion that the superior sound of ATRAC is due to the hardware, more than the software - i.e., the amp and eq of my MD units is superior to the MP3 players I've tested (Nomad, RCA Lyra).

I've done a lot of comparison, and have decided to stick w/ LP2. To be honest, to my ears, I can't tell much difference between Hi-SP and LP2. So given that LP2 is compatible w/ my NetMDs and my HiMD, and is roughly half the size of Hi-SP - it was kind of a no-brainer. Of course, there are others who think Hi-SP is superior to LP2. Only you can judge.

"it can normalize when burning a cd" Not sure what you mean - to me, the purpose of normalizing is achieving consistent volumes across multiple sources - which is a problem you would have if creating a playlist, (or album, in SS2's language). I did see something in the options about CD smoothing - or something like that - is that what you are referring to? (Don't have access to SS2 at the moment).

Here are two things I'd like to see in a future version of SS: 1) Normalizing 2) Auto-playlists (i.e. - make me a 3 hour playlist of Classic Rock and Alternative tunes, then normalize them when I transfer to MD. Or normalize my entire library).

I record TV shows from DVD at LP4 - which I'm sure is roughly equivalent to ATRAC3Plus 64K - and the results are fine. I wouldn't use either mode for music (I have tried, and mostly I didn't like it). For me - music = classic rock, power pop (Fountains of Wayne, Badfinger, etc.) and adult contemporary (fleetwood mac, eagles etc. etc.). I'm sure it would sound even worse for classical and jazz.

Yes - I pre-ordered my MZ-NH900 from minidisco.com last night. Have always had good luck w/ them for discs, cases, etc. Have not ordered a unit from them before.

Yes - my plans to migrate my ATRAC3 files to my new computer went out the window rather quickly when I installed my old hard drive (with the files) on my new computer. I ended up just trashing all of them - I'm now ripping my entire CD library to MP3 (256K) - will run them through MP3Gain to normalize - then import into SS2. I'll convert them to ATRAC on as as-needed basis - or I might do them all at once - haven't decided yet. If there were someway to normalize ATRAC, I'd rip directly to ATRAC - but there isn't. Besides, I also have a Nomad Zen Xtra. I did lots of testing - listening to tracks directly ripped to ATRAC, vs. converted to ATRAC from MP3. To my ears, there was little, if any, difference.

Yes MP3 is everywhere - but ATRAC is superior. Not only does it sound better, but you can do things w/ ATRAC that you can't do to MP3. But I agree that it would be cool if it could play both.

"And, of course any MD copy of a MP3 will sound slightly worse than the source MP3. " I don't agree. In fact, to my ears, the ATRAC sounds better than the source MP3. Do the test yourself. I think it is probably due to the superior EQ and Bass Boost on Sony's MD units vs. your garden variety MP3 player (in my case, the Nomad Zen Xtra).

Before anyone else orders from Datavis - I would suggest you check out epinions and see what other people have said. I'm staying away from them - but all the best to those that have ordered from them. I'll be interested to see how it works out.

Unless I'm missing something - MP3Gain is intended solely for batch normalizing MP3 files (obviously) - how would this help in normalizing either CD audio files - or .omg files - unless, of course, you ripped your CDs to MP3 first, then imported into SonicStage - which I don't want to do. What I'd like is a feature that will normalize tracks as they are transferred to MD - much like MusicMatch Jukebox. Thanks for all of your input.

Because I'm ripping to Atrac3 from CD and don't want to have to convert to MP3 or Wav first....

Any thoughts as to the likelihood/feasibility of Sony introducing normalizing as a feature of the new version of SonicStage?