skyther

Isn't the DH10 metal front and back? Plastic is cheap and easier to manufacture as compared to metal fabrication. Saving a couple of bucks per unit is going to add up to thousands in the long run. Plastic or not, I'd rather they stick with gumsticks. The 2nd gen Hi-MDs are already too big.

I never said it was for recording music, I clearly mentioned that it was speech. And I wasn't the one who mentioned 8Kbps. You did, so please don't turn words against me. OK thx bai, this thread is nothing but wear and tear on my keyboard. Cori, Jaron and Nismo, have fun guys.

Wdf? That's definately a lot more than 8Kbps. And yes Chris, I suppose baseless statements like these sound more convincing and trusting? You gotta be kidding. If you think I'm biased, feel free to give Michael my mod post. All I see are zealots who refuse to accept truths and facts. MD is the last of my concerns and I've contributed enough to the community. Gimme a break, this place is turning into noobfest and I've got better things to do than this. It's your money, buy Hi-MD if you want, but be fair when making comparisons. GL HF, noobs.

Chris, don't even get me started. Sony optical drives are the worst you can get - they look good but function poorly. When I was getting one for this comp I was adviced against getting the Sony. TSST (Toshiba-Samsung) and Lite-On drives have way less compatibility problems and scratch tolerance. A similar opinion is held by CD/DVD ripping experts. A PC enthusiast like you should know that, omg. SE T610 is a well featured phone but is extremely buggy. No one here in Malaysia recommends it and it has the resale value of an 8310. I'll tell you what Sony produces well - televisions. Trinitrons and Wegas are their only products which I can't fault. VAIOs are way over priced for their features and offer nothing exceptional. Michael, forget it. Your opinions are all based on self-beliefs and myths. All that you've said so far shows that you can't even do some simple research ala Google before making blatant statements, hence I figure you're not really worth my time debating with. I'd rather debate with someone who has an idea of what he's talking about.

See gap between face and body? All my MDs have that gap, N10 being the worst and DS8 being better. The R55 wasn't too bad either. My 10 year old D-777 has near negligible gap, and both iPods have absolutely none. If that's not shoddy metalwork, I wouldn't know what it is. I've had a Clie before and that was pretty good, so I suspect that this only occurs in Sony's lower priced products. Damage, Win 98 is no longer officially supported by M$, so I can't see a reason why most people shouldn't be using XP and 2k. Heck, if you have a need and can afford an iPod, chances are you'd be using an updated version of Windows. I really don't see it as a problem. And I've never touched that disk mode thing. Just plug it in and XP identifies it as a removable HDD. Absolutely no hassle at all - in fact the only 'external media device' that ever gave me troubles with the need for drivers were the Cyber-shot and the phone. Sony can't make anything to do with computers for sh*t, especially their overpriced, filled-with-bloatware, unable-to-function-without-Sonys-poor-arse-custom-software-and-drivers, poor-value-for-money-with-crappy-specs VAIOs. They seem to enjoy selling feces for gold, and I'm actually suprised that people haven't realized how non-competitive Sony products are. Most of the time when you pay for a brand-name product you get the satisfaction and quality that the brand offers you, but with Sony you pay for the brand that treats customers like dogs.

Sony may be big, but they can't afford to manufacture everything by themselves. What's so suprising about a company outsourcing manufacturing of (relatively) low volume and low margin products? Even an giant of a chip manufacturer like Motorola not only outsources manufacturing but design as well. Sony manufactures the vital components of their products by themselves - components which don't change very much in design and components that contain their trade or technology secrets. Assembly and other parts are more often done by other companies, especially with cases like MD where the product line changes every year or 2. Product line change = requirements for the manufacturing machine to be modified and Sony doesn't exactly have the capital to handle all that. The NH1 is just a glorified NH900, and one of the reasons i'm guessing why it's made in Japan is that Sony finds it suitable for chassy metalwork (which sucks anyway, Sony MDs have the worst metalwork I've ever seen in any product) to be made there. All Sony MDPs with all-metal chassys have been Japanese made. BTW, iPod needs no drivers for disk access. Windows has never asked me for any driver. Same goes with my lappie which doesn't even have iTunes installed.

Dismantle it, and you'll get all the proof you need.

Nismo, I'm an idiot. Michael, I said a couple of posts back that the only real advantage that MD has is it's recording abilities, but even so this isn't a shove-it-in-your-face-big-deal-hoohah advantage for MD, since only until very recently you couldn't even digitally transfer your recordings onto another storage medium, ie. CD, which totally defeated the purpose and for a long while actually made MD a poor choice for people who were into serious recording. Even now I still consider Sony's digital upload method to be more of a backlane-style workaround rather than an official implementation. Now I'm not getting your second point re Japanese made products. On one hand you make it sound as if Japanese made models are real examples of quality and if you actually have as much experience with MD as you sound like you do, you'd know that the little "Made in Japan" print doesn't really say much as far as durability is concerned. For 3 whole posts you insisted that Japanese products were of superior quality and emphasized on your preference for them. That's like saying I'd really prefer to be driving a Mercedes and I have an old Mercedes but as far as the current state goes I'm only driving a Civic. Um, duh, of course I know that these products are manufactured by OEMs. Every major multi-national company outsources production, and Sony is no exception. Half the parts in a MD portable is manufactured by Mitsumi - a company that Sony has interest in. In case you didnt know, "Made in Japan" portables aren't made by Sony - they're made by local Japanese OEMs. Kenwood is the only company that still manufactures MD portables in their own plants. Most of the time manufacturing plants aren't set up by a single entity alone. Especially when the plant is stationed overseas, a local company is usually involved in a joint-venture in operating the plant and supervising production. All that matters is that the company (Apple or Sony) has a hand in supervising production and QA. You need to stop cherry picking the advantages of MD and placing it against the iPod. You can't say MD is both cheap AND of good quality because the NH600 is cheap an the NH1 is a quality product (assuming that it is... it's probably not at all ) where in reality the NH600 is cheap but just a plastic brick and the NH1 maybe he a quality product but no where near cheap.

1. I'm pretty sure the iTrip does more than 8kbps... 2. You have a NH600D. That's not made in Japan. So much for stating your preference. 3. Compal makes iPods? wtf? 4. Please don't buy an iPod. It's not cool to be one of those morons with white earbuds. Seems to me that you're just making random statements that don't make much sense, if any at all. I'm going to have to warn you to do a little research before you decide to dump another load of crap so at least you'll have an idea of what you're talking about.

Nup you don't need iTunes for hdd access. With iTrip, the iPod is capable of speech-quality recording. You were proven wrong re the codec bit but it looks like you're still not making any effort to correct yourself. First off, Minidisc units of any company (Sharp, Sony) that are made in Japan are no more durable than those made overseas. Evidence has proven the fact, and those with Malaysian made Sharp/Auvis will definately agree to this point that the build quality of these will put any 'top-end' Sony portable to shame. It's the design of the product that matters much more than the origin of the product. Second, Apple isn't a fly-by-night company that's only been around for 6 months. They don't outsource the manufacturing of their products to some random Chinese manufacturer. And unlike Sony, Apple doesn't have a reputation for selling shoddily designed products. If I had a made-with-95%-plastic-by-some-random-company-in-Malaysia-NH600D, I wouldn't be expecting too much in terms of quality. I don't think you understood what I said. Maybe you don't know what a Lexus or a Corolla is. Basically I was saying that you shouldn't compare the price of an el'cheapo NH600D to a mid-ranged 20GB. Hard drives cost more than optical blocks, y'know, so try to comprehend the situation and think of what you're getting for your money. Expensive? Hmm. Let's put it this way: if you can afford anything more than a NH600D, you can afford an iPod. An iPod is able to handle a beach environment better than a MD player can, minus the part about water which Damage brought up earlier. And... until 2 years ago, white earphones were a rarity. The popularity of a product is only created by it's success; what more can I say? Indeed MD is different, as an inferior product as a 'walkman' where it's only advantages are made to cater for a niche group of recorders, where even then it's still not offering a full package due to stupidity on Sony's behalf. Of course the inferior product isn't as popular as the successful one. Not like the E808s supplied with Sony MDs are any special either. 2 dollar black earbuds are in abundance, dontcha think? So much for a crowd of white earphones. BTW, Damage - that's what the X5 is for. And it's not just a raised 7 series.

It's all good BTW, I'm having that Tazo Chai stuff now... 15" WXGA + WiFi + Starbucks = gooooooooooooooooooood.

First off, a Pod is designed play off a mirror dupe of your PC's library, not as a primary. iTunes does this automatically while synchronizing. How it stands being exposed to shocks is debatable. Both are equally fragile in their own rights, and you can jarr an optical block as easy as you can force a hard drive crash. Both may or may not survive the unfortunate "one time fall", and generally aren't designed to go through extreme conditions such as being driven over by a car. Just in case you didn't know, they actually do drop tests on these things. You do have a laptop, don't you? Why would you worry more about dropping an iPod than a laptop? In the case of an iPod, the hard drive is remains parked 95% of the time. Heck, why are we discussing this? My original statement was that MDs and beaches don't mix. Lastly, things nowadays aren't made as durable as they once were. It's a 'use and throw' situation where things are easily replaced, so enjoy them while you can.

Jeez Damage. AL and Audible were designed for different purposes. Sure, they are AAC/MP4 spin-offs, but they cover bases which AAC doesn't. What's the difference in terms of aimed usage between ATRAC/3/+? Nothing, it's all for music. Maybe LP4/Hi-LP was designed with voice recording in mind, but that's just the same as saying 48kbps AAC or MP3 was for voice. Point being that he said an iPod supports only MP3 while his Hi-MD plays a little bit more, which is a statement made that's really far from the truth. Support for 3 publicly supported codec types means a lot more than support for 3 variants of a single proprietory codec. ATRAC means nothing to people other than MD and Connect users, which generally are any part of one and the same user base since no one gives a stuff about Connect if they don't have an ATRAC capable device. And so does an iPod play just MP3s? Yeah. I don't think that ugly cover gap on my N10 was one of Sony's eccentric design features. Truth be it known, my mini is a hell lot more rugged than any MD portable I've owned in the past, and that's a lot. Clearly Mr. Michael has probably never even used a pod before, which explains the hint of naiveness in his post. Damage, no single product is perfect. We were talking about a hypothetical BEACH situation, and even under normal use sand would get into the internals of a MD portable easy. No one said anything about data integrity so let's not drag every colossal problem the world has ever encountered into this. Sand = foreign particle. Foreign particle + mechanics = bad mix. A HDP isn't sealed as in AIR TIGHT sealed, but it is sealed from foreign matter. Absolutely pointless for you to describe to me how a hard drive functions because it doesn't really matter at all. And no one said you were taking an iPod to the beach to play footie either, and from experience the iPod has just as much shock tolerance as your typical MD unit. =] This is the 21st century. No one designs portable consumer electronics to last a lifetime. I'd rather use what I have without worry of how many contact cycles it's made till MTBF. :laugh: Like I said, I'm not being biased. And I'm not exactly a Head-Fi regular either.

? iPod - MP3, AAC, WAV, Apple Lossless, AIFF, Audible Hi-MD - ATRAC/3/+, WAV ? iPods are more metal than plastic and I suppose that makes it of poorer quality :wink: And so is a Civic several times cheaper than a Lexus, but would be more or less comparable to a Corolla... and gee the Civic appeals to me because it looks sportier than the Corolla, but since the Lexus looks kinda sporty too I think I'll compare the Civic to the Lexus instead :sleep: Really? I was under the impression that NH600Ds were for people who wanted an iPod but couldn't afford one and hence had to settle for a cheaper alternative :whatever: Most of my buds who now use iPods have had higher-end MD units in the past Yea a hummer looks hella though too, so why don't we all drive one? :grin: Someone ought to warn you that sand and optics don't match very well, while on the other hand an iPod is completely sealed. Saying MDs are perfect for beach-like environments is like saying a BMW 7 is the ultimate off-road, cross-country and deep-jungle trekking warrior. :wink: PS. Don't mind me, I'm not trying to be biased... you just aren't thinking hard enough. :wink:

TBH earbuds aren't really worth paying over a hundred bucks for. Their open-air design and small dynamic drivers don't really do wonders for sound. With the ATH, you're paying more for the looks and housing material of the earbud rather than the sound, and while they do sound better than the average earbut, are not really worth the quoted USD115. E888s are good earbuds but they don't last very long due to the nature of the materials used in the drivers. If they're well taken care of, you'd be lucky to have them last any longer than 3 years. Earbuds don't really excel in sound or fit, but they are convenient.

Iceeedtea you're just a small fry so please don't call me 'boi', kthx. Amazing how little kids nowadays can't tell who's in authority... =) So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehn, adieu... cya mate. p.s. It's good to see you back again. I can see that it's taken this long for you to return as you've probably been compiling in Gentoo all this while.

I thought that was my line... -.- VAIOs are the poorest value for money laptops you can get... other brands (apart from IBM and Toshiba) sell similarly spec'd models for 20ish% less.

Yawn. ifyourenotbeingconstructiveplsstfuandbragelsewherekthxbai.

I'm too poor to afford a rack =

Booyah. With phones in general, you get what you pay for. The cost for phones is usually split up into looks and quality. If you pay USD50 for 40 dollars worth of looks, you're only getting 10 bucks worth for quality and that's somewhat the case with EX71s. Likewise, Etys are a 270 dollar phone with 10 bucks worth of style. See what I mean?

^ I'm betting not, since Hi-MD now uses a proper filesystem unlike the old ones.

Um hello, ATRAC is used in decks. Optimizing ATRAC sound quality for portable devices would make it sound bad through speakers. AAC is used everywhere, not just iPods and other similar likes. Common sense would tell you that nobody, especially not Apple, would optimize the sound properties of a codec for a particular piece of equipment.

Ajaja.... I don't think he realized that Apple's main mainstream sales come from Macs (and not iPods), and iTunes (where the QT-AAC encoder sits) is primarily a PC product. This is just another example of someone talking out of his ass and completely bypassing any form of intelligence processing via the brain. QT *is* speed/encoding performance optimized for Mac hardware (Altivec) though.

Umm... the last time I checked, AAC/MP3/ATRAC = 44.1kHz. Codec = COMPRESSION, sample rate = D/A conversion. Music is recorded as a single waveform, not 'seperate' waveforms of varying frequencies. A higher sampling rate (as far as uncompressed formats go) lets you capture higher frequencies (>22kHz) and reduces the need for interpolation and therefore improves quality of the reproduced waveform. Lower bitrates affects both treble and bass frequencies because the cutoff points for the high and low pass filters are brought closer together, effectively reducing the recorded frequency range. Sample rates for all codecs are the same, but the frequency cutoffs are not. The number of audio 'snapshots' taken are still the same. Increasing bitrates has much greater potential at improving audio quality than changing codecs will. A better codec just handles compression with higher perceived efficiency - it's smarter at picking what to keep and what to dump. Bitrate allows a codec more freedom with what data to keep - the more it keeps, the more like the original it sounds. Since it keeps more data anyway, the 'efficiency' of the codec becomes a lot less relevant to the quality of the final product. Nevertheless, your point is moot. PCM is PCM, ATRAC is ATRAC. One is the original, another is processed. It's not even a question of the codec. Regarding your last point, I wonder if you're comparing the true fidelity of the codec, or the 'which-seems-to-sound-good' aspect. ATRAC/3/3+ have been known to employ heavy colouration, which gives it lower fidelity (as a representation of the original track) but makes it sound 'good' anyway. This is done to a much greater extent than MP3 (LAME) does. So once again, are you sure you tested for the true fidelity of the codecs or are you just merely stating what you think sounds good to your ears?

o.O why would a mod do that?