aeriyn

Wow, Chris. This looks really good. I like the gray/blue theme better than the green of old. Much more streamlined/modern look. Kudos to Scott for designing it.

If you still have the music imported to SonicStage in some other audio format (i.e. wav, mp3, etc.) you can delete the OpenMG protected files and re-import the music again with a fresh 3 transfers. Conversely, install SonicStage 2.1. Connect.com should work from any country. >.>; It's just a website.

You're turning me to the dark side, Skyther. I like that one better than the G4 iPods. I just wish it wasn't white... >.>; And no, I don't want a mini.

The IM-DR420 has the Auvi digital amp. Meaning, it does not have a true line-out. This could definitely be a problem, but I do not know how to fix it. >.< Ask Kurisu... he's knowledgeable about the Auvis.

Woo... Kurisu, this is such a hard one! Music is such a huge part of my life. I don't even own a television, but I listen to music constantly. I would honestly have to say that my very favorite artist is Utada Hikaru. I love her genre-spanning style, how she can put together a slow, deep song and then throw it into a fast hip-hop style jam, and on the next track an electric-guitar-filled pop-rock song? Multitalented, definitely. Not only does she have a great voice with a really good range, she also writes most of her own music. I have total respect for artists who write their own material, since writing is what I do best. I also like Ayumi quite a bit. Her songs are very different and inspired sounding, and her voice is of a complete different flavor than Hikki's. Ueto Aya is another Japanese female vocalist I've recently fallen in love with. Her voice is simply beautiful, and I eagerly await more albums to be released! Anyone who knows where I can get her debut album, please PM me! For more local artists... Opeth is a band that a friend introduced me to. While I haven't heard much of their music, what I have heard is wonderful. Acoustic guitar and clean lyrics interspersed with some really hard metal... it creates an awesome sound. Of course, I can't leave out A Perfect Circle. While I've liked Maynard's work with Tool for years, I especially like his "side project" for the slow, haunting ballads with a few harder songs more reminiscent of his other band. Poe... does anyone here remember Poe? I love her music. It's a shame there won't be any new Poe albums, because I love "Haunted" to death and listen to it on my MD frequently. "Control" is such a great song. I could go on forever... ^.^ So I think I'll cut it short here.

I'm 20 years old. My first MD recorder I received as a Christmas gift when I was 17, which was my pink (red?) Sony MZ-R900. I still have it, too... My first NetMD unit I obtained last year, the N505. I recently purchased a Sony MZ-N10 and concluded that while I actually like it for recording (especially live recording) better than my R900... it, well, sounds like mud. I'm waiting on a Sharp MD-DS8 that I am purchasing. Very impatiently, I might add. :happy: I'm not really surprised how obscure MiniDisc is in the US. Sony DRM's the technology so badly that no one really wants to deal with the headache when it's easier to use an MP3 player that has little or no DRM. I like MiniDisc as a format; I think it was a brilliant idea at the time and it's still not a bad solution for inexpensive live recording and a preferable alternative to cassette tapes. So I think comparing MD to MP3 is a little unfair, considering how that isn't what it was designed for!

A good portable unit with a powerful headphone amp (i.e. iPod, Creative Nomad) and a pair of Etymotic Research ER-4Ps may not sound EXACTLY as good as a high-end home rig... ... but it would come pretty damn close!

If it isn't, it must just really suck as an encoding method. Because it sounds bad. Real bad. Bad like anything at or around 64kbps would be expected to sound.

I agree with you completely. Having encoded files into the new codecs on SonicStage 2.1 (but not having actually listened to them on a Hi-MD unit since I don't own one) I have to say, Hi-SP is nice. I can't tell the difference between it and MP3 256kpbs (for obvious reasons) nor can I tell it from PCM (my hearing's gone on certain high frequencies, so my extrapolation may be whacked). Comparing Hi-SP and Hi-LP is sort of hard, and not really fair. I compared (via PC playback, not on any unit) Hi-SP to PCM and MP3 256kbps, and it's all good. Hi-LP to me sounds almost identical to LP4 from the "old" MiniDisc. Like I said, my ears don't pick up what others' do. Hi-LP is a little better, but not by much. I don't consider it good enough even for casual listening. LP2 blows both Hi-LP and LP4 away completely; there is such a huge difference in the sound to my ears. Comparing LP2 and Hi-SP and LP4 makes more sense, because while LP2 sounds good, Hi-SP sounds better. It is interesting to note that only in the almost complete silence of my room could I really appreciate the differences between Hi-SP and LP2. While in my car (which is poorly insulated for sound and generates all sorts of masking signals) or out and about where people are talking, cars are driving, the wind, the air, general ambient noise... LP2 sounds good enough for me, which sort of surprises me. Why didn't Sony include a 128kbps mode of ATRAC3plus? It makes no sense... Btw, what is missing from Hi-LP that is in LP2 mode is this: Normal Stereo. Hi-LP is Joint Stereo, and while the technique is lossless, it tends to kill the locational effect of true two-channel sound. I did a test, not real scientific I might add, where I encoded a bunch of music into LP4 (66kbps ATRAC3) and listened to it (and ONLY it) for two weeks. Only after subjecting myself to that did I truly appreciate the difference that Normal Stereo makes between the two encoding modes. I've never heard Hi-LP mode on a portable, but I imagine it would be pretty close to LP4. Bottom line is... LP2 is way ahead of Hi-LP. If you've got Hi-MD, I'd stick to Hi-SP recordings.

Yes, Hi-MD has you covered there. There's nothing else around with 1GB of removable media that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Flash memory players are not overly expensive unless you get into the high-capacity range. I've never recommended flash-based players before unless you either are prone to dropping your unit or it is for a child's use and would be subjected to above-average stress and impact. True. Hi-MD's capacity is limited only by the number of MDs you purchase. But how many of those would you really carry around with you? When I go out with my MD player, I usually take one or two discs tops. The iPod Mini and the Creative Nomad Muvo2 are quite small (the Muvo2 actually almost the same dimensions and general shape as most subcompact MD units). The HDDs in these devides are designed to withstand impact, but yes they can suffer head crashes. MD units can also suffer optical pick-up block faults, in which case either unit would require service.

If that is the case, you should use a native MP3 player rather than MiniDisc. It can. However, since it has to transcode the file from MPEG Layer-3 Audio to ATRAC3plus, you will have additional compression artifacts introduced into the music. This is not so noticeable if the source MP3 is a first-generation encoding, but it is still not the best way to go.

Sharp's Auvi 1-bit Digital Amp actually DOES make a difference in terms of sound. It makes it sounds very good IMO. ^.^

I have a US model N10, and I thought it sounded as good or slightly better than the N505 I had, and about the same as my R900. But I got to test a friend's DS8... I used an SP-recorded MD of Hamasaki Ayumi's album "RAINBOW" and played through the entire album on each MD unit. Headphones used on each unit were Sony MDR-E66s. The DS8 blows holes into the N10. I thought it sounded good, but now it just sounds like mud to me.

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. That means tracks encoded with SonicStage can only be played/transferred to MD on the computer they were encoded with. This has never been the case for me. I have run into ONE file that gave me a copyright violation error and would not transcode to ATRAC3, but I solved that problem by deleting it and downloading a different (and incidentally, higher bitrate) MP3 file.

There is a laser and a magnetic write head. The laser increases power above that used for reading to heat the substrate to its Curie temperature, and the magnetic write head alters the domains that represent zeros and ones. To me, it sounds like a problem with the magnetic write head. Some units have both the magnetic write head and the laser/optical pick-up block assembly attached to the same carriage; so the magnetic head and the laser assembly move even during playback, putting stress on the ribbon cable connecting the unit's mainboard to the magnetic head. I suggest getting the unit serviced.

The iPod is not designed as a recorder. It is designed as a player. It doesn't have any inputs other than data.

Those numbers directly affect how it sounds. >.>; About the N710... try finding a pair of headphones with as low impedance as possible (I think 16 ohms is as low as you can go).

This modem is quite capable of storing PPPoE information or functioning as bridged ethernet... ... but for some reason, it won't store the password; it forces Windows XP to do that. Also, even though my router is telling it what the password is, it will not accept it.

Kurisu... I love you. *clinghugsnuggle* That is AWESOME. Thank you so much.

Hehehe.

My stupid internet connection won't route. It is a BellSouth PPPoE connection that is bizarre in the fact that it always wants a password... the modem doesn't store it and keep connection alive, which is mystifying to me. (This did not happen at the last place I lived.) I have a Motorola 802.11g wireless router (no I'm not messing with wireless yet, still trying to get the regular ethernet to fscking route). Anyhow. >.>; Does anyone know how to make the router and the modem play nice? ^.^ BTW, the connection works fine if I plug it straight into my PC, but more than me needs to use this connection.

What about impedance? Surely that lowers the SPL of the headphones. Prolonged exposure meaning hours and hours and hours. I've gone to concerts where the decibel level was waaaay up there and didn't suffer anything worse than a sore throat and ringing ears for a day or two. The level of ambient sound at my job, in a hot kitchen with all sorts of ovens, stoves, mixers and the like going on (not to mention shouting, cursing, customer conversations, etc.) is probably pretty well up there, too.

Besides, MDLP modes of encoding are not handled by the Type-R DSP. Type-R handles SP mode...

I saw. Thanks.

>.>; Two words for ye, Skyther... hell naw. I can get it from Audiocubes for USD236.00... >.>;