aeriyn

The 710 has low volume. It is a UK model, therefore it has to abide by some inane French safety law about maximum volume on portable devices. The headphone amp in the MZ-N710 is 1.2mW+1.2mW, while North American models have a 5mW+5mW headphone amp. The MZ-NF810 (a sort of US version of the N710) is almost identical to the N710, except for the presence of an FM-band tuner. The MZ-N510 has the normal 5mW+5mW amp, but it doesn't have a microphone jack. If you don't need a mic jack, I'd get the N510 over the N710... The N510 is practically identical in function to the N505, one of my favorite units of the cost-reduced Sony units.

Bump. ^.^

I wouldn't try fixing it yourself. There is an electrical part of the eject switch; the switch does not function (will not open, no matter how many times you press it) while the recorder is doing a TOC Edit. I would send it to Sony for repairs... and I think the prediction of inexpensive cost is optimistic. >.>;

Not anymore; it's working properly now. I discharged it completely once, and let it sit on the charge stand overnight. It's working beautifully now. Besides, I'm trading my N10 for a DS8 anyway. xP

You can get one of the generic-brand 6V AC adaptors with a positive tip... I think it's >500mA, so that should not be hard to find. Try Radio Shack or the like. The USB cable for the N10 is proprietary and probably you can only get that from Sony's part replacement site.

For some reason, Li-Ion batteries are generally three times the voltage as Nickel Metal-Hydride. Don't ask me why... >.>;

Kurisu! Is the LIP-4WMB different from the LIP-3WMB (the battery inside the N10 and E10). My battery is still acting weird! >.<

I am looking for a DS8. It does not have to be new... I would actually prefer used especially if it lowered the price a bit! Anyone who has one and wants to sell it, send me a PM or reply to this thread.

If NetMD is what you want, I suggest the N10. I own one, and I like it. The Sharp IM-DR80 is better-sounding, but for recording purposes it is not as good since it has no LCD display on the main unit (recording levels must be monitored via the remote, which is a drag). The N10 has a big 3-line display which is good for keeping the levels right. Besides, you can often find an N10 cheaper and easier than finding an N1... e.e

The MZ-N1 does indeed have a problem that generally shows up about after a year of heavy use... The magnetic record head is mounted on the same carriage as the optical pick-up block, so the head (and the ribbon cable connected to the mainboard of the device) moves and is subjected to stress even during playback and not just recording. The ribbon cable is on a thin paper substrate and can break quite easily. This can be fixed though. There's directions in the technical support section of this forum. The MZ-R909 does not have NetMD capability. I guess if you didn't need it, then it would work okay. I do not know how tough and reliable the R909 is since I've never used it, but I do have an R900, and it is a great unit. I don't use it so much because of my N10 anymore, but before I owned my N10 it was my predominant MD unit. The R909 is supposed to be an upgraded version of the R900, so I imagine that most of the unit's features are the same or similar. You can check the various features of the units on minidisc.org or T-Station.

Yeah, you obviously enjoy irritating me. ¬.¬ I guess it really comes down to preference. You know, it would probably be easier, sound better and be more user-friendly if I bought an ipod or some other more accessible mainstream player instead of continuing to use my MD, but I've grown attached to it. And yes... I concede your point about the recording issue. I can admit when I'm wrong. xP

The ferrite core on my brother's NF520D was also attached to the remote control... *giggle* Stupid, ne? I would've stolen it and put it on the power cord for my N10's AC adapter, but there is already one attached to the wire. >.>;

Agreed. Sony's NW-HD1 should definitely have had native MP3 playback. Judging from the changes in design from normal MiniDisc to Hi-MD, I don't think it would have been much of a stretch to allow Hi-MD to utilize native MP3 playback and recording as well; since the device can function as a USB data drive, it utilizes a more common file system than the MiniDisc Audio System that the previous MD units uses. But of course, Sony is not that cool. Hi-MD with native MP3 playback and recording; I would've been first in line. ~

You all seem to be forgetting that Hi-MD is a removable media recorder. Sure, you can get 1 1/2 hours of linear PCM audio on one Hi-MD. When it's full, pop it out and put another one in. Thus, you could record endlessly as long as you had enough Hi-MDs. With a HDD player, this is not the case. You would fill up your drive (rather quickly, too, if you were recording uncompressed audio) and then you would be forced to either overwrite earlier recording or take the device to a computer to dump it out. I'm not too keen on Hi-MD; it can't do much more than my N10 for what I use it for. When I do live recordings, SP mode is fine for me; I'm not worried about recording in linear PCM. I'm patient enough to put the disc in my deck and run it through the optical out to my sound card. I guess this is different for me since I maybe only live-record 2 or 3 slow-play MDs per month; generally only when one of the bands I know needs to get a recording done in a hurry. I'm going to wait a generation or two before I pick up a Hi-MD unit, but if you're going to do a lot of recording, I would recommend it especially with the SonicStage WAVE Converter that will be released in August. It's supposed to let you upload and convert all audio recorded in ATRAC3plus 256kpbs to linear PCM .wav, which can be burned to a normal audio CD, encoded as an MP3, etc. Hope this helps. >.>;

The RM-MC33EL works with a lot. I know it works with the N505 (tried it with mine). It also works with the MD units of the NE410 design. I would imagine it would work with an N1 and an N707, probably NF810. It works with the MZ-NH600D, but only the US version. The UK version does not have a remote jack. o.O And it appears to come with the NH900. Since the EEPROM in the R900 and the N505 are the same chip (yeah I did the R900 hack on my N505) I imagine the MC33EL would work on my R900, although I've not tried it. Besides I only have one MC33EL and it gets used a lot on my N10. @.@

I'm pretty sure most sound cards ignore SCMS. Since the optical out on the MD deck is generally used to plug it into a stereo reciever for actual sound production (through speakers) I don't even know if the SCMS on the actual deck would make a difference. I DO know that if you took a recorded MD, put it in said MD deck and tried to record it digitally through the optical out to the optical in of another MD recorder (say a portable) it would likely have problems of the "NO COPY" variety. Of course, you could always do a UTOC clone on said deck with an analog copy, giving a digitally-recorded MD the UTOC from an analog-recorded MD. But that's a little time consuming... >.>; Logically, it would follow that SCMS exists on the input, not the output, at least as far as the manual for my MD recorder says. Hope this helps.

I bought my MZ-N10 off eBay for $171. @.@ And it's prettier than the NF810. e.e Smaller too.

Are you looking for a RCA-to-miniplug analog cable? Or an optical miniplug-to-S/PDIF coax? If you need to connect to the digital connection on a Sound Blaster, it sounds like you need S/PDIF coax, which means you'll probably need a format converter. Like this... a cable that goes Optical miniplug to TOSlink, plug that into the format converter's TOSlink i/o jack, and take S/PDIF coaxial out of the converter and into the back of your sound card. It can get sort of expensive. @.@

Oh man. I've seen those all over. Wal-Mart, Circuit City, Best Buy... That one is easy to find along with all the AA formfactor units.

Salvage the wires out of a cheap pair of headphones. They are very light and very flexible.

@.@ Do not run WinAmp or any other media player while running transferring songs to the MD. It causes problems. I don't know if it causes THIS problem, but it caused me problems. I could never listen to music while copying music to my MD unit. For me, WinAmp would crap out, not SonicStage, but try it. Try running SonicStage without any other processor- or memory-intensive programs running.

Hey, Skytherx... seems like every time I post, you reply to it. xP Was it that odd shape comment about the iPod, and now you've vowed to eternally annoy me until the end of time? Just kidding. ^.^

Conversely, if you start a manual real-time recording on a disc recorded with NetMD without hitting the "END SEARCH" button or setting the "Rec-Posi." to "From End," it will delete everything on the disc, leaving it as a "BLANKDISC". This happened accidentally with my N505 when I was an MD newbie. I forgot to write-protect my disc and forgot to hit the hold switch on the unit. I put it in my pocket and later in the day I wanted to listen to tunes, but they got erased! Ever since then I was careful to always leave my discs write-protected. xP I don't know if this "works" on all units. >.>;

Sonic Stage has never crashed on me, ever. Even v1.5. @.@ AMD Athlon XP 2200+ w/ 512mb PC2100 DDR RAM; never had a single problem with it (except its inherent limitations and restrictions).

Well, the battery life is much longer now after being used for a while and then recharged, used and recharged (but I did not let the battery die even once). I still don't think it's up to full, but the N10's manual says that some times the Li-Ion battery has shorter life when first opened, and to use it and charge it, use it and charge it until the proper life is achieved. Thanks a bunch. It works great now, although I haven't actually timed the battery life.