aeriyn

There are other digital recorders. Edirol makes one, Mayah makes one and so does Marantz. They are more expensive than MD, however, and they are designed for professional use... but hey! At least they fscking WORK! The speed of Hi-MD write is limited by MO drive write speed. I won't comment on anything else as my opinion is tainted and I'm still rather amused by Sony's continued efforts to shoot themselves in the foot.

It's not analog. It's just uncompressed.

Nah. Sony doesn't even try to market it here anymore. The last, and only, MD commercial I ever saw on TV was in 1998, showcasing the R50. If SonicStage didn't suck so horribly... ... yeah, you know what I'm saying. If Sony would learn to stop trying to "market" Hi-MD as a consumer listening format and shift their gears to marketing it as a prosumer recording product, they'd be a shoe-in for a niche that's not filled at all, really. Oh, and get rid of all the restrictions on the product and it'd actually sell. No one else is restricted like that. Oh, and raise the output from the pitiful 5mW. The creative labs muvo thumbdrive MP3 players have more than 5mW per channel. Sheesh, it's not that hard. As for me, I'll be rockin' out to Aikawa Nanase or sundry other tunes on my iPod Mini, and fondly recall the days and the sound quality of my Sharp MD player.

I'm boring. I listen to albums. In order.

Erm, only if you're a moron and listen too loud. The potential for any headphone to destroy your hearing is quite high. IEMs don't do it any more than big studio or premium headsets. Yeah, the driver's way up in your ear, but it's also a lot smaller. Edit: if these have better highs than the E3cs, you can bet your ass I'll be buying me a pair.

They aren't but 120USD with free shipping from PCMall. At least, they were a week ago.

UMD is DVD. It's a cut down DVD encased in a plastic shell. It's not a recordable format and if Sony has anything to say about it, it probably never will be either.

He is right, however, in that most of the high quality canalphone type earphones are not going to have a cord shorter than five feet long. Consider whether you really need the remote or not, and if you do, Nismo has the best idea I've seen in a long time to deal with that extra cord length. I did pretty much the same thing when I still had my DS8; it went, with the remote cord curled up, inside an Audio-Technica MD player case, and the remote was clipped to the side. Then I could use the Shure E2 that I once had without being tangled up in 9 feet of cord. If Sony does anything at all with the new Hi-MD units, they should add a backlight to the LCD of the main unit. Of course, there's lots of other things I should mention... Edit: Oh, and btw, if it is clarity you're looking for in a pair of phones, steer clear of the E2s. They're terribly dark and have significantly rolled-off highs. They can really shine when used with a bright source or an equalizer with the highs pushed up considerably, but don't expect good out of the box sound with the E2s. The E3cs are much, much better, with excellent clarity and better highs (still a bit rolled off though). The ER-6s are not bad, but are a tad fragile and prone to breaking.

If you're going to transcode MP3 to ATRAC, I suggest you use the highest bitrate available to you. Transcoding further degrades the audio signal and it is best to use the least-degrading option open to you.

Not really. Sony continues to shove DRM down tapers' throats even though the material is theirs and copyright to them. However, various enterprising members of the MD community have developed some workarounds. Try searching for HiMDRender and read about it, see if that fits your requirements.

iPod Shuffle = ill advised. If it really only plays random, like some rumors have suggested, it is REALLY stupid.

Audio-Technica A500/A700. =P I'd say go with the A900 as I like these cans myself, but your budget doesn't go quite so high. The A500 or A700 should do you pretty well. Also, check out the Sony MDR-CD780. Generally it sells for about $100 US. Again I'll recommend the Beyerdynamic DT770/80 PRO. Look for them used; you may find them for around $110 US.

Hey, the Cambridge CDP gets lots of love too!

I'm still here. And yeah, that was one of the reasons I didn't want to mod anymore. Since I don't use MD anymore, my interaction on this forum went down. It happened once when everything started going to Hi-MD discussion; I still was using normal MD. Then when I got my iPod Mini, it kinda seemed pointless in the fact that I wasn't here enough to actually moderate well. I will, of course, remain on hand to keep Chris from going nuts, as well as try to help newbies into the realm of high-end audio from getting ripped off. And yes, Chris, my avatar is my character from World of Warcraft.

I've noticed that at my job, the general manager tends to notice the achievements of the general screw-ups... like, when they do a good job in the midst of all their whining and complaining and bullshitting, he notices it more than he notices my continual good work. He takes my proficiency for granted, and praises the slackers when they actually do a good job for a change. I come in five minutes late once this last week because my alarm clock mysteriously started ringing at random times instead of when I set it, and he downs on me for it, but still hasn't fired the guy who regularly comes in a half hour late. Poor management... I'm glad (and so is everyone else) that he's leaving next month. It'd be nice if they picked me to replace him, since out of the two people who has been here the longest, I'm the only one with a flexible enough schedule (the other manager choice is going to nursing school and can't work the extended hours).

Top 5~ Aikawa Nanase "FOXTROT" Aikawa Nanase "Crimson" Ueto Aya "AYAUETO" Shiina Ringo "Karuki Zaamen Kurino Hana" Opeth "Blackwater Park"

If you're going to go with the Sharp, I wouldn't suggest the DR80 personally. The main uint has no LCD display so you're pretty much stuck with the remote. The DR7/DR77 are viable alternatives. They lack NetMD functionality, or perhaps I should say dysfunctionality. It's not a huge loss since you can't get SP mode recordings from the NetMD anyhow. Also, the optical/line-in on the DR80 is not on the main unit, but on the dock. This may cause some inconveniences.

Vinyl! Analog > all, at least when it comes to audio. Too bad that out of all my favorite artists, only one has an album cut in vinyl. And btw, I still use CDs religiously. Just not portably. At home on my Cambridge CDP, oh yeah, why listen to compressed music when you can have pure, clean, refreshing linear PCM.

This is a loaded question. First of all, impedance of a headphone is not the end-all of its efficiency. Sensitivity plays an even greater role in this. Why would my Shure E3cs, with 24ohm impedance, be louder at the same level as my old Shure E2cs, with 16ohm impedance? Same can be said about E5c vs. E3c, except the impedance difference is much larger (i.e. E5cs impede 110ohms as opposed to 24). Headphone jack output on portable devices is important because it determines what types of headphones would work best with the portable. Since human hearing is logarithmic, it takes ten times the power to make an audio signal sound twice as loud. For example, a typical MD player's output is 5mW. Another DAP, the Creative Nomad Jukebox 3, has a 50mW output; ten times the power of the MD player. At full volume, the NJB3 would be twice as loud as our typical MD player. Also, the more powerful the amp in a player, the better it tends to sound. When it comes to using portable amplification with a DAP, a more powerful headphone output is desired, since most portable music players either don't have a line-out or they have a pseudo line-out (iPod and most DAPs included) which is merely the headphone output at full volume with effects and EQ turned off. The lower the line level signal, the higher the signal-to-noise ratio at the outboard amp is going to be, which degrades sound quality. I often complain about Sony's insistence on installing 5mW amplifiers in their portable units because it's cutting corners. It doesn't serve much true purpose besides making the unit a bit cheaper for Sony to build. It may extend battery life, as well, but I'd rather be able to use my inefficient headphones and have better sound than have a longer battery life. Your mileage may vary however. Sensitivity first, impedance second. The higher the sensitivity (in dB/mW) the more efficient the phone is. The higher the impedance, the volume will be reduced.

Do you really not like Malaysia? Just because something's made there doesn't make it suck. My old Sharp DS8 was made in Malaysia and its build quality was 10x that of the Sony MZ-N10 I had before that, and it was better than the R900 I also had.

Sony's metalwork on their MDPs is very shoddy in comparison to other MD makers. My old Sharp DS8 was much more sturdy and solid than any Sony portable I ever owned, even my tank-like R900. The N10 that I had briefly was flimsy feeling and I always felt like I had to be careful with it. Not so with the DS8. And it does not strike me as ironic that even as rugged as the DS8 was, it's still nowhere near as tough as my iPod Mini. Damage, I wasn't speaking of Blu-Ray in the sense of media players; I doubt very seriously that would ever happen. HDD and solid state is where the market's already at, and removable media for portable audio is dying a slow and painful death. What I meant was Blu-Ray for pro audio: i.e. recording. If they can get the power issues solved.

Well, what I recommend you do is either purchase a US or Japanese model MD unit which doesn't suffer from the limited output power. MD units already have very low output power compared to most digital audio players, so either way, you're still going to need efficient headphones or earphones. Conversely, if you like your unit and don't want to get rid of it nor buy a new one, you can purchase or build a small DIY headphone amplifier that runs on 9V batteries and fits in an Altoids tin. The quality of said amp will be dependent on the money you spend on it. I can build a CMoy of reasonable quality as well as the MINT amp, with the CMoy costing about ~50 USD and the MINT around ~90 USD. The sound quality of that particular MD headphone output will be greatly improved by the addition of an amp. Check out http://www.head-fi.org Amplification Forum for more information about portable amps if you're interested.

Yeah that's what I meant.

There are no Hi-MD decks. A portable Hi-MD device gives you more recording flexibility and ease of use (relatively speaking). You no longer have to re-dub recordings to the PC in real-time analog, but rather can transfer from MD -> PC via USB. Marcnet, one of the users here, has also devised an ATRAC-to-WAV converter that allows you to put your recordings on a universal medium (CDs). But above all, what is your maximum budget?

The problem with Hi-MD is not USB1.1, as Damage said, but the fact that magneto-optical drive systems is a fourteen year old technology. It's not going to be able to compete in a practical manner with newer drive systems. For removable media recording, I expect that Blu-Ray will be able to trounce Hi-MD if they can find a way to satisfy the laser's high power requirements in a portable setting.