bhangraman

People want comparisons, they get comparisons. I'm sure you wouldn't be saying the same thing if the NH1 came out slightly ahead, yes? You'd be singing about it from the rooftops. :rasp: As I've said before, I think the sound is perfectly OK, and few but those investing in high-end ear gear will raise any quibbles with Hi-SP sound quality. BUT, the PCM mode being specifically pegged as 'high fidelity' it does raise some issues. Usually, I have to prick up my ears as it were to pick up a difference, even between many portables. What I was really surprised about was the ease with which I could pick out the difference between the original and the NH1 rendition of it when recording the CD via optical in PCM, then playing back in Line Out mode. That's NOT good.

Not very. The main consideration is the much higher efficiency of the digital amps for power consumption. The EQ ability is also probably more relevant to those who confuse quality for tonal flavour, but I'm nowhere near convinced that the HD amp is better in overall sound quality terms to the amp fitted to the last of the Net MD's. Yes. 300-400K/sec transfer speed for files without too much fragmentation. Optimal long file transfer speed is about 450K/sec. Simple... less disc swapping. Until programs come out which do not mess with the PCM stream to make it into a WAV, the upload feature and quality increase in recording is largely a moot point for people who want to record and share on non-MD formats.

Yes, I mean listening from the NH1 vs iPod or the NJB3. In the context of a reply to the original poster, it was the only meaning it could have, I think you'll agree. Haven't tried listening to the uploaded file on the PC as critically (and with as much gear) as I did with the downloads, I must say. I'll do that eventually. I've just removed my RME HDSP9632 pending a swap and comparison with the E-Mu 1212M, then an Aureon 7.1 to see what I'm giving up in terms of fidelity audio for gaming audio. I realised I need a soundcard I can actually play games on too I'll do the comparisons once the E-Mu is fitted or when the RME goes back in.

Weird. I'll try it again later. I moved my library to a TR2MP from a TR5MP (and what I said before is how long that took). The TR2 is down by 0.1Ghz of Centrino power so we'll see how much difference that makes.

I have the NH1, and NH700/900 are apparently on the way. If you're mainly playing back on the Hi-MD unit itself, it is unlikely that you'll notice the difference between Hi-SP and PCM. To this end, it's suggested that you use Hi-SP for your day to day music requirements. It is to all intents and purposes (castanets notwithstanding :grin: ) practically as good as PCM for general listening purposes. It is also more usable given the limited transfer rate of Hi-MD: transfers will take less time and you'll be able to get 6 albums on one Hi-MD, or a couple of albums and several hours of Hi-LP recording time. If we're talking about ultimate sound quality (i.e. as in a broader choice of devices, not just Hi-MD), PCM recordings with the NH1 leaves something to be desired in terms of fidelity to the original.

bhangraman wrote: In the end it didn't make the grade on many levels as a player

In which case, all the more reason to be more circumspect in your postings, no?

Avil, one of the reasons I didn't comment on the iHP-120 is that I didn't try recording multi-hour sessions to verify whether there really was a serious glitch. But in terms of user interface and in terms of serious recording features (level controls, level indicators, auto gain features etc), the iHP lags behind Hi-MD. The advantage it does have is a unit-built-in mic, and straightforward, driverless drag & drop of recorded files between player and PC in a native usable format (WAV & MP3). The NJB3 requires the client software to do this and Hi-MD will not do this, despite it's upload capability (which uploads in secured ATRAC format). I wasn't intending to review it or anything, I just bought it as an iPod replacement because it had an optical output. In the end it didn't make the grade on many levels as a player compared to the iPod (although it is competitive with Hi-MD), but I didn't really give it a huge test as a recorder before I disposed of it. I'm sure other more experienced iRiver owners can comment more about it.

The Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 (which can be picked up used or old stock fairly cheaply) records up to 3 hours continuously on WAV and up to 10 hours continuously (battery permitting) on =<320K MP3 from optical, line or Mic, has on-the-fly recording level control for line input, as well as adjustable Mic gain. There's a (not anywhere near as attractive as MD remotes) optional remote for it which is still available online from Creative, and it adds FM radio and integrated voice-quality recording mic. You can take recordings off this thing in native WAV or MP3 format as fast as Firewire transfers will allow. You can add a second battery, and provided you mark the battery you put in first you can hot-swap the second battery to give you a theoretical unlimited run time on batteries, the same as NH-14WM/AA capable Hi-MD models albeit with batteries at twice the cost of the NH-14WM. After 2 hours of recording, it was still showing a full charge. In fact, after 2 hours of WAV recording and 6 hours of playback, it's showing two-thirds charge. Capacity? 20Gb was the standard capacity but mine's got an 80Gb disk which I retrofitted in under 5 minutes. The only storage limit seems to be the song capacity decided by the firmware, and currently it supports 16,000 tracks. Sound quality is generally better than Hi-MD, and for more involved playback use (Connecting to a mixer, audiophile amped use, etc) it's helped by one of the strongest Line outputs of a portable of recent years. There's a basic (4-band: 100hz, 800hz, 3K, 12k) but fully working EQ as well as on-the-fly playlist creation. So what's the catch? Take a look. I'll give you one guess which one's the NJB3 :laugh:

Was it all ATRAC or were some of it imported MP3's? (imported MP3's are not transcoded/encrypted until transfer). My library was 100% 256K ATRAC+.

iPod = voice quality recording. If you want anything more, consider the iRiver HDD machines as well as Hi-MD. Despite faults I can pick with the iRivers, they may be more flexible in everyday use than Hi-MD (with recording and extraction to PC in particular) and these days they're definitely priced to sell. The H-120/140 machines have the same sort of gadgetty appeal as Hi-MD although the design is less slick, does practically everything and allows you to move material freely on and off the machine. Recording quality is OK and it will support anything up to PCM (the same as Hi-MD), yet there are some less intuitive aspects of recording on the H series. The H series also have a built in mic so there's no need to dispair if you left your mic behind... you can at least make voice quality recordings this way. If I were you, I'd try and get some "in the hand recording time" of both Hi-MD and the iRiver H.

Make sure that the disc type selector in the 'Transfer' window says 'Hi-MD' instead of 'Net MD'. If there's any material already on a disc, you won't be able to change disc types.

ATRAC3+ probably does a better job of rendering low-grade sounds than MP3 at equivalent lower bitrates (48K and 64K). But if you're listening to music as opposed to spoken word, if you have any pretensions of discussing the sonic quality whatsoever you would opt for higher bitrates. What have we got in terms of ATRAC? Well, we've got 132K ATRAC3 which is acceptable but still does not really sit well with the word 'quality'. It is certainly not the 192K MP3-basher that MD 'maniacs' often make reference to. It is more or less comparable to 128K MP3 with 'manufactured-seeming' smoothed highs which makes the sound slightly more palatable. 256K is really where the word quality comes in, and I find it very good if played back on my main PC set-up (being largely indistinguishable from the 256K VBR MP3 iTunes rip, which is also very good). If I were to be a regular Hi-MD user, I would have liked a <>160K ATRAC3+ option for acceptable sound without the compromises of 132K ATRAC3, and with more efficient use of space than Hi-SP.

I'll be sure to keep it under control... especially since I have a totally unfair advantage :rasp:

The NH1's sound in my experience vs iPod is listed in my review over on head-fi. On it's own and with PCM data, I think it's perfectly OK. Perfectly OK however when evaluating the absolute quality needs to be clarified in terms of how it was tested. The test was originally conducted via a PCM optical recording of the source material from a Sony SCD-XA777ES deck. The NH1 was then switched to Line Out mode, and the Stax Omega II / SRM-007t combination attached to it using a high quality 3.5mm -> RCA converter and the Siltech FTM-4SG interconnect. The iPod Mini was also attached in the same manner and the two were compared against the original being played out of the XA777ES. I think that with roughly $10,000 retail's worth of very well-reviewed gear hooked up as above, even our most humbly esteemed skyther would find it difficult to pick holes in the front end / basis of comparison. The NH1 showed a surprising deviance from the original material (and not for the better) when compared alongside the iPod, which itself was surprisingly close to the original. Said surprising differences were in almost every aspect that the audiophile looks for: accuracy, staging, dynamics, etc. I now think the problem is the digital amp (which the data would go through regardless of whether you are using Headphone or Line Out), as even with Sonicstage 2.1 and the secured PCM format it exhibits the same problem. Prior to using 2.1, I got out another NH1 just to be sure that my regular-use unit was not faulty and it seems to be OK (both machines however would have been manufactured within hours if not minutes of each other). The music, when heard without the source material to compare does not sound 'wrong' and is good enough. However when you incorporate a mode which supposedly assures top quality, I'd expect more than 'good enough'. Reading his posts, I'm not sure how much of skyther's postings are actual experience or the result of results inferred from postings on boards such as Head-Fi. However the bottom line seems to be that if you want your music to sound as much like the original as possible in a very portable format, an iPod/iPod Mini (the only other potential contender at the moment as far as I'm concerned is the Rio Karma, but I have not owned that yet) in conjunction with the Apple Lossless codec most definitely offers such a capability. The iPods are far less optimal though if your perception of quality is determined by the EQ setting that you choose... but since [bitchy audiophile holier-than-thou sneer on] this would mean that you can't tell what is quality in the first place, the actual quality of the base sound would be largely irrelevant as long as it doesn't totally suck.[bitchy audiophile holier-than-thou sneer off] As far as the soundcard comparison is concerned, I have an RME HDSP9632 fitted to a desktop and an Echo Indigo available to fit one of my Sony PCG-TR series laptops. Even before we get to a comparison with those cards however, I have to say that when used as a Line Out the NH1's amp might (and I say might as it wasn't a scientific test I conducted) even be found wanting when compared to the integrated SoundMAX audio of the TR's when playing back the same material from Sonicstage. I was very surprised to say the least.

Welcome, [Hi-MD blanks] Not yet. Dixons would be the first place to look. [sP] Yes, it's recorded in true SP just like a normal MD. [Remote] I'd suggest you get them from Audiocubes. Sony UK spares are not overtly helpful and also charge an arm and a leg for such spares. [Creative CD recording] There is a program called Creative MD Recorder or something like that, which was shipped with the Platinum series of soundcards, It inserted a break in the sound for every track to trigger the Sync recording of an MD recorder. Unfortunately I don't know where you can get it.

I knew this was going to be mistaken. The Sonicstage backup program backs up the .OMG ATRAC files you have ON YOUR PC along with the rights information, onto any media you choose. It can be another partition, a different drive, even a UDF CD-RW/DVD-RW AFAIK. While Hi-MD data transfer is fairly slow by HDD comparisons, all I was doing was backing up that library ONTO ANOTHER HDD. Nothing to do with storing it onto Hi-MD as far as my test goes. Backing up the 2.5GB library on the hard disk TO ANOTHER HARD DISK using the laptop mentioned (Centrino 1.1Ghz on AC) took over an hour. It's that slow! I have no idea whether backing up onto 1Gb Hi-MD media instead of HDD would be slower, as I dont' have 1Gb media yet. It certainly won't be faster though.

If you don't need to do anything but voice recordings, I would suggest that you seriously consider getting rid of your MD and going for a memory or hard-disk based recording machine. MD offers one of the highest quality recording out there in a small format, but if it's for voice only, you don't need the recording sonic capabilities of MD and you're wasting huge amounts of time getting recordings into the PC this way. If budget is not a particular problem, the iPod and the Griffin iTalk (which is what I use in the main for voice recordings) works a treat. It's simple to use and the recordings are automatically synchronised with the PC when you connect at lightning-fast speeds when compared to the MD/Hi-MD. If budget (or battery life beyond a couple of hours worth of recording in everyday use) is an issue, iRiver offer a huge variety of recording Flash and Hard-disk based players which not only play back music as well as MD's but record to a standard WAV file that can be simply dragged off the machine when connected to a PC. Neither (especially the iTalk, which is definitely Voice Quality) offer as good a recording quality as the MD's, but as long as you're not recording music, it'll be much better suited to your needs. If you're looking at something a litle more voice-specific, the digital audio business dictation machines from the likes of Sony, Olympus, etc offer much more versatile cue/review functions, as well as bundled voice recognition of files.

Um... I don't know how many times I've typed this, but you can't burn an uploaded recording to Audio CD. I've had the NH1 for a while before release and what you get is a message saying 'I can't do it due to copyright restrictions'.

SONICSTAGE PROVIDES NO ABILITY TO TRANSFER UPLOADED HI-MD RECORDINGS OUT OF SONICSTAGE IN AN UNSECURED FORMAT. SONICSTAGE PROVIDES NO EDITING FACILITIES.

The volume control while recording controls the volume of playback (monitoring). You have to pause the record to change recording volume levels, and the player reverts to AGC when you press stop. It's the same on the N10.

You can burn Audio CD's of anything that you're ripped into Sonicstage (the current version), be it a VAIO or not. You can't burn Audio CD's of uploaded Hi-MD recordings (it claims "due to copyright restrictions"). I'm working on VAIO's too. As far as I'm aware, the only enhancement on SS2.1 is to be able to get PCM out to Hi-MD. The product managers mooted that burning of uploads may be available in 2.1 but I'm not holding my breath... from what they said they and their staff seem not to even have tried uploading in 2.0.

It works in the same way as the latest Net MD's. You can change the recording levels to Manual while the unit is paused in recording mode, then set the volume. In terms of usability, it's not so good for manual recording as the Sharps.

Not as such. You can't take the uploaded file out of Sonicstage or the secured, unplayable OMG format so the only remotely viable seeming way is to set Sonicstage playing the uploaded file, and use Cool Edit to record the WAV output in real time (if your soundcard supports it). The thing is that many soundcards will only enable you to record the analogue mix of the WAV out, making it not significantly better than sticking your Hi-MD's headphone/line output into your soundcard, playing about with levels, etc. A far from satisfactory solution.

When (European) N10 owners listen to mine, they always say "I had no idea the N10 could sound that good!". Odd, eh? And it doesn't seem to be just the volume either. The tricky part is getting the iPod to look good in pictures. As I've found, neither the full size iPod not the Mini are that photogenic. It's really only after you use it that it starts to make sense. Here's a better picture, for what it's worth. (click)