Ipaqman

Our local Walmart south of Boston had the Sony MD 5 packs on the clearance rack last week, so I picked up a couple of packs for $5 each. They have had MD blanks and Net MD units available for some time. However, recently, they have revamped the entire portable music area (Ipods and Creative) and I don't recall seeing any MD units.

I just got the EX90LP at CC for $90 after a 10 percent off mp3 player accessory coupon. I have 888s, EX71, Sennheiser C300s, Shure E3, and Sharp MD33s to compare with the 90lp. I am not an audiophile but I look for smooth strong bass and clear details without harshness. I also look for everyday comfort and stay in the ear tenacity. The Shures lack bass and comfort. The EX71s lack some clarity. The Senns and Sharp sound very good. The Sharp cord material is not very long lasting. It hardened within a year. The E888s are great. They sound great and are comfortable and stay in my ears. The EX90s sound great and are very comfortable and stay in my ears. For some reason, my left ear is hard to fit. Most IEMs will not stay in my left ear for long. The large driver portion of the EX90s helps hold the earbud in place. The EX90 cord material does not seem as delicate as that of the EX81, also not as delicate as the first version of the 71s. It seems similar to that of the C300s. The EX90 comes with a nice leather case (I believe real leather). Inside the case is a plastic form which comes completely out to allow winding of the cord. This case works much better than the Shure E3 case and it is smaller than the Shure case. Overall, I am satisfied with the EX90s. They sound very good, look great, feel good and stay in the ears and are less than $90. --- Update --- The bass on the EX90 is not as overwhelming as the bass on my Sennheiser CX300. This contributes to the clarity of the EX90 compared to my other IEMs. The Shure E3 has very little bass thus its clarity. --- Update 2 --- The EX90s do not seem as isolating as other IEMS (E3C, EX71, CX300). And the seal does not have to be airtight. It seems that the big driver allows the EX90s to put out decent bass without the tight air seal that my other IEMs require.

With the HDAPs available, the recording function ranges from barely acceptable to very good. IMHO, only the NJB3 is very good. These players are designed for playing. They lack various recording functions such as level meters, mic input, editing functions. I have the NJB3 and IHP-120. The MZ-NH1 is much better than either of them. The Iriver does not have level meters and its mp3 encoding algorithm is not good. Its battery life for recording is low. Only the Sony Hi-MD recorders are fully functional recorders unless you count the larger professional recorders from Edirol, Marantz, and Denon. They were designed as a replacement for the cassette recorder. My Sony MD recorders have been very reliable.

You can purchase the expansion battery packs on the Internet. The ones designed for the Ipaq 3600/3700 series work great when used with four alkaline cells. If you use NiMH cells, the voltage is not high enough to allow a DC charging cycle. Semsons.com is a site that sells these expansion packs in the PDA power accessory section. The included power plug is the right connector and polarity for the NH1 power stand. You can also purchase the parts from a local Radio Shack. Recently, I was recording a long radio show via the NH1 line-in. I noted a hum when I had the NH1 plugged into AC power. When I used the external battery pack, there was no hum. What I would like to see from Sony is a smaller dock to use with expansion battery packs.

Interesting review. Thanks for the battery life information. I do like the battery life remaining display on the NH1. I am surprised about the battery door observation. I have only opened my battery door a few times and only intentionally. My MD eject button is on the top end of the NH1. My battery door nudge is next to the FF/RW/Play button which is not easily mistaken for the door push point. The battery doors on my older R900 and R90 open too easily by just brushing them. IMHO, the NH1 door seems more robust and more secure. I too wish the backlight was brighter.

On my MZ-NH1, there is a menu option under REC SETTINGS called SYNC MODE. This is supposed to enable the recorder to detect between track silence. I normally set this to OFF unless I am recording a CD directly from a CD player.

- Do you like it? If so, why? Yes. I like my MZ-NH1. Compact and light (even lighter than my MZ-R900) Excellent battery life indicator (measures in hours) Fast 80 percent charge (one hour) Great storage (compatible with old MD discs Reliable, excellent recording quality Powerful, flexible recording functionality Two channel record level display Upload / Download capability (never bought NetMD before) Digital output via USB audio Excellent sound quality and acceptable Hi-LP sound quality Fast startup from power down (less than 2 secs for paused/stopped song) Excellent track mark positioning function Great LCD remote with 3 line display Don't like the proprietary USB connector. Don't like simplified LCD display on main unit - Is it a sufficient improvement on MD to survive in the current market? I think so. The PCM, Hi-SP, 1gb disks, and USB upload tip the balance for those who want portable mastering. All it needs to make it perfect is the WAV convertor program to decrypt the uploads. - What has it got over HDD players in general that swung you to buy one? Did you compare before you bought, or was it more or less an automatic purchase because you were a past MD user? I bought the NH1 because I wanted a reliable, quality digital recorder. My HD recorders (NJB3, H120) are not reliable and have primitive recording functions. I bought the NH1 from BestBuy for the price and the return policy so that I could give it a good try out. - Would you recommend it to your friends looking for 'an MP3 player' bearing in mind it's limitations? And why? For anyone needing a portable quality recorder, there is no other option. I have looked. DAT recorders are the only competition and they are not reliable enough and are very expensive. HD recorders are too primitive and flash recorders don't have the capacity. - Did Sony treat you right? Did your shop treat you right? Did the shop try to mislead you in any way about Hi-MD? Not applicable. BestBuy has a decent return policy. They shipped promptly for a good price ($350 plus free shipping).

One new NH1 feature: The remote optionally displays actual number of hours of battery life left. This seems to be an estimate based upon the current power consumption. It is a very useful feature for a recorder.

Shortly after Compaq released their Ipaq PocketPC 2002 series with no DC input jack except through a proprietary mult-use connector, 3rd party vendors came out with a battery pack that was cabled with this connector. It plugged directly into the Ipaq and charged it. Hopefully, Sony or a 3rd party vendor comes out with the same thing.

For portable power, I found that the standard Ipaq battery extenders when filled with 4 AA alkalines (not NiMH) will plug into the NH1 dock and charge the NH1. Such a battery pack should be able to charge the NH1 Li-ion 370mah battery several times before running down. So if you carry a the small dock and battery pack, you would have power for days. Hopefully, Sony releases a power adapter to replace the dock for portable use.

I noted that a simple extended battery pack (the Ipaq ones) fitted with 4 AA alkalines (not NiMH) will provide the 6 volts needed to charge a MZ-NH1. I plugged the Ipaq extender into the dock and charged the NH1. If Sony or some other vendor provides a simple NH1 usb connector with the DC input jack (just like Ipaq does), then the NH1 will have the portable power just like the NH900 has. In the meanwhile, I am considering getting a spare Li-ion battery from Audiocubes. However, I have not even gotten close to running out of power. A thirty minute charge is usually more than sufficient to power me through a day.

I tried out my NH1 with MX400s, E3Cs, and E888s. They all sounded good. These match well in terms of impedance to the NH1 output. The 5mw output was more than strong enough. I was listening at volume level 15 out of 30. Level 20 was tops for me. I use about the same levels on my IHP-120 which has more output power. So it seems that you may have hit upon a significant point about the headphones.

I am wondering whether there are different production batch issues with the NH1. I just got my NH1 a week ago as one of the first available from USA retailers. It sounds as good or better than my MZ-R900 playing SP tracks. I tested using a vocal track and an instrumental track. I did not hear anything metallic sounding or harsh. At least one other poster compared his brand new NH1 with a friend's NH600 and considered the NH1 better sounding. So maybe there are some "faulty" digital amps out there because mine sounds very good. I also compared to an IHP-120 and NJB3.

In addition, some users have noted that there is a noticeable difference in the sound output from the high end machines (NH1 and 900) compared to the low end machines. One user reported that the sound is much smoother and warmer from the NH1 than the 600. In fact, someone reported that the output sound from the NH1 sounds better than that output from SonicStage on a PC. Please take all of these comments with a grain of salt. If you search around, you may find the original posts that I read a while ago. But as one poster on Head-fi wrote, he likes the colored sound on his MD more than the "pure" sound of an Ipod. The sound was more "fun" from his point of view and less "harsh". Personally, if I enjoy the music, I could care less about the accuracy.

The only limit on functionality using a reformatted 80 min blank is the lower storage space. You can upload/download and so on just like a 1gb blank. The space problem is an issue when recording in PCM mode. But 300mb is a lot of space when recording in Hi-SP or Hi-LP. Hi-SP is supposed to be improved over SP mode.

The new Hi-LP 64kbps codec is improved. It is supposedly equivalent to 128kbps MP3 CBR. However, many listeners don't like 128k MP3s. For me, 128k MP3s were good enough and so are Hi-LP encoded music files. I have older ears and mostly popular and gospel music, so higher bitrates don't provide much improvement. I have the NH1 and the older R900 (4 years old). They are both great machines, but the NH1 is improved in many ways to the R900. I did not buy into the NetMDs, so I can't compare the changes in functionality from NetMD to Hi-MD. I bought the NH1 for my current recording needs. I wanted the greater capacityand the NetMD/Hi-MD upload/download functionality.

I have an NH1 and have been using both 1gb blanks and 80 min blanks, both in Hi-MD mode. All of the Hi-MD functionality is available with the older discs when they are recorded in Hi-MD mode. The only loss is the 300mb limit of older discs.

I don't know about a NetMD unit but with a NH1 it will run off the USB power and you have the choice of playing your music from your NH1 or from the computer speakers via SonicStage. SS will play directly from your Hi-MD disc to your PC but not your NetMD disc to your PC.

And the NH1 uses a proprietary USB cable unlike other Sony MDs. I wonder why they chose it unless they originally had a plan to allow the NH1 to charge and to connect to the PC simultaneously. There are seven connections in the unusual USB plug, two more than necessary. Five could be for USB and two for charging power. But it would cost something to build circuits to deal with the presence of USB power and 6volt power.

That is interesting information. Quick mode on a Hi-MD player such as the NH1 is more of an issue because a Hi-MD disc takes up to 15 seconds to start. A NetMD disc takes up to 7 seconds to start. I find anything over ten seconds to be annoying. I have an Iriver IHP-120 and it takes over ten seconds to start up.

Considering the fact that the uploaded Hi-MD encrypted audio is now present on the PC, I believe that one or more enterprising hackers will crack the encryption to produce pure WAV data. Prior to this our audio was "trapped" on the NetMD and would have required new circuitry and firmware to get the audio out in digital format. Now all that needs to be done is a little decryption work. The encryption can't be too strong because of real-time decoding issues. Obviously, SonicStage has that code in it somewhere for hackers to view. So even if Sony doesn't produce the converter utility soon, I expect to see one from someone else before year's end. In the meantime, we do have true digital uploading via the USB cable and can capture the digital audio via Total Recorder. No analog components involved at all. On a side note, it was interesting to note that SonicStage will only upload and play Hi-MD data, but not NetMD data.

By default, the record mode is auto level, so even if you change it to manual, when you power off and on, it will default back to auto level. On the NH1, the jog dial controls the manual record level and you can adjust it on-the-fly. However, you can only choose manual rec level when paused such as in the beginning of your recording session. Once you are in manual rec mode, it stays that way until you push stop or choose auto rec mode.

Has anyone figured out how much power quick mode consumes? Or how long can you keep a player in quick mode until the battery is exhausted?

I have had my MZ-NH1 for almost a week now. I previously have owned the B100, R900, R90, R700, and others. The NH1 is a very nice machine compared to the others. It is definitely lighter, thinner, and smaller. The finish is sleek. Only one side panel is plastic. The battery door is better designed than my older MD units. The NH900 battery door looks the same as the door on my older MDs (R900, R90) which is on the flimsy side. I chose the NH1 over others because of the audio date-time stamp function. The other units do not stamp the audio at all. This is a must if you do a lot of live recording. It is harder to sort out audio without it. In addition, the NH1 battery system seems to be better for recording than even the NH900. The NH900 has warning messages about not enough battery for recording and editing. The NH1 does not. This might be due to the Li-ion battery or better components. If you buy a spare battery, the Li-ion battery will hold a charge longer than the gumstick battery. The NH900 has an extended battery pack. The NH1 does not. That is probably because of the different voltage in the NH1 (3.7 volts). The NH1 will charge its battery to 80 percent charge in one hour or less. In fact, a minute countdown timer is displayed. A full charge takes 2 more hours. The NH900 takes 2.5 hours to charge a fully discharged battery. There is no 80 percent indicator. The NH1 main unit LCD display is very limited compared to the other units. You have to rely on the LCD remote for many functions. In addition, the LCD remote backlight on the NH1 is dimmer than other MD remotes. The NH1 remote is more useful with a three line display. The NH1 uses a non-standard USB cable with a locking plug. The other units use a standard 5 pin mini USB plug, I believe. The other units have a lot of plastic and are much thicker than the NH1. The sound is excellent and is loud enough that I do not normally use over 20/30 for a volume setting. In conclusion, I think that you need to consider whether you need the date-time stamp, the thinness/lightness, the quality versus the cost savings, the extended battery pack, the cheaper batteries, and the standard USB cable.

I own the Nomad Jukebox 3, the IHP-120, and the MZ-NH1. Here are comments based upon personal experience. The Iriver IHP-120 is not a reliable recorder. Problems: 1) No editing, not even delete 2) No record level for line-input 3) No record level meters 4) Line input clips with a standard line level signal (CD player) 5) Start of recording is delayed several seconds after pushing record 6) Mic pre-amp is somewhat noisy 7) Drive motor noise leaks into ext mic recordings 8) Wave samples are "dropped" every few minutes causing a small click 9) The MP3 recording codec is bad below 128kbps 10) Short battery life when recording 11) Easy to mix up ext mic and line-input settings messing up your recording (use the same input jack) Problems with the NJB3: 1) No mic pre-amp (option to boost input with digital boost) 2) Large and heavy 3) Poor quality LCD remote control 4) Sometimes crashes during recording 5) Record level meters are barely useful 6) Limited editing (delete) 7) No AGC recording mode for convenience The minidisc recorder is reliable and useful as a recorder 1) Mic and line-input jacks 2) Decent mic pre-amp 3) Audio editing functions include: delete, divide, combine, move, title 4) Long record battery life 5) Replaceable batteries 6) Very portable 7) Relatively clean noise free recordings 8) AGC record level for convenience 9) Manual record level control 10) Record level vu meters 11) Record pause 12) Invisible track marks 13) PCM (uncompressed) mode on Hi-MD units Con: 1) No fast solution to uploading the recording to a PC The recording functions on most HDAPs are an add-on feature and as such lack necessary accessory functions.