Ppk3000

:wacky:

The NH1's unit display is almost useless at a thin 1-line dimension, plus it's somewhat hard to see and its contrast cannot be adjusted. The 3-line remote is easier to look at, as long as you don't hold it in an angle against bright light sources where a glaring reflection would show... which isn't hard, I got used to it rather quickly

Both halves of the NH900's construction looks pretty similar through an average glance. The NH1's harder magnesium shell might serve well against being pancaked, but both the NH1's and NH900's internals are going to break in any serious freefall accidents... and we know it's the "guts" that matter the most in the end :happy:

lol :laugh:

Voltage problem: the 1.2V NiMH rechargeable battery sticks (which is what the NH900 uses) can easily match a typical AA battery which runs at 1.6V (but continues to drop as it's being drained... average voltage of an AA is near 1.2V), thus it's easy to run the batteries together. However the Lithium-Ion rechargeable stick made for the NH1 is 3.7V... it would require about 3 AA's to match the voltage and run in parallel.

That probably wouldn't happen. Sony wrapped my MZNH1's USB cables with 2 big magnetic shielding to prevent electro-magnetic interference (EMI), which may cause digital corruption. Recently, I did some testing on data integrity with computer files. I first transferred 16 512KB files and 16 2048KB (2MB) files, all in randomly-generated text files (.txt). I then copied the files to my second machine and used MD5 file integrity signature to check all files. Not a single byte of data was changed/corrupted in the copying from PC->MD->PC. It's the same with the encoded music as they are simply digital data, plus they are also encrypted by OpenMG. Smallest change to an encryption might cause the whole track to be unplayable... so it's pretty safe to assume no data is lossed through the transfer through the USB cable.

What kind of music do you listen do, and in what environment? Sadly, I can even hear the artifacts caused by Hi-LP with rock music coming out of the crappy stock earbuds doing casual listening while taking a 15-30 min jog... with those modest conditions, it's either my hearing is great (hah! yeah right...) or Hi-LP is no good for rock music. I suppose it'd make a little bit more sense if you listen to music in loud places?

I visited a Sony Store today here in Toronto (scarborough town centre) and they had all of the Hi-MD recorders in stock except the NH1...

http://www.ecat.sony.co.jp/tourist/mdwalkm...KM=MZ-NH900(JE) http://www.ecat.sony.co.jp/tourist/mdwalkm...KM=MZ-NH700(JE) You're probably right... all JE denoted units come with the 3-line remote... (JE = japan edition?) Probably not an "oriental priveledge" but I think japanese MD users like it a lot more than the rest of us out here?

With my EX71's, the output sound is nearly the same on both the PC and the MD unit... but with the stronger VJ700's (which is what I used to evaluate the sound quality in my NH1 review), it clearly shows the high frequency range is slightly different... I wouldn't really say it's metallic or harsh, but I do find it slightly different. I'll see if it's any different with the NH900 soon when my friend gets his own Hi-MD recorder :happy: I do agree that the sound is much better than the NetMD line... at least it certainly sounds better than my N10.

Hi-SP's metallic/harsh sound is more related to the Digital Amp included with the higher end Hi-MD models... after testing with SonicStage/MZNH1 with VJ700DJ 'phones myself, I can certainly say the "metallic" feeling is made by the MD unit's output itself, while the ATRAC3+ 256kbps encoding reproduces the sound very accurately while I played the sound back on the PC.

Where?

I would prefer to have the USB port on the unit and on the stand... serves best for both home + travelling purposes.

The remote's backlight is good enough for most conditions, and when I'm in darker environments, I'm too lazy to hold that (lamely-placed) display/backlight button so I set the BACKLIGHT option to "ON" and have it glowin' while the thing plays :cool:

The 3.5mm plug is pretty much universal... in fact it's been around for many years. The jack on the remote is identical to the unit itself. The only question lies in the chord length itself. I have a clip-on type earphones from panasonic with a split chord, so I'm pretty sure they have other one's too.

Andy referred to the (convinient for viewing, but crappy otherwise) "Windows Picture and Fax Viewer", the program (even warns that it) saves to disk everytime an image is rotated. I believe he intentionally used it as an example to demonstrate recompressing data multiple times. Of course, just about any real imaging editing tool would never write to disk until the user saves the file, and the image is also "decompressed" while it's in the editing environment, so no unintentional compression artifacts would be added no matter how many times you rotated.

Since Sony still prevents free use of OpenMG material, you are going to have to play the recorded music on your computer and digitally capture it using your sound card's wave out mix along with recording software. (Total Recorder has been mentioned a few times here) It is annoying to take the trouble to do such a thing but it's the best solution there is until Sony releases the .wav extractor for analog recordings (which we have no idea when exactly.... but "in fall").

You select SP/LP2/LP4 in (menu) REC SETTINGS -> REC Mode along with the Disc mode (I think... I don't have a spare normal MD to test it out)

You can always import it from elsewhere (*cough* Japan *cough*) :happy:

It's more reasonable than their not-so-long-ago pricing of having multiple high end MD models all marked at low prices :laugh:

It's hard to tell if and when new models will be released. It really depends how quickly and how much of the market adapts to the newer Hi-MD technology... and by market I mean more of the asian areas as the demand there is much greater than anywhere else. As for the MD technology itself, I don't think any new overhaul MD technology will be available in the next 12 months. Sony would only compete with themselves that way and possibly render their Hi-MD line obsolete.

The VU meter is on the unit itself, however I like to leave the backlight of my RM-MC40ELK remote on during short recording seissions and watch the meter! hehe... "Basic" text such as artist/album/track will work, NH1 remote (RM-MC40ELK) does the line sorting on its own. However I think the VU meter stays on the unit itself.

Backlight: NH1 NH900 The other units all lack a backlight on the remote (or in the case of NH600, a remote at all).

"Fancy"? The NH900 and NH1 both use stick-type battery except NH1 features a larger (yet lighter) LiIon stick with greater capacity than NH900's NiMH stick. However, NH900 beats NH1 hands down in battery performance if you attach the AA pack.