Jammin72

The Sony SBM-1 was like that in this regard. You had the ability to change the configuration of the chip (well those with fine soldering skills) to up it to 24bit Capture. The SBM Used Noise shaping anyway so you got a larger chuck of data for it to play with. This did increase the resolution of the unit but the larger difference in my mind was the changes that Doug made to the Analog Stages of the unit.

If you want some monitoring cans for home that are fantastically musical with a nice warm low end that still has punch look at the Sony MDR-7506's. I prefer IEM's for truly portable use. But for working at home you can't beat the Sony's for the price. They also have a relatively high Sensitivity and Low Impedance which makes them quite easy to drive by portable units. Comfortable fit, solid construction, the closed ear design also gives you a fair amount of isolation, really letting you get absorbed. I use these for the Portables and for doing work on My DAW, they really let me know what I've gotten on "tape" after a recording. YMMV

One of you technical geniuses please figure out how to get the Hi-MD units to record 352 on the opitcal input!! PLease!! Still this is all good news. If Sony is able to provide thid and a valid lossless codec on portable devices for recording they will have something valuable on thier hands. It would be like a recorder encoding .flac directly.

By the time you do all of that you can get a Panasonic SV-3800 from e-Bay for about $200 bucks from a seller that has a good rating and Run optical into your Hi-MD... no configuration, no jumpers, no nada. Just Record and Play... That's what I would do personally! YMMV The DAT is actually a decent archival medium and if you can score a decent DAT deck for not a lot of money (I got a 3800 with 25 hours on it for $225) you can keep the deck till it croaks and use it for playback and other purposes. The analog output stage of that thing will make the Hi-MD sound pretty thin.

What's your primary use for it Rachel?

Oooooo.... I hope it goes into production!

Dex... Here's a link to Meitner's Patent Page.... You may find some of it quite interesting or be able to find out what in his approach makes the differece. We're convinced that he's holding out on Sony some of the code he's using! EMM Labs

I have to say that when we first started thinking about upsampling the general consensus around the shop was the same how do you get something that was never there? We did set up numerous listening tests to try to limit the effect of superior analog components being the key to the improvement in sound quality. Our Reference system consiting of Rowland Research Model 7's and vairous high end preamps both professional and consumer going into a custom constructed speaker set that utilizes all dyanaudio drives and custom crossovers designed by Doug Oade (His system acutally). We used the Sony SCD-XA9000ES, the Denon DVD-9000, and a couple of Philips and Sony lower end DVD Players as sources.His room has numberous wall treatments bracings etc... (On an aside if you get a chance to hear the SCD-XA9000ES and the STR-DA9000ES working together TAKE it! For a system below $5K (speakers not included) it does things playback systems 10 times the cost do. The only drawback is not having the juice to playback omni recordings of rock shows at concert levels) Whereas there wasn't a huge differnce in the instrumentation itslef the thing that changes is the actual space. You can hear the space between and around notes and placement of instumentation. The soundstage becomes immense. Since a mojority of the recordings that we listen two are 2 or 4 mic recordings of concerts what you gain is a sense of the room or space in which the music was created. The easiest way to describe the experience is that instead of listening to a fantastic recording of a concert suddenly you're there! Sony is a huge fan of fowarding technologies that allow them to control content, I agree I'm sure that a lot of the drive for the company was to try to create a format and then a market for something that isn't able to be copied by the masses. DSD gear is expensive and you have to pay through the teeth to get software to do the editing. Tascams new DSD recorder somewhat breaks the mold but is limited in functionality. I hear what you're saying here. At the same time there is something about SACD that just goes beyond anything else that I've heard as a source to date. DVD-Audio simply doesn't sound as good. Unfortunately since Sony is trying to control the format like they do with most of thier good ideas it has little chance of becoming anywhere close to mainstream. This and the fact that most people seem to perfer free to Great. I wish that I had the technical expertise to discuss this at a more code based level with you because I know you would find it intriguing, but I was human interface, not machine inteface at the shop!

This is an intersting thread... I haven't spent time doing comparisons between PCM and Hi-SP to truly comment on what I've heard. It does bring up an intersting conversation that brought up some intersting thoughts about PCM. A co-worker was speaking with Ed Meitner of EMM Labs (The guy who helped Sony with their DSD devleopment for SACD) and he mentioned that the PCM nasties that you hear in CD's isn't about the encoding method, it's really more in the playback of PCM that the distortions occur. He mentioned that you can encode PCM to 320kBs mp3 and get rid of some the aspects of "That CD Sound" that audiphiles have been complaining about since the inception of the product. The trick is to have a playback device that actually plays the mp3 directly. The only players I have convert the mp3 to PCM to pass out to the output stage so no gains and actually worse performance as you now have compression AND the nasties added by the PCM output circuits. I'm trying to figure out how to make this happen at home. For the EMM Labs gear CD's are actually upsampled to DSD and output using that codec... the result... Amazing!!! CD's sound like real music. Of course his preamp is $10,000 so I won't be getting one anytime soon but it does make my collection of DAT tapes suddenly seem much more like gems waiting to be polished.

For Transfer the MZ-NH900 I would reommend the Hi-SP mode, a better compression rate with a negligeable difference in Sound Quality. If you are transferring via the PC all the more reason! After a few minutes of listening on either mode Hi-SP or SP the brain will fill in the gaps and you 'll stop thinking about the makeup of the sounds you're hearing and begin to focus on the music! Hi-LP on the other hand....

This is another version of one of Oknyos shelf-sytems. It's not a Sony knock off they've been making mini-systems like this for some time. They do acutally sound pretty good for what they are. Great for a low level Bedroom system or for the office. I would't acutually consider this a full home unit but it gives me hope that Onkyo or someone else will make one!

There's no reason that they couldn't offer a firmware upgrade to the HiMD units for .mp3 compatibility. I wan't it! You think they would make us send them in... can you imagine people trying to hack code that allows you to re-write the operating insturctions on the Hi-MD units! If we're dreaming of upgrades... Let's see those two gig discs! Seamless .wav Sets. How about .flac support! Here Here to the backlit display For Goodness sakes give us an optical out! We know you can make combo jacks Sony give it to us! Also in response to the previous request for digital amps... MZ-NH900's and MZ-N1's already got 'em! As far as the 24 bit requests go... until the storage capacity goes way up it's kind of useless in my mind. I would love to see an input buffer that would allow you time to swap discs without loosing data.

The Benefit of the NiMH batteries is that they're always there, no trip to the store... Once you've invested then you don't have to have a dime for your batteries. Also ... c'mon folks there really is only one planet. Think of it as ritual or ceremony... part of the thing that you do before the show to summon the music. Really, life enjoys ritual, there is a difference. As for the Cigarettes... well cost is relative a guess. As for the battery life with your older unit... If you're happy with the results record in Hi-SP or format your disc in MD and run SP you'll get the same or better time you had before using standard discs

I don't use my PC as my music Library but I can't imagine using Sonic Stage for anything other than "uploading" your recordings. I don't even use it for that... Real Time Transfer is where it's at... don't give Sony a chance to trash your recordings... the uploaded files are *not* the same as the orginials. I only use Simple Burner to transfer to the HiMD and Sonic Stage ONLY to play back the files for real time transfer.

I really have to laugh at this... 2300 mAH NiMH batteries are cheap at Wal Mart these days... I can't imagine complaining about battery time when you can get 7 hours out of a single "AA" battery that over it's lifetime represents a coulpe of pennies per use. Try dragging in Lead Acid batteries to power Pre-Amps, DAT Recorders etc... You'll be quite pleased with your problem. Run the Gumstick and the "AA" and you'll have no problems. 2 GB Discs would be perfect!!! One Set per Disc with no "Flip" worries.

Good luck with your rig! The problem that you've got is one that we come up against quite a bit. Recording a Cricket and recording a Rock Show are two completely different types of recording... mics and machines rarely do both extremes well. If you get a recorder that can handle the SPL then a lot of the time you won't have enough gain for the softer stuff or the self-noise of the preamps gets annoying. If you've got a great soft sound setup then a PA system will clip most inexpensive systems. With that being said... There's some good recommendation here. Any of the omnidirectional "Stealth" mics are a good choice be it from Oade, Sound Professionals, Reactive or any of the others that cater to this type of need. I would add that in the purchase of the mic that you pick up a "Line Out" style battery box for your mics. Most of the little omnis can be powered by the "plug in" power supplied by the MiniDisc Recorders, you don't technically need the box for much recording but you would now have a full spectrum setup. You'll have the ability to use the recorder directly in ether High or Low sensitivity for a good bit of your work but for the very high SPL stuff shoot for the battery box going into the "line In" on your recorder. You'll end up with a cleaner sound with no chance of overloading the Units onboard Pre! Happy Taping! One other tip... when using the omnis if you can't get a good spread on the mics you can use something as an acoustic baffle between the pair, kind of like an impromptu jecklin disc, that will give you a larger image and greater stereo separation. Love and Light, Ben

Nope, he does mean Analog sources! There's no DRM beacause you've removed the "Digital" part :grin:

A battery box that allows you to go line in is key here. For a less expensive solution (but would require a few adaptors) you can use an impedance matching transfomer between your mic and the recorder to give you enough input. Love and Light, Ben

Most of the omni "Stealth" mics out there are all based on the same Panasonic capsules and they have no problem handling the SPL. For recording shows that utilize a PA system getting a battery box that will allow you to go "Line In" to your recorder is definitely the way to go. Not only do you avoid the overload issue you also end up with a lower noise floor and increased dynamic range. We've been selling mics like this for years and they're hard to beat for the money. Most of our customers were using the portable Sony DAT Walkman units which we are able to upgrade the mic pre circuitry for that prevents this overload scenario. The MiniDisc units just don't have enough territory on the mic pre section to allow for the modifications so we utilize the same battery box idea for MiniDisc recording. If you've already invested your $$ in your mics and the battery box you have does not provide enough output for The wonderful thing about omnidirectional mics is that you can get very good sounding microphones for not a lot of money but your positioning in the recording environment becomes critical. Your brain filters out a lot of things automatically at a concert (tubby bass, high frequency reflections, and people chatter), something that no omni+recorder can do. Finding the sweet spot in the room makes the difference between a recording that has no right to sound as good as it does for the $$ invested to wondering why you spent the $$ in the first place. Love and Light, Ben

Thanks for the update dex! It seemed from reading the manuals that it was only possible in record-pause mode. This is good news. Now if the display can be read in the dark we'll be OK!

Do yourself a favor and don't pass up the HiMD units just becuase they don't have an adjustable record level during recording. 1) You're recording rock shows.... once the music gets going there is usually limited dynamic contrast for this type of music. Even in "auto" mode the recorder's adjustments will most likely only be audible before and between songs. I've been suprised at how well the Sony units have done this. Aside from the Auto setting it will really only take you a few shows to get a good idea of where to set the recorder in the manual mode for your favoirte clubs/bands. 2) The new HiMD features are worth the trade off!!! Uncompressed wave recording and the ability to transfer the recording to your computer digitally will more than make up for any detriment you may incur from an "auto level" disc or from a slightly under-recorded one! 3)Look at the Sony MZ-NH900 for $269... You've got all the features of HiMD, Mic Input, and the ability to run from both internal gumstick or standard AA cells with the adaptor. Just my $.02 YMMV Love and Light, Ben

I've found every version of Sonic Stage Software to be quite buggy... Personally for those that are trying to use these units as an iPod sytle replacement for their music collections... good luck!!! :wacky: The real news (and from what I've read, acutally effective) is the ability to record your own stuff without additional compression and then get it to your computer for editing digitally without any further A/D, D/A Processes or having to rely on a cheesy headphone output circuit to do justice to your recording. Goodness even if Sony did come up with some software to "upload" your recordings I don't know that I would risk signal degredation or alteration by using it!! I would much rather see .wav being encoded directly to the MiniDisc and it be accessible sort of like a .wav stored on a memory stick. Transferring your recordings in real time is not such a big pain folks! Was everyone screaming at the band to hurry up while making the recording so that you could get it on the computer faster? :laugh: For goodness sakes when you get home from your gig set your recording software to record for the lenght of the show (most programs do have a timer style record length setting.) Start the process and go to bed. When you wake up.... voila it's done. You only spent a couple of minutes in front of the computer. Take a look at HHb's portadisc unit, that's a REAL recorder (forgiving the compression of course) and it doesn't pretend that tranfer in anything other than real time is the way to go via it's USB port and this is a company that has no problem ignoring copyright protection hassles. The only systems that I'm aware of that do what most folks here seem to want are the new Hard Disc and CF recorders that cost much more money and only made their debut this year! Everyone is spending time poo pooing Sony for not doing what nobody else seems to be doing either. The New HiMD's are now an affordable portable solution for making CD quality recordings. Something that wasn't possible anywhere near this price point unitil NOW! So smile and enjoy what's been given and let our hacker friends have some time to figure out .omg and DRM now that the units themselves have the physical capacity to spit the data back out. Just a thought.... Love and Light, Ben

Ours came in while I was at Phish's Coventry festival this past weekend! We have the MZ-NH900's in Stock for $269! http://www.oade.com/ Gotta wait till September to get mine. The Coventry event wiped me out in more ways than one Ben

We are a Sony Dealer... This was our shipment from Sony off the Docks. I can only assume that the Sonystyle folks will be getting theirs right about now as well. No 900's have shipped to us as of yet. We got our orders in the system the first day they were available to order as a dealer so we should be getting them right when the do become available.

Just thought you folks would like to know we got 3 of the MZ-NH1 units in our Sony Shipment today! Now if we can just get them to make discs! http://www.oade.com/