horace

I recently bought one of these mics on ebay - paid the grand sum of £8 including postage. I'm rather suspicious that it might be a fake - ebay is awash with very cheap DS70Ps. Perhaps a batch escaped from the back door of the factory? Having said that, fake or not, the mic I received is very well made and makes excellent speech recordings. Does anyone know if there are fake DS70Ps about and how to identify them? Could there be another explanation for the large number of these mics selling cheap on ebay? Cheers Martin

Well, temptation got the better of me and I am sitting here as the new owner of a nice shiny black MZ-RH710. First impressions are very positive indeed. It's very well put together - no play in the lid mech when it's closed. The unit is very light and feels solid. The controls are nice - love that jog wheel! Best of all, it sounds fantastic - much better than I had expected. In fact, I reckon it gives my NH1 a real run for its money. I don't know exactly why, but I was never 100% convinced by the NH1. It seemed rather 'woolly' and muddled to my ears. I've just done the volume hack, but TBH I'm not entirely sure I got it right. I assume the fact that I have 'custom1' and 'custom2' in the eq options means I've succeeded? I found the 0113 bit, which had a line of constantly changing digits underneath it. I changed the last 2 digits to 24. Hope that was right - took ages to scroll through the numbers. Haven't got home yet, so can't comment on the software. I'm an XP user, so was planning to forget about the supplied software disc and go straight for sonicstage 4.2. Is there anything else on the CD worth bothering with or is sonicstage all I need? Anyway, I'm delighted. the only problem is that this has reawakened my interest in HI-MD and now I want an RH1! On that score, can anyone tell me if the RH1 sounds significantly better than the 710, or are the differences more about features/build etc? Thanks for your input - you persuaded me (not that I needed much persuasion). Big smile EDIT: Now for a remote - I could use my NH1 remote, but it's silver. What's the best black remote for the 710? Cheers Martin

Thanks everyone. I'm soooooo tempted. One final question - Is the latest version of Chronicstage better than the one that came with my NH1? (it was terrible, and contributed to the NH1's lack of use - I couldn't get the bloody software to behave). It seems the latest version is more stable, but there do appear to be people still having problems. I will spare you the 'drag and drop' speech, as I guess that one's been done to death....... I quite like the idea of an AA battery. Very handy. Go on, persuade me to go for it - the shop is about 100 yards from where I'm sitting right now and they're reserving it for me until the end of the day! Cheers Martin

What sort of MP3 bug? Sorry, I'm a bit behind the times here..... Thanks Martin

Hi My local electronics shop has a brand new (UK) MZ-RH710 all boxed up and lonely. The asking price is £49. I have an NH1, which has seen less and less use, as most of my music is MP3 these days and I don'r see the point in converting it to ATRAC... I've always liked MD - had a string of players over the years and like the format. I'd be using the 710 primarily as an MP3 player, transferring files from my pc (something I really wish the NH1 could do). Questions: The price is right, but what about the sound quality of the 710 compared to a flash/hard drive Mp3 player (say, an ipod or similar)? Would the optical/line recording function be as good as the NH1? I can't stretch to an RH1, so how much would I be losing in sound quality terms if I were to get the 710 (relative to the RH1)? I do like to record radio shows (I have a portable DAB/FM radio which goes wherever I go) and have been known to copy the occasional CD direct to the player when away from my pc. In many ways, I do wonder if a dedicated MP3 player might be a better option (bearing in mind my growing library of MP3 files) but ATRAC is handy for gapless transfers of classical CDs. I did read that the RH1 sounds considerably better than the NH1 - if this is true, does the improvement in quality also apply to the 710? Grateful for your views on this. Many thanks Martin

Thanks everyone - I managed to transplant a slider and all is well. Cheers Martin

Hi I have an 80 minute md of a live radio recording of a concert I went to. i haven't played it in years, but have noticed that the metal slider on the disc has got bent and the disc will no longer load into my player (I've tried it in an old Kenwood and my NH1). I tried removing the slider altogether, but no joy. The playing surface looks undamaged, but fitting a replacement slider looks tricky, as even the slightest kink or bend seems enough to render the disc unreadable. I really want to save the recording, so I would be very grateful for advice. Many thanks Martin

Thanks greenmachine, that's just what I wanted to hear. Regards Martin

Hi I have a precious recording (HI-SP) on a standard 80 minute MD, which has been 'got at' by my youngest son. I believe the disc itself is undamaged, but the metal slider (the bit that protects the exposed part of the disc) is so bent out of shape that I had to remove it. Will the disc still play (I don't want to risk trying in case it jams my player or something similar), or will I have to try transferring another slider from an old disc? is that easy to do? The recording is an analog one, so could be transferred to another disc I suppose. Any suggestions? Many thanks for your help. Martin

Gulp! Anyone confirm or deny this? Martin

Thanks Ishiyoshi I had thought of that, but I have a dial up connection and the upgrade installer tells me it is about to download about a squillion megs - surely it could just download what I actually need? Is there any way of getting hold of the CD writing module on its own? Thanks Martin

Well, I know this is a minidisc forum, but someone might know the answer to this: I have an NH-1 and am using MD Simple Burner (2.0.04.18080) and Sonic Stage (2.3.00.11020). It all seems to work just fine, but.... I have been given a Sony D-NE10 Atrac CD walkman (lucky me) and am keen to try it out. Problem is that for some reason, my version of Sonicstage does not have the facility to burn Atrac CDs - which is strange, but there you are. Also, is it possible to run MD Simple Burner and CD Simple Burner on the same computer and if so, how? In a nutshell, I need to be able to burn Atrac CDs, and use Simple Burner for both Atrac CD and HI-MD - can it be done? Can't find any info on this on the web. I thought Sonicstage 2.3 came with Atrac CD capability as standard, but mine lacks it....... Thanks everyone. BTW, the D-NE10 has REAL MP3 SUPPORT (including VBR!). Martin

Having used both Simple Burner and SS 2.3 to burn cds to my NH1 in Himd SP mode, I have a nagging doubt about the quality. I'm just not convinced that the results are quite as good as the old-style SP discs I copied via the optical input on my old Sharp MD. Simple question: has anyone compared the results of copying a CD via the optical input of a HIMD player direct from a CD player against using SB/SS? Cheers Martin I'll be doing my own comparisons, but would like to know what others have found.

That really is a great price. Now, when is someone going to release an NH1 compatible battery? I don't fancy spending £35..... Cheers Martin

Bluewater! Only a 1000 mile round trip away for me.... Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Cheers Martin

Wow! Surely a mistake by Dixons.... Which branch and did they have much stock? (Not now, I suspect!) Cheers Martin The Aberdeen branch only has the single discs at £6.99.....

Hi A quick warning regarding the packes of three HiMd discs some shops sell - they are in fact standard 80 minute discs with a HiMd logo. I dare say that the ones you are likey to get for $10 will be these. A rather cheap ploy by Sony if you ask me....... Martin BTW, I bought five 1 GB discs from ebay seller 'minidisc au' for about £22.50 (including postage). They arrived in six days (not bad considering I live in the UK and they were sent from Australia).

Hi I must say that I was initially quite impressed by HI-LP, but I can't live with it now -it sounds like the music has been recorded on a setup consisting of two tin cans and a taught piece of string. Yuk! Even radio plays don't fare well in Hi-Lp. There's a strange, metallic, sucked out 'phasey' quality which is quite unsettling to my ears. LP2 is MUCH better IMHO. YMMV, of course. Personally, I don't see the point of spending hard-earned cash on a fancy HI-MD gizmo, only to load up hours and hours of songs in sub-FM quality. Lp2 is bare minimum for me (and only for speech based recordings). Otherwise, Hi-Sp or death! Having said that, I haven't even tried PCM yet...... Cheers Martin BTW - can anyone point me towards a comparitive Hi-Sp vs old-style SP post? I guess Hi-SP is better, but by how much?

Hi Well, I've had my NH1 a few days now and I'm delighted with it. I eventually managed to get Sonicstage and Simple Burner to load on my pc (instalation took HOURS - must be my old clunker of a computer). Anyway, I trawled this forum and have upgraded to Sonicstage 2.3 and Simple Burner 2 (with PCM option). So far so good. Now, down to basics. I want to copy my Lord of the Rings CDs (14 of them - the BBC radio series) to the MD player using Simple Burner. A bit of experimentation with bitrates tells me that Hi-Lp will do nicely (fine for speech, but awful with music IMHO). I want the discs to appear on the MD in the right order - are they stored in the order they are recorded or by other criteria (eg alphabetically?). While I'm at it, if someone could explain the 'Group' function, I'd be grateful - could I use it to contain all 14 LOTR discs and call the Group 'LOTR' or something like that, or have I missed the point? The manual is not very clear on this (am I alone in finding the NH1 manual rather lacking in the clarity stakes?) Thanks in advance. Martin

I just ordered 5 discs from ebay UK (seller was 'minidisc au' in Australia). Price was £3.95 each plus £2.55 postage, making them £4.46 each in total. Delivery time quoted is 6-10 working days. The seller has excellent feedback. There is a shop on amazon UK offering them for £1.99 each. The catch is that postage is £5 per disc, regardless of order size! Sounded like a con, so I emailed the seller - apparently, the postage rate is fixed by amazon and sellers are not permitted to change it. The seller set his price so as to be competitive (about £6.99 per disc, including postage). I checked the amazon postage rates, and all items from private sellers/shops in 'Electronics and photo' category attract a postage charge of £5.01. Daft, but true. Martin

Thanks for the advice and the warm welcome. I will download the software and spwnd some time searching the archives. Another question, if I may: In the past, I've always recorded in standard SP and have had no reason to complain about the sound quality. I now plan to record some of my audio books/radio plays - The Lord of The Rings comes in at about 10 hours or more (it's the BBC Radio dramatised version). Would HI-LP be good enough for this (and does it sound better than ATRAC3/66kbps)? I seem to remember reading that HI-LP (66kbps?) gives roughly the same quality as MP3 at 128 - Is that the case? I will, of course, be experimenting but would appreciate your experience here. Oh, and my EX71s sound MUCH better with the NH1 than they did with my Iriver (probably an impedance mismatch, but I was very disappointed). They are actually rather good buds, if a little bass-heavy for my taste. Cheers Martin An enthusiastic recommendation of the NH1 to any of you who are hesitating!

Hi Many thanks for your replies. So, I CAN upload PCM microphone recordings and burn them to CDR without compression -In other words direct from PCM to WAV? That would be perfect! Thanks again for the warm welcome. Martin

Hi Well, my brand spanking new NH1 will be charged up in a few minutes. A brief look at the manual tells me that things have moved on since I bought my Sharp 702! Many of my questions have been answered by a search of this forum but.... Software: mine came with Sonicstage 2.0 - should I load this or go straight for the latest version (do I need to have 2.0 installed to use the latest version)? Does the same go for the other software on the disc? i've read about 3rd party software - What's available and what are the pros and cons compared to the Sony stuff? That'll do for now - my recent post re firmware was a little premature methinks! This is a great forum. Thanks in advance. BTW the search function doesn't seem to be working too well for me - a google search turned up more hits on this forum, but the links came up with errors....oh well, probably down to my own ignorance (usually is!) Regards Martin Waiting for the price of 1GB discs to come down in the UK - give it time, I suppose.

Hi Just bought an NH1 - haven't even charged it up yet, but can't wait! Having seen the posts here regarding possible MP3 support and (let's hope) more 'relaxed' DRM on future HIMD players, can anyone confirm that the NH1 is firmware upgradable? If so, I assume it would require a trip back to Sony (if they bother to make such an upgrade available). Oh, I can't wait for it to charge up! I know, I should have waited for the next generation of players to emerge, but I had to have one - I HAD to, I tell you.......! I'm going to try a live PCM recording and see if I can end up with a copy on a CD as a wav file without having to compress it first......I've spotted the software on this site (my thanks to the person who wrote it - a pity Sony didn't provide it themselves. Bloody DRM...My live recordings are just that - MINE!) Wish me luck.... Any tips? I bought the NH1 primarily for live recordings. I'll search this site for advice on buying a decent microphone. The idea of wav recordings is cool. Shame Sony won't let me transfer them direct to CDR with their poxy software without compressing them first. Still, it's a BEAUTIFUL little machine. Truly. I have a feeling I might be spending a lot of time here in the next few weeks. Regards Martin I'm off to load up the software.....Time to find out how Sonicstage performs.

Hi I note that amazon.co.uk have dropped thr price of the NH900 to £149.99. Is this a sign that HI-MD players are not selling as well as had been hoped? My local branch of Dixons (who have the NH900 in stock at a whopping £249.99!) told me yesterday that HI-MD players have been very poor sellers - people have taken a look at them and mostly decided to buy MP3 hard disk players instead. As a long term MD user, I am very disappointed by HI-MD - nothing wrong with the format itself, but Sony could hardly have done a worse job on the launch. No advertising, no 1GB disc availability (at least, not in the UK) and as for the DRM issues, well, you all know about those..... As for the players, the flagship is very sexy indeed, but the 900 is simply not what I would expect from a player of its price - too plasticy, too cheap-looking. The other question I ask myself is who are Sony aiming these players at? Anyone who already has a number of MP3 files may be unwilling to convert them to ATRAC, as this involves a futher loss of quality and more hassle. Hard disc players with 40Gb drives cost about the same as the top HI-MD players. If you add the cost of 40 1GB discs to the cost of a player, it starts to get frighteningly expensive. Recording: This is where HI-MD should wipe the floor with the competition, but instead Sony have shot themselves in the foot once again with the DRM issues. Microphone recordings of CD quality? certainly Sir. You want to upload it and burn it to CD? HA HA HA!!! The bottom line is that I am still interested in Hi-MD, but am wondering whether it might go the way of Betamax very soon...... Oh, and why does the EU law about maximum headphone output (which has castrated the european HI-MD units, flagship model excepted) not seem to apply to Hard disc players, which boast much higher output figures? I do hope Sony get this sorted. What do you think? Thanks Martin