Artstar

Sure will as that would affect the DC power being supplied to the mics. My advice is that you definitely stick with bipolar.

How much roll-off do you seek? Half (=6dB cut)? The equation for impedance (in ohms) is Z = 1 / (2*pi*freq.*capacitance (in Farads)) Now assuming the mic input is around the 1kOhm impedance mark, to halve the desired frequency into the MD would mean throwing in a further 1kOhm in the chain. So in that case, you would then plug in the value of 1000 for Z and your desired frequency in the freq. variable. The result will be: 1000 = 1 / (2*pi*50*C) 1000*2*pi*50 = 1 / C C = 1/100000*pi C = 3.18uF So proportionally, for 100Hz it would be 1.59uF and for 200Hz it would be 0.80uF.

To me? Yes. To you? Up to you to decide. Keep in mind though, that by going direct to the source, you are avoiding any possible distortion and/or colouration that an analogue audio stage in a sound card can possibly bring in. Unless it's a pro-audio card, they're rarely a faithful reproduction of the actual source. Of course, then your MD's analogue audio output stage could also colour the sound, but in my experience, my MZ-R50 and MZ-NH1 have been faithful IMHO, but then again, I only rely on them for live recordings and then everything thereafter is handled digitally with the only analogue audio stage then being the CD's I've burnt after post-production work is carried out. No. The less you have in the audio chain, the less you introduce into the original sound. Keep it as direct to the source as possible. One thing you haven't stated is the quality you seek. If you want a reasonable reproduction, a standard dynamic mic might do the trick. If you want a truly faithful reproduction, be prepared to pay up for something better. The Core Sounds binaurals would be my recommendation for a compromise. They never make them like they used to, although the new MZ-NH1 is the closest they've come yet to their previous success. Again, IMHO, I believe the last top-notch MD unit built was the Sony MZ-R50 - solid like a mutha! The MZ-R700 missed out on that quality ... bigtime! The new MZ-NH1 is proving itself to be a good little workhorse but it still feels too light and flimsy for my liking. Up to you. Either a good set of headphones or through your home theater. Trust your ears on this one, not us. We all perceive things differently dude. Why didn't they put on a pro-display? It's not a pro-unit. But then again, even the MZ-R50 missed out on a good level. That's changed with my MZ-NH1 thankfully but then again, if you want to make truly professional recordings whose levels are perfect, then you'd really want to use a proper component deck. I love my MDS-JA30ES for that. Otherwise, my portables are set at conservative levels since I only use the masters for post-production processing rather than listening to directly. Do you need more volume? If your answer is yes, then yes they are worth it Enjoy.

Although I don't agree with you about 98 being stable, I also have it on a dual boot on my laptop when configuring car alarms and anything else with primitive software that needs to have direct access to the comms ports (be it serial or parallel). Otherwise, win2k is the preferred system on my lappy. As for the factory installed os thing, I don't think it's a case of your custom-PC being the problem in terms of OS but rather just the way the hardware is functioning with the MD unit. Either an additional USB card (or perhaps even a change of mobo?) or in worst case scenario, a bit of a software clean-up (even a fresh install if you must) is probably all it needs. My MZ-NH1 doesn't have a problem with my old P3-667 custom-PC and when I upgrade PC's, I'll just be using the same HD's anyway so there won't be any OS upgrades/installs going on. I won't be surprised if it doesn't work but that would point to a hardware issue rather than software, as I believe it would be in your case too.

What we could hope for (and of course, I would need a schematic on this) is that either the DSP or the ATRAC coded IC's would have a standard PCM data output that we can steal and output to a SPDIF interface. Just a matter of checking it out on a schematic first, like I said.

But did you measure the voltage whilst the MD unit was plugged in? I'm sure you didn't. See, the power supplies are unregulated which means that without any current being drawn, it's only natural that the voltage will appear to be higher than the nominal rating. So trust me, plug in the 9V battery and you WILL do harm because the 9V battery is pretty stable when fresh given the reasonably low current consumption of the MD units. This means that the unit is guaranteed to receive anywhere between 8.5 - 9V initially and gradually reduce as the battery flattens out along with the internal series resistance of the battery further increasing. At any rate, I'm going to explore the option of modifying my cradle so that I can plug the USB directly into it and charge at the same time.

Unfortunately, since the MDX-C8900 (which I'm still a proud owner of!!) they haven't made a decent MD car deck since - at least, not released in Australia. In which case, unless they make a decent successor to the MDX-C8900 (and still able to control my XDP-210EQ DSP unit), I won't be trading up to anything for sh_t! If they make a HiMD changer, then that will make things much easier for me of course. But quite frankly, I could care less for a car HiMD unit. Get me a component deck to replace (or compliment) my JA30ES and I'll be truly happy because at least then I'll have digital out to my PC rather than trust SonicStage to accidentally destroy a precious HiMD recording of a live gig - unless that's now been sorted out with v2.3 now.

The only thing I can't get my head around is why they went with a bitrate of 256kbps instead of 292kbps as per the older ATRAC3 MD-SP format? I know Sony are trying to tell us that ATRAC3+ is a better sounding format overall, but given the anomalies that I've been able to ever so slightly notice as opposed to MD-SP, one would've thought that we'd be happy to come down from the 7+hrs to even 6 hours in order to accomodate the higher bitrate. The real test for me I suppose will be in the live recordings. If it can give me the same sound in jazz, fusion, funk and heavy metal gigs, that'll be all I'll ever need since that's all I ever bought it (and my beloved Core Sounds mics) for.

So in other words, I'm going to have to wait for a HiMD component deck to compliment my Sony MDS-JA30ES player and pump its optical out into my PC as well because SS will fry the disc and Sony's wav converter will suck after the 1st 74 mins of my live (and studio) recordings get uploaded. Sony ... for God's sakes you were almost there with a functioning product until you had your blinkers put back on. STOP THINKING OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT! MD is the least likely of all formats to be abused for such activity en masse. FRIGGIN' MORONS!

To clarify ... won't upload any file recorded in MD-SP format. HiMD-SP is not a problem.

True that. On the one hand, I wish now I hadn't purchased my MZ-NH1 but on the other, I feel that recording in MP3 just won't be as good as HiMD-SP anyway. If it had support for more than 2GB CF, then that would definitely be ideal giving me enough PCM recording space for a whole concert no drama. I'd love that!! That's the whole reason why I got HiMD - I was always seeking a longer recording time so I wouldn't have to time when the disc swapping should take place during a gig 3#-)

True that. Which is why I'm glad that we still have v2.1 out there (or at least for the benefit of everyone else we do). If anyone needs a copy of my (now archived!!) CD, let me know and I'll put it up on a server. I just had the pleasure of being able to record a CD track digitally (S/PDIF interface) into my MZ-NH1, then dump it into Sonicstage via the USB and then convert it to wav using HiMDRenderer (for which I've donated some cash to the author). You know what? I'm DAMN HAPPY and unless Sony release their converter, there will be no reason for upgrading so Sony can blow me. As for the listening tests I've now performed between a raw CD rip, MD-SP and HiMD-SP, I must admit, I'm a little disappointed with the almost joint-stereo sound I'm hearing from my HiMD sample. It ever so slightly (but to me, noticeably) kills the spatial sounds that would otherwise be heard so. It'll do for live recordings quite professionally though, so that's the main issue for me with this thing.

Dude, you've put my mind at ease. Of course, I'll still compare for myself as well but considering I'll be using my MZ-NH1 for live recordings, I think I'll be very happy and won't experience any artefacts that these castanet guys have been raving on about! :grin:

I just picked up an MZ-NH1 with the impression that Hi-SP is basically not noticeably lossier than MD-SP. I have yet to do some AB testing of my own to compare the same recording on both formats but of what I've heard out of one tune, it actually sounded as good as MD-SP! Then again, that was using the standard headphones that came with the unit. Ultimately, the only reason why I bought it as an upgrade from my MZ-R50 (which I still have of course) was so that I could do my live recordings uninterrupted on one HiMD disc in Hi-SP mode. If need be, I could always revert to PCM but it was the idea of greater storage with the same sound as MD-SP which got my attention. A lot of people seem to have differing perceptions on this and I'm definitely an affecionado with a trained ear so I'll be doing some proper testing later, using the same MZ-NH1 plugged into my audio system via the line out and play 2 discs in the 2 different formats to see what happens. But when you consider the artefacts experienced in live recordings (venue acoustics, etc.) I think it's fair to say that Hi-SP will be just fine in theory. Hopefully I didn't waste my cash in practice

Besides which, the greater problem here is the friggin' copy protection. I record a live gig on my old MZ-R50, I decide to transfer it fast to PC and the sonofabitch says that it is unable to transfer the file without explanation. Basically, they're saying "You're trying to pirate sh*t, there's no way we're going to let that happen." I love the technology that Sony has given us but I wish they weren't so heavily involved in the entertainment industry (as in record companies and movie studios). Maybe then we wouldn't see these bullsh*ite restrictions that screw up our legitimate usage. At least I can transfer the MD and HiMD recordings I'll be making directly on this unit straight up without issue. But as for any others I may end up doing on my old MZ-R50 for whatever reason, well, it's just going to have to be a case of sticking to realtime transfers from my JA30ES deck if necessary. I've lived 6 years with that method, I'll chug along with only a slight air of disappointment that I couldn't transfer them any quicker than realtime 3#-) Sony, you guys aren't the only ones with rights. Remember that. Hopefully someone will figure out their protection mechanism and work around the bastard.

Does this program work like "Sony Wave Converter" is supposed to? After all, you can record in raw PCM format on the HiMD's, but it comes up in PCM format but in OpenMG PCM format, not an actual *.wav file, nor any other variant. That's what the "Sony Wave Converter" program promised to us in the fall is about. It will accept any upload from your HiMD unit in whatever format and then this software will convert it to *.wav for whatever you want to do with it thereafter. :smile: Of course, I have a bad feeling Sony will either take too long or won't bother at all. Admittedly, it is on this promise that I decided to jump in with both feet an buy myself an MZ-NH1 during my stopover in Singapore. The worst case scenario for me will be if/when they release a HiMD capable component deck, I'll just do realtime transfers via S/PDIF like I have been all these years with my JA30ES deck. One thing that does really p*ss me off about the existing software, aside from the lack of the fabled Wave Converter, is the inability to use MD Simple Burner to write to my MD in MD-SP format. No LP2, nor LP4, but good old fashioned SP so I can still play the MD's in my MZ-R50, MDX-C8900 and JA30ES if I so damn well desire. Doing it with the currently buggy Sonicstage is no help either because it sometimes reports errors on a few tracks out of the entire selection without going into any detail as to why the error even friggin' occurred!!! Let's just hope there will be improvements to the software very soon because as far as I've noticed in the week I've had the MZ-NH1, the hardware is sweet and complete. Time to get cracking on the software now! Adios, Tony