doomlordis

All x display models boxed in perfect working order - MZ-NH700 Hi-MD x 1 MZ-NHF800 Hi-MD X 3 MZ-NH600 Hi-MD x 4 MZ-NH900 Hi-MD x 5 MZ-NH1 Hi-MD x 1 Got the lot for a good price. I think i will keep the NH1. Qusetion is , what to do with the other 13!

This was a tough shootout , two of the competitors were very closely matched the other wet its pants before the shooting even started! Prices paid (UK) JVC HA-FX55 - £20 Panasonic HJE50 - £25 Sony EX71 - £27.99 Packaging Panasonic wins here with a nicely designed square box that isnt ruined when opened. Sony second with a decent box, again not ruined by opening. JVC last as box is destroyed when opened. Contents Sony wins with case for the 3 included earplugs and a felt bag and a earplug case. Panasonic second with a nice extension cord, 3 rubber earplugs and felt bag. JVC last again with just the earphones and earplugs Cables The Panasonic and sony come with short cables with extensions, the JVC comes with a 1.2 meter cable so isnt any good for remotes , however i wont mark the JVC for this as a short version is available. (HP-FX55 instead of HA-FX55) Build Quality Sony win here with well built phones and strong cables, the panasonics have good cables but the phones themselves feel hard and cheap. The JVCs have well built gumy earphones but thin cables, the cables dont feel bad quality just thin. Comfort JVC and Sony are very close here , the JVC pips it for me as they are so light you dont know they are there.The Sonys are very comfy though. The Panasonics are a bit heavy and you are aware of them when you wear them. Sound quality Sony is out in the first round! The Sonys are far , far to bassy, the low end of the frequency range is bloated and the mids are so far in the background you can hardly hear them and to top it off the treble is sparkly and not at all precise - stay down your out! Also be aware that these cans are super quiet, about 65% of the Panasonics and 75% of the JVC. 4/10 Panasonics entry sound good , they have bass , its precise but a little weak too my ears. The mids sound good and are not drowned out by the bass, they are also very precise and detailed. The treble is where they fall down slightly as they are splashy and sparkly sounding. 7/10 The JVCs are the surprise here, they sound really , really good. The bass is full and smooth , the mids are detailed and punchy and the treble is precise and allows recognition of cymbals etc easily. Insrument seperation is excellent and the soundstage they produce is surprisingly wide for a pair of canal phones. These are easily the best in-ears i have , i havent ventured to the high end shures etc so i cant compare. 8/10! For fun i decided to mix the earplugs and see what happened, i found something interesting. The JVC rubber is thinner than both the Sony and the Panasonic and when i put these on the Panasonics the bass vanished!!! This makes me think that the bass on the Panasonics is more of an effect and isnt ouput as such. When i put the JVCs on the Sony bass was reduced but still too fat! When i put the Sonys on the JVC the bass increased to an unrealistic level and the treble suffered. So in short these JVCs are a bargain, the Panasonics are good and bin the Sonys.

"I sports the playback of one of the worst codecs to be had on portable audio gear" What are you basing this criticism of Atrac on? Not Hydrogen Audios old ABX i hope (a test not designed to identify how good a sample sounds but how accurate - quite different). Artifacts in Atrac are less annoying to my ears.

thanks i am thinking about a RH10 how do you rate it against nh900 (i have had one of those)

The reason i ask is that when i pull back the cover and look underneath at the join it has clearly split but not through to the front , is yours the same KJ?

On the old nh600,700,800 and 900 the mini usb port had a plastic clip that covered it. I have a new rh710 , it also has one - wquestion is do they break?

I bought this for my rh710 , it will hold youir player and 2 disks. It is official Sony and well built. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sony-Minidisc-padded...1QQcmdZViewItem

OLDBOY, i think this is one of the best movies i have ever seen, western cinema has no match or no imagination. I will not give away any plot but it is a rollercoaster and as shocking as it is sad.

The graph i posted is 4khz up one notch and 10khz up three notches, i actually use 10khz up 2 even though 3 makes for a flatter response - i just find it a little sparkly on the treble and i like bass. The graph in the link posted by greenmachine is 2 notches up on 10khz and 1 on 4khz

I dont think they did it on purpose, all it would achieve is to put people off buying it. It is more likely that MP3 playback was added when the design was almost complete without it and the components used are not up to the job. You can achieve an exceptable frequency response (with no clipping) using equalizer (pic below - white noise 256kbps mp3 recorded from RH710 ), with this setting my wife couldnt spot the difference between rh710 and my flat response HD5 through my amp. [attachmentid=824]

THis is the nearest to flat response you can get with RH710 using hacked equalizer ( i have tested a lot!) Settings on equalizer are all normal except 4khz up 1 notch and 10khz up 2 notches. [attachmentid=821]

Ni-MH batteries wont like being charged frequently when not fully discharged, would have been fine with a lithium battery.

I wouldnt buy either, i have the 31 and they sound muddy, the ex71s are bad earphones , awful actually. If i were you i would look at the panasonic hje50, jvc fx55 or teh ed21lp as they all sound better than the other 2.

As a comparison here is my HD5 playing same mp3 with volume at full , line out off. [attachmentid=785]

I have retested using rightmark audio analyzer and the earlier result is wrong , as you can see the drop off at 3 is apparent with this test. Oh well , sorry to raise any hopes... [attachmentid=784]

all i am pointing out is that the frequency drop off evident on the RH10 isnt on the RH710 - as far as these untrained eyes can tell! We need peel to let me know what software he used to measure his samples.

ok just recorded beck fine with no problems so i think sample is ok.

i recorded from line in and can listen to the sample fine. What do you mean self noise? Here is the wav recorded from my rh710 playing the white noise 256kbps mp3, can someone else have a look? [attachmentid=783] whitenoisemp3walk.wav

Ok i was keen to examine the MP3 playback of the RH710 and have had a strange result: First the original wav (white noise) analyzed by eac [attachmentid=777] then the mp3 with drop off at 19 as expected. [attachmentid=778] now the same mp3 recorded from my player (small amount of silence at begining of track) [attachmentid=779] i am confused, i am no expert but it looks like the volume has been reduced across the whole spectrum (european cap? lack of digital amp? - the wav recorded from md is quieter) and seems flat without drop at 19???? - opinions welcome as i am no expert and am willing to do test again with different frequency analyzer. If this is correct then the RH710 may be the best option for mp3 playback on H-MD at the moment.

Had anyone encoded using Sonicstage to MP3 and checked the Frequency difference between the original MP3 and the one on the player?

I would recommend 160 or 192 kbps, variable or constant. I use mainly 192kbps but have a few 128kbps all of which sound good. The treble volume issue has been talked about a lot, it is more noticable with lower bitrate MP3s and certain songs (my doorbell by the whitestripes is one). I have got used to the playback and dont use equalizer to "fix" the issue , i find it makes the highs very shrill and tinny and doesnt improve the sound at all. It also reduces battery life by a couple of hours per charge. Headphones play a large part in this issue i believe, ex71s really amplify the issue as they are already bass heavy. With HJE50s the treble sounds ok to me.

"NAND flash is decresing in price by 50% per year and doubling in capacity each year, they say. Isn't the writing on the wall for the 1GB Hi-MD? Yes, rumoured capacity increases are nice, but..." These stats are only for MP3 players, you have to remember that they are only a small part of the market for portable audio. Ok the cheapest 1gb sd cards in UK stores/online are about £35 - £40, £18 next year , £9 the next then in 2008 they may be the same price as a Hi-MD disc (providing that HI-MD dont get cheaper - they will) - i think its fair to say that by 2008 a Hi-MD disc will cost £2 probably less. I think we will see a 2gb disc as it is possible and whats possible is usually done. Also cheap SD cards are great but useless to me if they cant be paired with a quality recording device, something flash players are yet to offer. I think the flash player market is full to the brim with cheap crap, bad build quality paired with dull sound. High quality recording units are not in the picture for these companies they just want to sell players. The demise of Rio is a sign of things to come, i think the MP3 player market will level out with 2 or 3 main players, that may be Sony (Recent jap sales very good) it may be Iriver (although i think they will go under within one year - H10 a disaster) , creative i see hanging around in the flash market for a while, unless Apple release a device with a screen they wont dent the flash market. In the End i think Apple ,Sony and Creative will be the biggest players for flash players.

Minidisc has vanished from UK sonystyle for the last 3 weeks, i have sent them an email asking why!

The bluetooth is for wireless remote only, Bluetooth headphones are a reality and getting better.

My phone had bluetooth and a very good battery life and is thinner than this, my design uses a small nuclear reactor for power so no worries!