zerodB

That little bag sure is cute! And the white 33EL is nice too!

When you dub at more than 1x speed, the quality of sound decreases. At real time, the unit uses ATRAC Type-R. At high speed, the unit reverts back to an older ATRAC codec (4.5?). In anycase, Type-R is a dual-pass process. My unit can read CD-Text info straight off the disc and copy it to MD. It's limited to the first 20 tracks though, and it cuts off lengthy titles. But it works. Most of the time, I just do it manually with the remote.

The standard digital amp adds no real benifit to the sound. The HD amp is different - it alters the charcter of the sound. The main difference to my ears is a substantially lower sound floor. (ie no hiss).

That's actually a great idea. Especially now that we have ATRAC Lossless. Some sony CD players, and a huge range of PCDP/Car Audio/DVD/Home Stereo System will only support MP3 on CD-Data discs.

Go on... I DARE YOU!

Well, dubbing CD to MD on my bookshelf (realtime digital) does indeed have a louder volume than when I copy the same track using the units NetMD features. I recall than when using my old N510 NetMD, NetMD recordings would only ever peak at 4 out of 6 of the level indicators, whereas recording from a DVD player using optical (at the unit's auto/default recording level) would peak at 5 out of 6 - the optimal level according to the unit's manual. I got better output by doing realtime. Don't know if this applies to HiMD, would be interesting if someone could confirm.

If the disc was orginally in NetMD mode, than you've lost the songs for good. Only HiMD can upload to PC. See our FAQs for more information.

Great idea... Waits in anticipation.

Recording using real-time optical will yield louder volume than downloading the music to your unit with SonicStage. It's a limitation with all NetMD units, AFAIK. Try recording in real-time (if not already).

Yep, that's what I was trying to say. WAV (or compressed lossless) file that better resembles the original CD data = more accurate.

Yes, lossless is lossless. But EAC can rip your CDs into the lossless format of your choice more accuratley, compensating for read errors and other glitches that happen in the process.

AFAIK, there are technical limitations within the hardware itself that prevent PC uploading with NetMD. It's not possible, and NetMD was not ever designed with this in mind. Obviously there was demand for it at the time, hence HiMD today. No Sony aren't big meanies, but their short-sightedness has provided some frustration with many users.

I thought this thread was meant to be about software. Sorry if I'm sounding a tad tight here, but obvously dex's input has some merit - Sony do read these forums and will implement changes that are possible and also worthwhile for them to do. With the efforts they are putting into their new CONNECT player, feedback of this sourt could be valuable.

Full article - http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060215-6190.html Enjoy.

Yep, old-skool MD was designed as a replacement for the cassette tape. That's what I still use it (MD) for - recording shows off the radio, and making mixtapes, etc. There's a bit of an effort to ressurect MD swapping through these forums. I personally don't have the energy for it at the moment, but I might take the plunge in the future. Old-skool MD seems to well and truly be in decay by now.