butchc

It plays and records fine in the first part of a disc, but there are frequent gaps of several seconds in the sound when playing the last 30% or so of a disc. The timer display continues to tick over, but the sound drops out. At first I thought I had a problem disc, but I tried other discs with the same results. Other people have reported the same problem on this board with the MZ-NH900. I think the gap problem affects both recording and playback, because I had the gap problem on my 2nd unit when I used a disc recorded on the one that has the problem.

Thanks everyone for your replies. I think they confirm that having a small "bump" (or even a depression) under the label on a NH900 isn't necessarily evidence of an abused/mistreated unit! I'm told it could be a couple of weeks before I hear back from Sony as to whether they will repair my unit under warranty or not. Hopefully the techs that look at the unit won't have the same view of the "bump" as the lady who checked my unit in!

Yes, I can see the funny side of that . Still I'm glad to have my "backup" now, and was very glad to have it on the weekend when I needed it to record a gig I played. Interesting. Thanks for the info anyway.

Are there any MZ-NH900 owners out there that can answer a quick question for me? If you run your finger over the bottom of the unit in the area where the sticker is with the model number, battery specs etc, can you feel a small, raised, circular bump? The reason I ask is that I have an NH900 that has been playing up, and when I lodged it for a warranty repair at a Sony service center today, the person at the desk pointed out the small raised bump on the bottom of mine and said that it's likely to be rejected as a warranty repair because this bump indicates that the unit has probably been mistreated! The lady made a point of mentioning this bump on the warranty form. I had never even noticed this raised area before - it's not very noticable unless you're looking for it. I'm sure I've never mistreated my unit - it hasn't been used much, and always lives in a padded case. I also happen to have another identical MZ-NH900 which I bought as a backup. This one has seen very little use, and it's also got exactly the same small, very slightly raised circular bump in the back - not really noticeable until I run my fingers over it. This makes me think that this is a standard feature on these units, but I'd love to know if other people with this unit are able to feel this same "bump". Hopefully my warranty claim will be accepted, but if not it'd be nice to have some evidence to support my view that this very subtle "bump" is not evidence of mistreatment! Thanks all.

I had an MH900 arrive from minidisc.com.au on Friday. Nice smooth transaction. Thanks Sefu!

Messed up your NH900 how? I'd be interested if you could elaborate a little, because I've been thinking of trying something like this, but obviously don't want to destroy my NH900!

There are other alternatives, such as this. I haven't tried one myself, but it looks like it'll do the job. You would need a separate USB card reader to plug in on one side, with the HiMD plugged in on the other side. I've been thinking of getting something like this myself, as they're quite a bit cheaper here (Australia) than the Sony product.

For me the main factor was the line-out, although there are some other niceties to the 900. Of course, the line-out won't matter to some people, but it was important to me.

So you can use the NT4 with the line-in? How do the levels come out when you do that? Interesting! Thanks for the feedback.

I'm thinking about purchasing a Rode NT4 stereo mic to use with my MZ-NH900 HiMD recorder. Has anyone tried the NT4 with an MD recorder? The NT4 mic can be powered from it's own 9v battery if you're using it with gear that can't supply phantom power. If I use the NT4 with battery power, will I be able to plug it straight into the mic input on my MD recorder? I just want to be sure that the "plug-in power" from the MD isn't going to cause any problems with a pro mic like this. I realise for best quality I'll probably be better off using an external mic preamp and the line-in on the MD, but I'd like to have the option of going straight into the MD if I want to (for extra portability).

Well I've exchanged my NH700 for an NH900, and I can confirm that the line-out is definitely an improvement over using the headphone output on the NH700. It probably still isn't perfect, but the upgrade was worth it to me. Thanks everyone for your input.

Seeing as I only bought my 700 on Saturday, it's possible the shop might let me switch it for a 900 with line-out mode.... Has anyone checked what the line-out is like on the 900?

Thanks for the helpful replies people. I didn't realise that some of the higher models had a separate line-out mode that's missing on the 700. I wish I'd known that earlier, although I probably still would have chosen the 700. I also discovered after my original post that the MT-90's headphone output is rated to 10mw per channel - twice that of the 700, so it's hardly surprising that I get a stronger analog signal out of it. It's good to be aware that the 700 clips at maximum output. At least if I do have to record from the analog output I'll know to back the volume off a couple of notches. Obviously digital transfers are the best way to go with HiMD, but with all the limitations that go with it it'd be really nice to have a good line-out as an alternative!

Hi folks. This is my first post here after having bought myself a brand new MZ-NH700 on Saturday. Thanks for the great forums, I did lots of reading here before buying my new recorder and I've learnt heaps. Anyway, after doing some testing tonight I'm quite disappointed with the analog output on my NH700. One test I did was to record a track in SP mode and record it played back on both the NH700, and my old Sharp MT-90. I recording onto the computer through the line-in on my Audiophile 2496 sound card. This showed very clearly at the older Sharp unit had a much stronger analog output. The recording from the new Hi-MD was about 10db quieter than that from the old Sharp. This was with both units playing at their max volume. I repeated the same test with a sweep tone that I generated in Adobe Audition and recorded through the optical input on one of the MD's. This was again recorded back from the analog output of each player. Again, the Sony unit was recorded at a much lower level, but more interestingly the recordings of the two units sounded very different (and I don't just mean in volume!). In Audition's spectral view I could see that the recording from the Hi-MD included extra stray frequency components that weren't in the original sweep. These were not present in the recording from the old Sharp unit which was much closer to the original tone that was recorded. When I recorded the same test sweep in Hi-MD mode (PCM) and transferred it back to the computer digitally in Sonic Stage the resulting .wav file looked and sounded much better (without the stray frequencies). At least that much was a relief! I'm disappointed with what I've seen because with all the hassles that go alond with Sony's DRM and Sonic Stage, I was rather counting on the fact that I would always be able to fall back to doing analog transfers of my recordings back my PC etc. Now it seems that these analog transfers will very inferior compared to what I can do with my old (pre Net-MD) Sharp recorder. Any comments? How do other people find the analog output from their Hi-MD recorders? BTW, I'm in Australia. I know that European Hi-MD players have lower output from the headphone jack, but that doesn't apply to the models sold in Australia does it?