Sparky191

On a HD player Lossless savages the battery. I assume it doesn't have the same effect on a flash device? Does the ATRAC 352 LOSSLESS sound any different? Any way to determine file size of the file on the player. Not that useful I know but still...

Are their any pictures of this cable and does it fit/work on all of them?

Dunno where you'd get a cheap one in the UK though.

Actually it not when you install, its when you encode music. See the screens here. http://picasaweb.google.com/McCoogy/SonicStage42

They don't ship international AFAIK.

Nice link. I agree problem with Sony is the conflict of interest with Sony Music, thats for sure. Obviously lack of promotion. Sony where probably conflicted that MD was the perfect home copying medium. So how to advertise it with out promoting home recording and copying. Also where I am MD was always too expensive compared to CD discman and much more hassle. (for most people) Though I also loved the size of the format, and the units. Dang it hes right theres just something cool about MD's, especially to those of us who were big users of cassettes.

I still have a large collection of mix cassettes and home recordings on cassette of all sorts of stuff. In fact I'm in the middle of the slow process of recording it onto MP3 and CD via my HiMD. A lot of it is so old its actually deteroriating, which prompted me to digitise it. I still like to listen to cassettes on a good deck though, its still enjoyable. But I never liked carrying around bunches of cassettes and MD's around, though I did it for years. My main problem these days is that I don't have the time to manage my music out on to cassettes and MD disc like I used to. its just so time consuming. I work with computers all the time so I like being able to manage my music via computer. I can appreciate that some people won't. Each to their own and all that. But even for me, theres still an attraction occasionally in not using a computer, and just physically handling the media. Never really liked CD's but theres something about MiniDisc and the hardware that I've just found so dang cool. Must be the gadgetphile in me. Which is probably why I recently bought another cassette deck and will probably pick up a MD deck to add to the HiFi when I see a good deal on a good one.

I say reality because your facts are incorrect, If you want to take that personally thats your choice. That wasn't how it was meant. I never said high sales - high quality. Why make stuff up? I never made the connection that Sales = quality. Simply that huge sales over a few years is not flash in the pan. Same reason for carrying 80GB of uncompressed audio. The iPod can do either. But since uncompressed audio is the same data as compressed lossless data you'd use lossless at the very most. As it maximises battery life, and can be tagged for no loss in quality. Thats just logical. You want more capacity so you have maxium choice of what you listen to without having to reload music. Its simply for convience. You might choose to do this to via a dock a HiFi just to avoid handling your CD's. What assumptions? Uncompressed is the same data as Lossless. Thats a fact. Its has nothing to do with iPods and nothing to intelligence. If you want you can use an iPod with uncompressed audio, with a line out to a high end DAC/Amp. By your logic because you use uncompressed audio it must be HQ than compressed audio. In fact its the same thing. Actually its a technical term, and thats how I'm using it. Ditto transcoding. An original analog master recording is obviously lossless. But how is it possible to get a exact copy of a master disc? Considering a lot of music is no longer released on Vinyl. Is it actually recorded in the studio, or live in analog or digital. I dunno. But Lossless is generally taken to mean lossless data compression in the context of digital audio. If you consider you can't actually listen to analog on a MD/HiMD its digital only. So a PCM file on a HiMD should be the same data as a WAV on an iPod or a Apple Lossless file. Or any other DAP, it doesn't have to be a iPod. I think you are confusing audio compression with data compression. The write speeds are fact. That was my point. I can't argue if you have made disks for every possible mix you might think of in the future thats amazing. But an alternative view point is that someone has all their music on say a 8GB Nano and never needs to change it, they never need to swap disks at all. So that would be quicker. But the point of my argument was that criticizing transfer speeds of flash memory device compared to a HiMD is laying it a bit on a thick IMO. Better device for you. Look at the OP comment "I hate uninformed journalists comparing a spoon to a fork" Like the iPod Shuffle? The iPod is a success because its appeals to more people. Its a more popular product. Even though in many ways its an inferior product to competing products. So you have to ask why do more people choose an inferior product. Hence sheeple. You're offended because I'n not defending the minority view, and offended because I'm critical of the majoirty opinion. Jeez I'm not insulting anyone. I'm pointing out the factual errors in your comments, and I'm disagreeing with your point of view. I might as well argue I've heard LP4 on a MD with stock buds vs Lossless on a iPod through a STAX and the iPod sounds better. Not everythings an insult because it disagrees with you, btw. Nothing I've posted was intended as an insult, just lively debate.

I've about 30 legacy disks mainly obtained when buying old MD players. Don't use them any more. Since I got a HiMD I only use 2xHiMD and nothing else. Mind you I don't use it as a player only a recorder.

You're missing a lot of reality dude. For one that iPods don't need to do what MD does, and for most people the iPods advantages outweigh its disadvantages for most people. When you start taking about carrying 80+ HiMD's is easier than one 80GB iPod that's nonsense. The iPod has about 70% the entire MP3 player market, and its expected about something like 24 million of them will be sold in 2006 alone. Its been on the market 5 yrs and each year its sales increase. Thats hardly flash in the pan. You don't understand lossless because it doesn't lose quality. Compression of Lossless files has no effect on audio quality. Are talking about transcoding? Thats a different subject entirely. Incidentally not all iPods sound the same, the latest generation 5.5g is much better over earlier generations and you can use a line out on them. Copying 1GB to a Nano is considerable quicker than copying it to HiMD. Swapping HiMD is only faster if you have exactly what you want on a disk. Personally I couldn't say that was true ever time and usually I'd have to prepare a few disks for the week, or a trip. I don't even know why you are comparing a use case of recording device with that of a playback devices. its like comparing an Apple and an Orange. Most people don't need and will never need to record. That the reality. I do record which is why I use a HiMD. But for playback most of the time I use a UMS flash MP3 player, its just more easier than a HiMD and the quality (to my ears) as good as my NH700 (no HD amp I know).

No offence but perhaps you're guilty of the same blinkered outlook. Since you synch the iPod to the computer with iTunes, your really only limited by how much you can keep on you computer. You can add many disks to your PC, even networked storage. Also compressed audio isn't the problem. Lossy audio is the problem, and Apple has a lossless format. That said you'd need golden ears to hear the difference between a well encoded compress format in a portable situation, environment. Many audiophiles use iPods, they just use them differently to the sheeple.

You make valid points 1kyle and I on the whole I agree with pretty all of that post. Which is why I reckon spending a few hours browsing 2nd hand stores for used DVD's and CD's make a lot more sense, and is financially more astute than iTunes and similar services. Its more fun too. I know people who have gone one step further and have put their DivX libraries and MP3 libraries on hosted servers so they can access them anywhere for private use. But for me thats just too much hassle. That said many people would be happy with streamed low bitrate low fidelity media as I described earlier. I do think it will be an option eventually. Though you have limitation like in iTunes where many artists aren't on it. That a bigger issue than the technology problems IMO.

Agreed. Most media articles are very poorly researched.

Same here. I bought my NH700 cheap a few years back 2nd hand. But prices 2nd hand seem to be rising a lot these days. I think its because they are getting rarer and people are holding on to them for recording.

LP4 the horror

Stupid is as stupid does. Most people don't bother to do a course or read a manual, then blame the equipment when they make a mess of it. Hard to have sympathy for that after the nth time you see it. iPods have DRM restrictions, so buyer beware, and learn what those limitations are, Besides MD is not immune to losing data either. For a very long time we had to live with errors in the software trashing recordings and SonicStage doing crazy things for no logical reason. You still see posts from people who have DRM issues even with the latest version of SonicStage.

Every time you play something on your DAP you don't download it every time, most times its only something new you download/synch. I was mainly thinking of music but even with Video you don't watch it 24/7 and usually you plan your watching in advance so it doesn't have to be "on demand". I don't see why you have to constantly upload stuff you've already downloaded either. If you have album A on your iPod why would you need to upload it back up to a server? Why not just connect the iPod to Car system (for example) and synch them. Local syncs could be free and downloads charged to reduce bandwidth and contention issues. Theres ways and means IMO.

Theres elements of it there already in services like iTunes store, iPods, or for that matter Sky+ boxes.

The shop I bought it in, is a chain of shops in UK/Ireland (maybe elseware) that sells Japanese types of products, like stationary, bags, clothes and gadgets etc. Can't remember the name. They (the Irish Store) had loads of these for a while but once they sold out they never restocked them. Can't remember the name of the store at the moment. I haven't fully decided yet but I'll probably be getting rid of this case along with the legacy discs as I only use a HiMD for recording now and the couple of HiMD discs. The old MD discs I never use. I'll keep you in mind when I decide. The Japanese label is still on the case maybe that would be useful to someone?

SP is 292kps and is lossy compression. The original CD's are better quality and you would be better making encoding PCM, HiSP or any other encoding from the original CD's than using your SP recordings. That said you may or maynot not hear/appreciate the difference depending on how good your ears and other equipment, for example your headphones etc. It really depends on how you intend listening/using your music.

Found these old photos of my old MD units, felt like sharing.

I think the future is subscription services. You'll have a subscription based flat fee on your usages and all your devices. All your devices, personal audio, car audio, home audio will be able to access this central store, either via wireless or wired broadband and have a local cache of a few GB to hold you most commonly used tracks based on your playlists and history.

Clarkson's an idiot. Apple Lossless. http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=200547

Same here.

... is that that MD in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?