The Low Volta

nope either full CD quality (PCM) or any of the available lossy compressions, SS offers lossless indeed, but the lossless experience is on the PC only (not on HiMD as it uses a lossy part of the lossless package to transfer) just do a search on the lossless thing as it is all explained somewhere here on these forums

@ kdk087: unfortunately (I'd wish Chris would quit whining about the bass as well just kidding chris, I love your consistency) that isn't completely true... the lowest band of the Sony 6-band eq is only 100Hz while the human hearing goes down to 20Hz and even worse, adjusting that band only affects 100Hz and not 100Hz and below... that's a whole lot of bass that doesn't get 'raised' when the lowest band is. Greenmachine discovered this through a series of tests... On the other hand, if one lowers all bands (one or two increments), the lowest frequencies (<100Hz) aren't affected as explained above which means that they (relatively speaking) are raised... so by lowering all bands, one can actually raise the deep bass (and if you want the 100Hz bass (or any other specific frequency that has a eq-band) to be stronger as well, just keep that band in the neutral position as well) (this solution comes courtesy of greenmachine as well)

nathan... if that is correct, just buy the darn thing... even if you do not like it yourself you will definitely be able to sell it on for more than $99

there is no lossless compression on the MD itself unfortunately, it always uses a lossy compression (therefore you need to specify a bitrate with the atrac lossless)

nope, you are right raintheory... I bought the RM-MC40ELK for its backlit display of rec levels and not as a playback remote... as I always listen to full albums, I really prefer the RM-MC38EL (I've even got two from my NH900 and the RH1) but for 'song-listeners' the RM-MC40ELK offers better navigation with the RH1 I guess

get an RM-MC40ELK remote... this allows scrolling through tracks while listening to another one (it shows three lines of tracks and it has a scrollwheel)

I personally prefer the RH1 / NH900 (same HD digital amp) slightly over the RH10 (digital amp IIRC) but I really think that the biggets difference between the amps lies in battery concumption and not in sound differences

hold doesn't help (I always keep hold set when carrying it in a pouch)

LiION degrades with time (and bad storage) much more than with the number of charge/discharge cycles read www.batteryuniversity.com for lots more info on good battery use (LiION and NiMH are both addressed)

@Sparda: - SonicStage cannot transfer directly but SimpleBurner can (like A440 said) - toc cloning works for (Net)MD but for HiMD the trick as you call it hasn't been found yet

player only even means no realtime transfers IIRC, only the option to play existing discs (therefore called player-only units) what you are looking for is at least a NetMD downloader unit (this will allow LP2 downloads faster than realtime through USB)

the combine function does help here, but it can take a bit of time when combining large parts

player only means that they do not offer any way to get music on a disc (not through a mic, not through a line-in, not through USB) so they are only useful if you either have all your music stored on MD and do not intend to create new discs ever again or you have another MD that can create discs for the player only unit PS: downloader only units can do USB transfers

even more so, as the RH1 remembers all the settings (manual rec levels and the levels itself etc.) so you hardly need to enter the menu

currently listening to... Mono: one step more and you die (@ LAME 3.97 -V4 --vbr-new) Mono: Walking Cloud And Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered And The Sun Shined (@ LAME 3.97 -V4 --vbr-new) beautiful music... no words needed

I'm not in a position to check on one or the others' story so I can't comment on that...and my post was purely 'formalist' (i.e. I just wanted to respond once more to the 'tone of voice' in the posts by King Ghidora) but seeing the previous posts that isn't really the main point anymore PS: for the few that were interested, I can PM my response if you really wanted, but I do not want to further clutter this thread (that has gone all serious all of a sudden)

I habe noticed that this happens when the machine is off and the eject button is pressed (but not whole the way, just far enough to 'pretend' inserting a new disc) this is the same 'reset' as when you open any other MD and close it again with the same disc and is caused by a overly sensitive eject button and not really great placement of that button as well. For me it stopped now that I have a good carrying case that doesn't put any pressure on the eject button (for pics see my PX100 or D66SL pictorials in my signature)

GP powerbank sells 1350 (or 1400)mAh gumstick batteries (and an external charger as well) at reasonable costs... look for the charger as it comes with two sticks I believe and charging externally is a good thing as well (numerous instances of battery swelling are known)

parallels looks like a possible solution, but it still needs intel-macs so you would need to get a new mac and it needs windows so extra costs or you could just get an RH1 (costs, but a lot less than a new mac + windows + parallels) and use the mac software (MP3 from mac -> Hi-MD and your own recordings from Hi-MD -> mac) the second option looks like a cheaper one at this time (unless you really need a new mac) but you must know that the first option will allow you to upload your existing recordings (made with the non-mac-compatible Hi-MD) and the second one won't

still... if you are a mac-fan and you get an RH1, there is no need for windows in what form whatsoever...isn't that nice? I do agree with GaryAJ and 1kyle that parallels offers a great service for ppl with non-mac-compatible Hi-MD's and intel-macs already...but - as I said, full use of the RH1 (and M10,M100,M200) requires no windows anymore, so why spend extra? - parallels as with all dual boot systems or the like (so anything but the old, slow emulation to run windows) require an intel mac... so your idea still is pretty limited (I for one still use a 12" powerbook G4 = non-intel for work and personal use, so am I out of the mac-community now 'cause I don't have an intel-mac?) - and last but not least! we have been begging for mac-compatibility with Sony for so long... now we finally have got two-way mac compatibility... and now ppl start advising usage of windows-on-mac... this really says to Sony: "thanks but no thanks, simply forget about us mac'ers again. We will run windows rather than using your mac software" Well, I am glad that they added mac-compatibility and I will use and promote it whenever I can but if someone has a non-mac-compat Hi-MD and a version of windows (otherwise this will add to the price as well) and an intel-mac (and only in this particular case) I will recommend the parallels way PS: Duvel is great indeed... but dangerous!

no problem! sorry, but you can't just expect this forum to have an answer to everything... perhaps no-one but you ever experienced this or even if they have, they might not know how to fix this (like you yourself if I may add) it is a very peculiar problem and I guess one almost needs to be a technician to know what's going on here...but the service manuals are freely downloadable, so perhaps you should have a look yourself just remember this ain't no official Sony helpdesk, this is just a forum full of friendly helpful ppl with their own limits... I personally do not find your cynicism appropriate here, but that is just my peronal point of view

hmm, I had it installed on my old laptop and if you would stare real long at the logo your perception of reality altered slightly and you could see the following: Windows why ME?

just have a look at the minidisc.org equipment browser... the new MD-mode is Hi-MD and it offers more storage space, better SQ, backwards compatability (with your old discs), ... also look at the "product reviews and pictorials" section here on the forums and read a bit it is very hard to recommend a new recorder as we need a lot of info as to what you expect from the recorder and what you want to pay etc... so just have a look and ask some more specific questions afterwards

thanks Ken, I have a legal copy of adobe creative suite (thanks to my employer ) so I mostly use photoshop... but there are open source alternatives (like gimp(shop) ) and freeware thingies like the 'light version' of photoshop you get with some digi-cams etc (forget what it is called) and both will do all I did here (just cropping/adjusting size/adding a grey text-based layer at 40% opacity/flattening image/saving to JPEG with the right compression)

it is an inherent characteristic of LiIon Batteries that the first 80% charges quickly while it takes a whole lot of time to charge that last 20%... but as LiIon doesn't suffer from memory effects, it isn't necessary to charge fully each time (only when full power is needed)