Azureal

Now that's a difficult offer to refuse! I, for one, can attest to Stephen's repair skills. freddyjollo's idea makes sense as well though, maybe you could could replace it with one not as nice (or as expensive) until is is fixed, then you'll have two working decks...

I wish I were in a position myself, but I have to watch and enjoy the show from the outside. :-)

That's a pretty funny description and so true! Interesting stuff about Gary too. I am watching this one!

Thanks Philippe, you are right, that will allow halo71 to transfer via NetMD and produce a disc readable on the deck.

Your portable is newer than the deck you picked up. The deck only supports recording and playback of ATRAC SP. If you transferred files from a PC onto discs using the 520 it would have been in some MDLP (and NetMD) format. You could record something on the deck in SP and playback would work on the 520, but you will never be able to transfer anything via NetMD and get it to play on the older SP only deck.

VirtualBox in Linux running an old copy of XP would likely work well too.

It's always fun to hear stories of how folks use their MD devices, thanks for sharing!

I'll kick in for a stash of those too :-)

The screen is cracked. :-(

Oh I knew you were serious! All the more reason to love it!

That is classic! I love it...

n.o.s. = New old stock I have six five packs of these unopened, 80 minute variety as well. I have often wondered their true value. It all depends on what the market will bear, I have not seen too many for sale in the last couple of years. There was someone selling 25 packs on eBay.com a couple of years ago for 180 USD, that seemed a little steep to me at the time. They are definitely nice blanks, in my opinion the nicest Sony blanks I own.

Thank you phamcu and PhilippeC, I received my lens today!

I agree with the majority of those who have posted so far. I am capable of searching eBay for new toys on my own. I do like the thought of fellow users in our community offering one another the chance to buy, sell and trade among ourselves. I would personally enjoy the opportunity to make a trade or sale to a fellow insider forum member. If things don't work out, I'll move it to eBay and say "Hey, I moved it to eBay". I hate to see our classified section become nothing more than a repository for links to stuff on eBay ...

Thanks for the clarification guys! And thanks for the link also Richard.

Stephen, I completely agree with your direction. I would much rather have the classified section be a place where contributing members can share the opportunity to buy, sell or trade their equipment with one another. We all have the ability to search eBay for items we want and need if we choose to do so. I plan to sell some of my unused equipment someday and I would certainly like to offer any "for sale" items to fellow members versus going immediately to eBay. Can you clarify the policy on posting interesting finds on eBay? For example, sometimes myself as well as others run across an unusual MD item for sale, some crazy deal or otherwise. Is posting eBay links of that nature to be permitted?

Sound quality is not the biggest concern when driving a high impedance load with a low impedance amplifier, the primary issue is the decibel level attainable. In the optimum situation, you have what is known as a perfect impedance match where the rated impedance output of the amplifier is an exact match to the load of the headphone or speaker being driven. This condition allows for a state known as 'maximum power transfer'. It is not always attainable but it is desirable. Impedance mismatch, such as you describe, is not at all uncommon and is typically not anything to be concerned with except in the extremes. If the unit you are using can drive a 45 ohm load to an acceptable volume level, it should be able to also drive a 64 ohm load without issue. I would not even expect you to be able to notice any difference in battery power usage.

Well said footmobile! I have been using my Silver RH1 just about daily for probably about five years and I love it, the sound is amazing. I mainly use it to playback SP recorded via optical on my JA20ES. I also playback ATRAC3plus 256k if I want to squeeze some extra on a disk. I will say that I use it at work as well with the output set to line level to drive a small desktop analog amplifier and a couple of different high impedance pairs of headphones. I have a $3000 USD Marantz receiver at home that does not sound as good! (purchase in 1999, probably available on eBay for $200 now ...)

I would have bought that without hesitation as well! What a great deal.

I put a Sony unit just as sfbp describes in my wife's car a few years back. I can rip a ton of ATRAC compressed music to a single disc and it sounds great. If I am not mistaken, I believe you can use ATRAC3 and ATRAC3plus which is the newer of the ATRAC family and allows for better sound in a smaller space. You use SonicStage to create the ATRAC CD, they can't be used anywhere except in a device designed to play an ATRAC CD. The unit we have has an auxiliary 3.5mm input as well as a USB port which will read MP3 files from a thumb drive or other USB Mass Storage device or can just be used to charge a phone or tablet. The model number on the unit we have is CDX-GT610UI.

That's quite a stash!

It's unlikely that the car head unit will play HiMD, I don't believe any HiMD car units were ever manufactured and I think Sony only ever licensed HiMD to Onkyo. It will definitely play ATRAC3 SP recordings which sound fantastic (292Kbps), but as you say, in the car, you can just as easily swap CDs with up to 80 minutes of music on them as you can recorded MDs. You may be fortunate and have a unit capable of playing ATRAC3 LP (which includes LP2 and LP4). LP2 ATRAC3 is more compressed (132Kbps) and sound pretty darned good, especially in a noisy moving car. You can fit a little over 160 minutes on a single disk recorded in LP2. LP4 is even more compressed (66Kbps) and can sound a little flat, but can be used at lower volume levels. You can fit over 320 minutes of LP4 on a single 80 minute disk. You can use the MZ-NH700 to record in all of the ATRAC3 and ATRAC3plus formats, the latter being the newer CODECs created for HiMD.

I think I have even been unable to re-format a disk made using NetMD to be recorded on using SP, it is a bit of a pain. Nice to see you back punkrockaddict!

You would probably need to hold them both in your hands to see the difference versus looking at the pictures we see on eBay. The lighting is definitely a factor NH1 Silver and Gold. I am pretty sure there is no brown one Philippe! ;-) Unless it is of the "marsupial" RH1 variety and modified. :-) I will be selling mine soon Chris after a vacation. I hope I fare as well as you did.

Nice Chris, that's a great price, same as I paid for mine new in August of 2004!