greenmachine

With Hi-MD units you can use 1GB MDs, which can store almost eight hours in 256 kbps Hi-SP (better than LP2 quality). Reformatted 80 min MDs (~305 MB) can hold about 140 minutes (= 2 hours and 20 minutes) of Hi-SP. LP2 recording on Hi-MD (reformatted) MDs is only available by USB download via Sonicstage. Hi-MD reformatted standard MDs can hold almost twice the information than in regular mode, but are not compatible with older (non Hi-MD) equipment.

I didn't even try 352 kbps yet since i can't even abx Hi-SP from the original and if i could it would be very, very hard. For me, 352 seems just like a waste of disc space, although some 'golden ears' might hear the difference.

This chart should answer your questions about recording capacities with different modes / disks: http://www.minidisc.org/hi-md_faq.html#_q93

It totally depends on yourself if it sounds acceptable to you - and this is all that counts. To me it usually doesn't. For low quality recordings / speech it might be waste to go any higher than that though.

With a battery module you can record very high sound pressure levels via line-in, but if your recordings are mostly in the normal loudness range, you would get very quiet recordings and after normalization lots of noise. For normal usage it's propably best to upgrade to a MD with mic-in.

It's simply the faster cpu of your 'puter that accelerates encoding, it doesn't mean that it's less accurate.

According to my own unscientific tests, the NH700 uses around 8 MB [PCM ~46s / Hi-SP ~256s (=4m16s) / Hi-LP ~1024s (=17m04s)]. As soon as the buffer is ~60-70% empty, it starts reading from the disc in order to refill it.

It's Atrac3+ at 48 kbps, about the same or lower quality than the 66 kbps LP4. It's only available through Sonicstage for HiMD machines. I wouldn't use it for music, if you need to fit as much information as possible on a disc though, it should be acceptable for speech at least. Just my subjective opinion. Such HiMD mode re-formatted discs are not compatible with standard (Net)MD playback.

Very nice photography - i like these dark backgrounds much better than your previous bright ones - it leads the viewer's attention better to the object instead of irritating the eye. The last one could propably have benefited from somewhat less exposure. Keep it on.

They do.

Recording usually in PCM mode, SS 3.2 or 3.3 for uploading and conversion to *.wav - i dont use SS for anything other than that - compress it to *.flac for backup before applying any editing, save it on HD. After that, the MD can be formatted and re-recorded. For editing Cooledit Pro / Adobe Audition with FLAC plugin. All the conversion tools you need (mp3/flac...) can be found at http://www.rarewares.org/. Always keep at least one copy of your lossless original, whatever storage media you use.

In-ear microphones, while using the same mic elements, can sound very different because of the coloring effect of the pinnae and are said to be compatible with headphone playback only. Personally i prefer to have the mics near, but not in the ears, facing forward (mounted to the rim of glasses). This avoids the coloring effect while still using the HRTF for better channel separation than collar-clipping and makes it better suitable for loudspeaker playback, although some corrections still might be required. You don't need bass-roll-off or attenuation / level control on your battery module, low frequency amplitude can be corrected via software afterwards with much more predictable results. Levels with the nh700 can be adjusted during recording as long as you choose manual levels. Although most electret mics are designed for voltages up to 10 volts, 12 propably won't harm them either because of the voltage-lowering characteristic of the bias resistor - but these specialized batteries can be hard to find and expensive. I enjoy recording both unamplified acoustic instrumental music and 'the harder stuff', although Bad Religion is a little too simplistic and straight-forward for my personal taste.

Mp3 - if encoded carefully - can sound good in the ~140-170 kbps range and indistinguishable from the original at ~170-210 when using vbr, which should give more consistent quality. Atrac(3(+)) on the other hand is optimized for low power consumption and restricted to cbr only. I think Atrac simply requires a higher bitrate to reach transparency.

Nobody said to always use the line-in - use it just just for higher sound pressure levels. Quiet sounds would be buried in the noise floor the same way as high SPLs overload the preamp when using mic-in. A perfectly working preamp with seamlessly variable gain would end the endless line-in or mic-in discussion, but until then you have to choose either one or the other that fits best for your situation.

Where's pcm? I use this mode almost exclusively for recording. Hardly use the unit for playback. If i would, I'd propably choose 256 kbps.

Phew, i thought we'd have to pay for the service from now on. Thanks, it works.

70+ bugfixes and a few new bugs. I'm getting an error message when trying to upload a common *.mp3 file to the LRA. It says "Sorry, you are not allowed to post movies". This is propably the reason why 'percussive' and maybe a few others didn't succeed in uploading recently.

It's all about the price. HiMD and HD are much ceaper per capacity. Other than that, i see only benefits with flash cards over any other digital storage media.

Like A440, i would use neither of the Sony mics for said reasons. These Panasonic mics are propably your best bet as long as the manufacturer/seller matches the channels or you're lucky to get a good pair. Unfortunately his phantom power supply/battery box uses only 3 volts instead of up to 10, which won't let you use the mics' full dynamic range. This could be critical at high SPLs like rock concerts. Considering the price, i'd give this combo a try. Maybe you're skilled enough to modify the box for 9 volts or ask him if he would do it for you. Maybe it works well even with only 3 V. You'll have to see. For mic placement i'd suggest to mount them to the rim of some glasses near your ears to gain height and channel separation.

I think you should be fine even without attenuator/battery box for unamplified music. But be careful with you mic selection and placement, these are by far the most critical components.

This dutch site's not bad either: http://3voor12.vpro.nl/3voor12/archief/

Hi-SSP, Hi-USP, Hi-XSP, Hi-UP or Hi-XP look good to me.

You won't be lucky with electret mics, they require a bias voltage, which is absent at the line-in, not to mention the lack of preamplification. You're better off with a different recorder with mic-in.

Thank you for this gem.

A battery box supplies electret mics with power, but doesn't preamplify in any way. Unless you plan to record high SPLs exclusively, there's no way around a preamplifier. It's propably better to invest in a model with mic-in than an external preamp imo.