greenmachine

This is propably not going to help with your decision, but i'd say any (Hi)MD recorder can sound anywhere between very bad and excellent for live recording applications, depending how you use it. GIGO. But the potential is there.

There are also lossy codecs especially designed for speech (like speex) with potentially lower filesize but mostly also sacrifice a good amount of quality.

You could analyze it in an audio editor after upload, but it's propably nothing to worry about, propably within the 2 dB range and considering the price including the SF mod it should be a good deal indeed. If the slight difference worries you, you can equalize it in an audio editor anytime. See post #9. If you run your levels 'hot' or prefer to stay on the safe side is up to you, just try to avoid clipping without setting it way too low.

Don't upgrade your headphones, they might reveal deficiencies of a low bitrate codec.

Close to impossible to predict, it could be significantly louder and you would have to use a lower level setting, you should get used to set levels according to the meter once you're there. With some experience you'll get to know the sensitivity of your mics and the behavior of the level system soon and will be able to predict level settings according to different sources if needed, but in the meantime you need to gaze at the display as often as possible. Try to get average peaks around the -12dB mark (left dot) and don't ever let it reach the right dot (>0 dB - clipping). The mic elements come with rather large tolerances out of the factory. It's the mic builders' job to find two matching pieces. The more exactly he works, the less channel difference you (the end consumer) will experience. Can you express it in dB? For me, anything above ~1-3 dB is intolerable (depending on the price).

How old are you?

A welcomed side-effect of the mod is the lowering of the mic's sensitivity, thus the preamp can accept higher SPLs before clipping occurs. Instead of attenuating and using the mic-in, the use of the line-in is recommended at high SPLs. Attenuation would only be useful if you don't have a line-in or can't adjust the preamp gain (like some camcorders). "Attenuation of the microphone output degrades the signal to noise ratio and should only be used, when the preamplifier gain can not be reduced." S.L. You've got a comment in the gallery.

How do you like the sound quality at 64k?

Good choice. Regarding recording quality (and this is all that really matters, isn't it?) it should be on par with the higher end models.

Either a file splitter or lossless compression like flac or wavpack (usually saves ~50% without sacrificing quality) would help you: http://www.dekabyte.com/filesplitter/ http://www.rarewares.org/lossless.html

The formula is simple: Believe in immortality and - most importantly - in the power of thoughts.

http://www.music-map.com/

I'm looking forward to the day when the sun evolves into a red giant. That will be kind of interesting. Makes us aware of the importance of our existence - and current events. Why do people think so short-sighted?

Armageddon is near. Propably.

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=10744 If you're in a hurry, read from ~ post #38 onwards.

That should be a much more efficient way ... if you manage to get proper connections somehow. The NH700 consumes ~350-550 mA while writing 1GB discs (motor spinning), but only ~70-95 mA during 'idle' periods (powered by one 1.2V NiMH cell). Thanks for testing.

Sudden rise? Do you think everything was quiet and peaceful just because past events have not been monitored and written down as extensively and accurately as we currently practice it? ||

It's crucial how you encrypt your data, i imagine a password protection by winrar or similar rather easy to crack. Read about why the most convenient way is barely the most secure way here: http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/HardEncr...doc/sogood.html The best thing with this encryption scheme is that you can use the recording capabilities of your MD to generate keys. But i guess most people don't care about maximum security as long as it's convenient to use.

Transcoding at such bitrates will most likely give a significant quality loss, the native mp3 playback needs to be equalized to sound ok. I wouldn't suggest (Hi)MD with all its limitations at all if your main intention is playing mp3s, but for recording it's hard to beat.

With the ability to also play lossy formats like mp3 and a good battery life, this would be a great product, basically a cd player with 7x the storage, but i guess it would be physically too large for joe average.

Well, at least the NH700 does in all three rec modes (even Hi-LP!). Playback behaves normally , i.e. idle periods in between. Good to see that they might've changed it for the RH10, it seems like a real waste to me. How about a firmware upgrade, Sony?

Did you notice the significantly increased power consumption when externally powered , i.e. the disc motor spinning constantly instead of occasionally to save power? This should be taken into consideration.

pisialvar, i think you could improve the quality of your recordings if you mount the mics to the outside, even if it might not appear that 'stealthy'. The rim of the glasses seems to cover a bit too much, which could lead to high frequency attenuation and/or nasty resonances. Did you succed with your first recordings? I think i've seen a first recording in the gallery, but can't seem to find it again. Could you post a link or move it to its proper category?

That was around the year 1999 iirc. http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_DCM-M1.html http://www.dpreview.com/news/9911/99110201sonymdcam.asp

Who told you that? Maybe you unknowingly encoded to 105 kbps, transcoded to 66 kbps and judged that.