greenmachine

The source follower mod together with a battery module is a gift from heaven, especially when it comes to recording loud music. Without it, most microphones tend to distort at moderate SPLs and are way too sensitive to be useful in a wide range. With it, i can use the microphone input for everything but very loud music without any noticable preamp or microphone overload. Thank you, Siegfried.

Welcome to the world of Sony technology / software. As you can see in the 'D' of its name, the NH600D is a downloader/player only, no live recording capabilities whatsoever. This must be the main reason why it's so inexpensive, many other Hi-MD units have line and microphone inputs, see the equipment browser: http://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html

Never used TR myself, but this little freeware program does its job quite well: http://members.home.nl/w.speek/wavegain.htm Besides, propably any audio editor can add gain, including the free audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Happy modding

Why shouldn't it work? Using a higher capacity doesn't mean to have increased power consumption or voltage, it'll just last longer.

How about calling it 'Brownie'?

I'd love to see either an 'ultra-low' mic sensitivity setting or a bias voltage (plug-in power) from the line-in. This would make carrying around an attenuator / a battery module/-box for recording loud music through an electret microphone to a large extent unnecessary.

Does it really have to be uncompressed? Otherwise, a lossy compression like mp3/ogg could save you a lot of headaches. The 50 MB wav would be converted into approximately 5-10 MB each and could be conveniently uploaded.

I wouldn't call 4 hours on a set of 4 AA cells a good battery life, with Hi-MD we're used to something more like 8.5/16/17 hours (PCM/Hi-SP/-LP) from a single cell - without moving parts it could be even better. But it's good to see alternatives appearing nevertheless. I don't need phantom power in a portable recorder by the way.

Why do they put in such a miniscule battery? To cut costs propably, even if it's only a few cents. High capacity Ni-MHs have indeed surpassed alkalines lately, in particular for high current drawing equipment like digicams or digital recorders/players, besides surpassing them in capacity, they can deliver higher (peak) currents without dropping too much with the voltage. Recording on 1GB Hi-MDs propably requires higher peak currents for some mechanical reason, which an alkaline has problems to deliver, thus the shorter recording times. There's propably still much capacity left on the alkalines when the recorder shuts off after a low battery indication, but this remaining capacity is only accessible for low current drawing devices like clocks, calculators etc.. This makes Ni-MH rechargeables the better solution for (Hi-)MD.

The NH-10WM is a 1000 mAh Ni-Mh rechargeable. Multiply those times by 2.3 and you'll approximately get my measured times for a 2300 mAh battery (i've used a 1GB Hi-MD disc for testing by the way).

You can upload, but you cannot convert - you'll need himdrenderer for this process.

I wouldn't suggest to edit your recordings on Hi-MD before uploading, there'a a bug: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showt...indpost&p=65384 This makes the editing features pretty useless.

It strongly depends on the battery. The recorder (i use a mz-nh700) usually tries to save before power runs out, but if you have a battery with a fast dropping voltage (for whatever reason), there might not be not enough power left to write the system file. I wouldn't rely on it unless you know the behavior of your batteries well. Better to approximately know how much recording time you'll get with your battery and to save before it gets critical. I get about 16-17 hours in Hi-SP/LP mode, about 8.5 hours when recording in PCM with a fully charged 2300 mAh Ni-MH rechargeable, so 2+ hours shouldn't be a problem even with lower capacity batteries.

Sorry to be a showstopper, but i've heard way worse first recordings, take mine for example: http://forums.minidisc.org/gallery/1122160...3_60_834153.mp3 I've been trying to record a very loud, bassy show with a highly sensitive microphone and high sensitivity setting on the recorder, levels 6/30 or something ridiculously low, lol. If you listen carefully, you might recognize the music somewhere hidden in a wall of distortion. But heh, at least it's stereo Back to your recording though: I'm not sure what you were trying to accomplish by adding a second channel with exactly the same information, it's still mono, but divided to two channels. I think you may have wanted to use some artificial stereo effect to give it some space, like that: http://forums.minidisc.org/gallery/1122160...3_60_517907.mp3 Still no substitute for a stereo microphone and careful placement though, maybe i made it even worse.

http://www.shure.com/support/technotes/app-phantom1.html

I'm very aware of that, nevertheless don't think i could successfully abx anything from 256 kbps upwards.

Decode and burn it to CD and you'll have access to higher quality audio equipment.

Transcoding lossy codecs is generally worse than direct encoding. If you would notice the difference is a different question though, but since your hearing seems so incredibly sensitive to be easily able to discern Atrac3+ at 256 and 320 kbps, i guess you would.

Unfortunately, you're propably out of luck. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=8178 Blessed were the times when we recorded on tape - no TOC, no system file to corrupt or edit by mistake - everything was still there if power unexpectedly ran out during a recording.

Although it's somewhat off-topic - yes, i actually do have a njb3. I'm not satisfied with the battery life and having to use expensive proprietary batteries though. The rather bad battery life often makes you want to carry around an external power supply. Also, the a/d part is not of the best quality, using the so-called internal microphone preamplifier is a complete waste of time and effort (yes, it's that bad). It doesn't provide a bias voltage for electret microphones either, you have to use a battery box and/or an external preamp anyway - it's propably better to skip the analog part completely and connect your equipment directly to the digital-in for quality reasons. All this additional gear and its rather large own size makes it pretty uncomfortable for portable recording. I'll stick with MD and all its comparably rather insignificant quirks until there's a real competition.

I'd prefer using non-mechanical media, even if it's somewhat more expensive. If the capacity is high enough for your needs, getting a card is a once-in-a-lifetime investment anyway. Sony, will you give us a CF recorder? There needs to be more competition in that market.

PM sent

1 GB cards are already affordable, higher capacities will be affordable soon. The price argument won't count much longer.

Awesome, besides the non-standarized battery, it looks very interesting. I wonder about the quality of the built-in mic preamp / a/d part.