Petter156

Well I hope so. I think my battery seems to be running short a bit too fast since at least one person said he had used his RH10 for a full day of non-stop music with one charge. I have been doing a lot of sound quality tests and other PC-MD transfers lately (and I keep starring at the OLED all the time )

Hi. Before I started using Sonic Stage (a few days ago) I had read a lot of complaints about it on these forums. To me the software isn´t at all as bad as people have been making it out to be. The user-interface could use some serious tweaking and sure drag-n-drop support in Windows Explorer would be nice - but overall I´m happier with Sonic Stage than I thought I would be. File transfers were a lot faster than I was expecting. Well, on with the gripes... MP3´s transfered to my RH10 sound bad, and this has been discussed heavily already. Using a custom EQ setting improves things a lot and mostly get´s rid of the muddy sound, but bass is sacrificed, not good for on-the-go listening. Well, since SS sems very quick in converting files to ATRAC I´d be happy with using this format. But Sonic Stage wants to choose which files are converted and which are left as MP3´s (files with a lower bitrate than the one specified for transfers). Now, I have varying salection of MP3-files in the 128-192kbps range mostly (with a few even going as low as 96kbps, yikes...) and I would want all transfered songs on my MD as HiSP (or even HiLP in some cases). But apparently I can´t have my way - 128kbps files are not converted. So, finally on with the question... Is there any way to force Sonic Stage to always transcode in HiSP before transfering the files to the minidisc? How would you go by doing this process?

I was wondering if I could get some opinions of other RH10 (and RH910 users I would imagine) concerning the fact that the battery is getting charged every time the unit is connected through USB. Personally, and I am pretty sure I´m not alone with this, I´m likely to connect my new RH10 to my PC for transfers quite often - way more often than how long it takes for the battery to get depleted in normal usage. Same thing with the stand that came with the RH10. It´s just comfortable to have the unit in the stand when listening to the unit through my stereo system. So this means that the battery is going to be charged only slightly every time I want to download some songs to the player - even though the battery would be almost fully charged. Say I add some music in the morning before heading off to school and then do an upload and add some more tracks in the evening. The battery won´t be near empty when I do this. This can´t really be healthy for the battery? How do you treat this issue? Do you always let the player get charged when connecting to the PC even though the battery wouldn´t be empty or do you remove the battery whenever connecting to your PC (this seems like quite an inconveniance)? Am I likely to end up with a useless battery withing a few weeks if go on like this or are the batteries durable enough? Your thoughts please.

Thanks A440 for the input but I managed to fix the issue. I uninstalled (without removing any registry entries though) and then installed Sonic Stage using Sony´s own installer. When I loaded it up HiMD was recognized as a tranfer option. I was surprised that Sony´s own installer offered me the option to choose where I wanted to install SS but the MDCF package didn´t. I had expected it be the other way around and that´s why I chose to use the MDCF installer in the first place (big companies way to often try to dictate where the files should go, my small C: partition is getting cluttered). So, since someone else recently had a similar issue with the MDCF installer I am going to speculate that the package is faulty. Broadband users might want to try the Sony-installer first.

Using Win2000 here. So do you know if I have to install something other than what came with the MDCF package or can I patch something? Is it okay to install the 3.0 version from the CD that came with my RH10 and just install 3.2 over thator how should I do it?

Yesterday I installed (and was then forced to reinstall) SonicStage 3.2 (MDCF packed) and played with it for a while familiarizing myself with it. Today I unwrapped my new RH10 and decided to upload my first recordings. When I connect the recorder to my PC it is regognized by Windows ('found new device') and some sort of drivers are installed automatically. However, SonicStage doesn´t seem to recognize the device. Under the transfer-menu only CD-burning options are available. Did I do something wrong? Do I need to install something in addition to SonicStage?

I´m curious about this too since I just yesterday installed SonicStage. Surely SonicStage should be able to always convert to a certain bitrate when transfering?

Similar thing happened to me. I was going to demonstrate how durable MD´s are to a girl at school and asked her to throw it on the floor (hard concrete). Well she smashed it way harder than I had expected and the disc (a TDK, not as quality as the Sony ones) got cracked in half. Fixing it was as simple as gluing it together back home.

Here´s mine:

If anyone is going, would it be possible to order 2 of these?

The Europe version is the the most limited of all RH10 models; limited output from the headphones and lacking some player settings (custom EQ). The remote is the standard one without LCD and no charging stand is suplied. The american version is functionally equal to the japanese version but doesn´t come with the LCD remote or a charging stand. Japanese; full set of accessories and no artificial limitations. Edit: european versions can be hacked to offer better settings/full volume. The language on the japanese version can be changed to (at least) English.

Too bad DAB hasn´t kicked off here in Helsinki yet. But I was thinking of recording some music by connecting a recorder digitally to my digital TV receiver.

Skimming through the site you provided it looks to be a slightly advanced project, so I´ll have to see if I have the time for this or if I would settle with buying a custom made one. After all, I don´t really need anything fancy - so the price shouldn´t be too bad. All I´ve done so far, really - is soldering wires. I extended my powersuply´s ATX wires and it even worked after the procedure!

Why not uplaod all the tracks to SonicStage, combine them and export that as a wave-file?

Thank you Ivan, this might be a fun project to try out.

Streamline: you wouldn´t happen to have any links for instructions on how to build my own headphone amp?

Oh yeah, forgot about that. So only SP-wrapped LP2 transfers for 2nd gen HiMD, even with the SonicStage improvements?

Here´s a mix I recorded yesterday while I was painting my room.

Really? Because I think someone told me that this wasn´t possible. Only HiMD formats for the RH10. Is this a SS 3.2 improvement?

Thanks dude, I really appreciate that I´ll be sure to check out that site too.

I think it sucks that my Soundblaster Live! soundcard has a digital out jack but apparently I need to buy an expensive external connector box from Creative before I can connect my MD deck digitally. Analog only for now....

Guess I´ll have to try them out to see which works best. Good to know that they are standard cables for the most part.

Oh I can still remember when these were first introduced. I so wanted to get one but I could never afford it.

Hi. I´ve heard that some HiMD units come with a very short USB-cable. I´m just wondering if it´s possible to use any normal USB cable to connect a HiMD unit to your PC? Currently I only have need for two cables, one for the mouse and the other for my digital camera and my brothers Zen Micro. It would be nice to keep the amount of cables to a minimum.

Thanks, I guess I´m going with MP3 gain then... most the music on my HDD is in MP3 - since Ogg support around the world is still a bit limited.