Tridactyl

I have the following MiniDisc auctions currently on eBay: Used S2 NetMD Portable with 2 discs Used S2 NetMD Portable with 2 discs (nicer shape, more accessories) MZ-NF520D Portable NetMD MiniDisc player with FM radio/remote and accessories (nice shape) Pair of Blank (BLUE) 80 minute minidiscs - brand new in sealed retail package Box of 5 used colour minidiscs (one 80 minutes, others 74) I accept PayPal only and will ship in Canada and the US. Cheers, Tridactyl

Thanks for the feedback. I'll use this in the future to delete the temp files. I guess switching to MP3 encoding might be a good incentive to get a HDD based player like the Sony NW-HD3 (or one of the more recent A-series models now on the market). I would have thought ATRAC to be a superior codec to MP3. From what you're saying, this isn't the case even when using the higher bitrates... This is good feedback. Helps me plan for my next player purchase Cheers, Tridactyl

I guess I'll reply to my own post... I've been doing a lot of digging (various Sony web sites and SonicStage help files) and I think I know what I've been doing wrong. SonicStage was configured to automatically rip CDs to Atrac3plus 64kbps so all my CDs ended up at the lowest quality and (if I understand the methodology right) saving these files to my NetMD player in LP2 format simply made matters worse (transcoding to a higher bitrate). My 192kbps WMA files were only converted to ATRAC when I saved them to my NetMD device. If I selected LP4 then I would end up with an ATRAC3plus 64kbps file on my hard drive. If LP2 then the file would be saved in ATRAC3 132kbps. I thought SonicStage would only convert and transfer the ATRAC file to the portable device. I wasn't aware it also left a copy of the converted ATRAC file on my hard drive so that's something I'll need to monitor before I chew up all my free space. I've gone back and deleted every LP4 file off my hard drive and converted everything to LP2. The tracks sound a heck of a lot better at 132kbps and I can fit about 3 CDs worth onto an 80 minute disk. I'm still considering getting a HDD based player but I'm concerned about how many tracks will fit on a 20 Gb unit like the NW-HD3 if you're not using 48kbps. I'm still trying to find the best compromise (quality vs compression) and I'm not sure going LP2 is the best solution. Does ATRAC3plus 48kbps sound anything near Sony's claims (like 128kbps MP3)?

(FYI, I posted this on another Sony community site but perhaps this is a better place...) Sorry if this has been answered before but I can't make any sense of the ATRAC conversion process. I have been ripping CDs to ATRAC using SS 3.1 (now upgraded to 3.3) on my laptop. Lately, I started buying music on line in WMA format (192 kbps/44.1 kHz) and converting to ATRAC on the fly. Eventually, I transfer everything to MD for playback either on my portable MZ-NF520D or MZ-S1. I've been using default values when ripping CDs and the WMA files import quickly. Weird thing is that I end up with files in various bitrates and I have no idea why. The files ripped from my CDs end up stored either at ATRAC3plus - 64 or ATRAC3 - 132 kbps (sometimes I even have both bitrates available for the same song). The WMAs convert real quick and end up stored in ATRAC3 - 132 kbps. All files (CD and WMA are sampled at 44.1 kHz). The problem is that I never know what I will end up when I transfer the tracks to my NetMD players. If I say transfer the music "as is" then I end up with a mix of LP2 and LP4 files on the player. If I want everything to be the same format then I need to down sample everything to LP4 and then the sound's not that great. I'm obviously doing something wrong here... I read about higher bitrates (like ATRAC3plus - 192 or higher) and I wonder if I can "upscale" the files I already ripped or if I need to rip everything again. Also, how can I configure SS so the higher bitrates are used as a default? I'm not offered a bitrate conversion choice when I import WMA files. They go straight to ATRAC3 - 132. By the way, I mostly use Sennheiser MX-500 earbuds or Sony MDR-G52 headphones. I'll sometimes hook one of the players up to a pair of Sony amplified speakers (SRS-37) which sound ok except for the lack of bass. I find the sound is quite acceptable with the earbuds and speakers but I'm very unhappy when I use the players in my car via cassette adapter (sound comes out quite distorted, even when I turn the player's volume way down). Same thing when I hook up the players to my Sony Receiver. I'm currently considering getting either a HiMD player (MZ-DH710 or MZNH700) or the NW-HD3 as a possible upgrade path to my NetMD players. I would like to stick to a Sony based solution due to my current investment in MD equipment. I would just like to know what I'm doing wrong with SS and how can I improve audio playback in the car and off my Receiver (am I expecting too much from the headphone jack output??). Any feedback/advice would be greatly appreciated... Sorry for the long post...

Interesting site. I'll check them out. My original point had more to do with the fact one would think Canada is a reasonable sized market for Sony. You could assume Sony would support their products locally, specially since the software insists on brigning you automatically to their online store. For example, Apple launched their canadian site after the US but it DID launch one and it supports iPod sales in Canada. In my opinion, Sony's lack of success against Apple and the other MP3 products stems from the fact they have ignored certain markets altogether. Technically, the products are brilliant but they are expensive and Sony has very poor marketing and offers little support. I remember a huge marketing screwup a year or so ago. Sony had a promotion with McDonalds in the US and Canada. You bought McDonalds food and received an online coupon good for music downloads at Sony Connect. Worked great in the US but in Canada you were automatically redirected to the Canadian Puretracks web site. Now, get this... Puretracks sells its music in WMA format only. Duh!!! This was a Sony promotion and the files weren't even compatible with their own product! It's a self-fulfilling prophecy...

I've been patiently awaiting the launch of Sony Connect in Canada for over a year now. 3 NetMD players later, I'm still buying my music through iTunes, burning to CD and ripping back into SonicStage. I tried buying through Puretracks but the files are in WMA format so these also need to be converted to audio CD and ripped back just like the iTunes content. Now, to my amazement I get the following screen when I launch the SonicStage 3.3... Sony Connect detects I'm coming in from an "unauthorized" country so it shows me a list of countries for me to choose from, except Canada isn't on the list. You'd think I could simply pick USA but if I do so I can see the underlying USA based Connect site but can't purchase from it. If I poke around long enough I eventually get redirected to a blank page that says the Connect service isn't available in my country. I have tried contacting Sony support but that didn't go anywhere either... So, as far as Sony is concerned, Canada doesn't really exist so we're actually supposed to be, like, Americans (except if we want to actually BUY SOMETHING!!!!!) Anyone on this board from Canada who has found a workaround for this (other than moving to California???) This is frustrating to no end... It's bad ennough Sony offers a very limited subset of their portable music hardware in Canada but to make matters worse, you can't use the Sony site to purchase music from them. Helloooooooo Sony.... Anybody home?