genghisbunny

I suggest you try the firmware upgrade that European users used to get proper EQ controls. If you overwrite the firmware, it may well come good. Cheers, Genghisbunny

Strange - You may have a defective unit, as I've never had any heat-related issues with my RH10.

Yeah, it will be a while. If you can't wait, I can tell you I'm rapt with my rh10, but the rh910 is basically the same machine without the fancy display. If money were more of a concern than looking cool (it wasn't for me ) I'd be getting the rh910. I'd skip the first gen nh900, because it doesn't do native MP3 playback, but the rh910 does. The only thing to bear in mind is that you need to set the EQ (you have 2 custom settings available) to make the MP3s sound good. I don't know of any features that any lower-end models have that the rh10 doesn't. The battery extension is included for running off of a AA battery, which was the one feature the old nh1 didn't have. Maybe that's what you were thinking of. Good luck, and welcome to the party.

Sorry SilverBlade, no offence intended I love my RH10, and if my wife wasn't a bassist/pianist and a lot of my friends weren't musicians I'd probably look at a non-recorder myself. What originally attracted me to the medium was the recording quality. It was later on that I discovered the joys of skip-free playback and easy creation of "mix discs". Minidisc then became my favourite playback format.

Downloader-only???? GET BEHIND ME SATAN! Actually, I think a few more units are in order, including an el-cheapo such as silverblade has requested. It only makes sense.

I still love my RH-10 and will whine about this one not having the ability to change batteries WHILE RECORDING like my RH-10 does (add external pack, slip out gumstick, slip in new one - or, have enough power on gumstick to swap AAs). Those of us who bought MDs for recording agonise over the thought of recording dropping out because the battery is flat. /slap on hand BAD SONY! BAD! On the other hand, I'm sad because my RH-10 can't do SP Uploads and I would really love to be able to do that. I have 2 friends with Net-MD (one a deck, one a port) and would dearly love to convert their music for them. I can't see the sense in two Hi-MDs though, and because neither of the two options suit my various needs, I'll be enjoying my RH10 for the time being. There's nothing wrong with it. It rules. It's just not... the hottest anymore. Oh, to be a teen again and have 50 bucks a week from work and no expenses... Then again, owning a house is better than buying toys... I suppose...

WOW! So Canadians now pay more in TAX on a CD-R than we pay for the whole product here in Australia - What a scream! They talked about doing this here in Aus a couple of years ago but it was found to be impossible to enforce as CD-Rs are mainly used for data in business, and it punishes everyone who uses CD-Rs regardless of whether their use is music-related piracy or not. So the Australian user failed to be shafted by the government that one token time. Sorry to see that Canadians are getting rammed for nothing.

I think they're actually a rebadged player with a different software package. There MAY be a different firmware, but I'm quite certain the hardware is identical.

I bought a mini-system for a friend's birthday a month ago and it has atrac-3 CD playback... I think all the sony minisystems did. Not sure where you're getting your info from, but in Australia they're definitely available... I can't find the one we bought on the Sony Style website, but here's another one that does the same trick... http://www.sonystyle.com.au/catalog/produc...&textview=false Good luck!

Probably any JB Hi-Fi. They have them all over Australia and any local can tell you where the nearest one is. They're kind of like the old "nobody beats the Wiz" shops in the US, but less fancy on the showrooms, lots of stock just sitting on top of boxes, cheap CDs and they stock Hi-MDs. Price is 4.75aud but there's no bulk discount for buying 10 or 20. Good luck with the grey importing

I use a mix of the old MDs (74 and 80-minute) which I have a lot of, and HiMDs which I have 10 of so far. I use Hi-SP for all of them, meaning I get 2 albums on a 74-80 minute disc and about 8-10 albums on a Hi-MD. I listen to lots of funk and soul, and find that Hi-SP is rich, warm and bassy with a nice pop on the bass guitar and floor toms, but still has lots of headroom over the top of cymbal crashes and a wicked sound on wah guitar (a la Catfish Collins from Parliament and Bootsy's solo band). I haven't put my 4 tops collection across, but my Stax Records anthology sounds great as is. In my limited experience with Hi-LP I find it's real weakness to be female vocals, which tend to go washy and indistinct. I haven't put any funk and soul onto Hi-LP so I can't comment but find it's quite hit and miss. I would reccommend trying it out in your system and seeing what you think. My experience with 48k sound is that it just doesn't have enough guts to produce the richness you need in vocals, guitar, piano or string work, and can cut out resonance on drums, so it's probably not going to give you what you listen for in soul and R&B.

Hi Gals and Guys, On the topic of headphones, I'm looking at buying either an MDRCD-580 or MDRCD-780. I see that statistically the 780s seem to be higher-end than the 580s. Here in AUS they sell for @220 and 170 respectively, so I'm trying to see what an extra 50 bucks buys you. Anyone have an opinion on this? Have I missed a really obvious previous post on this topic? I currently use the old-style (old-school) MDR-V200s which I've had for more than half a decade. Great sound, but I'm wondering if there's MORE to life by spending more money... So does anyone have a recommendation on this topic? I'm suddenly interested again since buying an RH-10, my new baby. ( And, yes, feel free to iPod-bash off-topic in this thread. I love it! )

I can recommend the RH10 with a good set of headphones. I find the MP3 quality is fine when you tweak with the EQ, which anyone who has trained ears does with their equipment anyway. The sound quality using simpleburner from CD to Hi-SP is very strong, meaty, musical, with nicely defined midrange, high-end punch on cymbal crashes and thumping bass on Timpani and bass guitar, with breathtaking voicing on cello and double-bass. I'm doing some testing in a couple of weeks with live recording solo piano, bass guitar and acoustic guitar, and solo guitar. So I'll post my findings then. The ability to transfer direct to PC with my recordings is seductive as all hell. I've done squillions of SP recordings on my trusty old MZ-R37 over 6 years, so I'm very picky about sound quality recording live. I found the recordings from this unit had more warmth and a bigger soundstage than what I recorded on my old reel-to-reel machine (of course there was less noise, it's digital). So I actually dumped analog recording altogether a few years ago. I'm yet to transfer all my reels to MD, but will start doing it now that I have a Hi-MD that can shunt it onto the PC over digital. I've got a good mic, the same one I've used for ages, so the only thing I'm changing is the MD unit. I'll start a new thread once I've done the new test recordings.

I buy most of my CDs second-hand so nothing gets to the labels or the artists. I'm just saving it from becoming landfill. And yes, iChoons is a waste of money - why buy music that's been made less useful rather than just buying the proper CD version? Then again, I'm not in the target "single-buyer" demographic (I'm well over 15) - I buy albums after sampling a few tracks through file-sharing.

"Love Media - Making sure every radio station in America sounds exactly the same" -GTA3 radio ads

You rule with the bonus info GreenMachine. Also love your info about stealth recording - I love to laugh at the pictures. And I feel silly not having guessed what A/B/X testing is myself. Great link.

Thanks for the info Sparky. I think I'm glad I skipped the MDLP generation and the NetMD generation as people seem to bitch about them endlessly. Then again, people love to bitch.

I'm hoping a deck comes out as well. In the meantime, I use my PC for titling, etc. and do final edits on the files on PC using WAV. (Cooledit/AdobeAudition)

Money spent on good headphones is NEVER wasted. I've got (fairly cheap but nice) MDR-V200s which are a million times better than any buds I've tried. Anything beats the buds that come with an iPod or a minidisc, so just throw those away (<RANT> proof that ipods are fashion rather than music items -> people still use those s**tty white headphones to look cool even though 20 bucks would make their 400 dollar thing sound dozens of times better!</RANT>) At the end of the day, it's always going to sound more accurate through better headphones, but accurate can also mean you hear the faults more clearly. I'm using Hi-SP with my headphones and on the car stereo and find it quite good (although had to set up different EQ for the two different set-ups for sound quality). If you're really worried about sound quality on Hi-LP, try it out. Borrow some decent 'phones from a friend, or BETTER YET go into a store which has them on display and audition them with some favourite tracks of different styles on your MD in different quality levels (bit rates). Any decent hi-fi store should have demo units of over-the-head type headphones to try. Obviously, you can't try out "shove in your ear-hole" ones for sanitary reasons, but I doubt you are thinking of them when you say "good headphones" anyway. This will also help you choose between several hundred-dollar headphones with similar stats. Good luck!

Volta, Any impressions on the difference between the GP and the "dinky-di" Sony gumsticks? Have been thinking about a spare battery for a little while and the price differential here in AUS is significant if the quatlity is comparable. Just don't want to buy a piece of crap which means I just end up buying twice anyway.

Isn't Hi-LP "meant" to be "pants" compared to lp2? Isn't the compression rate much closer to lp4, and hi-sp more like lp2 (in size and quality?) Sorry, I never owned an MDLP unit - Jumped straight from an SP unit to my beloved RH10, so I'm going from data on documentation and impressions from software rather than years of experience with MDLP like a lot of the guys here Genghisbunny

OFF-TOPIC WARNING! Sorry, Kyle, but I don't agree with you AT ALL here. Was Robert Schumann less of a composer when he was no longer able to play the piano? Computers are a tool - like musical instruments are a tool. You can use them badly, just like you can use musical instruments badly (cough - nirvana - cough), but at the end of the day the computer is another tool at the disposal of composers. Whether the music is any good or not has nothing to do with what tool is used. Put a top-end Warwick bass in the hands of Duff Kegan (from Guns and Roses, probably the worst bassist in rock) and he'll still play crap. But it's a "real instrument". Simply put, quality is NEVER determined by the tools used, but by the skills with which the user handles them. (by the way, Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed - one of my favourite albums ) Way back in the '60s and '70s people were complaining that producers were doing more of the creative work than the musicians. Some things never change. END OFF-TOPIC RANT ON-TOPIC: In my experience, a lot of material on DVD sounds better simply because it's "dumbed down" through compression and volume raising to suit TV or moviehouse playback. Music in a film only has to suit a scene, so it swells at unnatural places and because it's reinforced (and interpreted) by the visuals people get swept away and it "works", creating an impression of "great sound" because the SITUATION in which it is housed is ideal for the audio. It's very hard for a CD to be put on in the ideal situation. Take a favourite moody album and put it on at midday, in the car. It won't take you places. At night, in a dim house, it can drag you where you want it to. In a moviehouse this is even more true, because the situation is controlled. And you generally put on a movie in a situation which is more like a movie-house (dim, no distractions) than CD listening is often afforded. Music often sounds great in TV commercials, but people find it doesn't have the same edge on album. The album version is higher quality, but requires decent equipment (and decent ears!) to distinguish the quality. Dumbed down audio has an immediate payback. I agree with dex about the tired ears I too experience listening to over-compressed loud music. I can put on heavy metal for hours and because the dynamics are more natural your ears have the required time to rest WITHIN the music. Kind of like the tired eyes I get looking at the new "starwars" films (though I don't consider them part of the series at all). Too much compression in low-quality CGI wears out my eyes. Strangely, I didn't get this effect with Sin City, which had even more CGI, possibly because the black and white had more natural tonal variation than the loud colours Geo. Lucas likes to shove into his movies these days. I am speaking here without tech specs of DVD-video in front of me, by the way, so this is purely experiential and speculative. Cheers!

Hotel worked - both discs went on fine. Looks like I don't have to screw around much, just use simpleburner. I'm 10 tracks in and so far none of the "crackling" it creates when ripping to MP3 from this CD. Thanks again everybody. And I'll definitely remember EAC for future reference.

I've got a (3.5mm headphone jack) line in on the front of my stereo, which I use for playing MDs while I drive. Went well with my old MZ-R37 for the last five years, goes even better with my new MZ-RH10. Best of all, I can listen to a song on the train and then plug the unit straight into the car jack and listen to the rest of a mp3cast or song I was listening to via headphones - really handy when I'm listening to a half-hour interview. I do agree with you though, that a Hi-MD car unit would rock.

So... What are croakies?