LittleSwallow

I recently bought an new condition, open-box NH600D from BestBuy (for $36!!!). At first I was very disappointed by the sound quality and the transfer speed. All of my music is either in 128kbps mp3 or wma, or 192kbps mp3. I tranfered them using SonicStage 2.0 and it took forever because it had to convert to Atrac3plus 64kbps (I later tried regular Atrac3 132kbps, but that was no better) before it would transfer the songs. Listening to the player wasn't any more fun, because the music sounded like 64kpbs wma quality no matter how much I tweaked the equalizer. I use the Panasonic HJE50 or Sennheiser PX100, depending on my mood. Not satisfied, I did some research. Seems like what I had to do was burn directly from cd to hi-md so that in hi-lp mode 64kbps will sound like 128 in mp3 format. So I decided to give it a try. Lo and behold, it worked! I heard a DRASTIC change in sound quality upon playback, and it really does sound close to 128kbps mp3 quality now. However, there's still the problem of having to take out all my CD's (which are packed away 'cause they've been ripped onto the computer) and recording them one by one onto the player. Then comes the problem of special mp3's I've made (that I've spliced and joined and cut, etc.). Do I have to make a CD out of them and rip the cd using MDsimpleburner in order to get superior sound quality? Same question about playlists and mixes and stuff. However, the good outweighs the bad when I take price into consideration. Basically I only paid $38 total for this hi-md player, and so for that price it was a very good deal; I'm really glad I jumped for it. It's tranferring that gives me a headache. Also, I basically have unlimited storage space, as I can buy as many hi-md's as I want, and that's REALLY great. Plus they're cheap! I do have Zen Micro 5gb and MuVo2 4gb (at the moment it's being RMA'd - headphone jack problem) and in my opinion the NH600d falls short of them in terms of sound, ease of use, size/portability, and interface (the micro's). But the Sony beats the Creatives in terms of price/costs and battery life (although the hdd players just need to be recharged at night, while batteries need to be purchased). But like I said before, for the price I paid, the NH600D is the best music player to have. Also, since I am new at this, what are the recording capabilities that everyone is talking about all the time? How do you record live music and stuff onto the Hi-md player? There doesn't seem to be a line in/out or anything on it.