kcabpilot

Sonic stage would be best, I have it installed and have the cable. I've also got experience with it so if the capability is in there I could probably figure it out but some guidance would be appreciated. I don't have an N707 anymore but do have an old R35 however the LCD is shot so although I can do line recordings I can't set the levels or anything else. Thanks for the help

I have an MDX-C7900 deck in my old Alfa Romeo and it's the only thing I use MD's for anymore these days but to make new discs for it they have to be standard (non Hi-MD) and I haven't been able to figure out how to do that with my MZ-M100. I'm still able to do it with a very old MZ-R35 that I have but the LCD screen is out and it's kind of a hassle. Is there a way to do it on the M100 or will I have to look for a different model?

Maybe I'm just stoopid but I can't figure out how to add track marks in Sonic Stage. You can't do it from the MD when hooked up so what am I supposed to do?

Maybe I'm not an official 'switcher' but I did just buy a 30 gig ipod for the wife. This is not a minor purchase (at 300 clams) following my recent purchase of an MZ-M100 for myself at roughly the same price. So I've had the opportunity to compare. When it comes to user convienience the ipod is just a tits in your face all out winner. I'm gonna have to say that itunes is also a much better software interface. Keeping the wife satisfied with her old Mz-707 was beginning to be a chore. With the ipod it's easy - it will take her a year or so to get tired of the 8 gig I loaded up over the weekend. No discs, no thickness or bulk. The ipod is a slick unit. But it doesn't have the capabilities of the MZ-M100. There's a lot of music out there and I've listened to the ipod. I'm not gonna spend 99 cents a song when I can rip whole albums analog PCM off of Rhapsody, upload to WAV and convert to AAC and get the same quality. But in todays society there's no room nor time for such nonsense. Today we can buy WWII bomber jackets that look like they went through the 25 missions without us having to do it. cool, eh?

tim I don't have any live recording experience yet. As for transferring existing mp3's with SonicStage: just make sure you go through all the setup dialogs and check the box that says 'leave files on the hard drive' cause otherwise it will erase them. AMHIK

blueraja yeah that's kind of what I meant. I'm not a big fan of plastic but it is lighter and able to take the impact of a drop without deforming or cracking. I have to admit that the plastics of today are much more sophistocated than those of years ago. I have begun to notice that the clear plastic facia on the M100 is much more robust and scratch resistant than I had assumed. I'm still experimenting with record settings and hookups. I bought a Creative PCMCIA sound card for my laptop and tried some optical recordings of Rhapsody streams but I'm not entirely happy with it. It has a lot of noise and won't pick up any track marks. I've gotten better results just capturing the same thing from my desktop computer running analog through my old Sansui Stereo to the minidisk. I still have a wish list though and on top would be - wireless earbuds! I don't know how to post a picture other than as an attachment [attachmentid=935]

Well I've owned the unit now for about a week and here are my observations. There's good and bad so I guess I'll get the bad off my chest right away. First of all this thing cost me four hundred bucks and I know I voluntarily paid an extra hundred because I just had to have that Organic Electro Luminescent Display rather than an LCD but even considering that - I really expected something better than the extremely easily scratched and marred plastic that this thing is made of. My original MD was an MZ-R35 which is a metal tank. I know it was barely a pant's pocket model, let alone shirt pocket. So I appreciate that Sony designers are trying to keep the weight down and they have done a decent job (I've already drop tested my MZ-M100 and unlike the old MZ-R35 it came through without a dent. Maybe I just need to start looking at scratches as 'battle damage' equivalent to dents but I can't help but handle the M100 as if it were some delecate instrument. Aside from that, it is the first minidisc unit that I can truly say qualifies as shirt pocket capable but that beautiful black mirror finish lasted less than half an hour. Second negative: the software. I probably really don't need to go into this as all of you are most likely completely aware of the shortcomings of Sonic Stage. I'm a seasoned veteran and I should have known better but in my excited zeal to make my first seven hour minidisc (and see if I could fit every Beatles Album onto a single Hi-SP recording) I somehow allowed Sonic Stage to take control of MY music. So now I've got all of those Beatles albums onto MD but they're gone from the hard drive because I didn't have a single box checked (should have read the manual) and I can't put them back onto the hard drive without turning off the write protection of the minidisc. I'm afraid that after I have done that all of that music will suddenly belong to Sonic Stage rather than me and sooner or later I'll want to listen to it and Sonic Stage will tell me there's a DRM problem. So, no news here but it still sucks. I was interested in the notion that I could upload stuff to WAV files and I can (I finally figured out how) but I can't record optically, has to be analog and it has to be a PCM recording meaning I need to use a Hi-MD formatted disc to do it and I can't upload all of my old MD's that were mostly analog copies of old LP's and such that I wanted to upload to store a WAV files so no help in that regard. I previously read all of the reviews before purchase and I noted that some had complained about the same things as I have and they had also complained about a couple of other things. One of them was the 'impossibly' small buttons on the unit. After a week I'll have to say that I have no complaints in the control design of the unit. The buttons are tiny but they fit right below your thumb and all that is needed is a slight press. They have a tactile click that you can feel. My last unit was an MZ-N707 and it has a rocker button rather than a jog dial. it has oter buttons in a vertical row below that after several years of ownership I still could not tell you which does which without looking. The M100 has very few buttons and a beloved jog dial so I have no complaints in this regard. So what about the good? Well, the PCM recordings are pretty friggin' awesome. The only drawback is that they spoil you. But it's also really nice to be able to put a specific bands entire collection on a single Hi-SP disc (okay, the Stones will take two discs). I did some recordings with the mic that comes with the unit and I was really surprised at how well they came out. I've also done some data transfers and that feature works well too (thankfully it doesn't require Sonic Stage) The Electro Luminescent Display is Way cool (almost worth the $100 premium) LCD's are soooo passe The Jog dial, did I already mention that? A gift from heaven. The unit is light and it's small. Not like an iPod Nano of course but an iPod Nano does none of the things that an M100 does so it's apples to oranges. Aside from the facia the quality is there in this unit, you just have to get past the plastic which, in all reality works and protects the vitals better than a metal case would. I have no idea what this thing is going to look like after a year on the battlefield but I guess if it still works - who cares? Oh, one other thing. I know Sony wanted to differentiate the Hi-MD stuff but what is with the big boxes? They're almost as big as mini DV tapes. I mean, isn't the whole idea supposed to be small? Where am I supposed to store all of these huge Hi-MD boxes? Okay, that's my report - so far kcabpilot

I haven't had time to read all of the several hundred posts in this thread so I don't know if this has been touched on already. Part of Sony's problem with the minidisc involves digital recording on portable media. This is something the music industry (of which Sony itself is a part) does not want. This is why you don't get an open format, no optical line out or software like Sonic Stage with the check-in/check-out nonsense. Sony has to intentionally cripple the device and then put up with the complaints afterwards. Also, as has been pointed out, people have become used to and accept the lower quality of mp3, it's all relative if they don't know of anything better. I just bought an MZ-M100 and I'm going to stock up on HiMD discs over the next year. It's not the end of the world. I drive a 30 year old Alfa Romeo. There hasn't been an Alfa dealer in this country for over ten years and no, I can't get parts for it at the local Kragen but I've had no trouble keeping it running. It's a world market these days. I don't buy blank minidiscs at the store anymore, I didn't even buy the MZ-M100 in a store, just ordered it of the internet. Eventually your player will go tango uniform on you and that will be the end. Part of the reason I got the MZ-M100 is so I can copy my extensive MD collection into WAV files and store it on the computer or load it onto my ipod if the market eventually forces me to go that route. (I don't own an ipod yet)