sharpsony

Hi folks, while other manufacturers including Sony have omitted the MD, Tascam has just announced to release a new professional MiniDisc deck called MD-02/MD-02B. Tascam U.S. press release Tascam U.S. product page Tascam's German product page In Europe, Tascam offers a basic version MD-02 without XLR connectors besides the MD-02B, while the U.S. page shows only the fully equipped MD-02B. MSRP in Europe is EUR 549 for the MD-02 and EUR 599 for the MD-02B. The decks can already be ordered at some European e-tailers.

I fully agree with you on the fact that the people make the community. But as adminstrator of the German MiniDisc forum with over 5,200 members and almost 230,000 posts I can say that the brand "minidisc.org" has an extraordinarily good reputation among MD aficionados over here in Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). They regard it as the world reference source of MiniDisc related knowledge. My fear ist that this excellent reputation could suffer from the move. So I think there should remain some recognizable tie with minidisc.org.

Will the cooperation with minidisc.org continue, and will there be a link to the moved forums on the minidisc.org homepage as it exists now? What about keeping the brand "Minidisc Community" as a subtitle at least? Maybe it is possible to put some reference to minidisc.org on the SonyInsider page.

I am absolutely shocked by this sad news. So far, minidisc.org has been the (virtual) home of the worldwide MD community, kind of "United Nations of MiniDisc lovers". The site and the forums have helped countless people solving problems with their MD/Hi-MD gear and provided the community with world exclusive news about the format - positive news (like the introduction of Hi-MD, MZ-RH1 etc.) as well as negative news (the death of the format). Why the hell do you want to split apart this nearly perfect site? I hope you will reconsider and revoke this decision that I do not understand at all. In my opinion, moving the forums away from minidisc.org is the beginning of the end of this wonderful worldwide minidisc community...

I'm surprised about that as the other 2nd generation Hi-MD units (RH10, 910 at least) do indeed charge via USB, even if it is a refresh charge only. A full charge is not possible according to the manuals.

An excellent choice indeed! There's absolutely no problem burning personal recordings to CD, no matter whether you recorded on legacy MD or Hi-MD. You can even burn audio CDs directly out of SonicStage. Alternatively, you can convert your imported recordings to standard WAV format files that can be used with any sound processing software or CD burning software outside SonicStage, even on non-Windows operating systems (MacOS, Linux). The conflicting reviews you read about the MZ-NH1 refer to obsolete versions of SonicStage delivered with the NH1 when it was released in 2004. Then, Sony had restricted copying of Hi-MD recordings to only one upload per recording, no CD burning etc. But that changed with later versions of the program. As of SonicStage 3.4, most copy restrictions have gone, no matter what Hi-MD model you use. Uploading legacy MDs, however, is only possible with the MZ-RH1. @ sinus: Nice to meet you here.

It is boxy. I like those rock-solid MD veterans from the nineties very much.

Usually, a "Local/DX" switch changes the tuner sensitivity. "Local" reduces sensitivity to cope with overloading that may be caused by strong local radio transmitters. "DX" (a term from the radio amateur scene meaning "distance") increases sensitivity to enable reception of distant, weak stations. Stereo/Mono is a different matter. No, DAB and FM are completely different systems using different frequencies and different technology for transmitting and receiving. They are completely independent of each other. Politically, however, DAB is regarded as the successor to FM in several European countries, but both are expected to run in parallel for at least a decade to come.

Bought a Kenwood DMC-J7R on ebay for just € 14.50 including package and shipping fees (just € 10.50 for the recorder ). The unit works fine but sooner or later needs a new rechargeable battery as the supplied one plays only just over 2 hours or so. But that is not really a problem as those batteries for the Sharp MD-MS7xx series and its clones are still cheaply availabe at several ebay dealers.

Wow, cool! I can imagine that fun very well! Would be nice to see some pictures of your collection in the pictorial section...

That's a general problem with FM tuners built into MP3 players, MD walkman remotes, mobile phones etc. Besides a rather simple (cost-effective ) tuner circuitry they usually use the headphone lead as an auxiliary antenna. For good reception, the antenna has to be directed correctly towards the radio station you want to receive. That is rarely the case with a headphone antenna though, especially if you move.

Ah, yes ... I remember reading that some time ago. Really impressive! 50 decks would not fit into my appartment, by the way...

Maybe using a headphone with a longer cable will improve reception quality.

Preamps (microphone preamplifiers, as they are called correctly) are usually available at music equipment suppliers. Ask your favourite search engine and you will find appropriate online dealers if there is no such store in your town. But I think, economically and ergonomically it would be better to sell your NH600 and buy a NH700, NH900, RH910, RH10 or RH1 which all have excellent built-in amplifiers. If your budget is limited, the NH700 will perfectly do its job. Its recording quality by far exceeds the level required for recording lectures, the price/performance ratio could hardly be better. I would rather guess it is for visually impaired people.

Yes, I go straight to the analog in of my computer using a standard $/€ 4.99 audio cable from the local electronics discount store. I do not use any special sound card but the original on board sound chip ("Realtek High Definition" on my current Toshiba laptop, "Creative Soundblaster PCI-64V AC97" on my former desktop PC I decommissioned recently). For my (amateur) purposes, quality is good enough, especially on my new Toshiba laptop. I have not yet compared that, but I suppose Sony's A to D to be superior.

Why not? MD recording quality is certainly not the worst, probably far better then WAV recording quality of many cheap on board PC sound cards. As digitizing cassettes is concerned, I nevertheless prefer recording directly to hard disc for ergonomic reasons. MD/Hi-MD is usually only used for original recordings.

Nice machine, isn't it? By the way, German minidiscforum.de member "timebandit2" has over 100 portable MD units. Unfortunately though, he never posted a picture of his whole collection which is probably one of the largest worldwide...

No, I recorded directly to from tape to hard disc where I edited the recordings and saved them to WAV and RealAudio files (later, I dumped Real in favour of the more universally compatible MP3 format). Involving MD would have been pointless anyway as MD was not yet USB upload capable when I did the copying back in 2002 or so. Nowadays, with Hi-MD and MZ-RH1 available, I indeed use MD or Hi-MD for recording and later uploading to my laptop for further processing, burning CDs, copying to my MP3 player etc. MD is nearly ideal for recording off analogue sources, especially if computer based editing is not an option for whatever reason. So there is no reason for you not to use MD. According to your signature, you have an MZ-RH1 that you can use for recording and uploading those recordings to your computer if required.

I completely abandoned recording cassette tapes in mid 2001 after having purchased my first MD recorder. Since then I mainly use MD (and Hi-MD as of December 2004) for recording radio shows. There are still over 200 cassettes (mainly recorded off the radio since the mid-eighties) on my shelf waiting for being copied to my PC's hard disc for editing and future listening. Hope to find the time necessary for doing this vast job some time in the future. A couple of years ago, it took me a complete summer holiday to transfer my collection of recordings of rare shortwave radio stations from tape to hard disc, editing about 900 files and converting them to mp3...

I'm 36. Bought my first MD unit (a silver Sharp MD-MT80 I still own) when I was 29 back in June 2001. I first encountered MD in early 1998 when I started as a volunteer reporter at a local community radio station. Nowadays, over five years after having omitted my active radio career due to limited spare time and changing interests, I use my MD and Hi-MD equipment mainly for recording shows off the radio. When it became obvious that MD was in danger of being phased out, I startedt collecting portable MD recorders.

Good idea! In addition, you should also keep a PC with a current Windows version that ist capable of installing/running SonicStage and NetMD/Hi-MD drivers. Who knows whether future versions of Windows will support SonicStage?

I've got 19 to date. Those to be seen in my avatar plus a blue Kenwood DMC-J7R just bought on ebay.

You should contact Sony's free data recovery service- maybe they can restore your recording...

No, it was introduced three years ago and is probably sold out by now.

Being a huge RH1 fan, I'd like to know how many MDCF members own this most perfectly realized Minidisc instrument to date. So don't hesitate to vote...