dragonfly

I'm trying to download SonicStage 4 and I'm getting a 403 Forbidden error. What's up?

Nobody has mentioned the interchangeable media. That's what I like a lot about the MD. And I must agree about not having to use a computer. I rarely use my computer to transfer music to my MDs. Then again, most likely not even people on this forum have two shelf stereo systems from Japan that record directly from CD to MD...

Holy crap, those discs are beautiful! I'd feel guilty covering the face of them up with a label sticker. I'll certainly buy some, but I think I'll just wait until my next trip to Japan in February and pick some up.

Guys, this is a big discovery! A friend of mine found this nifty device that forces programs into Japanese mode: http://alcahest.club.fr/perso/apploc/applocale.html It's called Applocale. The software installed just fine! It comes with the J-Sonic Stage version 2.5 or something, but I'm running Sonic Stage ver. 4 and once I press the Network button on the remote control, I can then browse the contents of the MD I've loaded! Mods, you may want to make note of the link I've provided. I'm sure others who import Japanese MD players will find this program very useful!!! Merely changing XP's language preference in the Control Panel made no difference. It still refused to run. However with this new program, it worked. I am so relieved that I once again have a NetMD player connected to my computer. My MD Walkman lost its ability to record about a year ago. But this new stereo will be a dedicated connection to my computer, and since it has an AC connection, I'll never have to worry about running out of battery power halfway through recording as I often did. (Recording seems to drain the battery life much faster.)

I think I may have the solution for this. Last night I was at a friend's house and he showed me a trick. He too uses a lot of Japanese gadgets and software. He told me that I can change the regional langauge setting in XP's Control Panel to Japanese before installing it. I can then always switch it back to English. I'll try this tonight if I have time. What is so strange is that XP doesn't even say "found new hardware/unknown device" or anything. It's like it just ignores that anything was inserted into the USB port. I tried more than one port, too. Strange.

Sorry, I don't know what happened to the rest of my original message. I thought I'd posted the whole message, but only a part of it got through. I was doing too many things at once. It's not th end of the world... I can always grab my wife's Japanese laptop and plug it in there and install SonicStage on that computer. Still, I was hoping to be able to plug it into my own computer.

I made a thread a few months ago about the Sony LAM-Z05 desktop MD/CD player here. The CD it came with won't install because it's in Japanese. I downloaded SonicStage 4 and installed it, but it doesn't identify the device. I thought that there would be a universal, generic Net MD driver that would detect all of these devices. When I plug in the USB cable, nothing happens. It doesn't even say "Found new unknown device" or anything. It's like I'm not plugging in anything at all. I tried browsing the CD and tried installing the various setup.exe files I could find manually, but it still doesn't seem to want to work. Could there possibly be some driver out there somewhere I can download? It's stupid that Sonicstage won't recognize all MD players.

I just got back from another trip to Japan and I bought this beautiful MD player. I was looking for a compact MD/CD player for my computer/hobby room, and this was a perfect choice. It is top-loading like a toaster. MDs go into the left side, CDs go into the right side. It has beautiful blue LED lights and a blue LCD display screen. Beatiful sound from small speakers, featuring a "matrix surround" mode that makes the music sound even better. It also functions as a clock. It is Net-MD compatible with Sonic Stage. I have not yet hooked it up yet to try it out. Hopefully there will be no compatibility issues withe North American version of Sonic Stage. My regular MD Walkman has lost its recording ability and blanks out MDs whever I try recording on it. You can look at it on Amazon.jp's website. I bought mine at a Yamada Denki electronics store and it was on sale for Golden Week. It was 5,000 yen cheaper than Amazon's sale price. I was also looking at Panasonic's RX-MDX61 which looks like a boombox with a blue light-up base. However, the sound quality didn't match up. Moreover, the Sony LAM-Z05 is much more compact. And since the speakers aren't attached, I'm able to put the base unit on one shelf and the two speakers on the top shelves of my computer hutch. Very clever.

These units use gumstick style rechargable batteries, right? I'd like to order one off AMZ.JP as I mentioned, but I'm not sure about batteries. The only MD Walkmans I've owned were North American, with the clunky AA battery inside. How do you recharge these batteries? Will I need to buy a charger separately?

I found a place on the Net that's selling the Sony Xplod MDX-F5800. Most likely it's long out of stock and they're just too lazy to update their pages. I just got a used car a few nights ago, and the radio works, but the tape sounds real muffled and I hate listening to my music through the tape adapter. I'd like to just get a new stereo for my car, and since I always listen to my MDs in the car, I'm considering getting a built-in MD player. Nothing fancy like an MD disc changer or anything, just a single disc player. One option is to get a used one off of eBay. Any advice on which ones are good and which ones to stay away from?

<IMG SRC="http://images-jp.amazon.com/images/P/B00066LHE6.09._PE0_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg"> Beautiful! Seen here with the attached speakers. Transparent speakers! Beautiful. This would look nice on my desk at work. It functions as a regular MD player with remote, but the speaker attachments makes a great desktop stereo. I'm thinking about buying this on <A HREF="http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00066LHE6/ref=cs_top_wl_1_1/ref=cm_mp_wli_/250-1613931-4220257?coliid=IALXF7NROPWGY&colid=2VX6YBTX0S0FV">Amazon.co.jp</A>. Neat stuff.

As long as MD still goes strong in Japan, I'm happy.