greenshank

Glad to hear it! Mmm, but really it's two separate switches under the same button, isn't it? That's why Stop is glitchy but Pause isn't. Well not yet...

I bought new so I must have a warranty somewhere (ahem, it's not in the box it came in, oh dear...) and I presume it's a worldwide warranty so I will in theory still be able to get it fixed/replaced after leaving these shores. Meanwhile it's just a nuisance, most often when I want to adjust recording levels or toggle line-out. theblueraja: black, eh? Nice. Where's my paint-pot? Yes indeed, apart from that garish "45 CDs etc" sticker. If yours (mis)behaves like mine, you could just hit Pause instead of Stop. Works a treat and times out eventually into an actual stop.

Unfortunately there are many functions missing from the remote's menu. You can navigate with it but not much else (no display options, no sound options, no recording options). Well that's true of the supplied remote, and I presume it's true of the 3-line one (sorry, can't remember its number) and anyway that remote costs almost as much as I paid for the NH900! Jenna, how do you rate your RH910 compared with the NH900? I thought about buying an RH910 to begin with but you can't (or couldn't) get them in Australia.

Me too. Mine was new, though, just like TLV, Jenna et al. Nice to know I'm not going mad or simply unable to press the stupid little buttons properly with my poor Caucasian fingers. (Why oh why Sony do you insist on making such unergonomic minimalist units? Tiny buttons, almost unreadable screen showing not enough info. I'm no MP3-player fan but at least the ones I've seen have suffer from neither of those annoyances, since they sensibly make use of most of the front face.) How long did it take for people to get theirs back from Sony? (I got mine from Minidisc Australia who no doubt have none left so they would have to ship it back to Sony.) Time is of the essence at this point for complicated reasons.

So I did... and found nothing. They have double CD cases though. Did you misread or did I overlook something?

jonny mac: thanks, I'll check out Maplin (it's broken at the moment). atrain: both for storage and for portability. I don't really see a difference, to be honest. If I were choosing between lugging around 100 CDs in jewel cases and 100 CDs in one of those wallet things, that would be no contest, but a dozen minidiscs is a small volume, well encased or not, so the same sufficiently good storage solution should work for both.

CD jewel cases aren't all that bad if you're nice to them. Those slip-cases don't make any real attempt to keep dust, crud, breadcrumbs, spilt coffee, etc out of the disc's innards. There must be something better. I'm going to be on the hunt now for something that I can adapt. Do they make square(-ish) condoms? (Yes, I've just noticed that minidiscs aren't square.)

Good grief, Microsoft produced something that does exactly what I want? Whatever next? (Come to think of it though, it was Microsoft who supplied the WME in the first place.) Thanks markbh!

And while I have privately already thanked T. L. Volta for his help on this, I have also had to note that, although SS can handle WMA-lossless, it can't do it gaplessly. As has been mentioned elsewhere, apparently the only way to retain gapless tracks is to feed SS with WAVs. So I'm hoping for a pointer to a good tool for reconverting the lossless WMAs back to WAV (or else some other cunning plan).

I can't find an appropriate-looking forum for this... So, bundled with my NH900 I got two 5-packs of the standard 80 minute discs. These came with flimsy translucent flexible plastic slip-cases that merely cover most of the disc (and that not very inspiringly). I would like something rather more protective to keep the dirt of daily life out, something more like what good old (ahem) cassettes came in, or indeed like the cases that my 1GB discs came in (although obviously not so grotesquely large). Can one buy cases? I admit I haven't looked that hard.

I apologise, it seems I can't see beyond the end of my nose. I was going to claim that I didn't have WMA9 on that drop-down, but there it is. Hurrah, time to do a lot of re-ripping! Cough, I would say that it reproduces them more reliably, which makes it more accurate. (This could run and run... no, enough!)

Call me a crusty old pedant, but I would be tempted to describe that as reliable, not accurate. I still want to know where to find WMA9; a search of my hard disc revealed nothing, and a google for "wma9 download" didn't help. I wouldn't care, except that I have had WMP rips produce nasty glitches.

Ok, maybe a stupid question, but where do I find WMA9? I have WMP9; does that include WMA9, and if so, where is it so I can tell EAC where to find it? And what is it with EAC's wacky drop-downs? They disappear again as soon as you try to use them. Fortunately you can get round this by dragging to the option that you want, but still...

You've got me worried now. Most accurate? Lossless is lossless, surely? Still, I'll try it out. Thanks.

I may be missing something here but as far as I can see, SS 3.4 won't rip CDs using a lossless WMA codec. The best it offers is 192. But perhaps you're suggesting we only use SS for writing, and something else like WMP for ripping?

Got any recommendations for the best microphones for nature recording? Not just particular models but also what's important in the specs e.g. cardioid/omnidirectional, etc. I would prefer plug-in power ones (less to carry around). I don't want to spend the earth (this is an occasional hobby) but then again I want to get better results than I do with the ECM-DS70P that came bundled with my NH900.

Don't worry, Chris, I can't hear the difference between the original CD and 48k! My cilia must be really worn out. Edit: Sorry, I mean my eardrums must be really worn out or else my cilia must be hyperactive. If I'm going to throw anatomical terms around I ought to get them right!

And the impossibility of gapless recording other than by ripping the whole thing in one go. (I have a somewhat degraded CD with lots of continuous tracks and every time I rip it one or two tracks don't get copied properly, but re-ripping those and inserting them produces gaps, so back I go, re-ripping the whole thing repeatedly. Extremely tedious.)

It does use shared power, I believe. And I hope it only charges if you tell it to. As you say, waste of an AA otherwise. Thanks, lucky me! BTW I don't get the way the bars work. It seems to take almost no time to leave the "maximum power" level. Later it plays for ages (3 or 4 hours?) at the "OMG I'm practically out of juice" level. It seems highly non-linear so I've stopped taking much notice of it.

FYI FWIW my NH900 just managed to play HiLP with the supplied NH-10WM for 14.5 hours as against the official 10 hours. Mind you it was at a volume of 10/30 (which was plenty enough through my Sennheiser MX500s!) Does anyone know what volume Sony use to get their figures? Did I just get a very good battery? (Perhaps it's a mislabelled 14WM... yeah right.)

Mmmm, for some reason I'm more than a bit reluctant to try canals. I suppose I don't like the idea of being totally isolated from background noise, and I'm worried about upsetting my inner ear pressure balance and aggravating my tinnitus.

Nice idea. My current headphones came with a separate lead so I should have thought of that! (No, I can't use the one I've got, as it's male-to-male.)

No, but you would be testing a pair with someone else's gunk on, for earbuds at least. Yuk. I bought a pair of Sennheiser MX500, just like Sparky191, and while the sound is better than supplied earbuds, I have to ruin it by wearing them with the optional covers, thereby muffling it rather, because otherwise they just fall straight out of my ears! Are there any decent earbuds for "the larger lughole"?

One solution is to buy one of those radio transmitters. Or buy a CD/whatever player with a front jack input, such as the Aiwa CDCR504MP as recommended by Andicillo (about 2/3 down the page).

Thanks, but these both look as though they only have parts, not complete made-up cables. I can get the parts from Dick Smith if I have to.