greenshank

Yes, I've made up a few cables in my time. It's been a while though. For a mono mic, wouldn't you want a mono-to-stereo-3.5mm converter? I have one knocking around, I think (no cable involved, just a single male+female unit). Later... oh bother, it's the wrong way round (mono male to stereo female).

This ought to be really easy... having taken advantage of the splendid Minidisc Australia bundled NH900 + microphone (+ other stuff) I just want to buy a cable so I can isolate the microphone from the disc noises. But I want to buy it on the high street rather than end up paying far more in p&p than for the cable itself. Also I don't really want a very long cable and all the ones I've found online are at least 1.8m. Plus it should be nice and flexible of course. Lastly I'm in Melbourne like a good few others here (interesting in itself) so I hope someone can point me to a good shop here. (Before anyone mentions it, as far as I can tell, Dick Smith doesn't carry anything suitable i.e. short enough.) Not asking much, am I! Perhaps I'll just have to buy the components and get my soldering iron out!

Or worse, eating near your MD. Food debris in all those delicate electronics and mechanicals anyone? Noooooo... always wash your hands before changing discs!

Perhaps if we simply talked about "copying" rather than uploading/downloading then we wouldn't get confused. And if it were all drag'n'drop then we probably would call it copying. As if it mattered that much. I think we all know what we're talking about!

Er, no, I don't feel picked on, but I agree with the above definition (although it's not clear to me whether you mean that is Sony's definition or the opposite thereof). I use uploading to mean to the computer, from whatever source, and in this case I meant from the CD to the computer. I think that's consistent with general use (and I consider myself not entirely lacking in tech savvy). I hope that hasn't added to the confusion! Additional: this means that I suppose copying direct from CD to MD is, er, side-loading!

Thanks. So WAV is lossless? I see it only offers one bitrate (1411) which would make sense. And thanks, Sony, for consistent terminology... not.

I got hit by this with my very first uploading attempts, and re-importing fixed it. In fact I was using Windows Media Player, not SS, to upload, but I have read that trying to use your computer for anything else at the same time can introduce glitches into the uploaded track. Since then I've made quite sure that the uploader has the entire computer at its disposal, and no problems. Just a thought.

Checkout the remotes review. More information than you can swing a... remote at!

But that's my point, there is no such option. Nothing indicates the possibility of ripping to PCM in SS. Do you mean "don't use SS for ripping"?

Ok I admit I haven't searched too hard for the answer to this, but... it's easy to transfer from CD in PCM format using Simple Burner, but how do I do it in SS? I tried ripping to lossless ATRAC but the subsequent transfer to Hi-MD just gave me Hi-SP. Granted with my cloth ears it's pretty academic, but it's still irritating not to know how. I've got SS 3.3 BTW.

Well I have tinnitus in one ear although it's not too bad. That ear has a notch at around 12 kHz (classic tinnitus symptom). I have no idea what caused it as I've never been subjected to persistent high levels of noise. As for the difference between AM and FM, last time I checked I could certainly hear that so I don't think my hearing's that bad! Mmm, maybe I should get someone else to listen to my MD.

A delightfully comprehensive reply! Thanks, that was really partly what I meant. That and being able to monitor the levels. True enough. Except that as you say you'll get noise from the remote's display changes. That really sucks! It's something that really hadn't occurred to me as a potential problem, and my primary reason for preferring MD was to record low-level stuff (not rock concerts!) although probably in daylight so I won't need the remote, but still it's annoying to have to avoid using it. I'll have to see what it's like in practice. Thanks for all the info!

Can you record using the remote? Are there any remotes that let you record? The remotes review doesn't mention it. For stealth, although you would think that a backlit display would be a bad thing, chances are that you might be bootlegging a concert in unreliable lighting conditions which would make an unbacklit display useless, so you would have to do it by touch... and then how would you adjust the recording volume level?

I just happened to look at the pictorial review of the very first MD (MZ-1). Lovely big dedicated buttons all over the place. Why did Sony (and others) become obsessed with tiny controls? Was it a plot to laugh at big ugly fat non-Japanese fingers? When I look at the big touch-sensitive areas on the Creative Zen Micro, I sigh longingly (never mind its others strengths/weaknesses!)

Yeah, USB 2 please! Come on Sony, keep up with the times! (Oh no, what am I saying...)

Even Minidisc Australia are at it. Their otherwise excellent clearance discounts on Hi-MDs say "Hi-MD Bundle Pack" and you have to look quite hard to realise that the bundled 10 discs are not actually 1GB. Oh, and "Supports all popular digital audio compression formats: ATRAC / MP3 / WMA / WAV" is highly misleading. Sure, it's talking about the Hi-MD format, but the actual units being sold don't.

Does anyone know if I can charge my NH900's gumstick while playing? (Either using the stand or not.) The manual is silent on this point, I think.

None taken. Repositioning the speakers is not an option (this room's too small) but I might check the connectors for tarnishing. It's academic anyway as I only intend to listen to ripped music in unfriendly environments e.g. noisy aircraft. If I want to listen properly then I'll use the CD. (Who wouldn't?) In theory though I am interested in what differences other people can detect. What am I missing out on?

I was a bit taken aback by my own oral insensitivity! Not sure how I might tune my system though. Eardrops perhaps?

This thread is quite timely. I have just been experimenting with the various Hi-MD bitrates i.e. 48kb/s, Hi-LP, Hi-SP and PCM. After careful listening to various styles of music through my decent if elderly Hi-Fi, I find I can't hear any consistent difference, even between 48 and PCM! Have I got cloth ears or what?

Just tried SS3.3 and it made no difference. OTOH with Simple Burner 2.0 it's perfect! Duh, thanks Sony.

Sorry, it is the actual CD and I did rip them in one shot. What's more I know the ripped tracks have no gaps because when I combine them with MediaJoin it's perfect. Magic I don't expect, but I did think this was sufficiently advanced technology. (With apologies to Arthur C. Clarke.)

Sorry, I can't see the "insert pause" option anywhere.

Just having bought an NH900 (my very first foray into MD!), I'm disappointed to find that I get audible glitches between tracks that are supposed to run into one another seamlessly. (E.g. Dark Side Of The Moon.) Is this a known problem? I'm using SS 2.1 and I've tried different ATRAC3 rates and different WMA encodings but to no avail. The only workround I've found is to rip the CD using lossless WMA and combine the tracks using MediaJoin.