eriktous

IIRC, discs that have been made (or edited) with a PC in NetMD mode cannot be edited afterwards on a unit. You have to use SonicStage to erase the tracks. Simply take note of which tracks you don't like, and then afterwards erase them all at one time, throught SonicStage. You could also hook up your JE780 to your computer through its USB connection. You can then control the unit from your PC, allowing you to erase any unwanted tracks, while listening to the sound coming from the deck.

Yes, Hi-MD will definitely give you better results. As greenmachine said, Hi-SP is of higher quality than LP2 in itself, and you get the added benefit of digital transfer from MD to PC, so no loss due to analog connections.

Are you able to hear a difference between SP and LP2? If you are, you should also be able to hear a difference between MD(SP)-->MD(SP), and MD(SP)-->PC(PCM)-->MD(SP).

Copying an MD from one deck to another through an optical connection won't give bit-for-bit identical recordings. The difference in quality will be so small, however, that most people won't hear it. Only after making several repeated copies of copies will the sound start to deteriorate perceivably. (This is Sony's claim. I haven't tried this myself, but their reasoning sounds logical to me.)

Auto pause is when a unit automatically pauses playback after the end of each song. I'm not aware of any portable with this feature. I believe most of them have something like 'single play', or whatever it's called, where only the one selected track is played, but you have to manually advance the unit to the next track after that. This means that one extra press of a button is needed, compared to auto pause. I don't know if this is acceptable for you.

That might be what meant. It's just that I assume soul&folk doesn't record the minidisc himself. The radio station records it on their equipment, which most likely is not Hi-MD. If he wants to make the recordings himself, a Hi-MD recorder would of course be the way to go.

The NH700 doesn't upload legacy recordings. Only the RH1 does that. (Surely you know that, Bob.)

MD's do not have a region. The Pioneer D707 is a relatively old deck and thus can only play disks recorded in ATRAC, also called SP. My guess is that the disks you made with the NH700 are either recorded in Hi-MD mode, or in standard MD mode, but with LP2 or LP4 (ATRAC3), none of which your Pioneer can play.

A big enough market to make it profitable, perhaps? If you are using LP2 or, especially, LP4, the sound quality might not be the best, but to my (and many others') ears SP sounds very good. Patents don't exist, as far as the Chinese are concerned.

If Sony decides to ignore a market segment, it probably is because it's not making them a decent profit.

Might just be a dirty optical head. First thing you should try is cleaning it. Use one of those cleaning disks, if you happen to have one, or use a cotton swab to clean the lens (just be very careful).

I'm sorry to say it, but unfortunately the HiMD discs are not compatible with older, non-HiMD units.

I see people saying this more often, but I disagree. If you're transcoding a 128kbps mp3 to a low bitrate Atrac file, you're just making it worse. You're right in saying you can't improve a 'crappy' original, but you can most certainly make it even worse. It's actually more like taking a picture of a picture. If the original picture is grainy/low quality, and you photograph it with a poor camera, the resulting picture will be even grainier/less quality. However, if you photograph it with a high-end camera, the resulting picture won't be better than the original, but at least it won't be much worse than it either.

This will only work if your laptop has an optical-out connection. You connect this to the optical-in on your MD, and put it in record mode (I guess pause-record will work). Sounds to me as what you are trying to do now, is sending an analog signal from your laptop to your MD, which converts that to a digital signal first with its ADC, and then uses its DAC to convert it to an analog signal again. I don't think the sound will improve a lot this way.

Hi, today I received a second-hand Sharp IM-DR580, which I bought on eBay. Unfortunately, the seller didn't have the so-called multi-link station anymore, which is needed to charge it, connect it to a PC and use the line-in/optical-in. A separate gumstick charger was included, though, and I have other units I can use to record, so the cradle isn't essential to me, but I just think it would be nice to have one anyway. So does anyone happen to have this cradle for sale (I guess the IM-DR80 uses the same one), or know where I could find one (for a reasonable price, of course)?

Sector, that's an eBay item number in lamewing's post. Have a look, there's pictures of the unit there (and it's silver, by the way).

What will be the difference between MDCF's stand-alone installer and the one from Sony Europe's VAIO FTP? I downloaded that one, but haven't tried it yet, because I had already used the web-installer to install SS CP 4.0 on my system.

Just to make sure, but are they Hi-MD recordings (PCM, HiSP, or HiLP)?

What unit are you using? It sounds like your trying to upload music from a NetMD unit, which isn't possible. Only HiMD units can do this, and then only with HiMD recordings (apart from the MZ-RH1, which can upload almost everything; new recordings, old recordings, pre-recorded discs).

http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&q=co...oeken&meta=

Lol, a clear case of marketing at work. Just slap on a 'Pro' label and people will think it's a quality product.

Is Axia the same as TDK?

I have done some searching for one of these as well, and couldn't find one available for a reasonable price either. I did find out, that the JVC BN-R369 and JVC BN-R3610 should be compatible, but, again, these are nowhere to be found. Because I couldn't buy a new battery, I have upgraded to a Sony MZ-NH900, but everytime I use this, I can't help but thinking what a wonderful design the Aiwa AM-F65/F70 is. All the buttons in the right place, a useful jog dial, and decent output (I'm listening to it now at volume 3 out of 20; try that with that pathetic Sony). Of course, it may not sound as clear as the NH900 and can only record in SP, but I prefer its design over the Sony.

These discs look awesome. Thanks for the pics.

Just wondering, why do they still make 74 minute discs? Is there any real reason for it, or do they just do it because they still have a 74 min production line available, which they want to keep running for as long as possible?