whitecloud1

I now own 3 minidisk players - an older MH1, an NH1 and an RH1. Each has its own advantages. The MH1 had the facility to add a small compartment containing a replaceable AA battery. This was fantastic when the charged battery ran down because one could pop another in and continue listening or live recording. I used it for recording Brass Band practices and other events just like a previous reviewer and found it most useful. This machine doedn't have Hi-MD but recording live or via optical from CDs gave great warm sounds - better than Hi-MD but took up more space. I still use basic Attrac often (rather than Wav or Attrac3lus) unless I need the space or am recording for transfer to Cd. The NH1 was the first to offer conversion to Wav using Linear PCM which now allowed me to record live performances and make CD-R without too much compression. However I had to use sonic stage to upload the Linear PCM and convert (automatically) to Wav and burn as music CDs. However the new RH-1 allowed me to upload (for the first time) all my older live recordings on Net MD to Sonic stage on PC and burn to CD if required. A second advantage is the ability to transfer Hi-MD (atrac3Plus and PCM) directly to my Mac Powerbook via USB cable. Now I can record live performances in good stereo and burn directly to CD via iTunes on my Powerbook. - Great! Only wish it was possible to add the AA battery compartment like on the MH-1. I suppose we can't have everything. I note that Sony have dropped their Attrac format from online music sales in favour of MP3, AAC and WMA. I hope this doesn't signal the end of minidisks!!! JB

I have only 2 reservarions about the MC40ELK. Compared to the remote supplied with earlier minidisk which I have, (MZ-M1), the phones attach on the left side, so it feels upside-down and unnatural in my hands. The remote cable is too short, so if you are long-sighted as I am, it is very difficult to move further to arm's length away from the eyes in order to read the tracks data! The only option was to buy earphones with longer cable. This results in a very long combined length of remote cable + phones and I find myself winding the total length around the MD. This is annoying especially when untangling. Functions are excellent but the above irritations spoil it for me. I find myself using an older remote for basic playback. JB.

Thank you very much to all who replied. There is much food for thought here. I still have the option of formatting the disks in old MD and then using SP via optical link. (I still have my old MZ-N1 player and so the disks could be played on both machines). I guess SP is not possible for newer Sony Hard Disk players (not minidisk players) but I'm not sure about this. I assume they can import and playback in lossless and other codecs not available to minidisk players? The electronic equipment should make some difference e.g. the minidisk player, the earphones used, and also the CD player which reads the digital data and thus the quality of the optical output. I've noticed this on 2 different CD players: an ARCAM and a Technics player, both using optical output to SP on MD. ------------------------------------------------------ I noticed that if I import using the Lossless option, the resulting Atrac3 plus (352) files when transferred to MD were of a warmer quality than those imported directly as Atrac3 plus (352) files. So I tried importing as WAV files and exporting in Atrac3 plus 352. There is a noticible improvement but I needed to increase the bass using the "Heavy" EQ option. I still feel that the SP is nearer to the Analogue (ADD CD) as the voice is less detatched from the overall blend. You ask which phones I use. I have 4. The phones supplied with the old MZ-N1 (MDR-E808) are better than those supplied with the newer MZ-NH1 (MDR-838) I need to turn up the volume on the newer one, (as one has to do with different HI-Fi speakers) so I assume they need more power to drive them. I also have an inexpensive Sennheiser set (MX 550) with an adjustable volume slide. There is a brighter treble on this without losing the bass. However, as a result the overall output sound is less warm and pleasing. Finally, I have a set which came with a Panasonic portable CD player. (no number given). These have great bass sensitivity and don't give too much treble. These are my preferred set. Incidentally the remote supplied with the NZ-NH1 is too short as I can't read the remote due to it being too close to my long-sighted eyes, even with reading glasses - so I need a longer phones to compensate for this. This leads to a very long combined length of remote and phones. Finally, as in Vinyl or Tape, if the original CD was first recorded in analogue (ADD), the initial sound will be almost as warm as vinyl. Compare Linda Ronstadt's "Round Midnight" 2 albums. No. 1 is ADD and No. 2 is DDD. The difference is clear. So I guess the best way to preserve ADD is to use SP? All thoughts welcome. JB.

Two strange questions: I have 2 minidisks: MZ-NH1 (newer) and MZ-N1 (older). Both are excellent! I have found that recording CDs to Minidisk by optical cable in the older "SP" mode (292) gave me a very warm, yet excellent and detailed sound quality which seems healthier for one's ears than the full-bodied PCM or WAV formats. I know that one CD took up most of an 80 min older MD. Using the new Hi-SP minidisk and recording optically in Atrac3plus 256, the sound is not as warm as the old SP even though tracks are smaller in file size. I've also tried Atrac3+ at the new 352 kbps option and transferred to MD using Sonic Stage 3.4. When I do this, the sound quality still doesn't seem as warm and appealing as my old SP recordings. My 2 questions are: 1 If my CD player is better in sound quality than the CD-ROM on my PC, could it give a better sound (when recording optically direct to the minidisk) than when simply importing, even at at "high" (slower), to Sonic Stage and transferring via USB from PC to MD? 2 Which codec, (excluding PCM/WAV), gives the warmest quality minidisk transfers using Sonic stage, and is the nearest to the above-mentioned SP/optical transfer at 292 kbps of the older MD format? Mathematically, 256 is 36kbps less than 292 and 352 is 96kbps more, yet even the Atrac3+ at 352 doesn't seem as good as the old SP. Does anyone else feel the same way or is it my immagination? JB