KJ_Palmer

It would be great if 105k could be transferred to NetMD devices. 105k is currently my go-to bitrate for large-ish Hi-MD compilations. Over 20 hours on a 1GB disc and the quality is quite listenable on the go. So maybe 7+ hours on an 80 min blank in HiMD mode, or 3.5 as MD mode...

Good to see this site keeps going, was a regular back in MD's 'heyday'. Still an MD addict I guess. Glad I stocked up MD (mostly Hi-MD) gear and discs 15 or so years ago, when it was going 'cheap', though they've mostly lay unused for about 10 years. Was mainly using MP3 DAPs for portable use then. Since the covid lockdown however, I'm, still working from home, and started making Hi-MD compilations on my stock of blank MDs and some leftover 1GB Hi-MDs. This has become my preferred format 'at work' (i.e. home), more focussed than listening to the whole collection at random, can't really be bothered with playlists, and at 8-10 hours per 80 min disc (at low but acceptable quality) perfectly gets me through the workday. Listening to one of my Baroque-Classical-Folk-Rock compilations on my MZ-NH600 through speakers, perfect background music and enough variety to keep entertained! 🙂

Sounds like the microphone is still working, if Audacity is getting a signal, however low. The ECM-MS907 is designed to be used with a microphone input (on MD recorders this is called 'plug-in power') rather than a line or aux input. It simply doesn't give a strong enough output to drive a line level input properly. You could set your line input level to maximum and that might give better results, but you 'd be better off using a recorder with a mic input, which the MZ-R500 lacks. Or a powered microphone, or use a microphone pre-amp ('battery box') with your ECM-MS907.

Use SP transfer mode from Sonicstage, which can be found under Transfer settings (with an appropriate note). This method will give you fake SP - something like LP2 quality, but will play back on the R37.

Quite possible, I always binned or gave away the stock Sony earphones, which was rather silly in hindsight. I was never really happy the Sony portables signatiure sound (I only ever bought the recorders) until the first Hi-MDs came along with their digital DSPs and customisable EQ. The Sharps were always considered the best players, as countless professional and user reviews testified.

Is the 'Timer' switch on the left of the deck's front panel set to the 'Play' position (hard right)? If so this is normal behaviour, as the deck believes that an external timer has kicked in when you turn the power back on. Just slide the Timer switch to the central 'Off' position to stop this happening.

For 'convenience' I use this with CDs: rip CD > wav > Sonicstage > LP2 conversion > MD. Sounds fine to me and the LP2 MDs play on all my current equipment.

The 1st generation Hi-MDs do it for me, particularly the NH700/NHF800 with custom EQ tweaked to perfection and paired with Sennheiser in-ears. Bought a load of NH700's a few years back when they were sold off dirt cheap, and not looked back since. Doubtless the higher end models can sound better, but I like the fact that you can pick up AA's for next to nothing here, and not worry about gumsticks or fancy batteries.

LP2 (ATRAC) is indeed 132kpbs and is found to be acceptable to many/most MD users for general listening. You'd get about 16 hours on a 1GB disc at that bitrate. Otherwise I'd suggest using 192kbps (ATRAC3) for a good compromise transfer from ATRAC lossless in Sonicstage to MD. Keep the lossless files in Sonicstage for future transfers if you have the space. 256kbps (ATRAC3) would be even better quality and may be as near to 'CD quality' as you'd want. The time per disc drops to just under 8 hours then. ATRAC is the older version of ATRAC format compatible with pre-Hi-MD devices. ATRAC3 is the newer Hi-MD version. These are both lossy compressed formats, ATRAC lossless is compressed losslessly, as the name suggests, so good for computer storage but not compatible with any portable MD/Hi-MD devices or decks.

In NetMD mode (which I think you're using) you get an indication in the transfer box on the right of the number of Free Minutes:Seconds left on your disk. That number is for SP mode, so if you're transferring in LP2 mode then double that, or in LP4 quadruple it. There are system overheads, so the actual time you get is slightly less than shown. I normally underestimate the time available by half a minute or so to avoid going over. In Hi-MD mode you're shown the number of free bytes on the disk. You'd need to 'do the math' to work out how much you can fit in the available space at your chosen transfer bitrate, but my general rule of thumb is that 1 minute is roughly 1MB at LP2 (132kbps).

Yes - they're both ATRAC decks (all MD units have some form of ATRAC) and these decks have the standard universally compatible formats. All discs recorded on one machine will be playable on the other, as they both only offer Standard Stereo (SP) and Mono recording. The JB930 has a later version of ATRAC (Type R) and a bigger feature set and would be the better recorder/player, but this doesn't affect mutual compatibility.

Yes that would work as a headphone amp with your NH700 as it has a line input. Should be able to drive some decent headphones too, with a respectable 140mW x 2 output. On your NH700 you'll probably want to turn off the EQ settings and put the volume to around max to send a 'flat' near line-level signal to the amp.

The output from the headphone jack is analog(ue) so a DAC (Digital to Analogue converter) wouldn't convert the signal, even if it accepted an analogue (line level) input, which most don't I think. It would be best in this case to use a headphone amplifier which would connect with a simple stereo line lead: 3.5mm to 3.5 / 5mm depending on the headphone amp input.

Well, just to chime in. I've got three MD decks in semi-regular use (JE480, MXD-D40, Onkyo MD-105 Hi-MD deck), NH900 gets an occasional spin (though my little Sansa Clip zip is my portable of choice). Have several Sony portable MD recorders and decks "in storage". My MZ-B10 is in daily use at home. All my new music still gets added to the MD collection: ~250 LP2 discs/~40 Hi-MD discs. So yes, I guess I'm still an MD addict.