KJ_Palmer

Another plus point for the B10 (for my money) is the digital pitch control, which lets you speed up/slow down recordings whilst retaining the original 'natural' pitch of the speech or music. Very useful for language applications I should think, though I use it for learning tricky musical passages. Not quite perfect as of course it's done in real time, but probably better than the B100's speed control where you'd get raising or lowing of the tone.

From what I've gathered from posts at this (and other) forums over the years, by the more technically-savvy users, I'm led to believe the DAC circuitry doesn't compress the input and output digital signals on MD decks. The compression seems done by the onboard software at the recording stage. I've been using my MD decks as DAC's for years and haven't found any evidence to the contrary.

Mind you, I have a Silver MZ-B10 and love the contrast that makes with my black units, in fact it would probably look wrong in any other colour. So, er silver's good too!

Possibly also because the black finish is nicer turned out than the silver, which can be more 'common' and plasticky looking (IMO). I'd take a black unit over a silver finish any day.

How about the MZ-N505 then? That has digital mega bass, and surely would be cheap if you could get it on eBay...

I might plump for an MZ-NF810 for the radio feature, or another MZ-N707, which has served well over the years.

Indeed, thanks for the tip, hopefully I'll pick up a few when I pop in for my baked beans and cat food!

However, if you record in MDLP mode (LP2 or LP4), the disc won't be playable in non-MDLP units, ie. ones made before the year 2000 (and a few afterwards). If you record in standard stereo mode, the discs are playable in any unit. The N910 is a very good recorder, though the N10 being a 'flagship' model (and 10th anniversary MD celebration unit) has a few fancier features. You can view their relative merits in the Equipment Browser on the minidisc.org home page.

Indeed, or at least mine does. Open up the shutter, give a little twiddle and you'll see a little brush stuck on, just like a CD cleaner...

There are/were some MD cleaning disks that claim to clean the recording head whilst in recording mode, eg. the one I have made by TDK. Thankfully I've never had to use it, and I suspect it may do more harm than good with those little scratchy brushes. If you're determined maybe you could transfer something from SS to the disc to emulate recording.

Perhaps you could think of getting a Hi-MD unit with a line out (mode) for use as a play back 'component' with your stereo. The NH900 springs to mind, and would at least be cheaper than the Onkyo deck. Obviously there's the RH1 too but then we're talking mega-bucks again. Not ideal, of course, but Sony have sold us a bit short with Hi-MD in general.

There's a Vista compatible driver installation for NetMD/Hi-MD walkmans in the Downloads section (at the top of this page). I haven't tried this one myself as I got it from another source, but I'm sure it'll be fine.

You'd have to rip and then import each track into Audacity, manually join them and then export as an mp3 (or whatever). That's what I do with classical music, etc.

Not quickly, in a word (well, two words). First you'll have to record them in real time to your computer to a format such as Wav, then do a little editing of the wav files in something like Audacity. You can then use CD burning software to make the CD from the wav files. Not too difficult really, but time consuming. You can see our full guide here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070. Go to the Net-MD users section. Alternatively you can use an MZ-RH1 or M200 to upload to wav files if you have lots of money to spare, or a friend who'll let you borrow one..

The MZ-NF810 should fit your bill for a Net-MD recorder. I haven't owned one, but it seems they're quite well-regarded. However, why not consider the MZ-NHF800, which has all the Net-MD functions, plus the advantages of Hi-MD as well. Mine's given great service for several years, and I wouldn't go back to Net-MD at this stage.

Have you got the dynamic normaliser on? If so, try turning it off and see whsat happens. I haven't experienced that myself (mainly because I don't use it), but I suppose it might have the drop off effect for very loud passages.

It's on page 83, second paragraph from the bottom. That is, from the online manual here. Presumably it's the same on the printed version, but I haven't checked. It's certainly well hidden away! I've kind of assumed that all Sony MD and Hi-MD units since Type-S was introduced have the Type-S chip as standard, though this may be wrong of course. By the way, to answer your previous question I wouldn't use LP2 for archiving music (voice should be fine though), due to the low bitrate. Obviously Type-S uses some processing to enhance the perceived quality and it generally sounds fine, but most of the original audio data is gone forever. This is particularly noticeable if transcoding to another format like MP3 where the results aren't too pretty. With disk space so cheap these days I'd archive to wav or other lossless format like FLAC, or possibly higher bitrate ATRAC (I use 352k for Sonicstage backups), and use LP2 for your portables. A deck with optical out recording to lossless would preserve the reduced data-LP2, but that's about it.

Actually, according to the manual the RH1 does have Type-S support, so in theory LP2 (and LP4) should sound as good on that as any other Type-S portable. The amp might be more tuned to Hi-MD formats though, possibly.

The good thing about Sony's MP3 converter is that it automatically embeds any album art you may have assigned in Sonicstage (although of course you can use MP3Tag or whatever afterwards yourself), and it is quite fast for a large number of files. Sony's software converts to Joint stereo though, which I'm not convinced is as good as full stereo, whatever people say. At least with Hi-MD renderer you have the choice of varying all the parameters and much better choice over parameters. To be honest I've used both softwares and they're both good for their purpose.

Sony's MP3 conversion tool does allow you to convert an album folder at a time, though not individual tracks. On the second page, you select the option to "Convert all ATRAC files in tthe selected folders...", then you need to untick the Desktop box, and locate your album folders. I moved all mine to under C:\Sonicstage for ease, though you might still have the default wherever that is. Marc's Hi-MD renderer is of course far more flexible though...

Grado SR80's for home use, even portable MD players can drive them pretty well, to my ears at least. For portable use, either Sennheiser CX300 or PX200 do the job for me.

You're welcome. In fact there are more manuals than are linked on that page. I usually go to http://www.minidisc.org/manuals and have a delve in there if I can't find something. Usually, though not always turns up..

Yes, here it is: http://www.minidisc.org/manuals/sony/servi...vice_manual.pdf There are many, if not most service and user manuals available in the manuals section here.

Highly unlikely, unless you're a super-hacker. The RH1 doesn't have the circuitry to provide power to a radio remote, or even the the right shaped remote jack. And even the radio-remote models can't record from the tuner. Oops, Bob beat me to it...

His partner may well be in for a disappointment if he follows your recipe, that's for sure...