KJ_Palmer

Flushed Away was my first film of the year.

For music practice/recording - MZ-B10 (with pitch control, speaker etc) can't be beaten in my books. For quality portable listening/recording - the MZ-NHF800 (plus AM/FM radio) is still tops. Are there even any MP3 players with AM radio?

Audacity is also my preferred choice for editing Wav and MP3 files...

None of the versions of Sonicstage actually handle the original SP ATRAC 292kbps, but a 'fake' version of SP can be output in NetMD mode for compatibility with older MD machines. The 'fake' SP is actually LP2 padded up to SP format in Sonicstage. The only way to get true SP is by recording directly onto the RH1 in realtime via a stereo line cable or (preferably) an optical digital cable from a source CD player etc.

Peak Search just finds the loudest point of a CD, so you can set the overall recording level to that peak to avoid clippng (going into the red 'over +0dB' level). The level of individual tracks is not adjusted which is what normalisation would do.

It's just a playback normaliser (on the RH1 itself) so it doesn't matter how the disc is recorded...

A Hi-MD deck would be nice, but running a line cable from the RH1/line out directly to a stereo's aux in seems to work fine and sounds more than passable. In fact I usually plug the line out into my JB980's aux in and use DAC and amplify about +10dB mode to give the rather feeble line out signal a boost on its way to the main stereo.

Children of Men. Frightening near-future shenanigens...

The old NetMD machines such as the N910 were very limited when it came to PC use. No proper uploading and only downloading via conversion to ATRAC format with the Sonicstage (or Simpleburner) software. The newer Hi-MD machines are much better with full uploading/downloading facilities and data transfers, but all audio transfers must still be done via the software.

Or, indeed, here: MZ-N910 manual

We do seem to have some moaners here, though maybe no more than on any other forum. A lot of people who post here do in fact seem to be moaning with good reason, eg. why doesn't Sonicstage work or do this and that. Some of the gripes here from MD fans are often about why is Sony abandoning a perfectly good format - often directed at Sony itself, which can seem even more like pointless moaning. The rest of the moans may be genuine though...

The Sony MDS-JB980 is undoubtedly one of the best affordably priced decks, mine's been going tirelessly for 4 years. My first deck was the JE-640 and that was very good too, though the sound quality, build and facilities of the JB980 are certainly a few notches up from that.

Audiograbber should do what you want (ie normalize a batch of wave files), and lots more.. It's great freeware software, worth a try anyway.

The fabulous MZ-RH1 portable recorder can do all that you want...

About 8-10 at home and 12-14 out and about. AVLS is always on to protect my hearing.

Also, uploading SP (292k) tracks with the RH1 results in transcoding to either ATRAC 3 Plus format (256kbps) or Wav format. The difference in quality from SP to 256k seems to be minimal though, and editing recordings is much easier on a deck, so it still seems a valid use of deck recording..

Well, the RH1 only has the line out mode combined with the headphone/line out jack too. Frankly though for 'uploading' one LP2/4 recording from the radio all these units are a bit overkill - better just whack up the B100's volume and do it that way. :-)

Well, the MZ-RH1 is the latest MD unit with Line Out. Some Sony Centres in the UK may have stocks now. If you had a PC you could even upload your recordings superfast, I don't think it works with Macs though - maybe through a windows emulator? Other Line out units would be the Hi-MD units MZ-NH900, NH1, or the NetMD units MZ-N909, N1, R900. These can often be picked up on ebay for not very much. The equipment browser here should give you more inforasmtion: http://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html Alternatively you could just turn the volume on your B100 to maximum and turn the sound settings off which would be quite a good approximation toi line out.

LP4 would just degrade the signal even further. Personally, I'd use SP when recording on my deck in order to be able to use SF Edit to tweak the recording levels afterwards. LP2 would probably be the best 'other' option in this case.

Yes indeed, the RH710 works perfectly well with the SS4.0

Good point, thanks. I had that set already actually, but it doesn't hurt to be sure. This MP3 importing is a huge pain actually. I don't think I'll bother again. It's much easier with drag and drop on my Creative Nano MP3 player. Oh well...

Oh well, thought as much. Thanks, I'd better get importing them then. Cheers.

Hello all. Great forum. This is probably a silly newbie question, but I have an MZ-RH710, a bunch of MP3s (in various folders) on my hard drive and I would like to make an MD full of these MP3s. I've used Sonictage before for importing from CDs and then to Hi-MD so that's not a problem. The question is, then, do I need to 'import' the MP3 files first into Sonicstage before transferring, or can I use windows drag and drop like on most 'normal' MP3 players? Sorry if this has been asked/explained before and thanks in advance for your helpful replies.

Scanner Darkly Lady in the Water

The MZ-RH1 can also upload optical digital and line in recordings, but will not upload NetMD downloads made via the Sonicstage software.