KJ_Palmer

Thanks for the link. Any known improvements?

We even got some UK Special Editions of Sony MD decks, supposedly tweaked to sound good for the UK Market, whatever that means. Never found out what was tweaked, presumably implied some different electronic components were used or 'tuned' for our ears...?

I think the UK RH1 is capped at 4.5mW per channel, so the hack would only give a minimal boost up to 5mW. Probably not noticeable unless (or even if) you listen near the top of the volume range.

Sony's official MP3 Conversion Tool is one way, very good in fact for a large Sonicstage library collection. There's also Hi-MD Renderer from our (very) trusted member marcnet, for more flexible output options. The 1.00 Beta version should be fine, or the 0.54 version should work with most windows platforms. You'll have to scroll down the page in both cases for the download links.

If you right click on the grey bar under My Library in Sonicstage you'll get the option to show the File Path. It's not shown by default in SS.

TDK and Sony mostly. But only once per disc usually. But I don't re-use discs or labels, ie. once an MD is made that's it, it's finished and I move on to the next one. I might hazard a guess that when a label has come unstuck for some people, this might be due to applying a label on a less than 'perfect' surface, maybe slightly greasy or had a previous labels removed, or the label itself hasn't been fresh. Obviously label unsticking does happen, just not for me (yet)...

These are all natural and real concerns, of course, though I have to say that in 10+ years of MD deck and portable use, none of the stickers have ever peeled away in the unit, or caused damage. There may have been some reported cases of sticker damage, I think. I'd never use the all-over sticker approach, though. Keep it simple - just a spine and track label, and leave it like that.

You might be all right with the inkjet labels too. I used to use them and they were fine. Since the, er, office went over to laser printers though, I've been using the laser address labels and they do seem a lot stickier...

The Avery laser labels can certainly withstand high temperatures - I suppose they have to as they go through office laser printers, which can get pretty hot. They seem to have more adhesion than most 'official' MD labels, eg. TDK and Sony's, which seem to peel off more readily than the Averys.

I've found Avery computer labels (cut down to size) are very good as replacement MD labels, and of course you can print out your own images, track listings etc which can be very attractive. Or use a pencil (sharpie?) and rub out when the tracks change.

You've got several options for conversion, since your tracks are in Sonicstage: 1. Use Sony's Sony's MP3 Conversion Tool to encode to MP3 files. 2. Use MarcNet's Hi-MD Renderer (0.54) to convert from Sonicstage to (almost) any format. Scrolll down to the last post in that link for the download. 3. Convert to Wav format. Sonicstage can do this - (something like) right click on the track(s) and select the option to convert to wav from the drop soon menu. You can then use a Wav converter (like Audacity to convert the tracks to MP3). Hope that helps.

MZ-RH1 (aka M200) for the ultimate MD recorder - best uploading/downloading/recording/playback and formats supported. If you wish to upload old (SP/MDLP) recordings to PC this is the one to get. Personally I'd look for a decent, basic but solid unit with AA battery support with good recording capabilities and a good features set. This (for me) would be the MZ-NH700 or NHF800 if you'd like a radio. You can upload Hi-MD format recordings with this.

Maybe all the Spanish and French speakers still have their manuals.

Definitely a must for MDLP or Hi-MD discs. The NH900 and RH710 also have a jog wheel. So does the NH600, though it's not of the best quality - too stiff and feels like it might break at any moment. I liked the vertical scroller thing on the RH10 and RH910, which, coupled with their 5 line screens made them very nice to navigate.

Should be good for those 6-hour radio opera marathons, Stephen...

Still some on Amazon, and on EBay - well, there was when I checked a few weeks back. Had 10 shipped over from Hong Kong very quickly, to keep me going for a while. Probably the stocks are dwindling, so best to get them while you can...

Agree with 'bassiness' of the RH10 (and RH910) - I got rid of mine for just that reason. You should love it, Chris!

I've got the Handel bug too - listening to the recent Op 1 Sonatas set recorded by AAM/Richard Egarr. Sounds fab in glorious MDLP2 through the stereo.

There's some discussion about the RH1 versus Edirol R-09HR (and R09) here on this taper forum. Looks like the RH1 has the cleaner mic input. Maybe the forthcoming PCM-M10 will too. Can't argue with the 24/96 recording though, and SDHC card capacity of the Edirol. I'll keep my R-0HR for general recording, but hope for something a bit better round the corner. I can't really recommend the Edirol as a playback unit. No EQ, limited search/playback options (although at least it does have a shuffle option unlike many other recorders), no ID tag info (just filename). Battery life for playback is fairly poor too - up to 5.5 hours on 2 AA's, and fairly bulky (just pocketable) overall. Again, I'd hope the M10 would do better in this department.

The RH1 does SP uploading. That's the only reason I bought it, so in that sense it is superior to the NH1. Nothing else would have convinced me to get one (well, two).

Personally, I keep both FLAC and WAV copies of all my audio. Bit overkill really, but then not everything plays FLAC. I also have MP3 files for portable use, not to mention ATRAC for the odd MD compilation...

The same thing happened the other day to me when I opened Sonicstage, after I did a system restore. Everythig still works, but something seems to be going on with Sonicstage.

The MZ-F40 is a player only unit, ie. no recording. It does look quite interesting, though - 2 LCDs, 30mW output, built in radio (not in the remote). Never heard of it before, a bit of a collectors item - I'd certainly pick it up if it works and is going cheap!

Bad news, I'm afraid. Only the RH1/M200 will do what you want, ie. upload old recordings. The other (cheaper) Hi-MD recorders will upload their own recordings in the newer Hi-MD formats, but sadly not old (legacy) recordings. Net-MD recorders and older units won't upload anything at all...

Ah, OK, all my music is unprotected. And converted to Wav, Mp3 etc, so I don't really rely on it. Still, it's good to know Sonicstage still works, after a fashion...