pauljones52

The way I think of it is, if you compare a brand new vinyl record to a CD, i find the vinyl has more warmth and sounds "better" in my opinion. You cant hear any artifacts on a CD, but it still has a sample rate of 1411kb/s. Vinyl is analogue so is an exact reproduction of the original sound. I thinks 352 adds more "warmth" that 256, but ask me to indentify artifacts in 256 and i wouldnt be able to! And like so many people say on here, it depends on your headphones and what your used to

yeah i second cybernetuck's comment, you'll be buzzing after you pick up a hi md, especially a high end model!

Thanks for the test burns3016, i've been debating what to record my music in for a while and I finally settled on HISP. I think rap sounds great at this quality, but things like dance music benefit from 352 IMO. I used to have all my music in LP2 which was great back then, I wish I hadent tried the higher bitrates lol

I use avast! antivirus which is free and has a really nice interface. Quite a resource hog tho

Any more data on quick mode vs normal for battery life? I noticed sony set it on as standard when you first get it.

If the batteries last longer then you will not need to recharge them as often, so their overall lifespan will be greater. So sony would have to wait an extra year or so to sell you the replacement battery, hummm :

Was surfing the internet earlier to find out when the next jamiroquai album was going to come out and I found this quote from JK (the lead singer). Thought it summed up alot about where Sony is going wrong lol! "Recently Jay Kay has expressed bitter resentment with his longtime record label Sony Music. In a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, he commented that "These days it's 18% music and it's bloody 82% marketing bulls*** ... Next time I do an album, I'm gonna put it up on the internet for five f***ing dollars." He also remarked that a Jamiroquai "greatest hits" album will be released in 2006, purely out of contractual obligation: "2006, they're out of the f***ing picture. Take your greatest hits and stick it up your f***ing arse."" From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamiroquai

I have the EX71's and am very happy with them, the bass is great but the treble is not as crisp as I would like. They are very comfortable to wear and mine came with a cord which splits in two so you can use your remote control without a ridiculously long wire!

Not worth the risk, convert to .wav or another format first. Your method would work only if you click on the file, select convert to whichever bitrate the file already is and make sure ADD DRM is unchecked. This creates a copy without DRM and will work on multiple computers (but you still cant download this file to the minidisc then upload it to another computer). Matt

Toddz, from what I gather the digital amp is more power efficient so should save battery life rather than increase it. burns3016, you can get higher capacity batteries but they may not charge to full capacity within the minidisc player as it was designed for a lesser capacity battery. I read that people who had the 1400mAh one as standard and tried to upgrade to a 1750mAh one did not notice an increase in battery life unless the battery was charged from the wall. Would be worth the upgrade but I would reccomend using a wall charger with it. Matt

LOL! technical support really isnt worth it as most of them are just call centres based in India, where the people dealing with your complaint have probably never even used the product your having trouble with. I dont know what I would do without the internet to find solutions to technical problems.

Sorry I realised this after I had posted the topic, I mean just the 1GB discs only in the poll. But feel free to post how many normal discs you have below. At one point I had about 200, but when net MD came along i foolishly thought lp2 was the same quality as SP so I sold most of my normal discs and only have around 25 left. I have 10 1GB discs now all recorded at HISP, and doubt I will need many more. Andicillo where did you pick up a 60min disc??

There has been a poll on how many minidisc units you own, but whats a player without discs right? So time to let everyone know how many HI MD discs you own!

Dont know if any scientific tests have been carried out, but read the forum below http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=12882&st=30 Has a number of comments on about the sound quality of normal vs high e.g, jadeclaw: "Another notable point: Sony finally listened. You can now select the coding quality during import. Set it to high. CD-Import takes noticeably longer, but especially the lower datarates profit here. So, remember to select 'High' on the recording quality, it is well worth the wait. Soundwise, I can recommend to upgrade."

This may be the case, but dont forget there is no option to set the recording quality to high like there is in sonicstage.

Have you tried 352kb/s on this setup?? Can you notice any difference?

if ripping at HI LP definatly use sonicstage 3.3 as you can set recording quality to high which improves sound quality noticably. The difference is not really noticable at HI SP but I still use sonicstage to errr on the side of caution as it is newer than simpleburner. After I have transfered I just deleate the files from the computer so no space is taken up. If you are going to be frequently changing music on your disc I would use simpleburner, but if your going to make discs and keep them with the music for a long time use sonicstage.

Maybe we should just turn this thread into a wishlist for 2gb minidiscs!

SP is 292 and LP2 is 132kb/s, which is less than half by about 10%. Maybe you could achive a substantial recording time increase in this mode??

Dont think this would make any difference, you better off adjusting the EQ to make it louder, matt

The unprotected atrac3plus files can also be played in windows media player, sorry if this is off topic but I just discovered this a min ago!

a quick reply... 1) Yes 2) PCM =.wav, uncompressed audio like what you get on a CD 3) The same ways as your old unit, mic input or line in 4) Yes, unlimited times with sonicstage 3.3 5) No you need a first Gen unit for this e.g NH1. You can record normal MD's but only in sonicstage, so LP2 and LP4 quality 6) DRM = Digital rights management, not much of an issue as sony give you the option to rip CD's without it in the latest sonicstage 7) Bitrate = music quality and space. 64kbs is worse quality but you can fit more songs on a disc than 256kbs 8) 1 1/2 hours in PCM, 8 hours in HISP, ~34 hours in HILP 9) Second gen units can play back mp3s without the need to convert them to the atrac (Minidisc) format hope this helps, matt

sorry, my mistake!

Welcome, HIMDs only support 352, 256, 64 and 48 kb/s ATRAC3PLUS transfer. The other bitrates only work on hard drive players. Dont know why they didnt include a 192 bitrate for minidisc as most people would use this. Im afraid you might have to re rip your cds again! If you download the latest version of sonicstage (3.3), most people find that it is quite stable compared to previous versions, although im sure some people would disagree with this! Make sure when you import the CD, you put recording quality to high as it only takes a little bit longer, especially if you choose 64kb/s which I doubt you will! If you want to use 352, you have to rip the CD to .WAV then transfer the .WAV file by converting it to 352kb/s. for some reason sony didnt include the ability to rip 352 directly from CD. Hope this helps, Matt

Welcome, almost all minidisc players can use an external AA battery with a supplied add on case. The exceptions are DH10P and NH1 (I belive). the NH600D takes an AA battery in a slot built directly into the unit itself. All units except the NH600D can take removeable gumstick shaped batteries which can be recharged in the unit itself. Uploading times are pretty slow for PCM recorded files, compressed ATRAC files are slightly faster. A four min PCM recorded track would take ~1-2mins to upload in my experience. Have a look at http://www.minidisc.org/part_Hi-MD_Sony.html for furthur information on the units, hope this has been helpful! Matt