superboy

Actually, I have a non-Sony (I forgot the brand) binaural microphone also, and that results in recordings with barely any bass the same way. It's not the mic from what I can tell. I'm literally getting almost zero bass, while everything else is coming through fine. Like I said before, it seems like it's a very common MD problem. The thing that's getting me confused is the reasoning I stated above. To me, it doesn't make sense that the way to get more bass is to attenuate the bass signal.

I've tried recording with my RH10 several times, and the bass never comes through. I've been reading here and it sounds like this is a common problem with mindisc recorders. However, something doesn't make sense. Here is a quot from one of the FAQ's: I don't get it. I'm not getting much of any bass at all, so if I attenuate the signal, won't I get even less of the bass in the recording? Shouldn't I be trying to amplify it? So I don't really know what to do, should I get a battery box for ~$50 or one of those cheap radio shack headphone volume gizmos? Again, it sounds like I'm having the common problem people have with bass, it's just that the solution is not making sense to me right now. Thanks for any help.

I agree with you, but just to play devil's advocate, I'm going to respond to this from the perspective of the general public: 1. Most people DO care about the screen. You are deep in the minority here. Why do you think the ipods screen keep getting better with each generation? That's what people care about. 2. Not a big deal. The HD players come with 30-80 GB drives, and the flash players offer enough space to most users. Remember, we're not dealing with hardcore music people like most minidisc people, just normal people who listen to music while they work out or drive in the car. 3. "Too small" is a good thing for 90% of the people out there. And most people also don't care enough about labeling to affect their choice of mp3 players. Look at digital cameras, do you hear anyone complaining about the xD cards being too small? 4. SonicStage doesn't really have problems, but it's not that great, and it's definitely not as good as itunes. It does the job and the only reason why we use it is because it's the only software that will work with our minidisc player. Nobody who doesn't own a minidisc is going to use sonicstage as their music library organizer/player, or else they're delusional. 5. Maybe so, but that's just because you're a minidisc fan. I'm sure it does the job, but an ipod can do so much more and do it more easily at that. 6. The battery thing is a deal breaker for some people, but not most. I care a great deal about the battery, but most people could care less. Or maybe they care, but not enough to do anything about it. Nobody is going to pick a minidisc player over an ipod because of the battery issue. 7. Autonomy? I don't get it. How is a minidisc any more or less autonomous than an ipod? Whatever your reason is, I'm going to bet that not many people care about this either. 8. All metal body is nice, but again, not a big deal to most people. There you go, on a practical level, minidisc just doesn't offer anything that significant to people (besides recording, that is). Everything you mentioned are not very key features. They're little, almost insignificant things to most people. We, as minidisc aficionados, care about these little things a great deal, but remember that we're a very small group in the music-listening population. We are somewhat of power users, and most of the population are just casual users. So, to sell more units and be more popular, you need to offer things a casual user will be attracted to like big, colorful screens and stuff. Labeling, removable battery, these are things that people won't even think about until you mention it.

You know, a lot of mindisc people react way too unreasonably to any kind of criticism about the MD. Let's face it, there are many good reasons why the mindisc isn't as popular as the ipod or pretty much any other big name player out there. I love mindisc, and use it almost exclusively, but there are lots of things that other players are better for. Honestly, you take out the MD's superb recording abilities, and you pretty much take out the only good reason that makes the MD better than the ipod or a flash player, or whatever. And not that many people need a recorder, so that's a real small niche. How about the argument that eh MD discs are encased in a hard plastic shell. Sure, that's nice and indestructible, but is it really that big a deal? No. How about that the discs are under $10 for 1 GB, compared to flash memory, which will be at least twice as much? Again, not that big a deal, especially considering how flash memory is so much easier to find. Flash is also much smaller than a MD disc. Also, ipods and other players are much easier to navigate than a minidisc player. They have better screens that display more information, and it's easier to go through your songs. It's also easier to transfer music to the player than Sony's SonicStage. Itunes may be bad, but it's way better than SonicStage (even though that's not saying much). So, bottom line is that unless you are looking for a portable recorder, there's really no good reason to get a MD unit. Some people just think MD's are cool, but that's purely aesthetic and subjective. Personally, I think my HiMD player is way cooler than anything else, but it's not the reason why I bought it. I bought it because it records very well and other players don't. That's it. There is no other practical area where the MD is better than the average ipod or player out there.

Is it possible for a way to make the RH10 remember certain settings, such as, show time remaining on the display instead of time played. For example, it can remember my record settings (PCM mode, etc) but it can't remember to show time remaining once the display automatically shuts off after not using it. ANyone else run into this issue?

What are those cylinders for that come with the RH10? THere's like 4 of them, and I don't know what they are for. They are hinged and snap shut, so I'm assuming something goes in between them, but what? ANyway, I just got a beautiful RH10 straight from Japan. A friend of a friend who was on a trip there brought it back, so that was very cool. It's the orange one, I love the color, it's just super slick. It's my first MD ever. I couldn't resist the new HiMD format with it's pcm recording, mp3 support, and md-pc transfer restrictions removed. Very cool!

Yeah, Sony is getting to be a horrible company for innovation, their track record is getting worse and worse. I'm sure overall they're still churning great profits from their "safe" products like movies, music, playstation, etc. But their innovative products or ventures into other people's territory (er...ipod) is pretty poor. It seems like for every somewhat good thing they do, they either screw up multiple times, or it's like one step forward and two steps back. For example, look at the the 3 generations of HiMD, and look at the evolution of the remote, recording features, mp3 playback, legacy support, and overall device design. It's bizarre, they fix one thing, they screw up a couple things that were already good. Then they fix what they screwed up, and remove a couple of features that were already there. What in the world is going through their minds here? Sony is like New Coke, except that was an honest mistake from Coke and they recovered for the better from it. Sony is like New Coke, except they stubbornly stick to New Coke without recognizing what was good about "classic" Coke, and they keep trying to come up with Newer Cokes, while Pepsi kicks their a$$. Wake up Sony, and do something right for once.

Does anyone know when the RH1 will be released in Japan? Is it in April also, or is that for the US?

I can't find an answer to this in the forums by searching. Is there any way to play an MD in the car without a tape deck? Is there any fm transmitter device or some kind of hard wiring hack to do this. Or (even though I doubt it) through the cd player?

From what I've seen and heard, the new MZ-M100 seems almost exactly the same as the RH-10. Here are the differences I'm aware of so far: --the M100 has a longer battery life --the M100 can transfer PCM recordings to a Mac (or something like that) But, I still have a few questions: 1) Does the M100 come in the colors that initially came out with the RH-10? (blue, and that cool orange?) 2) Does the M100 still have that mp3 problem that people mentioned about the RH-10? I remember that a couple of reviewers of the RH-10 said that Sony had intentionally crippled the sound quality of mp3's on the RH-10, where even really high bitrate mp3's wouldn't sound so good. Is that true, and does it also apply to the M100? 3) Why is the M100 so much more expensive than the RH-10 if it is so similar? Thanks. AC