grenert

No, I _know_ that the discs exist. You claimed the media disc itself was somehow formulated differently than non-pro discs ("better layered" you said). I have never seen any evidence that is the case. Do you have a source?

How do you know this to be the case? I would be surprised if Sony makes a different disc for the pro MDs.

I use my RM-MC40ELK and MZ-EH70 together all the time. No problems at all. I think it is the optimum portable HiMD listening setup because the EH70 is so small and has a "standard" gumstick battery which can easily be exchanged, and the RM-MC40ELK remote is very versatile.

I want to dub some LPs onto MD using SP (so I can play them back on my Sharp DR7). I can record the discs with either a Sony MZ-NH900 Hi-MD recorder or the DR7. Does anyone have an opinion as to which of these is a better recorder in SP (in terms of sound quality; I think the Sharp is better in recording convenience)? Thanks for any help.

First, do you want to have it do the conversion to Atrac64? If not, you can change that setting by clicking the suitcase icon in the middle of the screen. In there, you can select how the files are handled. Where are these files coming from? If they are MP3 or AAC, then they obviously have to be converted to ATRAC first. If they are ATRAC already, but in a different bitrate, then you may be able to use them directly (depending on the bitrate; not all ATRAC bitrates are allowed on CDs). Regardless, eventually, the CD should have been made by morning. Personally, I was only able to make ATRAC CDs on version 3.4; later versions hang up at 69% completion for me. You may want to install version 3.4. Finally, your last problem (limited transfers) may be related to the source of the files. ATRAC files from the Connect store (I think) can be burned to CD only a limited number of times (even failed attempts count, unfortunately - SonicStage is miserable). If you created the ATRAC files yourself from original CDs, you may want to try deleting your entire library (but not delete the actual files) and re-importing the ATRAC files. For some reason, that can reset the transfer limitation. Note that it does NOT work to reset Connect store song. Hope some of this works for you.

And you guys said it wasn't worth $200... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...A:IT&ih=004

I think he means it's worse because it's only LP2 quality, but now takes up >2X the space!

The NH900 has a horrible battery meter which chronically gives an artificially low readout. I've been able to play MDs for hours with a no-bar flashing meter. You'll just have to ignore it and assume you actually have more power than it reads. Regarding the charging: I think that the battery charger will always try to charge the battery, regardless of whether or not it's drained, because it can't immediately tell whether it needs a charge. If the battery is fully charged, it will take a little while for the charger to realize that the battery is not taking a charge, and then it will stop. If it's drained, it will continue to charge until full. It's different from laptops, which use lithium batteries, which have a lot of extra circuitry to tell the charger whether or not a charge is needed. I actually use an external charger (from www.budgetbatteries.com) so that I can always have a charged battery ready. I've heard some people say an external charger does a better job than the MD player's charger, but I've never compared them myself.

Try following these directions exactly: http://www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6 They solved all of my SonicStage installation problems. On the downside, the reason why I had to do so much installing and uninstalling was because I could never get version 4.x to create ATRAC CDs. So, I use 3.4. Good luck.

OK! Thanks for the link. Here's the file: http://s24.quicksharing.com/v/9164978/ss1_CD.zip.html

SS likes those files just fine. But there is a glitch in SS that sometimes you have to import the files twice before it will allow you to transfer them. So the steps are: 1. Convert files in SoundForge. 2. Import into Sonic Stage. 3. If SS will let you transfer, you're done! 4. If no transfers allowed, delete the files from your library, but keep them on the hard drive. 5. Import again into Sonic Stage. It should work now!

It's nearly 200MB. I don't know of any sites that allow such big files for free.

I have a ZIP file with SB v1. Is there some way I can submit it to MDCF to add to the downloads section?

It's not a separate format. It's just a playback feature in Sonic Stage. It does not affect playback on portable devices. Off topic, but how do you like your NE-20?

According to Ishiyoshi's data: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=11325 There is a high frequency cutoff at around 18kHz with ATRAC3+ 192kbps, while Hi-SP (256kbps) has no cutoff. This makes me wonder if 192kbps might actually provide better quality. Since we hear 18kHz+ poorly if at all, I'm not sure we'd perceive much of a loss from the filter, and then there would be a lot less information to encode. Admittedly, 192kbps is a lot less data as well, but maybe getting rid of the very highest frequencies "cleans up" the material to encode at a lower bitrate with fewer artifacts. I have to admit I don't think I hear artifacts with Hi-SP as it is. Any opinions on this? Has anyone done much testing?

Well, if you have NetMD, then I would definitely import in ATRAC, since NetMD cannot play MP3 directly, and Sonic Stage would just convert MP3 into ATRAC anyway when you transferred to your player. On the down side, those ATRAC files are only usable on Sony players, so you may need to re-import into MP3 or some other format in the future to use a different player.

What Hi-MD device do you have? The first generation do not play MP3 directly; they have to be converted to ATRAC first. That definitely reduces quality (not necessarily because of ATRAC, but the transcoding from one format to another). If this is the case, then you would be better off importing into ATRAC (unless you need MP3 files for other players/software). If you have the second generation, you can play MP3 directly, but there is a lowpass filter like Wikipedia says. You can get around this somewhat in the equalizer by REDUCING all of the frequencies except the highest one (search the forums here to find the exact directions). If you have the third generation recorder (the fancy MZ-RH1), then you can play MP3 directly with no lowpass filter.

Yes, 69% is the point when the actual CD write is supposed to take place. I think there is a little delay at this point, even when the program is working correctly (not sure why), so be sure to wait a couple minutes to make sure that the program is really stuck before giving up. On the upside, since the CD write hasn't started yet, you can still use the blank CD for another try. I was never able to get SS 4.0 to make an ATRAC CD. Version 3.4 works fine for me; I've never installed 4.2. Good luck.

A couple of questions about the Onkyo Hi-MD decks: 1. What are the differences between the MD-133 and the MD-105FX? They seem functionally identical as far as I can tell. 2. Do either of them have a timer record function? - For example, start recording on Monday at 8pm and stop at 9pm. Thanks a lot!

No, no way. Lots of FM stations sound bad because of compression (of dynamics, to make the station louder, not digital compression as with MP3 or ATRAC), bad reception, etc. However, a clear signal from a good-sounding (i. e., minimally processed) station is light years ahead of Hi-LP. I do a lot of recording off FM with very good tuners (Yamaha T-85 and Sony ST-S730ES) and 24-bit A-D cards (Echo Indigo IO and Edirol UA-1EX) and I can tell you that the compressed files are NOT as good as the original WAV files. FM doesn't sound better because of equalization, it is because of the lack of digital compression and its subsequent losses and artifacts.

Just purchased a Hi-MD recorder from Darrin. Everything went great! I have no idea how he was ever able to put everything back into the original box It looked like brand new.

I had the same problem (except I was using Win2K SP4). I was unable to get CD burning to work on SS 4.0. I downgraded to version 3.4 and it works fine. Unless you absolutely need 4.0 for some reason, try the earlier version. Good luck.

For what it's worth, I was able to import .aa3 files as they were. The first time I imported, SS would not let me burn the files to an ATRAC CD. I tried a second (or third) time, and it worked fine. I have no idea why it didn't work the first time. I dont have a MD player to try that out. -J. P.