Anthony

I only wanted one to try out on my RH1 for a bit of fun. I can't see myself using Hi-MD as a practical method of recording/listening to music when original SP mode sounds so good. They are far too expensive to purchase for the "fun" factor.

Hi-MD is officially unobtanium. http://www.tapecity.co.uk/acatalog/info_19.html

I'm only going to offer an opinion here but Mega-Bass was/is severe overkill in the lower frequencies to the detriment of the mids and highs. The only way to force a high response from the 100Hz-250Hz area of the spectrum is to boost them to max and possibly reduce the other frequencies a tad. My MZ-R35 has Mega-Bass and I hardly ever use it. Also, as you have pointed out my newer RH1 ( no MB) cannot create the same level of flabby, boomy bass even if I wanted it to...............which I don't. As a side note you could artificially boost the lower end by using specifically bass heavy headphones. The Hisoundaudio POPO's are an example of an extremely bass orientated IEM admired by Bassheads.

I have the R35 and the RH1 and I must admit the RH1 is incredibly fragile looking. In fact out of all the audio players I have ( DAP, Cassette, MD ) it is the one least likely to be used purely because of the build quality. The R35 on the other hand is built like a tank, it really does feel like a premium product and it sounds pretty good too. MD was a massive leap in SQ in the nineties. I love cassette but the R35 leaves my WM-DC2 for dust despite it being one the best ever cassette Walkmans...............apologies, I digress.

Totally Agree. Up to now I had no way to make "usable" digital copies of vinyl. Also agree on the build quality, my earliest player, the MZ-R30, is built like a tank compared to the RH1.

It's been a long time since I posted on this forum but I can't control my excitement. I just forked out €200 for a used MZ-RH1. It's a lot of money but given some of the crazy prices on ebay I reckon I did OK. It's immaculate and working perfectly, the OLED is also nice and bright. The seller said it was barely used and I'm inclined to believe her. As a bonus the eight yr old battery appears to be holding charge very well. SonicStage is up and running with the 64bit NetMD Driver. I transferred a few music files (MP3@320) in MD mode to play on my JE-440 but I have to admit they don't sound as good as a direct CD Digital to Digital or Vinyl/RCA copy. In any case I won't be using it for music transfer. This is almost purely to add to my "vintage" collection although it will get some occasional use.

Yep, It's fast...........

McGaggs; how did you get M-Crew server installed on 64bit W7? My installation aborts because of incompatibility with 64bit OS.

I'm with you Darkside. I cannot figure out why they go to so much trouble to annoy their customer base. Especially in hard times like these when a person is not going to spend his/her cash on something that's "nearly" good enough. SONY have been "nearly" good enough for too long in my opinion which is an absloute shame given that they are well positioned to give the customer exactly what they want. 64GB in Europe Sony or I'm gone. BTW I have also shifted my loyalty from Sony Ericsson phones because of complete lack of innovation or anything that even comes close to the competition. I'm a Palm Pre owner now. On a lighter note isn't great that such trivial things are all we have to complain about.

Well I took the plunge having been generally dissapointed with the X-1060 ( apart from SQ). This week I purchased the Palm Pre as I was entitled to a cut-price upgrade on my cell phone. I have to say I have finally found a device that does (almost) everything. The music player isn't bad either, better than the fruity alternative IMO. The big deal is the apps. Generally speaking, if the device doesn't have a function out of the box there is a way to get it.There is also a nice little hacking community building up. Having been an incredibly loyal Sony fan for many years I am finally tiring of their tactics and silly decision making. Hanging off a forum to see if I can have the same device as my Japanese counterpart is a little bit ridiculous in this modern age. I would also doubt any move Sony makes to Android. There will be loads of noise and fanfare until people start discovering that certain typical android functions will be locked or removed from a SONY device, don't say they can't do that, they CAN.

I need to catch up. Are you Japanese, so English menu's aren't a problem? Is the new X-Application in Japanese also? Is X-application the only software that the A847 works with, ie no Drag and Drop?

....................makes sense to me. Isn't there money to be made out of forcing consumers to buy the next model?

Not Likely

I'm sick of SONY. Time to move on.

Company policy? Company culture? Who knows, what I DO believe is that they need to change this policy (or culture) or people will leave them. To be honest I think this "lack of updates" issue with SONY is much worse than the ATRAC debacle of old.