roem

I also own an MZ-R900 and it's really a nice machine. Mine looks still like new and when I showed it recently to friend who wanted to see 'that MP3-Player' more closely, he couldn't believe that the player is several years old already. But cause I recently got an MZ-RH1, the MZ-R900 and the MZ-R909 are only my backup machines now. Anyway, if you can get an MZ-R900 in good condition to a fair price, I would take it. best regards Roman

Are you sure about this? It's possible to upload SP-recordings to the computer with the MZ-RH1 and I'm not so sure if the conversion is done in the recorder. Older MDLP-Recorders could also be fed with SP via SS (again I don't know if the conversion was done by the software or only in the recorder). Roman

If I would know how to do a frequency analysis I would have done that already. I had a look at the files with audacity just to see if I can spot some differences. On top is the SS conversion and below the optical-in recording. There are differences which can be seen by eye but I have no idea if they can also be observed by ear. If someone wants the the two files to make this kind of frequency analysis, let me know. Roman

The copying and replacing sheme I did was necessary to make SS think that the file to transfer is actually an optical-in-recording although it wasn't. So the same file was converted (degraded?) 4 times. I couldn't hear a difference to the first optical-in recording after those 4 conversion processes though. Whatever SS does to the files it doesn't seem to degrade the quality of the sound imo. The difference in the optical-in and SS-recordings we claim to hear could be due different atrac versions used in the hardware of the MZ-RH1 and in SS. Maybe there are some tiny differences we might be able to spot. Maybe there is just some side-effect I'm not aware of ... I'm still offering the two atrac files for ABX-testing (one recorded via optical-in the other recorded with SS). Roman

I took your point up that SS might do some conversion to the file that is transfered to the computer. The idea behind my test is that the sound should get distorted when the conversion is done over and over again on the same track. Here is what I did: Initial Step: -Made a copy of a song with the MZ-RH1 via optical in Step 1 (done with the help of SS): -Transfer the song with the help of SS to the computer (conversion) -delete the recorded track on the HI-MD and replaced it with the one already transfered/converted track again using SS Step 2 (using the file explorer/recorder functions): -copy the *.HMA track from the HI-MD disc -format the HI-MD -make another copy of the same song via optical in -replace the new *.HMA track on of the recording on the HI-MD with the one previously taken from the HI-MD -go back to Step 1 I did that 4 times. So the same song was converted 4 times. Maybe this are not enough conversion processes to show distortion cause I couldn't spot any. What I observed was that the file size increased (had about 400kb more in the end) and that the song gained additional time (4s). This is probably due the toc manipulation though and not because of the conversion process. Roman PS: if someone wants to retry that test you will have to do addtional steps in order to prevent SS from crashing. When the file size grows you have to copy additional tracks to the HI-MD before you can copy the track back to the computer or SS will crash and the HI-MD needs to be formatted before it can be read/written to again.

I do have both *.omg files (the one created with SS and the one which was recorded via optical in) on my hd now and am wondering if they would run on another computer as well. If so, I would offer to send those two files (around 7MB each) to someone who would like to do an ABX-test. My soundcard is just not decent enough to do that kind of testing. But anyway, I'm not going to send those files just to anyone because they like to get a song for free (copyright issues are also the reason I don't attach the files to that post). So please provide first a link to an ABX test you did. Roman

Well, my first thought by reading this thread was, 'this is rubbish, there shouldn't be a difference by copying digitally either by optical in or with SS'. But just for fun I took a CD from Kean and recorded that with my MZ-RH1 in HI-SP mode via optical in. The source was an old Panasonic CD Player with an optical out (Panasonic SL-CT570, definitely no high end device ...). After that I used SS (Version 4.2) to create the Files to compare with. Atrac, 256kBs and with the option high quality enabled. Then I copied them to the same HI-MD and into the already existing folder with the digital-in recordings. I checked that the volume for the songs is about the same which seems to be the case. Then I played the songs in shuffle mode and tried to guess what the source was. Well, actually I didn't expect to guess more than 50% right. But now after beeing right with my guess with 9 of 10 tries (20 trials in all) I'm a bit confused. It's not that the SS recordings sound worse but they sound like they have something added. The optical in recordings seem to sound a bit 'cleaner' to me. Ok, sounds strange now but there seems really to be a difference. Maybe someone with more experience in ABX-testing should give that a try too. best regards Roman PS: I didn't try if Simple Burner behaves the same way. EDIT: After rereading what I wrote, I think I have to explain how I actually tried to figure out which song came from which source. It's not that I compared two songs with each other and picked the one that sounded better. I was listening in shuffle mode and when I thought that this song sounds different than it used to cause I was using SS (and sometimes also SB) to fill my HI-MD with music before, than I knew it has to be a song which was recorded via optical in. I was listening the HI-MD with Kean on it lately rather ofen, so I took that one for that test. I'm fully aware that this 'test' can't be compared with a classic ABX-Test but I couldn't figure out another way to compare songs on the player/recorder without knowing in prior what I'm listening to.

Here is a translation of the article which was posted on the mindidiscforum.de (link: http://www.minidiscforum.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15456) by enaef. All credits go to him. I only did a quick and dirty translation. Roman PS: Sorry about the sloppy formatting. I'm going to change that probably soon. Improvements and corrections are welcome, of course. Start of Translation: Starting point: Sony MZ-RH1 and SonicStage 3.4 No recordings assembled in groups (just recorded as one long stream, no parts cut out or moved) The recordings can only be recovered with the help of some manipulations. It doesn't work with the RH10. Furthermore it only works with discs which have been formatted in the RH1 prior to recording. When recording was done with an RH1 and an RH10 on the same discs only recordings done with the RH1 can be recovered. It doesn't seem to matter if the disc is formatted via SS or by selecting to format it on the unit. How to proceed (actually rather simple) Access the faulty disc with the help of MS file explorer. Copy the container file 'ATDATAxx.HMA' to your harddisk (the two xx are substitutes for changing characters, usually the first one is a zero, the second one either a number or a letter. Those characters change every time the recorder writes to the disc). Now take a fresh disc (type doesn't matter, can be a standard MD or a HI-MD) and format it. The faulty disc could be used for this task too if you still trust that thing. Disconnect the RH1 from the computer. Start a 'pseudo'-recording, which has to be a tad shorter than the one on the faulty MD. Attention: this 'pseudo'-recording shouldn't be longer than the whole recording on the buggy MD. After the 'pseudo'-recording let SS write the system-files. Delete with the help of MS file explorer the 'pseudo'-recording on the MD (usually named ATDATA02.HMA, if you recorded to one single file) but make sure you note the name of that recording. Now replace the deleted file (the 'pseudo'-recording) with the one you saved at the very beginning from the bad disc. Rename the file with the name of the 'pseudo'-recording. Disconnect the RH1 from the computer. Choose 'line out' on the RH1. Now you can copy the recording to another device. When the recorder hits a track mark which was set on the faulty disc there is a short break. (If the RH1 isn't set to 'line out', it looks as if it is playing (at least the meter seems to indicate this) but there is no sound output till you move the jog lever to ff). Instead of playing the recordings on the RH1 they can also be played with the help of SS: Connect RH1 with the computer, start SS. Now you should be able to see the 'pseudo'-recording in the view 'transfer files'. When you play that recording now, the recovered recording should be played. It will play properly till the point where the first track mark was set is hit on the faulty disc. Then SS will stop and jump back to the start of the recording. The track bar has to be moved over that track mark in order to make SS/RH play on. The file can be imported from the MD to SS without any problems. If you play the files they behave the same way like when playing them from the RH1 though. Converting to WAV works till the first track mark is encountered and then the converting process will stop. Trying to convert the recordings to another bit rate will result in an error.

Ok, might take a few minutes though and it won't be perfect Roman

Oh, well ... I didn't use Babelfish for ages and thought it would have been improved by now but that doesn't seem to be the case. Hasn't this artice been translated already to English somewhere? I could do a translation but actually I should be doing other things instead of that. Roman

Hi, did you try it the other way around already? Copying the *.hma files from the pc back to an empty HI-MD disc and then importing them with SonicStage and convert them to wav? Maybe that works. I don't think you can process the *.hma files on the computer directly. Roman EDIT: Ok, I had a quick look around an it doesn't seem to be as simple as I thought it would. You can only recover data from a HI-MD disc if you used an rh-1 as a recorder and you will also use an rh-1 for the recovery. As I don't have too much time on my hands I will only provide you with a link to the 'HI-MD Recovery'-post on minidisc.de. Babelfish should do the job, otherwise just ask what's unclear. link: http://www.minidiscforum.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15456

Hi, if I understand you correctly you tried to get rid of the sound volume restriction on your rh-1 by fiddling around in service mode. Now the volume goes up and down during playback of your own recordings? Did I got that right? Well, I have no idea but maybe you changed accidentally some values when doing that service-mode hack. Resetting the values to their initial values and seeing if the problem vanishes might be the best option (although you could also do more dammage, of course ...). Maybe someone else has an idea what else could cause that up and down of the soundvolume during playback. Roman