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Karl Myer

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Everything posted by Karl Myer

  1. Thank you greenmachine for explaining that so well. Yes, I am satisfied with the excellent quality of spoken-word recording at 48 kbps. I regularly listen 10 hours without a break (hiking) with no aural fatigue. I only wish mono recording would be possible on the RH1 to get more on a disc. I find music very acceptable at 48 kbps as long as I'm outside walking. Indoors, playing through a good radio, the 48 kbps music is fatiguing.
  2. Can someone explain Qwakrz's statement for me? I record audiobooks to minidisc using 48 kbps Atrac3plus. I used to use 64 kbps but went to 48 because I can't discern any difference in quality (for spoken-word -- I do hear a difference for music.) I'm completely satisfied with 48kbps for audiobooks. What is the "poor quality" Qwakrz mentions?
  3. Karl Myer

    Moon River

    It surprises me the song's beauty faded for you, even after 40 years. Good comparison. It's that same haunting lonliness and wistfulness as Moon River, and also about two rivers, Shenandoah and Missouri.
  4. The sight of those Basic MD's will make obvious how scratch- and smudge-free is the storage media holding your data even after years. No CD is so clean after its first handling.
  5. Karl Myer

    Moon River

    Moon river Wider than a mile I'm crossing you in style Some day... Old dream maker You heart breaker Wherever you're going I'm going your way... Two drifters Off to see the world There's such a lot of world To see... We're after the same rainbow's end Waitin' round the bend My Huckleberry friend Moon River and me... A letter from Audrey Hepburn to Henry Mancini after his score was added to the film: Dear Henry, I have just seen our picture - BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S - this time with your score. A movie without music is a little bit like an aeroplane without fuel. However beautifully the job is done, we are still on the ground and in a world of reality. Your music has lifted us all up and sent us soaring. Everything we cannot say with words or show with action you have expressed for us. You have done this with so much imagination, fun and beauty. You are the hippest of cats - and the most sensitive of composers! Thank you, dear Hank. Lots of love, Audrey A photograph of the letter is here.
  6. I wish I could have a black and a silver to differentiate them. The black is very nice but my personal preference runs to silver. I stick a flourescent dot to tell them apart. I didn't have a choice of finish with my Aiwa AMD-100 either. I never saw a Sony MZ-1 in my area. Only the silver Aiwa was available, and only at one store. It was the only one they ever had, to my knowledge, and it was in the showcase a long time before I bought it. But the price was never reduced.
  7. Thanks for the tips and links. I would like to find a nice hard case. One thing I do is always carry my player in a small plastic bag, sealed. I read here in the Forums somewhere that eliminates condensation when coming in from the cold. I do it also to keep the display unscratched.
  8. The wizard of oz's description fits me exactly. Nobody liked MD more than I did from the very beginning, but SCMS "no digital copy allowed of a digital copy" defeated me in the end because it allowed no maneuvering room. I paid a lot in 1993 -- $599 for the recorder, $15 for 60-min and $17 for 74-min discs -- for such wonderful engineering only to put up with its being hobbled and disabled in its most powerful and useful point. I bought knowing the system limitations but the hopeless nature of the constraints, in practice, gradually overwhelmed its great benefits and led me to abandon the format in 2002. The irony was, even with the great 'Move' capabilities of MD I felt unable to Move anything off of a disc (digitally, the only way that interests me). I was thrilled to learn about the RH1 January 23 of this year -- literally a dream come true. I had no intention of buying two but ... if I bought one, I needed a spare battery. $45 for a battery is outrageous but $270 for an RH1, which includes a battery, is nice. It's like getting a $45 discount on an already low price. And the second unit already has its spare battery -- the first's. I always had multiple players anyway -- since 1993 2 Sanyo MDG-P1's along with my beautiful AMD-100. The only shortcoming I have noticed in my first month with 2 RH1's is the inability to record in mono. (I have not been bothered by the eject button zero-ing the display when jarred, although it has happened). Yes, 45 hours on one disc seems like it should be enough, but why not have 90 hours if the system is capable? Entire audiobooks (or more than one) would fit on HiMD 80's. The Bible (72 hrs) would fit on a 1GB disc with room left for plenty of music as a change of pace. Greater track-accessing problems because of the increased content don't apply, at least for me, with audiobooks. I rewind a sentence or two, or a track, regularly but other than that I go through them pretty linearly.
  9. Can you recommend a good carrying case and/or any of your common sense secrets?
  10. How much of a quality loss is there in this conversion? A week ago I made the mistake of uploading my old MD's to hard drive through Sonic Stage 'as is' (no conversion), then converting those tracks to wave files. They did not, however, transfer 'as is,' I now know, but went from SP to Hi-SP, or 292 to 256 kbps. The better way, I learn from Mr. sharpsony in his post above, is to convert from MD-SP to wave by transferring in PCM: No harm done though (I thought) because I still have the original MD's, so I can do it all over again the right way next time. Tonight though, in an appalling mistake, I totally erased an original MD. I do have both the ATRAC 3+ version and the wave files made from that ATRAC 3+. I'm very upset I erased the original. Can anyone tell me how much of a loss in quality was sustained? The ATRAC 3+ and the wave versions are identical now, I'm assuming. How much worse are they than the original ATRAC?
  11. "Sitwellian" is an authorial adjective, like Hemingwayesque. Dame Edith Sitwell was one of three literary siblings in early 20th Century London. The music critic calling Joyce Hatto a Sitwellian figure probably alludes to her "wearing Jean Muir kaftans to hide her protruding stomach." Edith Sitwell was an eccentric dresser.
  12. It is a poignant story. Thanks for the links. Here is the relevant passage:
  13. My tests: Note: I am holding MZ-RH1 still, so no shocks. Note: Discs seem to be spun at one of three intensity levels: (1) very soft (2) moderate (3) intense. --- Playing a Sony 1GB Hi-MD recorded in PCM, disc spins 8 seconds then does not spin for 30 seconds. This sequence is very regular -- I timed it through ten cycles. Spinning is very soft -- so soft it is hard to feel -- even when disc is first loaded. --- Playing a legacy Sony 60min MD, reformatted to Hi-MD, recorded at 64 kbps, disc spins 8 seconds then does not spin for the next 16 minutes. I don't know whether this sequence is regular since I only timed it through one cycle. Disc spins intensely when first loaded then moderately when it next spins 16 minutes later. --- Playing a Sony 1GB Hi-MD recorded at 64 kbps, disc spins 8 seconds then does not spin for the next 18 minutes. I don't know whether this sequence is regular since I only timed it through one cycle. Spinning is very soft -- so soft it is hard to feel -- even when disc is first loaded. --- Playing a legacy Sony 60min MD, reformatted to Hi-MD, recorded in PCM, disc spins 18 (yes 18, not 8) seconds then does not spin for 30 seconds. This sequence is very regular -- I timed it through ten cycles. Disc spins intensely when first loaded then moderately whenever it again spins at the 30-second intervals. But whether moderate or intense it always spins 18 seconds. One surprising conclusion is the 1GB MD seems to be a refinement over previous MD's in that the disc is only ever spun at the very soft level of intensity. I don't know if this is also true of 60-, 74-, and 80min Hi-MD's because I don't own any, but if not I think I would only buy 1GB discs. In any case, my reformatted-to-Hi-MD legacy 60min disc was never spun by the RH1 at the soft level. By the way, am I using "legacy" correctly? I first encountered the word when first viewing this website a month ago and have been unsuccessful verifying its meaning. I use it for 'minidiscs manufactured before the Net-MD era.' I would be interested to know its origins.
  14. It is possible my content was 64kbps (an audiobook) and although I held the RH-1 a long time trying to feel the disc spinning I didn't hold it 14 minutes. I'm currently listening to tracks originally made on either my 1993 or 2000 model-year recorders that I transferred a couple days ago into My Library in Sonic Stage, then converted to PCM, then transferred onto a 1GB Hi-MD in PCM. I plan to listen to it tonight just to make sure everything transferred correctly before I erase the original disc and reformat it as a blank Hi-MD. I will try again to feel the RH-1 cycle on and off, this time with the PCM recording. Thank you for the very nice explanation.
  15. It's surprising to hear "The Minidisc format seems to have entered twilight," Eric, considering the phenomenal growth at Minidisc Community Forums over the past couple years, as I learn reading the 187 Replies and udates in "[Forum] Announcements > The Forum Now Has More Than 52,000 Registered Users." Is there some new development? I ask because you seem to be saying the format has just entered twilight. No problem with a Google banner as far as I'm concerned.
  16. Karl Myer

    Moon River

    Which river is Moon River? "Wider than a mile" and "my Huckleberry friend" call to mind the Mississippi. But I didn't know the song was written for Breakfast At Tiffany's. That fact, and "you dreammaker, you heartbreaker" point to the Hudson, also wider than a mile. "I'm crossing you in style some day" is a big clue, introducing striving, desire, dreams of success. "Whereever you're going I'm going your way" indicates a journey, and a passive journey. Same with "Two drifters off to see the world" (Huckleberry Finn and Jim floating down the Mississippi). "We're after the same rainbow's end, waitin' round the bend ... ." The Mississippi winds but the Hudson does not. Huck and Jim float down the Mississippi River on a raft but the Hudson River is crossed -- "I'm crossing you in style someday." The lyrics seem deliberately ambiguous but I don't think there are more than two choices. Personally, the song comes to mind whenever winding down the helix to the Lincoln Tunnel, a soundtrack for that incredible skyline a mile across the Hudson River. It's a New York song.
  17. Target in Allentown PA has this 5-pack, but for $8.99. It's a clear plastic box but with no lid or top, exactly holding 5 Sony Hi-MD 80's in black, orange, yellow, purple and blue, no individual slip cases. Even at half the price I would have hesitated since no slip cases. Then again, I might have bought four had they been $4.48. Corrections 3/4/07: The plastic box is not clear but the 'clouded-clear' soft plastic type. It does have a top, which probably swings open and snaps closed. The MD colors are black, orange, blue, red, purple. Sufficient labels are included for 5 MD's. I have since seen them for $8.99 at Targets in Mongomeryville and Plymouth Meeting PA. It is nice looking and I would certainly buy a few at $4.48.
  18. I think you are right. I have tried to feel the vibration by just holding the unit, without listening to speakers or through headphones, and in as quiet an enviornment as possible. A just-detectable vibration can be felt, which doesn't seem to cycle on and off. At times the only sure way to know it's vibrating is to press Stop/Cancel and feel it stop.
  19. How does G-protection work on the MZ-RH1? A newly-inserted MD spins rapidly (vibration can be easily felt while holding the recorder) about 5-7 seconds, then, a few seconds into the track the vibration completely stops. I have held the recorder a long time, waiting for the vibration to start up again, but it never seems to -- the recorder is completely vibration- and noise-free the whole time it plays. My Discman CD player spins a disc a few seconds, then stops and reads from its solid state memory, then spins the disc again (to reload the memory, I'm assuming). It's easy to feel, and hear, its on-off cycles, and they are very regular. Does the RH1 operate some other way or is it just extremely smooth spinning a disc?
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