Jump to content

Sound Dropouts on MZNH-900

Rate this topic


Cadevil5

Recommended Posts

Anyone else experiencing sound dropouts on their units? I'm not talking about skipping. What has been happening, is a complete loss of sound on the headphones, while the song continues to run on the unit.

This is very troubling. I loved my Hi-MD at first, but I am slowly thinking that I made a bad purchase.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've had my NH900 for 5 months now, with no such problem to report. Sorry. Does this only happen upon playback? Have you done any mic recording? Are you making full use of the batteries? Maybe you just got a bad unit. Still have your receipt?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have had this with my net md when i was recording my bands rehearsals via mic. it seems we were vibrating the table the md unit was on causing dropouts in the recording. i now put it on my coat and all is well.

As the 900 doesnt display playback levels do you know that its droping out in the same place each time.

Sorry if this is not relevent to you

Dave.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I recently purchased a (Nov 3rd) MZ-NH900 to replace my ageing MZ-E62 (still working strong :ohmy: ). I've been very pleased with my purchase, however the sound occasionally disappears for 3-9 secs, yet the unit's display shows the song is still playing (i.e. the time is still increasing).

So far I've only noticed this whilst walking or commuting. (Its main use) I've tried various recordings/albums (all @ "standard" compression rate). Immediately after the "sound drop-outs" I've tried rewinding to the point where the sound stopped and then re-playing it. Each time it has managed to play the previously silent segment.

The instructions mention G-Protection (Antishock?) surely this would prevent loss of sound from vibrations?

Having just spent the best part of £200 on a "portable" music player I'd like to use it out and about.

I've replaced the standard headphones with some Sony MDR-E29V, so I doubt it's a loose connection between the remote and phones, but I'm open to suggestions.

I'm considering replacing the unit or simply moving on to a dif. model or maybe even a NHD3.

Any ideas or similar experiences would be welcome.

TCQ1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm, since this happens only to NH900 users, a little voice in my back says, this is a firmware problem.

I suggest, that anyone experiencing these problems should post type of the unit, if it is the european/US/Asian/Tourist model and when it was purchased, so that we get a picture, if it is only a certain lot, that maybe got a weak laser or if it is a defective design...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've encountered the same problem.

However, I was able to fix it by reencoding in a higher bitrate than what I was at.

IIRC, Sony does mention something about sound dropouts being related to encoding MP3s into lower bitrate ATRAC files.

At least, that's what I think they said. Which is reason for me reencoding them. tongue.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Anyone else experiencing sound dropouts on their units?  I'm not talking about skipping.  What has been happening, is a complete loss of sound on the headphones, while the song continues to run on the unit.

This is very troubling.  I loved my Hi-MD at first, but I am slowly thinking that I made a bad purchase.

I could have written this post myself! I'm brand new to minidisc. Bought my first one a Hi-MD MZ-NH600D earlier this month. Also purchased a Sony 33EL remote through eBay which works great with the unit.

Never had any trouble with dropouts until last night. I loaded up a HI-MD with about 220 LP2 songs (never used LP2 before this) and afterwards noticed dropouts at certain parts of songs that lasted about 4 seconds, but the display showed the song was still playing.

I did some testing and it looks like the dropouts can happen on any of the songs uploaded after about the first 200. So anything written on the HI-MD before 200 is fine. The thing is the dropouts happen with no movement at all to the player! I can set it down and it will skip on any song written after about 200. I figure it must be having trouble reading the last say 100 megs of the HI-MD when written in LP2?

I tested my LP2 songs in Sonic Stage and they do not skip. I also tried deleting songs that had drop outs off the HI-MD and then re-uploading and even re-encoding and the same thing. Any LP2 song I upload to the HI-MD after the first 200 songs will skip. Unfortunately, I don't have another HI-MD to test this on. I'm gonna pick up another disc today. I was using 80 min disks formatted to HI with no troubles, although, I used HI-SP/LP and not LP2.

Cadevil5 what encoding mode were you using? Was it LP2?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm, something similiar has happened to tracks I've transferred using various bitrates on my NH600D (but that particular unit has taken much abuse and is ver flaky).

Odd thing is, when I retransferred those songs on a different unit (NHF800, which has been exchanged in the meantime to 900), those problems are no longer there.

To further complicate things, this happened on my 2nd batch of new blanks (3 HiMD Blanks)... The 1st batches does not exhibit this problem...

Couple of things to note before I draw my conclusions:

A) SonicStage is a resource hog, and resource hogs do not like to share. I do remember running Binary News Reaper 2 in the background, also another Hog, and this could very well fark things up.

cool.gif Have you tried different amounts of transferring (like an album or three at a time vs. a whole chunk?) That could have some impact as well. THough this seems less likely.

1) Either 900 unit has trouble transferring.

2) HiMD does not like ATRAC3 bitrates , a distinct possibility

3) Bad Batches of Blanks.

I'm currently listening to a LP2 mix on my HiMD 1Gb, I've yet to encounter songs with sound dropping out post 200 songs

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I did a bunch more fidling today.

I took the 1 GB Hi-MD disc that had sound dropouts, and initialized it again in Sonic Stage. After it was done initializing, I re-uploaded the 220 - LP2 tracks in the same order they were before. This was on an Althon 64 3000+ computer with 512 Ram and nothing else running in the background.

Guess what? It's about the same with the dropouts. :wacky:

I then took a brand new 1 GB Hi-MD that I bought earlier today, and wrote the same 220 - LP2 songs to it.

Guess what? It's perfect! :grin: No dropouts on any of the same tracks that dropped out on the other 1 GB Hi-MD.

Looks like it must be a media problem folks because nothing else changed here except a new 1 GB Hi-MD (unless I'm really missing something).

I assume from this that approximately the last 100 megs area of my other 1 GB Hi-MD must have a problem. I had never completely filled that disc up until yesterday, and I hadn't noticed the dropouts till I did with all those LP2 files.

I hope I can exchange the disc for another, and that this is an infrequent thing. mad.gif

Happy holiday everyone and thanks for your thoughts guys!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...