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Testing The Region Hack W/nh700

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dex Otaku

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This is a spinoff from the thread: Himd Destination Codes

I have a NH700. I noted that:

MZ-NH700

Canadian/Australian 20

Europe/UK A0

Hong Kong/Korean 25

E91/Mexican 20

.. and decided to test what the difference was between each setting.

My suspicion was that this setting is actually just a ratio or threshold setting for the headphone amp. It appears I'm correct.

The test...

I used two test files: one was a 15 second linear sweep tone from below 20Hz to 22.05kHz, created using the simple synthesis tool in Sound Forge. The other file was 10 seconds of white noise. I wrote these to a CD image and put them on a HiMD-formatted disc using Simple Burner in PCM mode. The peak level of both files was -3dBfs.

--> graph of the sweep tone

--> graph of the white noise file

I recorded a reference WAV file for comparison by looping my Revo 7.1's output to its input, running things at full-volume, and leaving the record levels set to unity gain.

--> graph of the reference [loopback] sweep

I set my NH700 to each mode listed above and recorded the test tracks on the computer three times: once with the volume set to 20/30, once at 25/30, and once at 30/30. I also repeated this twice more, with the setting set at '00' and 'FF', to see what the differences would be.

I then repeated all of the above with the EQ set to the UNIQUE setting. [Note that things were not actually done in this order, it's just simpler to present them this way.]

Once I had these recordings, I split them up into individual files for analysis, organised by what the setting was, the volume level, whether EQ was enabled, and finally which test file it was.

Here are the results for comparison, as graphs..

Linear Sweeps:

--> Volume = 20, no EQ

--> Volume = 20, EQ = UNIQUE

--> Volume = 25, no EQ

--> Volume = 25, EQ = UNIQUE

--> Volume = 30, no EQ

--> Volume = 30, EQ = UNIQUE

Whitenoise:

--> Volume = 20, no EQ

--> Volume = 20, EQ = UNIQUE

--> Volume = 25, no EQ

--> Volume = 25, EQ = UNIQUE

--> Volume = 30, no EQ

--> Volume = 30, EQ = UNIQUE

In all cases, the various results were overlaid for comparitive purposes.

White = FF

Green = A0 [Europe/UK]

Blue = 25 [Hong Kong/Korea]

Magenta = 20 [E91/Mexico/Canada/Australia]

Red = 00

I did not alter the scale of the graphs to make differences between every set obvious.

In every case, the higher the value of the setting got, the lower the volume got. The difference between 00, 20, and 25 was so small as to be considered measurably negligible. A0 is definitely crippled by comparison.

The graphs may be confusing because of the overlap. In almost all cases, 00, 20, and 25 overlap completely; A0 and FF also overlap for the most part, though as the volume setting increases the differences become more pronounced.

The effects "crippled mode" have on the EQ are very obvious, to say the least.

I noticed while making the graphs that with volume set at 30/30 and the "region" setting set to other than A0 and FF, the EQ would cause distortion in the upper frequencies. For interest's sake, here are 3d graphs to show this:

Setting 00, 20, 25, A0, FF.

I have left my NH700 set to '00'.

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Your original unit was a non-crippled one, right?

Since we have that information, I wonder if someone with a Euro model could test it, to see if it produces the same effect when changing from Euro to US mode.

I'm thinking that it's just this setting.. that there is no difference whatsoever in the actual hardware. When I set mine to eurocrippled it acted as eurocrippled; likewise, if you set the eurocrippled unit to one of the other codes, it will no longer be eurocrippled.

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while i dont have a player to test (holding back to see what happens to mp3 playback) i think dex is right, produceing diffrent hardware for diffrent areas are costly so most likely sony have gone for the cheap route and put in a software switch that should not normaly be available to the user.

the fact that info is out here is cool 8)

this is one of the first things im going to do when i finaly get a hi-md unit...

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great job dex!

all you euro-people get rid of that crappy cap on your volume now!

Sure, if you tell me how to make these changes permanent on a NH900, last thing I saw it wasn't possible to keep the setting...

Sorry, sorry, sorry ... your are just fantastic and too fast for me biggrin.gif

And it does work, I got some really low mp3 that I imported into Sonicstage, gonna test them tonight.

Honestly, this limitation was the biggest glitch with my new nh900, but now biggrin.gifbiggrin.gifbiggrin.gif

thanks everybody, your are the best

Edited by Christoph
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Hi dex Otaku,

This region hack works on my UK MZ-NH1, I set the value A0 to FF for testing purposes and found out that the volume was not as loud as the default setting. Therefore another change was made, I changed A0 to 00, not the US/AU setting and therefore my HiMD is awesome, sound is great as well as bass levels for custom settings.

Your a great hacker

cheers

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  • 3 weeks later...

Yausah,

i just played around with my remote of my 900 model wanting to set the backlight under options as i noticed that i couldn't find this entry.

i have set my unit to 00 for the destination hack so i tried setting it back to the original A1 and there i had it back. i did try it with the rest 21,25,41 and as long as it weren't 00 i had no disappeared backlight entry.i set it to 01 and everythings fine. i let the conclusions to you... happy.gif

a nice weekend.

phil

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Yausah,

i just played around with my remote of my 900 model wanting to set the backlight under options as i noticed that i couldn't find this entry.

i have set my unit to 00 for the destination hack so i tried setting it back to the original A1 and there i had it back. i did try it with the rest 21,25,41 and as long as it weren't 00 i had no disappeared backlight entry.i set it to 01 and everythings fine. i let the conclusions to you... happy.gif

a nice weekend.

phil

Thank you for the heads-up. Duly noted.

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