Volume increase on UK models

[doomlordis]

Ok , i have hacked my RH710 and get the full equalizer options but no increase in volume, i am generally happy with the volume but on older cd rips the volume can be a little week even at 90% volume.

I have been playing with the equalizer and if you put every bar up 2 notches you get very high volume output, what i want to know is wether this will provide poor quality audio (break up etc) and what effect this will have on battery life?

For what it is worth i dont notice any loss of quality at up to 2 notches up but 3 up seems to make the bass sratchy and less smooth.

Edited August 20, 2005 by doomlordis

[IdiotSavant]

Ok , i have hacked my RH710 and get the full equalizer options but no increase in volume, i am generally happy with the volume but on older cd rips the volume can be a little week even at 90% volume.

I have been playing with the equalizer and if you put every bar up 2 notches you get very high volume output, what i want to know is wether this will provide poor quality audio (break up etc) and what effect this will have on battery life?

For what it is worth i dont notice any loss of quality at up to 2 notches up but 3 up seems to make the bass sratchy and less smooth.

←

I had every bar up by 1 notch and - while it did work a treat on some stuff - it also caused clipping on quite a lot. The simplest thing to do is use your ears. Hook your RH710 up to a hifi or something and compare the playback with or without the EQ (using your hifi to up the volume without the EQ so you know any heard differences aren't just due to volume) to try and figure out what to use it on.

So yes, it does decrease audio quality unless the original recording was at a sufficiently low level that upping the volume with the EQ doesn't give enough output to cause clipping.

[doomlordis]

I had every bar up by 1 notch and - while it did work a treat on some stuff - it also caused clipping on quite a lot. The simplest thing to do is use your ears. Hook your RH710 up to a hifi or something and compare the playback with or without the EQ (using your hifi to up the volume without the EQ so you know any heard differences aren't just due to volume) to try and figure out what to use it on.

So yes, it does decrease audio quality unless the original recording was at a sufficiently low level that upping the volume with the EQ doesn't give enough output to cause clipping.

←

Thanks thats kinda what i though i heard on some tunes.

Wonder why the volume increase hack doesnt work?

[LJM]

I tried this the other day. I recorded a track (Feeling Good - Muse) at Hi-SP, and used my PC speakers to test. I found out that playing the track at full volume, with the EQ turned on and all bars maxed, made the track unbearable to listen to. It was fuzzy and distorted, pretty much. However, it was a LOT louder than it was without the EQ.

I tried again, with the same track, but without any EQ (still at full volume, and the same volume on the speakers), and all this disappeared. It sounded fine, so I turned up the volume to see if the EQ was simply amplifying the distortion. It was still fine.

[IdiotSavant]

Thanks thats kinda what i though i heard on some tunes.

Wonder why the volume increase hack doesnt work?

←

Well technically it does work Without the hack I don't think we'd be able to up the volume with the EQ to the extent that we got clipping.

But yes, I haven't really noticed any difference. Perhaps you only notice a difference on tracks recorded at a high level in the first place? I seem to recall with the first Gen Hi-MD hacks people saying that the difference was only noticable when increasing the volume on the last few notches.

Not to mention the talk there's been over an actual hardware limitation...

[jonny mac]

On the first gen units the limitation was such that the volume could be put to 30 but (on the NH1) it made no difference beyond 24. The volume hack frees-up those last few notches. I've been worried for some time that with all the hacking going on Sony would be obliged to do something about it. I suspect that Sony allows (even encourages) the hacking, the info is widely available after all. It allows it to compete better in the market. However, perhaps it will become too widely known and there will be a clamp-down. I would blame the cheeky folk sellng the info on e-bay, a more widely visited site than and MD site, for letting the cat out of the bag.

To my knowledge this has not come about yet. Personally, I would not buy any European MD unit unless I was certain it could be uncapped