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Need a little help...

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Alighero

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Ok i just recently became interested in Mini Disc Players, even though i knew they existed for awhile. I wanted an MP3 player for awhile but then i realized how mainstream and expensive they are... i still carry around my sony cd player and i was wondering which MD player was best for me. I need something that has long battery life and great quality sound, and that's not past 150$. Please help

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Sound quality is the same on every model except the NH900 and NH1, both discontinued and expensive. They had HD digital amps that some people liked and some people found too harsh.

For just playback at a low price, you can't beat the NH600D. It's discontinued, and you shouldn't pay more than $100. Search around, look at your local Best Buy or Circuit City to see if they're on clearance, etc.

For recording--with a microphone input--the cheapest one around is the NH700 at minidisco, $150. Easier to find locally would be the RH910, around $170.

http://www.minidisco.com/portables.html

However: If playback is really all you need, minidisc might not be your best solution. Battery life and sound are good, but it's bulkier than a small flash player, the interface is annoying and mp3s have to go through an additional level of conversion, so if they were only OK to start with they will sound worse. Look at flash players like Iriver's IFP series (IFP-799 or IFP-899 hold 1 GB, and you can find them for under $150 new on Ebay) or even the $149 1GB Apple Nano (though that's kind of fragile).

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Anything that is not Hi-MD is an old model. Those are the models you've found. I wouldn't buy any used version because it's a minimum of three years old and you have no idea how it was (mis)used or how long it will hold up.

There are two kinds of MDs that download from the computer.

One is the old NetMD. It will put a maximum of 320 minutes of music in lowest quality on the largest disc it can handle, 80 min.; 160 minutes in better quality, 80 minutes in best quality. As far as I'm concerned, NetMD is obsolete.

The newer version is Hi-MD. It will put 660 minutes in decent quality (better than NetMD) on an 80-minute disc and 2040 minutes on the new 1GB discs for Hi-MD. The Hi-MD are the MZ-NH*** and MZ-RH*** models.

Look around for an NH600D, like on Ebay, where there are still new ones around.

Edited by A440
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thanks

sorry for the double post, but are you sure? some of the product descriptions make it seem a bit... bad. MZ-DN430PSWHI this model seems a whole lot more supported as far as formats go and the capacity while transcoding through LP2 seems more reliable and it fits quite a bit of music (4-5 hours)...

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some of the product descriptions make it seem a bit... bad. MZ-DN430PSWHI this model seems a whole lot more supported as far as formats go and the capacity while transcoding through LP2 seems more reliable and it fits quite a bit of music (4-5 hours)...
just checked that model here (official Sony page) and it is NetMD so only LP4, LP2 and SP (but that last one not through PC unless as fake SP)

so with this model:

- SP (292kbps) gives 80 min on a 80 min MD (hence the name :lol: )

- LP2 (132=+/-1/2SP) gives +/-180min on the same disc

- LP4 gives more time but sounds like crap :P

80 min discs are the 'biggest' discs pre-HiMD can use (no 1gb discs with Net MD)

so sorry if this has been answered before...but there really is a limit on the useability of NetMD...go HiMD and get a car stereo with aux in

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Hi-MD will play all of the old formats as well as the new ones. It will also pack three times as much information on an old disc.

NetMD will play only the old formats. 320 minutes is over five hours. But if you care about sound quality, it will be five hours of disappointment.

Really, go Hi-MD. The reason those old models are cheap is because nobody wants them. And with a little searching, you can find a very affordable NH600D.

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The reason you can't find the NH700, and you can find the NH600, is that there is huge competition for players like the NH600D--including smaller, more mp3-centered devices like Ipod, Iriver, Creative, Cowon, Rio, Sony Network Walkmans, etc.--and very little competition for low-priced recorders like the NH700. Recording enthusiasts have snapped up the NH700.

It's also a 2004 model, Sony isn't making it any more, and it was not originally released in the United States (where Sony released the NHF800 instead). So it's sold out nearly everywhere. Amazon US probably never carried it in the first place.

The letters after 700 are just to distinguish the blue ones from the silver ones.

Minidisco got some of the last new ones for sale when Sony dumped the NH700 and is selling them at a clearance price. The NH700 will probably disappear entirely soon except for used units. And then you can pay more for virtually the same features in the 2005 models, like $169 (the RH910) or over $200 (RH10).

If you want just a player, then the NH600D (or NH600, which is different from the NH600D because it has line-in realtime recording as well as the USB connection for downloading music from your computer) will serve your purposes. If you want the NH700, which has USB, line-in and also records via microphone, then it would be wise to act soon.

Edited by A440
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It depends on what you want to do. Do you think you'll ever want to record from a line output--a stereo, a TV, a DVD player, etc? Then get the NH600. And make sure from your seller that it does indeed have a line-in jack. Some people like to exploit the confusion between the NH600D (no line-in, just USB for downloading from PC) and the NH600.

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