sunali Posted March 31, 2006 Report Share Posted March 31, 2006 (edited) HiI've been thinking of getting an MD player and trying to research it - and getting increasingly confused!Basically what I'm after is1) Good quality sound recording for live recordings (singing lessons and classical concerts) - from some of the other posts I've been reading, it sounds like I want to avoid anything which automatically adjusts the sound and amplifies the soft and dulls the loud? How do I tell if a model does this?2) Ability to upload 'losslessly' (so I presume digitally) to PC - this is mainly so I can make CD's to play in my car/parents house and stuff. I read somewhere that Hi MD players will do this, but that the software that needs to be used is buggy? And will not convert to other formats or something?3) Ability to upload my old non-Hi-MD recordings to PC also digitally. I tried recording through the microphone to line in method and lost a lot of quality. I was going to get a Sony MZ-NH700 as there are some for $150 AUD, but I read somewhere that it would not let me upload my old recordings to the PC. I'm not concerned about how fast the uploads/downloads would be - speed is always nice, but not a priority - I'm mainly concerned with quality. A few other questions - people I know have talked about solid state recorders and how they would be better because there is no machinery noise - is this true? Are any available? And if so, why are mini disc recorders not obsolete? - My husband is after a digital dictaphone/voice recorder for work purposes, and we were hoping to economise by getting one item that would do both - which I've assumed would be a minidisk. Is there anything a 'voice recorder' can do that a minidisc can't, or vice versa? Does a voice recorder have lower quality than a minidisc player? And if so - why? Isn't a digital recording a digital recording - why is it that minidiscs seem to be the acknowledged device for quality recording? Is it something about the format?Sorry about the barrage of questions. It's just so hard to collate comparative information using the net - so confusing. I'd appreciate any info and suggested models that would be appropriate.Thanks!Sunali Edited March 31, 2006 by sunali Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A440 Posted March 31, 2006 Report Share Posted March 31, 2006 The RH1, which is not available yet, will upload old MD recordings. No other unit will. Otherwise, all Hi-MD units will do what you need. Switching from Auto Gain Control to Manual levels (what you're talking about in 1) is done through the menus on all units, and will be slightly easier on the RH1. As for 2), uploading in the newer Hi-MD formats works through all Hi-MDs (but NH-600, NH-600D, DH10P and RH-710 don't have microphone inputs). Sony was slow to improve its software, which is why complaints are all over the internet, but the latest version, SonicStage 3.4, is largely reliable. Solid state recorders are available--do some research on the Iriver IFP-799, which you can probably find for around $100. Maybe that's your husband's ideal dictation device. It has a built-in microphone or takes an outboard microphone, and uploads as easily as drag-and-drop. (It's also an mp3 player.) The recording quality is fine for voice, but not as good as MD for music, even through its line-in--the same exact setup I use for MD came out sounding worse on the Iriver. Voice is easy to record--a narrow frequency range, not that much sonic information to process. Music is a much more complex signal to capture.All digital recordings are not alike. They vary according to how much information is stored for a certain length of recording: kbps, kilobits per second. To save disc space, most recorders use compression: mp3 for some recorders, ATRAC for Sony. Little handheld digital recorders have limited storage space, and often use highly compressed, low-fidelity recording. The higher the kbps, the higher the recording fidelity. Mp3 recordings might be 48 kbps (bad FM radio quality), 128 kbps (nearly decent music quality) or upward of 192 kbps (hard to distinguish from CDs for people without golden ears). Hi-MD's record PCM, which is CD-quality, but you only get about 90 minutes per 1GB disc. Hi-SP, which is pretty good-sounding compression, puts about 8 hours on that same disc. There are quality solid state recorders like the M-Audio Microtrack and the Edirol R1 and R9, but they are newer technology, still working out bugs and ergnomics, and minidisc is cheaper and smaller. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuge Posted March 31, 2006 Report Share Posted March 31, 2006 If you can wait for few more days then go for RH1.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunali Posted April 1, 2006 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 Excellent - thanks for that!Now to figure out how long the RH1 will take to hit Australia... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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