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eBay France : Onkyo Sony FR-N7X Hi-MD

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PhilippeC

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Rats! I might have had my arm twisted on that one. Guy here still wants $500 for his B8, I'm not ready to spring for that yet. (WOW the same guy in Germany has one of those too!)

The big trouble with the HiMD deck units is: no optical out (or USB) whatsoever. So it's great for recording things, but you still have to edit them elsewhere. Except for the timer (which mostly doesn't matter to me) I'm no further ahead in functionality.

I think perhaps having the drive in a fixed, rather than portable, unit may mean it is more reliable. But then I read some person complaining their 105FX died on them. And getting Onkyo fixed is probably harder than Sony, given all the manuals and such we have access to here.

Not trying to be negative, just envious, Kevin, and justifying my own inactivity. I hope you do really well with it.

Stephen

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Got it! :)

Now to look for a UK transformer...

PS this is the one I got for my PX3 which was made for 100V. No use to you since shipping from USA will be prohibitive (and wrong voltage) but will give an idea of product lines to search for.

http://www.voltageco...c.asp?ic=VC100J

This is a bit closer to home, you probably found it already

http://www.airlinktr...converters.html

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Thanks everyone! Looking forward to receiving it, not without a little trepidation... Been holding out for a Hi-MD system or deck for a long time, and this seemed to good to miss, coming from Germany, a little nearer home than usual.

I'll mostly use it for Hi-MD playback, perhaps in conjunction with my Onkyo DAB/FM/CD system. In a way for purity I'd have preferred just the Onkyo 105 or 133 deck, but it's nice to have extra features. May try recording the odd CD direct to Hi-MD, but I'll probably continue to use Sonicstage for bulk CD transfers. Not sure if the radio would even work here, but no big deal - probably won't bother with it anyway, and have other means to do timed radio recordings. Think the manual's in Japanese only, so won't be much help to me

Thanks for the links Stephen, I'll probably pop into Maplins tomorrow and see if they have something off the shelf.

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I'll mostly use it for Hi-MD playback, perhaps in conjunction with my Onkyo DAB/FM/CD system.

Just so long as you realise the optical out on this beast doesn't work for HiMD playback. Same for all HiMD units, the D->A is buried deep in the main DSP chip instead of being external.
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Just so long as you realise the optical out on this beast doesn't work for HiMD playback. Same for all HiMD units, the D->A is buried deep in the main DSP chip instead of being external.

Indeed a shame about the optical out, but in any case I was planning to use it as the end-point of my system, with speakers directly attached to the Onk's terminals. Hopefully the amp side is good enough to use in this way. There's at least one Tape Loop (not sure if the Dock in/out is a line in/out?), and optical in so that should be enough connectivity for my putative setup.

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Meaning - I might do. Ordered a transformer from Amazon, now I'll need some HiMD discs, and do some higher rate Hi-MD compilations. For portability I'm currently using 132kbps, probably want to up that to at least 256kbps for the deck.

Item marked as dispatched Thurs 25/10/12. No estimated delivery date but maybe by the weekend, or early next week..

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Ordered a transformer from Amazon

Out of idle curiosity I looked on Amazon UK for a transformer for 230->100V and didn't see one. Don't be cross with me if I make the gentle reminder that 230->120V won't do for these Japan-intended units. I almost fried my PX3 (it was getting VERY hot) until I got one that did 120->100V. In retrospect it seems likely that the reason the MD was bust when I got it was that the lady who brought it here from Japan and sold it to me at knockdown price never bothered to get a transformer - after all, it worked, right?

Sorry, just a voyeur wanting to participate from a distance :)

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Ok, now I'm worried Stephen. This is the one I got from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co...ils_o03_s00_i00

Its rated output staes 110V / 85W on the transformer itself. I thought there was a certain tolerance level (eg. +/- 10%) but of course I don't want to risk frying my lovely new Hi-MD box. Do you think I should return it?

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IIRC the real problem is that historically not all of Japan is on the same frequency. Some 50Hz like the UK, some 60Hz like the US. This has an effect, I think, on the characteristics of transformers and the output DC voltage.

I think the 320k broadcasts from R3 should sound better recorded on HiSP. Whereas 128k is fine on LP2. This reference is kind of interesting:

http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/showthread.php?1258

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Thanks Az, was a nice surprise to get the box in the post so soon.

It's fairly compact, smaller than I thought/feared. Would have preferred a black finish to match my other separates but the silver looks quite nice by their side. For the moment I've hooked it to the Denon Amp via the Onkyo's Tape in/out loop. The Denon drives some mid sized Eltax speakers, and also has a Sony MXD-D40 attached. Probably won't be the final configuration, but if it works, why not..

Looks to be in very near-perfect condition, no marks of note though the LED screen looks a little smudged. Hopefully that will scub up nicely. I've screwed a small indoor FM aerial to the Onkyos' FM input, in the hope that will do the job. If not the Denon's receiver is fine.

But - I'm still waiting for the 100V transformer to turn up, so don't yet know if it actually works....

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Unlike me you didn't have the option of running direct off the mains for a while.

The transformer design is interesting, something called "bucking" where the stepped down voltage is fed back in to EITHER add OR subtract from the resulting voltage (before rectification, I think). In principle the transformers are all the same with different connections. But if you look at Sony's parts listing you will see one for each possible destination. I imagine Onkyo and other mfrs would do the same or similar.

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No need in the end, the 100V plug arrived late today. I'll keep the 110V one in case I ever get some US equipment, or give it away to someone here who may need one. Thanks for your help btw on this Stephen, much appreciated as I'm pretty clueless with electrics.

Anyway, the Onkyo FR-7XR is plugged in, hooked up, and working fine! Few more pics below:

First impressions:

MD loading and playback is pretty smooth though not entirely silent. Little bit of mechanical noise from the MD drive motor, though not quite as much from as from the neighbouring MXD-D40, which is hardly noisy. I think I've read the other Onkyo decks have the same noise issue. Title scrolling is quite smooth, can't complain, though 12 characters is never going to be enough for long 'classical' track names, and more than one line to display artist etc as well would have been nice, as would an indication of bit rate .

CD section is rather basic. CD-R/RW but no MP3 playback, or CD-Text which is a shame, but functions well enough within its limits.

Radio. Can pick up some AM and FM stations but nothing above 90 MHz on FM, which is where most of the UK stations broadcast. Maybe I can work out how to set it to World/US band, but I'm not too worried.

Remote control seems to work well enough, and is fairly intuitive to use. Have experience with Onkyo remotes which must help. Will probably get minimal use anyway.

Well, so far so good, at least it works and does what I wanted it for, which is basically as a deck to play my Hi-MDs on. Oh, and it sounded very nice with a 352kbps compilation.

post-66188-0-02726900-1351629347_thumb.j

post-66188-0-78719800-1351629360_thumb.j

post-66188-0-94109100-1351629366_thumb.j

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  • 6 years later...

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