mz-r70 upgrade to mz-nh700...

[xispe]

Hey! :cool:

Ok i am Portuguese, and i was walking in the mall and saw a sony store with this very nice mz-nh700 for around 270 euro. :love:

Since December 2000 have a mz-r70 that is working nice (sometimes not as nicely, as i'll explain) and since 2001 i have a car head unit (mdx-c6500r). Both of them work in just plain SP mode.

The transfers that i done to the recorder are done digitally in realtime (using a sound blaster live with an home brew optical output :laugh: ). I've also created an interface similiar to the micronics one for titling and controlling my mz-r70.

Almost all my minidiscs are filled with "mp3s" and some other with cds that i own, and some that i don't

The headunit in my car is nice, it has a wide bit stream processing and gives a very nice sound (somethimes i think better than the mz-r70 in playback). I am very happy with it! :laugh:

The only problem with my MZ-R70 is that sometimes when it is powered up to the adaptor, it records badly (the sound skips on playback and sometimes it even gives DISC ERR)... but when that happens i just pass to battery mode, and everything works fine!

Now to the Hi-MD dilema, and questions:

1. These new units feature atrac type-S, which includes atrac type-R. Would i notice the difference in playback in the portable of SP recordings and even in my car head-unit ? How different it is ? The sound is more dynamic and wide or what ?

2. Do these new Hi-MDs support the transfer of SP encoded audio ? I am kind of getting tired of recording in realtime... I knew that NetMDs did not support transfer of SP data.. it was that fake SP, which was LP2 sampled to SP .

3. If in Hi-MD is this is possible, can someone tell me if this LP2 sounds good I would use this higher speed transfers of MP3s at 192 kbps.. will i get better or worst sound than i did when i encoded these mp3s digitally in SP with my MZ-R70. I don't want to loose quality! otherwise i'll just stick with my MZ-R70!

4. Do check-in and check-out sh*t still exists for MD mode in Hi-MDs !? The idea of checking out tracks from the md for deleting them bugs me off! If i don't want a track any more, i prefer going into the menu and erase it, instead of connecting the MD the computer just for doing that.

5. Is it possible to title tracks in any MD using the software, or would it be necessary to continue using my funky interface :laugh: (the problem is that the interface also have some glitches sometimes eheheh).

6. Is sonicstage anoying ? :wacky: i didn't had any contact with that software yet!

7. I want more Hi-MD hardware! I want a car head unit! It would be very nice to carry 8 hours of music in a 1 gb MD that fits in my pocket! :cool:

Thank you! :grin:

[dex Otaku]

I can't answer everything you've asked, but I can pass on some info..

1. Any new version of atrac encoder [not atrac3+] has always been backwards-compatible as far as decoding is concerned. That means - even with the oldest MD, you will "get" the improvement in the encoding. On the other hand - I can't tell you anything about the difference between R and S encodings, so I can't say whether you'd notice a difference.

2. No. In Hi-MD mode you have atrac3+; if you want compatibility with older players, the unit functions exactly as a netMD. So - no SP. You can, however, still do the realtime transfers in SP mode, not that that helps.

3. There are minor differences between the software codec in SonicStage and the hardware codec in your R70. Consensus thus far seems to be that SonicStage doesn't sound quite as good as the hardware encodes, though most people would not notice the difference.

4. Yes, though I can't attest to how things work in NetMD mode as I never use it. Someone else will have to address this for you.

5. Yes, you can title tracks on both Hi-MD and NetMD -mode discs. You cannot, however, do the more sophisticated editing functions in SonicStage. Move and erase work but there is no divide, etc. [This goes for both Hi-MD and NetMD modes] :whatever:

6. Yes, it's annoying. Personal opinion, there. But - there are bound to be growing pains, as this is a new product [with Hi-MD at least]. I would not recommend using SS for anything but shipping tracks back and forth; My library is in iTunes for [26GB of] mp3s, Winamp for [6-7GB of] FLAC audio, and I use SonicStage -only- for shipping things from my existing library to my NH700. :wacky:

7. That would be nice.. yes.. but I think Sony want to see if their new product is going to flop or fly before they start designing and manufacturing an expanded product line. :wink:

Cheers!

[xispe]

Thanks! i am downloading SS 2.1.. i'm gonna try to encode some files in the various modes to check the sound quality.

[Andy]

I have a MZ-R70 too, and I found that occasionally it would turn bad when recording or playing back from AC. I later found it would do the same with battery, but just not as often. To fix it, I found that if I left the unit facting upside down (so the screen is pointing towards the ground) then there were no problems

[xispe]

upside down ... ok i'll try it

[xispe]

i found that LP2 is a very nice format for MP3's.. i didn't noticed much difference of it over the new Hi-SP mode. (okay.. this for mp3s, with a cd sure it's different!)

All the mp3s tested were at 192 kbps.

After my first contact with sonic stage... i have to say: YES, IT'S ANNOYING! :wacky: :laugh:

but i'll only use it for transfering things to the MD.

Thanks! :cool: