SONY MINIDISC MAGIC

minidiscs are so much better and robust than cds and this player is superb. why oh why dont sony promote minidisc more and why we can't buy albums on minidisc instead of crap cds i don't know
like betamax minidisc is surely doomed unless sony give up the royalties like phillips did with the cassette tape which let's face it were awful compared with 8 track
come on sony, this is the future

Rediculously cute!!!

My friend recently bought the Sony MzE310s minidisc player and was thoroughly pleased with it, this has I'm affraid got me into minidisc fever and I can really see the advantages. The minidisc player works smoothly from the start no problems there really are no down sides to this product except maybe the lack of an in-line remote. I whole heartedly endorse this product.

Sony MZ-NH600 Silver Hi-MiniDisc Walkman

I got the Sony MZ-NH600 Silver Hi-MiniDisc Walkman for my 40th Birthday on 23rd February 2005 from my dear Mum who sadly died of cancer on 16th July 2007.

I have been a great fan of Sony products for many years. MiniDisc is the best as far as I am concerned. From the original to MD-LP and now to this fantastic HI-MD format where you can download fron CD or the Internet music up to 45 hours on one of these excellent discs. You can even download documents and photographs on to these discs to. I have not experienced any trouble except if you do not pre-format each disc before recording on to it you may lose data and even a whole disc of music. I learnt the hard way when I forgot once and I lost a whole 45 hours of music. But otherwise it is a fantastic piece of equipment to own. With the software you can make CD's/MP3 CD's as well as MiniDiscs. As well as the 1GB HIMD discs you can also use normal standard MiniDiscs (MD80/MD74)and pre-format them to record up to 10 hours of music on one disc.

You get a USB Cable, Power Adapter, SonicStage Software and an Instruction Booklet with it as well.

It is a shame that MiniDisc (HI-MD/MD/MD-LP) is not as popular as other formats, but I will remain a great fan of it and I hope Sony will continue to produce HI-MD WALKMAN'S for as long as possible so that when my current player/recorder becomes unusable there is another one available for me to buy.

My advice is forget i-PODS and MP3 Players and buy a Sony Hi-MiniDisc Walkman instead.

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK SONY!!!!!!!!!

Excellent

This machine is superb. I got it for a christmas present and within an hour had transferred all my WMA's into the ATRAC3 format required by the MD player. I took this on holiday to Mexico and throughout the whole trip using a 2100 mAh battery for 15 days it only dropped two bars of battery life, with constant use of up to two hours a day! The Sonicstage software is tricky and slow to use, but one gets the hang of it and it does not take long to convert uncompatiable formats. My brother has a Ipod, and eventually the battery will run out losing all his music. I highly recommend this product!

A pleasing role in the musical world

Due to this product's massive price reduction, the HI-MD is well worth it. Take advantage over HDD mp3 players by having a shock-resistant shell and an unlimited amount of music storage.

For most people on the move, 1GB is more than enough music!

MD still great

This is a great MD deck and very easy to use. Editing, titling are a breeze. Although I do use MP3s as well, I still love Minidisc.

Nice machine - shame about the software

I like this machine a lot. I use it with the ECM-DS70P condenser mic to record my musical ramblings, interviews with clients, and when I'm not doing that I use it as a personal stereo.

It is well built, sounds great, the batteries last ages, and the HiMD discs are just HUGE! You can get hours of music on one disc, and on random play you are constantly surprised by what pops up.

The only reservation I have is the software interface. Sony's SonicStage software is the only way to connect to the machine, and Sony are a record company. Their priority seems to be to stop you breaching their recordings' copyright, even at the expense of the usefulness of the machine.

I can't use it to transfer music from one computer to another, I can't transfer older conventional MiniDiscs of my own music to the computer, and there are a limited number of transfers allowed for each track you own.

The sooner someone writes a HiMD plugin for WinAmp or Windows Media Player the better.

A Much needed Overview

Right, I have read many reviews of minidiscs, but none were able to provide me with the information that I needed (mainly how it faired as a recorder for gigs etc.) so this is a concise overview of how this Minidisc recorder works (forgive me if I repeat things that you already know, I'm just doing it for completeness.)

This particular recorder has a line-in and a mic in. The Mic in supplies phantom power of around 3V (the manual doesn't specify) so it can use certain condenser mics that are on sale on eBay. Type in"Minidisc microphone" and you should find what I mean. I have also managed to plug in a bass into this input and it recorded, although there was a fair amount of clipping (obviously this can be sorted by the volume pot.) The recorder has a setting for anti-clip which works for a very loud venue, but I turned it off because it makes some of my recordings sound a bit strange with sudden drops in levels. It works nicely when it's constantly loud though!

The Line-In is used for plugging into televisions and hi-fi's and the like.

Adding track numbers can be done at the time using the T-mark button. I'm not sure about this, but I think this button is absent in second generation Minidisc recorders.

For getting the music from your Minidisc onto the computer, you can do it, but only if you have recorded in Hi-MD mode and using the line-in or mic input (digital input is a no no). Normal Minidiscs (eg."74 min" ones) can be converted into Hi-MD mode, and 1Gb discs only come in Hi-MD. Also, you need the latest version of SonicStage, which is downloadable from Sony. The files are saved on your computer as ATRAC3plus or Wav, depending on what you choose.

In terms of how much music you can record on one disc, it depends on the compression, of which you have a choice of three. If you want it saved as PCM, a 80min disc in Hi-MD will take 28 minutes and a 1Gb disc will save around 1 hr 34mins. Hi-SP will record 2hrs 20mins and 7hrs 55mins respectively (incidentally, Sony say that Hi-SP is CD quality anyway, which is strange considering they offer PCM recording as well!!) In Hi-LP mode, it records 34 hrs and 10 hrs 10 mins respectively.

Quality wise, PCM is CD quality exactly, Hi-SP is very good, but Sony are lying when they say it's CD quality, and Hi-LP suffers from horrific artifacts on drums and other instruments. For recording lectures it's well up to the task though.

You can record using its rechargeable battery or from the mains. A word of warning though: when using the mains, the recording has a bad ground loop hum which always annoys me whenever I use it. Battery life while recording is adequate, around 8 hours in my experience. This model doesn't have an AA battery expansion pack like other recorders though, so take that into consideration. Also, the battery it uses, a Li-Ion 4WM isn't the standard one that Sony uses for its minidiscs and is expensive to buy (£50 from Sony. You see it on Ebay for £25 but it's shipped from China and PnP on that is £8)

To correct what other people have written in their reviews, yes, you can use the minidisc as a data disc. 80min discs hold ~280mb data which can be accessed via My Computer. Seems to me that Data transfer is too slow for anything large. In fact, I don't think the thing uses USB 2.0.

Great value, easy to use, real plastic.

Being a thirty something I was there at the start of MD and was one of the first to buy. I have since bought more recent MD machines and MP3 players. (I am a slave to gadgets!) Minidisc never really seemed to cut it against their iPod rivals but finally these machines seem to have cracked it. Each Hi-MD holding 1Gb of music or data they make for a much more cost effective and flexible player as opposed to their expensive and restrictive MP3 rivals. The software is extremely intuative and the tranfer time is fast. My only complaint is that my early machines were brushed aluminium and felt good quality whereas this unit looks and feels the plastic that it is. Overall a great buy, especially at the price Amazon are selling them.