hi. i've been saving for a while, and i need a really good portable md player and some earphones? i was thinking the sony r909 (when it is released here in england) and a pair of etymotic er4p earphones?

i don't plan on buying a portable amp so is this the best possible choice? i am looking for sound quality overall, so if there are md players with better sound than the r909 can you giv me some advice about which to buy?

on the r909 is is possible to turn mdlp off altogether when recording? i would like a recorable player but i also hav an md deck on my stereo so it is not toally necessary.


what are the best quality minidiscs? i have read that the sony es and the best hdd ones are the best?


edit: i just read about the net md, would it be a good idea to wait for this? will the net md be able to record from a stereo or only from a pc via a usb?

With no portable amp, the ety 4ps are probably the best choice. The R909 is probably a very good player. I have the R900 and am very much pleased with it. For live recording you may want to look at sharp MDs though because you can easily change the recording level. It is easy to record in sp mode rather than lp mode, I only record in SP mode. In general, I think most minidiscs sound very similar and differ in only their construction. I have about 20 sony discs that I have had no problems with. As for Net MD, it may be a while before it is released in England, especially if you are stil aiting for the R909. Net MD may not be released for 12 months after the R909, if it is released at all. If you want to use a minidisc recorder nytime soon, I would suggest not waiting, but if you really want Net MD, I would wait.

The R909 will have nice sound quality, I'm sure, with Type-R ATRAC - and Ety 4Ps won't let you miss anything....

Also - the MDLP feature is optional - the way I understand, there are 4 recording modes (ATRAC***now Type-R***, MONO, LP2, LP4).

you choose one....

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The r909 is a very cool player. There are some Sharp models that are also good. The ER4P are a very good match and sound great -- the best-sounding headphones without an amp IMO. That would be a tiny, hi-end portable system.

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When you record, you decide what mode to use (SP, LP2, LP4).

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The best MDs are, for the most part, whatever you can find for cheap. The only models I've heard consistently bad things about are the Memorex that use cheap plastic shutter parts. My personal favorite is Hi-Space, which are very high quality but quite inexpensive.

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NetMD sounds cool, but it's probably not going to be widespread for a bit. Plus no one has actually used it, so no one knows what kind or copyright restrictions, etc. will be included. If you want an MD portable now, I would get it now.

thx for the advice guys.

i also have a sony nw-ms7 mp3 (well, atrac actually) player so u guess that doe spretty much the same as net md, just with loss sound quality. and since napster shut down (boooooo!) i haven't d/led many mp3s.

there are a few alternatives to download music other than napster. the most popular one right now is Morpheus. try looking at www.download.com and view the middle of the page for the top ten. half of them should be software to download music.

btw: avoid audiogalaxy because it has as much problems as napster does.

the sony ex70 earbuds make a nice match for atrac compressed digital music.

Sony MZR900 with Sony Gold Premium discs, Sony 888, Cinnamon Altoids amp = bliss.

Faulky,

Check out this minidisc site:

http://www.minidisct.com/cgi-bin/Ult.../UltraBoard.pl

Lots of info on MDs recorders, blank discs, Net MD, and which vendors to buy from. After an extensive search, I paid $278 for my brand new USA model 900 (in pimp red) with the Xitel digital link. In that same site there is a great comparison between the MZR900 and the Sharp MT877. Both top of the line models from earlier this year:

http://www.minidisc.org/brian_youn/sharp_mt77.html.

Good luck!

Regards - reynman

ok well i haven't bought anything yet, because we r still waiting for the r909.

one thing i haven't really been able to understand is exactly what this can record? i know it can record of any other deck, but can it record from a pc? can it records mp3s? if so what exactly does netmd do?

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First of all, the Mxr700/900/909 with ety 4p is a sweet combo. It's what I use everyday (700 + 4p).

Second, the MD can record from a pc, BUTTTTTTTT, people's experience with the digital link included in the package is inconsistent at best and downright sucky at worst. People report everything from VERY noisy depending on the wav player to cutting off of the first seconds of each song. both of these have happened to me. Burning MDs from a digital-out cd player, however, has been flawless for me.

It can record mp3s, but it must convert them to atarac format. Most people say that this doubling of different compression schemes causes noticable sound degradation. If you want to get an idea of what that will sound like, and you have a CD burner, you can do the following: take a song off a cd to your hard drive. Convert it to MP3 at 128 or so bitrate (because the double compression is unlikely to sound better). Convert it back to wav. Burn it to a cd (and burn an unadulterated wav of the same tune to cd as well. Listen with good phones on a good player. You may be shocked at the sound you hear.

As for netmd (sounds like a doctor's website), there have been a number of threads on this recently as I recall. Try a search.

well i'm gonna have a couple of months wait before the r909 is available so i thought i'd get to know my options a little better. it occurs to me that a minidisc deck is likely to have better quality recording than a portable?

so would it be sensible to buy an e909 and a deck rather than just an r909? how great would the difference in sound quality be, if at all?

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Sorry. No idea. Perhaps some more advanced MD gurus could help with that one.