Sony MZ-RH10 Hi-MD Walkman Digital Music Player/Recorder

Manufacturer:	Sony
List price:	~~$349.95~~
Our price:	Too Low To Display that is 100% off!

Sony MZ-RH10 Hi-MD Walkman Digital Music Player/Recorder

Average rating: Stars

Great recorder, very good player

This is Sony's top-of-the-line consumer Hi-MD recorder/player. A similar device, a little cheaper, is the MZ-RH910, for which I have posted a long review. There are three differences between the cheaper MZ-RH910 and this model: the display, a remote control, and a better battery. The display on this unit is beautiful. The stock images from Sony don't do it justice, so I took a picture of it and uploaded it onto Amazon (hover over the "customer image" thumbnails and click to see it). In my review for the RH-MZ910, I stated that this display was "probably more convenient." I understated the case; this display is much better, allowing you to easily see the display under subdued light or even in total darkness. The only place where the LCD on the RH-MZ910 is superior would be outdoors, where all the light tends to wash out the RH-MZ10 Electro Luminescent display. The RH-MZ10 can be configured so that the display stays on all the time, or the factory setting is that it shuts off most of the display after a few seconds of no buttons being pressed to conserve battery power. The second difference between the RH-MZ910 and is that this unit has a wired remote control. You plug it into the headphone jack and plug your headphones into the remote control. I have not found it to be useful, it easier just to press the buttons on the unit itself. The final difference is that this unit is supplied with a battery that has about 40% more capacity-- although it has the same form factor and it interchangable with one supplied with the MZ-RH910.
I bought my other unit, the MZ-RH910, for its recording capabilities -- with an analog microphone, that unit and this one can record in uncompressed CD quality (44100 Hz 16 bit Stereo), as Sony calls it "a recording studio in the palm of you hand." To my knowledge, there are no other devices in this price range that can do this, except other Sony minidisc units. Sony has just (August 2005) released some "professional" models which include a microphone (the Hi-MD MZ-M100 is the analagous model). With the MZ-RH10 unit, you need a microphone to record -- I use the Sony ECM-719 -- about $65 -- which I believe is a better mic than the one included with the MZ-M100, both in quality and because it can also be used on non-Minidisc units.
I am extremely pleased with the quality of the recordings, everyone who listens to them says something like "wow." Minidiscs are also commonly used to record musical performances, either for practice, demos or to record concerts, though I don't use it for this. These units are also popular with journalists to record interviews. I use it, however, primarily to record the voices of my family and friends. Most people have their memories recorded in photographs and video, but audio is overlooked. However, voice recordings, especially good quality audio, invokes strong emotional responses and memories. Video, even with the highest quality equipment costing thousands of dollars, cannot substitute for it because when people are being videotaped, they become self-concious and behave differently. The situations where you can shoot video are also much more limited--good lighting, your friends want to look good and be well dressed, etc. You can lay this machine down on the table and record, for example, your parents telling stories or your children, and get candid, authentic, high quality recordings that will sound the same in 20 years as they did the day you recorded them.
After I bought my other unit, the MZ-RH910, I realized I really liked the music-playing capabilities as well -- I must have been the last person in the developed world without an iPod or other digital music player -- and I now needed 2 units since my wife wanted a music player as well. So I researched digital music players. Many of the hard-disc units are very nice, but there was one thing I really disliked about them. Almost all the major brands, the newest units from Apple iPod, iRiver, and Cowon iAudio all had non-replaceable batteries. If this doesn't bother you, then you should probalby consider one of these units. However, I really dislike the idea that in a year or two I'll have to send my unit to have the battery replaced, at significant expense, or buy a new unit. Also, I like to be able to load another battery immediately -- this unit also includes a side mounted AA battery holder, a great feature -- basically you will always have power for this unit if you have a spare gumstick battery or some AA batteries. The batteries for the minidisc can be had very cheaply, the Sanyo HF-A1U, a high capacity battery, can be found online for about $8, plus another $6-$8 for shipping. The hard-disk players I did find that had replaceable batteries all seemed to have reliability problems (Rio), or had other limitations -- such as the inability to play uncompressed audio natively (Sony NW-HD5 Network Walkman -- which I might have bought had it not been for this issue). Another advantage of the Sony minidisc units, is that I believe they are less delicate than hard disc units -- for example, my MZ-RH910 was dropped from a counter about 3 1/2 feet high and its perfectly fine. Also, you can shake the unit like a salt shaker and it will not skip, in fact the unit has never skipped on me. One disadvantage compared to hard disc units is that minidiscs transfer speeds are not quite as fast -- so it takes a few more minutes to load a CD. This device will load and play back constant or variable bit rate MP3 -- however, be aware that this unit sometimes won't play back some low bit rate MP3 - 48 kpbs or less, or very low variable bit MP3s -- I have run into this problem twice in speech recordings I downloaded. There is no convenient workaround either, since you cannot force Sonicstage to convert the files to another format -- though you can convert them one file at time in Sonicstage. The new Sonicstage 3.2 software, released in August 2005, which you may need to download from connect.com, will now encode mp3s from your CDs (at fixed bit rates only) -- though the version I received on the CD, 3.0, would not. You can load the music uncompressed though you will only be able to get 94 minutes on one minidisc -- but the fidelity is really stunning, and if you have good headphones you may want to use uncompressed for your favorite music. It's too bad the player doesn't support FLAC or another lossless format, which cuts the file size nearly in half.
Of course, with a Hi-MD player, you can't really put your whole music collection on one disc. I use the ATRAC3Plus 256 kbps format, which is the larger, higher quality format, it reduces the original uncompressed audio to about 20% of the original size. With this format, I have found you can get about 8 CDs on one minidisc. I have compared this ATRAC3Plus format to MP3s I made using LAME using the 320 kbps compression "insane" setting (the maximum quality and minimal compression permitted). The ATRAC3Plus sounds truer than the MP3 to the original uncompressed version, but you need good headphones to tell the difference. If you use the ATRAC3Plus 64kbps format (if you are using cheap earbuds, you may not notice the difference), you can get about 32 CDs on one minidisc. Additional Hi-MD minidiscs are about $7 each + shipping (Amazon charges a fortune to ship them for some reason, but you can buy them elsewhere). This unit and the MZ-RH910 are plastic instead of aluminum or magnesium, so they don't look as quite as pretty. Magnesium would probably have been nice, but I think plastic is better than aluminum which gets dinged too easily, and portable device like this is likely to be dropped a few times.
In summary: as a recording device, it is without equal for the price and size; as a music player you may want to consider it depending on your priorities.

Sony MZ-RH10 Hi-MD Walkman Digital Music Player/Recorder - Sony

Help

Can anybody tell me if this unit cames with the charging stand and if the unit is made in japan?????

Sony - Sony MZ-RH10 Hi-MD Walkman Digital Music Player/Recorder

HI-MD...

A couple negative things: if you use manual recording levels frequently.. it won't remember your settings once you power it off. That is a kind of stupid oversight but in most cases, manual recording isn't really needed. Secondly, I don't get sony's need for you to have to push 2 buttons to activate record mode.. My old Sharp MD would automatically go into rec standby after you pushed the record button.. the mz-rh10 immediately starts recording.. you have to push play + record + pause if you want to go into standby. What is up with that Sony?
As a player, I love it. The display really is perfect.. very clear, very bright. Navigation is easy with the roller button and makes editing quick and painless. As a data storage unit it's great. Just plug it in and instantly it's recognised as a removable drive.. plug and play simplicity AND it's powered by the USB port so even if you're out of juice it'll work for you.
The sound is perfect and it has an EQ that allows you to save presets if you are looking for something specific soundwise.
So although the negatives may seem like big deals, they really aren't. It's Hi Def digital amp comes through with beautiful sounding recordings, it's awesome looking, and it's fast.. so I personally feel like the positives outweigh the negatives.

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