I setup MDS-PC3 at home last night. I have to sit in front of it for 2 hrs to
figure out how to connect it to the PC. The manual is useless.
USB Hub
It doesn't say if the "PS/2" type port is for controlling the machine only. From
the graphic in the menu, it doesn't say I have to hook up the optical cable. I
thought audio data will be transferred to that PS/2 type plug. But it isn't.
Remote Control
Tiny and small. I wish all the features are accessible thru the main panel. It
sucks more because I have other Sony device at the same spot. When I hit "Play"
it plays my CD deck too! that's not cool! Sometimes when I hit -> button, it
skips two tracks.
Buttons
The buttons on the main panel is very limited. To skip to next/prev track, I
have to turn the tiny knob. The increment is very little. So I always skip 2 or
3 songs using that knob
Sound Quality
I have no doubt about the sound quality. The biggest reason I buy this unit is I
can record all my old MD back to PC digitally. I have a Winfast 4XSound which
works beautifully with digital in and out. I don't have to worry about SCMS at
all. Then I encode them in MP3 (using CoolEdit 2000. it works fast! it encodes
a 5 minutes song in 18 seconds). Then I rearrange all my songs and record back
to MD using MDLP LP2 mode. I did it last night, sound quality is great even in
LP2. I can't tell any difference. and at the same time, I expanded my MP3
collection :)
LCD Display
The LCD Display is not that prominent. It's small and hard to read. The white
back light is really beautiful.
Size
The unit is like the size of a CDROM drive. It's a little bit taller. Other
wise, I will just fit it to one of the drive bay. I'm thinking of using it in my
car because I can't find any Car audio unit with MDLP in the US. but it might
skip like hell.
MCrew Software
Stupid stupid stupid! I have to go to Multimedia/Audio under Control Panel to
change my preference to USB Audio Hub in order to record song to MDS-PC3. In
other words, I won't be able to hear any other audio event in my machine. Many
software out there will let you to pick either "Wave Mapper" or a specific
device! If the software uses only that USB Audio, why they don't hard code it to
the software to use it? It's getting annoying. Luckily I have a sound card with
optical out. I'm going to hook up that in addition to the USB hub for mp3 song
title transfer. Problem solved.
Also, I can drag and drop MP3 files to the program and it transfer all the ID3
tag as track title. But if a MP3 doesn't have ID3, it will use the file name as
the title including the extension .mp3 why couldn't they remove the .mp3 from
the track title?
Overall
Don't get me wrong for most of the negative comment. I love this puppy. The best
part is I can reduce the number of MDs I have by using MDLP moving files
digitally without any lost. I would recommend it if you have a sound card with
optical I/O and want to do serious MP3 recording to MDLP.
TAKY CHEUNG
http://hottaky.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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