sharp MD beep kill/ground noise?

["diatom drone" <skincage@infin8ty.com>]

i don't have a 702 but mine's close to that and it does allow changing
volume during recording (a little jerky, but better than not having the
option). i'm pretty sure to kill the beep, you go into stopped mode and 
hold
down setup for a while and then it's among the options. once you turn it
off, it's OFF. if only my cheapy portable CD player would behave so nicely
with its beep!

this isn't exactly in the same topic but i had a problem recording from my
mixer to MD once and i thought i'd shoot for an answer. i was playing in a
coffee shop, with my tape outs plugged into long RCA cables that fed the
guy's stereo as he had no PA. it sounded really cool nonetheless, i was
expecting a huge ground hum but there was none. my main outs (dual 1/4"
phone plugs) were fed by an adaptor cable into the stereo 1/8" line in on 
an
MD. most of the recording is great, however there are parts where there's
sort of a scrapy ground hum interference. at least it sounds like that.. i
could go through the disc and make an mp3 of just that sound if it'll help
the diagnosis. also, when my friend tried to record an earlier show from my
mixer with his 702, his meter was clipping out without any signal playing
through the mixer. have i just plain been doing everything wrong here? i'd
just like to avoid this in the future.

any tips appreciated!

Jon