sfbp

A lot of the decks around that time use the same mechanism. However there are different cable widths (17,19,21,23 pins on the principal cable from MD to mainboard). So one must check AT LEAST that the 2 cables have the same number of pins. It has to do with the extra control lines related to M-Crew/NetMD support (remote), IIRC.

Japan. There are about 4 on Yahoo at the moment. You'll need to sign up with one of the reseller services, either Buyee or FromJapan each of which I have used, or some other service (I think rinkya is another one). And make sure you get a 100V converter for your mains voltage. Don't even think about plugging into 110 or more (Brazil is mostly 127?). Of course you may have 220 in which case you absolutely require one. You can check the specs to see if they are dual (treble?) voltage, but I am guessing not. These will be the Japanese model with 100 V supply required.

The spring is no big deal, but you may want to remove it early just to make sure it doesn't get bent out of shape (it's easy enough to bend back). The belt, on the other hand can slip quite easily and no amount of adjusting springs etc. will make any difference to the mechanism functioning properly.

Nope, no use for your hardware. It was available for quite a short time (until Sony figured out NetMD and took away many of its capabilities in the name of DRM). I can point you in the right direction, but by the time you've bought a suitable unit, as well as a PCLK-MN10, you may indeed be the right person to buy an MDS-W1. For most the latter is overkill. However the only place you will find one of THOSE is Japan, which is a whole adventure in itself. If you're serious, we can help. The other solution is to get an MZ-RH1, which (by uploading) allows you to edit all the files on the PC using Sound Forge. I have a project in hand to modify JE640/940(/?440) and MXD-D5C to work with M-Crew but it depends at present on finding the schematic for the Japanese models which actually support this facility. If anyone reading this knows enough about searching Japanese web sites to find me those Service manuals (actually find me one, and I can probably find the others) I might just get that finished. Translation of the manual is not required, just finding it - the circuit diagrams are all I need in order to modify the non-Japan models. Having said that, the easiest M-Crew-capable model to find is probably the MXD-D40.

Hmmmm, I wanted to make sure that's what you meant. I know that WAS what you said but.... If you have existing MP3's I wouldn't particularly recommend an MZ-S1. Every MP3 will get converted to ATRAC, and you can get at most (this assumes you use the optimal quality LP2 format) 162 minutes per MD. So, to do the math, 3 thousand tracks averaging 3 mins would use about 60 MDs. Probably allow 100 MDs given that lots of songs will be too long and you won't be able to fill up every disk without splitting albums etc. The conversion is tedious and will not improve the quality. Whether it will make it worse depends a lot on what bit rate your recordings are at already, I would be rather inclined to see about some other player that plays MP3 format without conversion. There are some MD recorders (all of them the so-called Hi-MD), and also some very nice flash-based devices which will play MP3s very well, There are even Sony devices that play MP3 as well as the MD format, ATRAC. My favourite of these is the NW-F886. For example this offering on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/SONY-Walkman-NW-F886-32GB-Japan/dp/B00FF087YG There are also very very nice Sony MP3 players you can buy second hand such as the NWZ-S755, probably for well under $100. Note that the NW-F886 and NWZ-F886 are not the same. The latter is an "export" model and does not play the ATRAC format which is presumably the reason you were interested in MD in the first place? Hope I've been of some help. Most of our time here is spent going on about how much better MD is than MP3 - I appear to be giving contradictory advice, but given your self-described "computer illiteracy" I wonder if it's worth all the extra trouble? Stephen

"Thousands of songs to transfer"? That sounds suspiciously like you have thousands of songs on MD and want to get them off...... the MZ-S1 will emphatically NOT do that for you. However, Sonic Stage 4.3 for the MZ-S1 works fine under Windows 7 (I presume 64-bits, only the desperate have purchased 32-bits) provided you install the driver from our downloads section.

Just one point about the post above "Sonic Stage will help you a LOT during the deleting tracks process". NEVER delete a track which is not-named when you are using Sonic Stage to do the deleting. It's a relatively well-known bug in SS. You must name every track, even if they are all labelled "X" it doesn't matter.

1. You could upload using MZ-RH1 and edit the WAV files there 2. You could try editing with M-Crew (probably works, is my guess) 3. You could buy an MDS-W1 which will copy the tracks to a new disk leaving behind the "bits". Now the bits can be combined by simply erasing the disk. All of these solutions cost money. By pushing the format to its absolute limit you have run into a problem Sony was completely unable to get around. I recall something like this in the early days of CP/M and DOS (heard of either of those?!) when the disk got full. I trashed countless floppy disks in similar manoevres. The problem (in that case) has to do with how the OS allocates new space. It's amazing that Sony does detect this condition and doesn't completely trash the disk as Digital Research and Microsoft both used to.

Be careful you don't wait. It will eventually jam and you will be sorry... very sorry.

Well, it appears his domain has disappeared now. Sigh.

1. receivers don't glow, only transmitters 2. format of transmitted data must be something the MD can understand, i.e. 32/44.1/48kHz sample rate, 16/20/24 bits, PCM 2 channels (stereo). 3. Error is C71 or C17 but not both, you probably should re-read before posting if you want the folks here to help. It's ok in this case, we know what's going on. Probably you need to reconfigure the output signal from ? (you omit to tell us what it is you are trying to record out of). It's not the fault of deck or cable. Finally, beware the SCMS rules, there are plenty of signals which are copy protected and you won't be able to record with this equipment. To do that, you need "pro"-designated gear which ignores the "do-not-copy" designation on the output stream. However I am almost certain that in this case your problem is #2, since there would be a different message "cannot copy" at the deck.

They do.. but you need to get the domestic (Japanese) versions, is all. They probably crunched the numbers and figured that outside of Japan they'd not sell enough units.

Hi Philippe 1. The pictures were nothing to do with amazon link. You managed (not sure how) to paste extra stuff into the post previously. No need for adblock plus. It's also possible that these pictures came as a result of hacking - we have seen from time to time large numbers of web pages altered, and if anyone comes across any more, it will be time to contact Christopher who fixed the thousands of posts the last time something like this happened. For now I have simply edited them out for you. 2. You may be interested in this, same as yours but less than half the size (although of course I cannot easily tell the size of your picture. I went by the dimensions relative to the larger USB connector). http://www.ebay.com/itm/BOX-Power-Bank-Backup-External-Battery-Charger-18650-for-Phone-Mobile-WOCA-/171753738999 If this style isn't powerful enough, you can see there are many others with intermediate ratings (between yours and mine). Stephen PS One more thing. The fact that YOUR post got edited suggests perhaps your account may have been hacked rather than the site. You should change your password immediately.

It should work fine with later versions of SS, IMO. What was the nature of the modification?

I second the MZ-R5ST as it doubles as both deck (with optical in and out when docked) and portable, which is similar but not identical to the MZ-R50, itself supposedly the best-built portable of all time.

I don't think PC-Link works on any model before MDLP Type-R. The 930 is SP only, and is (IIRC) CXD-2656. All the working PC-Link models are CXD2662 or better. Not that this is anything to do with it; merely an indicator of the timeline that they came up with this technology. I don't think A1 means PC-Link, unfortunately. Some have both, some have one, some have neither. In every case Sony varied the circuit just enough to be annoying. And the SIRCS pins are separate from the KBD and I2C pins, as well. I have still not figured out how to trick D5C or 640 into working with the keyboard jack PC-Link, and my current thinking is that it may be simplest to CUT the wires to the keyboard pins on the master chip. However I so far haven't done that. The worst part is that the schematics don't necessarily match the hardware. Particularly with respect to this feature. I'd love to get someone on here who I could correspond with and figure it out.

OK that's one for us to remember..... when this happens unexpectedly see if C: is full!

Did you look at the pull down in the list of available (unattached) USB devices once Virtual XP has booted? It should be there....

​Please answer my question: are all tracks failing? Anyway Kalkie raises a completely new point, whether the hard disk location where temporary files are kept is full. If you can figure out the disk space left on C: this may give you a good idea. Look at My Computer, and V(iew the disk drive in D(etail mode so you can tell what space is left. If it's a tiny percentage you have your answer. To fix this: 1. Empty recycle bin 2. Look under Users-><jammydodger - your user>->Local Settings->Temp and see what's there, you will recognize much of it, and you can delete (don't forget to empty recycle bin afterwards!). Another approach is to search on C: for any tile ending in .tmp ("*.tmp") and delete everything you find. 3. As a last resort, try Hard disk cleanup (Accessories->System Tools->Disk Cleanup) which should free up lots of space. If the disk is full, Sonic Stage isn't the only thing which will fail - lots of other stuff will, too. Not to be critical, but I had a hard time reading your post..... a bit more punctuation would be very helpful. I realise the editor isn't perfect but you should be able to go back and insert commas and the like. Hope this helps Stephen

Dead easy. Just make sure you don't leave the belt twisted if it ends up that way after you first put it on. If I recall correctly, this is roughly the sequence 1. Remove lid. (EDIT) If there is any disk in the unit, persuade it very gently to come out, using whatever tools you have to do the work of the belt that's not working (i.e. push the eject button and "help" it to eject). Probably easiest with the power on. (EDIT) 2. disconnect ribbon cables making sure you know where they go back (it should be obvious) leading to the mainboard from the MD unit. ONLY DISCONNECT ONE END OF EACH. 3. Undo the grounding straps (they are push fit), I think there are only 2 you care about, making sure you know where they came from. 4. Remove/loosen the front panel (6 screws or so), only enough to remove the MD unit. See the service manual. If you're smart you won't completely undo it. 5. Undo the 4 "flying saucer" screws anchoring the MD unit into its rubber bushings. 6. Now you can take the MD unit into your hand with no wires or anything. Prise the plastic mechanism by squeezing just enough to let it open past the (plastic) stop and open the main hinge very very carefully making sure not to bend or stretch anything particularly the overwrite head. You should be able to replace the belt now. Putting it back together is easy. The service manual shows it all (the DISassembly of course). Nota bene: you should not have to disassemble the MD unit itself. Particularly if you get to something that says "remove solder" stop immediately and reconsider your fate. Good luck Stephen

All tracks, only the most recent, or only the oldest ones?

​Yeah, will be resampled down to 44.1 by the MD. Still less than optimal, you are better (with ATRAC files which are all 44.1 sample rate) to get a dongle that doesn't force the MD to resample. Apparently the Xitel is available currently: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Free-shipping-Xitel-MD-Port-DG2-USB-TO-optical-fibre-sound-blaster-NE-/161792670062 Who knows whether "real" or not. It looks like the one I have and I am sure it will do the job.

New belt http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-Riemen-belts-MDS-JE440-MDS-JE640-CAS-/400427074241 You can change it yourself easily. Stephen

Any. My favourite is the Fujitsu (for its positive action) but since you're ONLY using for this it really doesn't matter. Another alternative is the RM-D20P wireless minidisc keyboard and controller. See here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-SONY-MINI-DISC-KEYBOARD-REMOTE-COMMANDER-RM-D20P-FULLY-FUNCTION-/252083535475 http://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/d163575475 http://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/f150585550 The second and third auction have ended but if you look long enough you can get one, 1299 yen being about $10 these days. I'd sell you mine (it came from the same place as the first ad) but it's a curiosity (to me) and it works with just about all MD decks rather nicely. It doesn't have the buttons for MDLP but you don't care about that with your JB930.

You got it. But I'm not sure it will make a difference. Go treat yourself to a tour of ebay. The going rate for a keyboard is about $10 (sorry no pound sign on my keyboard). Actually the keyboards supported are US and JP, whatever that's worth. These adapters are very fussy. I think something to do with the signals. Not sure if it's the clock or the voltage level which is the problem. Over in another thread I have mentioned something about units which accept either PCLK (I2C) or keyboard. They have buffer circuits on the two critical lines. I am still waiting for a real electronics expert to tell me if the problem is the timing or the level (or both).