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This is exhibiting the behaviour I have seen when a deck is one click (of the IOP value) away from perfectly adjusted. Try really powering it off, i.e. not standby. Sounds like maybe your jolting it needs the servo to be reset. Perhaps you have artificially aged the laser. Are disks coming out warm just from playing (not a good sign)? Can you see or hear vibration from side to side when a disk is correctly playing? (you'll need the disk apart but still functional to see this). If no luck with removing power, check the IOP value is the one written on the Optical Pickup (OP in these manuals), see page 29. With luck the actual value is written by hand in blue ink on top so you won't have to take it out and read the printed value on the bottom (or for that matter measure it according to the procedures outlined in most of the OTHER books except the later ones which have the necessity to measure the IOP value removed). You can't do the full service without a laser power meter, so don't follow the "initial setting" part in the service manual unless you have one. Take a look and see if there's anything in or on the optical pickup that shouldn't be. Usually cleaning will do nothing and causes more problems than it solves, unless there's so much dust around that the laser beam is seriously interfered with. If everything is unchanged (develop a little routine for yourself with at least 2 disks, one that works and one that doesn't) try increasing IOP value (IOP write)by the smallest division it will allow you to (0.1mA). If that fails try the other direction instead. This means you remember the initial value (IOP read) by writing it down on a piece of paper If you see improvement in one direction or the other try up to 3 more clicks in that direction only. But you have to decide exactly whether it's getting better or worse using the criteria i mentioned (vibration, C13 etc). DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WRITE ANYTHING AT ALL for the moment. No track divisions, no recording, nothing. The disk you produce will simply confuse the picture. The two disks (one that works and one that doesn't) are your best hope. Once you record a disk with an out of alignment pickup you are basically screwed and have to start from scratch. There is on some units a stray light adjustment which compensates for the difference between transparent and opaque disks (and the reflectivity of the minidisk itself) but I think on these late decks that's all automatic. I wouldn't use it much until you have solved this - it will only get worse. Hope this helps ============== Oh yes, I forgot. Before you do much else, get into the test mode (not service mode) and write down as much info as you can about any errors that happened in the past that it will tell you about. Certain things will reset this information, so you need to get it before it gets cleared. This does NOT require any disk to be inserted.

Don't try to make CD-Text via Sonic Stage. For some weird reason it won't show up in the CD-Text capable CD readers. But if you make a disk with Nero (you can get a free or trial version somewhere for sure), it should show up instantly.

It's not, and he is. AFAIK.

That's pretty ancient. My money's on a JE640.Check the specs.

http://www.buyee.jp/item/search?query=lip-4wm You'll need to click the "English" button near top right of the page.

Sure. Let's meet for coffee one of these days (I'm unavailable this week). The biggest resource is the service manual from Sony. The second biggest resource is common sense. Like spotting if the sled doesn't move well, for example. Stephen

Almost anything that interferes with the servo system (MD is all servo-feedback-based). Mechanical, electrical (connections), power (adjustment), you name it. Any good with electronics? Maybe you have to disassemble it, check it out and run the alignment tests. But you really can't do much unless you have at least one other working MD device which you can generate disks with and also test the disk written by your misfunctioning machine.

Followup: the fix has found its way into "Weatherwax", the latest stable released version of VLC, 2.2.0 to be precise. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html Once again, I would repeat that this is the ONLY way to play your files for those of you who uploaded to PC and got stranded by Sonic Stage's protection if you failed to run the File Conversion Tool. Stephen (I have tested the 64-bit version as well, and it works).

You MUST decrypt them if you do not want the next system restore or Windows install to wipe everything out. A new copy of Windows is, to SonicStage, like a new PC. True that WAV isnt encrypted. But there are all sorts of advantages in NOT converting everything to WAV, apart from the obvious one, space. For example there is no metadata stored in a WAV file..... what a pain!

You have to rename the album. It will then ask you if you mean the program to merge the contents. Note that for some purposes, Album X with artist Y will be DIFFERENT from Album X with artist Z. So it may be necessary to clear/merge/delete the Artist field if you have entered it already. It's much easier in the long run to label the tracks whilst they are still on the MZ-RH1 i.e. on minidisk. You can also MOVE the files on disk either before or after this process or renaming the albums. The problem there is that the files have to conform to Windows' rules (no duplicates). Moving is really just a right-click from Sonic Stage library display. SS does not support second-level tree structure. So you are stuck with "ordinary" libraries with only songs in them. This does NOT have to be the case for the Windows files but it probably makes it easier if you do it that way. Please be sure to decrypt all your uploads - the File Conversion Tool (google it and this site as in "File Conversion Tool site:forums.sonyinsider.com") Hope this helps.

1. What are you trying to change it FROM? Does that location still exist and are there ATRAC files there already? 2. Does the new location exist already? 3. Is it (the new location) write-permitted to all power users or better (admin, system etc)? Stephen

I just confirmed. The D40 (modified) and D5C both work fine. Looking at the circuit, the path through the DAC is wired up in a different way to all previous models eg JB series and also MDS-PC3 (which I have). The latter is IMO the best of the lot because it gives max flexibility (analog or digital input) coupled with BOTH analog and digi output (simultaneously). On another topic (which may be related), the new NW-ZX2 has separate DACs (I think) for 44.1 and 48Khz. I did notice a long time ago that the the D400 behaves strangely badly in some circumstances playing back LP4 which I always took to be some strangeness in the order of conversion from 48 to 44.1 (perhaps you understand the schematic better than I do), so much that I would suggest you probably don't actually want to use it as a DAC. I think they needed CDs to play directly without pressing the REC button, which is what I have to do with my modified D40. FWIW, you could do the D40 mod to the D400 and have MD output digitally through a new, separate connector all the time. But I doubt this is what you want or need. Stephen PS the DAC is probably not as good as the beefy ones in earlier units. For me the nice part of the unit is that it's the only combo deck with optical out from the MD side built in. For non-MD I would choose a better DAC, perhaps.

If the MDs were in legacy format (that is, non-HiMD) you are out of luck unless they are "original" recordings I.e. not transferred from computer. Even then you will need an MZ-RH1. Sony took the view that it's ok to make a first generation copy but not a second generation. So you'd have to find the original CD's or whatever. If they were recorded to HiMD format the situation is slightly different. Now you can transfer the files around but only if they were not encrypted to begin with OR it's back to the same computer they came from. You can copy the files off the HiMD but you will have to crack the metadata yourself. It's there but I don't really want to spell out those details if this not your situation. If what you mostly have is LP2 songs created by NetMD and SonicStage then it's hard but not impossible. Your solution will not involve USB and so must be done at playback speed. Sorry.

The best tool by far for opening MD shutter is a paperclip with one arm bent straight. You'll figure out how to do it as soon as you work out how insertion into a deck or portable triggers the opening of the shutter.

That often seems to happen tho. The symptom is battery gets very hot exactly once and then after that is recovered. Something to do with NiMH crystals.

No!

I have yet to find a NiMH gumstick battery (as in MD) which is not revived by the computerised battery chargers typified by BC700 as here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000RSOV50 Kind regards

OP, please note this is another NiMH battery, and NOT what you want. Yes, I saw them at the Walgreen-owned EverState Battery company which has recently disappeared from our neighbourhood (another example like Target of US businesses not succeeding here in Canada, for whatever reason). I think they might be made by-or-for Walmart/Walgreen.

I think the N10 battery is same or similar. LIP-3 and LIP-4WM are convertible but not interchangeable. (One has a cable the other doesn't) But the one you have found is the NiMH gumstick used in many other models. No it is absolutely not suitable. Sorry. The battery is about $50 on Yahoo Japan. I'm considering getting one myself if I can not revive mine. Try leaving the unit plus battery plugged in to cradle for 24 hours. You may be surprised.

Nope. For that you need any USB-connectable portable from Sony, and SonicStage.

(At least) the Japanese version of the NWZ-S75x series. Probably more, too. Hardware identical, firmware different from the one available outside Japan. Update: just tested it, works recording off the line input, but not radio.

I have now tested this and I am happy to say that the 32-bit Windows version works perfectly. If you want to check it out, go here: http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win32/vlc-3.0.0-20150208-2058/ I am not sure why, but the 64-bit version doesn't seem to be working yet. It dies with no error message whatsoever. Stay tuned.

Ultimately all audio signals start out as analogue.Staying with digital is usually good, except that compression and conversion artifacts (yes, even "uncompressed, lossless" PCM is in some sense compressed, so please nobody any of that hogwash about perfection through not using compression) can tend to build up depending on what you do to it. Sony is very careful with their digital signals - other mfrs may be less so. Sometimes it's simpler to do a good conversion back to analogue and then record that digitally, especially if the conversion is doing a bad job, Follow what sounds good (assuming your ear can tell!) and always use the same steps whenever you can. There are no simple answers to your question. One unfortunate thing about the means you describe are that the old ATRAC compression (before ATRAC3 and ATRAC3+) although sounding good, is not actually a very accurate codec. Nice yes, warm yes, but accurate maybe not. The strength lies in all the OTHER stuff Sony does to clean up the signal on their amazing MD decks, such that the result can sound better than the original. The other problem is that ATRAC itself is sort of on an island, and to get off the island you have to: a. buy an MZ-RH1/MZ-M200 (same thing) b. convert the compression to something which can be stored on disk. It doesn't matter what the reasons are - but it's unlikely that storing the actual MD data from your SP disks will be possible or useful. With ATRAC3+ on the other hand (assuming you don't want to spend 5x the real estate on PCM) you can get really very good recordings (of someone else's digital signal) and transfers. The japanese version of the flash walkmen actually allows you ATRAC recording, I just haven't tried it yet. In the post-MD world PCM recordings are very nice, however most people end up converting them to "lossless" like FLAC (and others), to save space.

Just as I said at the start. Busted overwrite head.

Did you test the "CD-MD sync" as follows: 1. Do the transfer as you say it works 2. Remove the MD and also the power to the machine (not just standby, pull the mains wall plug out for 30 seconds) 3. Re-energize the machine and reinsert the disk. Can you still read the TOC of the disk you made?