Arr-Nine-Hundred

Welcome back, good to see your continued interest in MD :-) Ah, the voice of experience - I respect that over most other things in life. 1. Agree - and am I right in assuming the output amp in a typical Sony MD player/recorder is part of what makes the sound much "fuller" and richer compared to a typical DAP? Can you explain more about what you mean by "wide dynamic band" headphones - do you mean those with rated frequency stats or do you just mean quality headphones like Grado-brand ones? 2. All the ones I have ever owned have been. Not really used "expensive" ones like iPod Classic though. 3. No idea what you mean by crossfeed, sorry.

Welcome back melmel! I was the same - I sold a lot of my gear (read my "It all started..." post) to simplify things but have started moving back to MiniDisc gradually. I wonder if these things are cyclic and I'll pine for minimalist stuff in a few years :-D

I couldn't get SS 4.3 Ultimate to install using Wine 1.4 in Windows XP mode. I couldn't find a winetricks entry for this either. Someone here has apparantly got a 4.x release working with WINE: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=6911 But many comments at the following link say otherwise, seems like a kernel mode driver for the DRM stuff will not work under WINE: http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14928

Wow, thats a lot of lovely MD hardware! I was was going to point out the Onkyo X-T1X - lovely minimalist design, same for the Kenwood.

:-D IPA aka Isopropyl Alcohol. I bought a spray can of this as it's good for cleaning electrical contacts and as a general cleaner to get sticker residue off plastic etc. So charging circuit is likely culprit :-( thought so... Thanks guys.

Thanks Stephen. I was not clear in my original post: What I meant is that the unit will not take power from the internal gumstick battery. eg. with only the gumstick as power the MD will not operate at all. I have tried wiping the battery door and battery chamber floor contacts with IPA and a qtip. There are not obstructions in the battery chamber I can see (I also compared it to my known good R900, it seems the same). Earlier in the thread Jim mentions weird behaviour with a series of known good batteries and this unit. I have also sent Jim a message via his eBay MD repair listing. Let's see.

Sorry to resurrect an old topic. This matched a search against "charging problems with N710". I have just taken delivery of a N710 (eBay) which refuses to charge the gumstick (Sony NH-10WM) battery (the seller stated as such). Power via mains or AA battery pack is fine. Jim, I would be interested in the Service Manual procedures you mentioned to get this unit charging again. Were these units not built in Japan? I can not find country of origin on the unit itself (unlike the R900 which has "Made in Japan" etched into the back). I only bought the N710 as Type-S would give me better on playback of LP2 but if the units of this vintage are unreliable in charging then maybe I should stick with my "simple" R900!

Great stash there - especially like the Chum80 discs - never seen them before. 80 minute as well - great! I have a small stash but there are some interesting discs in there - I will take some photos and update this thread on the weekend.

Up to £65 (somewhat ironically, maybe that is thanks to the attention you have given it ;-) I never really noticed the NH1 before. They do look pretty cool but I was shocked at the battery life - even of LP2 playback! Assuming in-built battery only it is 17h versus 38h! Is this down to the digital amp? http://www.minidisc....ny_MZ-N910.html http://www.minidisc....ony_MZ-NH1.html edit: spelling.

Just wondered if anyone has submitted an entry here: http://www.minidiscaccess.com/itallstarted.html I find such accounts fascinating! I recently submitted my own but it has not appeared yet (is @aol.com still going? :-) In the meantime, if you want to read my entry it is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nPKff6WM4gxJ-zRmHVVsrdo8TKROJF287VgGHXNG_EU/edit#

Hi Talisin, your experiment is fascinating reading. I myself have recently done several comparisons of analogue and digital recordings of mp3's in SP versus LP2 (with a Sony MZ-R900 portable recorder), like a lot of your students I found SP to be noticeably clearer with LP2 really good but lacking some detail and a bit "muddy". As paperclip said I would really like to read your students analysis of LP2 with respect to analogue versus digital recording and SonicStage LP2 versus Hardware LP2 recording.

In Avatar when Jake Sully is recording his video journal and talks of "here I am... doing science..." - I'm convinced it's an MZ-RH1!

For NetMD functions then yes you are right the encoding is done in software (and therein lies another issue as I believe software encoded LP2 is inferior to recording done in other ways). But Type-S improves playback so there is a difference there. Also NetMD software does not encode SP (I think) so there are benefits to be had from the Type-R feature when recording in SP. It's a convenience versus strict quality argument.

eBay is the source that most people here use. I'll send you a bunch for free on condition that you fill them up with music ASAP and give the MD some serious use. Seriously. PM me your address if you like.

Hi humunster1234, thats a shame - if you have time then I urge you to try recording a CD album to your MD and comparing the listening experience to an mp3 player.

No because not all Net-MD download-only models had the Type-S or Type-R feature. Type-R will encode SP recordings better than non-Type-R and Type-S (which includes Type-R) will also improve playback of LP2/4. An example of a Type-S Net-MD download only model is the MZ-N710. More info: http://opticalgarbage.com/minidisc/type-sr.html For the dedicated recorder/fan, with the help of online auction sites it's possible to have multiple inexpensive recorders and players - keep a Type-S for playback and Type-R or S for recording. I personally have an N510 for recording (Type-S) and E505 for playback (Type-S).

Hi all again and sorry to bring up a old topic. This is true, the switch toggles between "Discrete" and "Continous" modes. In "continous" mode there will always be a digital optical signal present and hence no track marks when a CD plays from track to track. Discrete mode is what most people want for track marks to be placed, I think the cheap copy Xitel DG2's I got from eBay sadly do not have the toggle switch and appear to be set in Continous mode. This means that you need to use Wincue + WinAmp or Foobar2000 + two-second-pause plugin to make track marks but maintain the digital optical sound quality. More info and images of a Xitel with the toggle: http://www.dansdata.com/xitel.htm

http://support.sony-europe.com/DNA/Downloads/Wallpaper/wallpaper.aspx?site=odw_en_GB&m=MZ-N710 It's in the middle, looks like an E10 http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-E10.html Never seen a wallpaper with an MD on so thought it might be worth sahring, theres some other nice "walkman" branded ones there.

They arrived this morning. Looks like a copy of Xitel and not a genuine one. Appears to be reasonable quality though. Comes with TOSlink optical digital cable (square port at one end and pointed connector into MD at the other end). They have plastic caps on both ends but the one on the square end appears to have been placed by Superman and I cannot get it off yet. Also comes with a USB standard-A male to standard-B male cable. Plugged it into Ubuntu 8.04 and it is detected as: [96.853746] input: XITEL MD-PORT DG2 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb4/4-1/4-1:1.2/input/input7 [ 7096.881650] input,hidraw3: USB HID v1.00 Device [XITEL MD-PORT DG2] on usb-0000:00:1d.0-1 [ 7097.319358] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio The snd-usb-audio refers to it's use as a "USB Audio Device". As an experiment I cue up a bunch of .m4a files into movie player. I set the Sound playback prefs to use the "USB Audio Device" (neat thing about Ubuntu 8.04 is that one can choose which device to play certain classes of sounds, hopefully Windows 7 is the same). On playback the Xitel optical port glows red signifying a digital signal present, good. As I spot no switch for discrete and continuous recording modes, I decide to see what happens when the track ends and next one plays. There is a very brief gap in red light on the Xitel so that must signify a new track mark to the MD. As there is no switch, and based on the above observations, I infer that the device is permanently set to discrete mode. Fine with me as this is the behaviour I want. I had my E510 and no spare discs so I could not try a recording test. I will do a proper write up another time with photos. Looks good so far though.

Great post Azureal. I find the MZ-N710 to be popular model on eBay, from that I infer it was a popular model with people. It's a middle-range unit with a nice feature set, only the plastic backshell and the single line display hints at cost-cutting. One can find these in excellent condition on eBay but if going that route always ask the seller the condition in their words and ensure there are clear, large photos of the unit and equipment. Just to give my own opinion of models: I think the E510 is a good choice for a player unit, if like me you mainly use LP2 recordings then one can achieve 100+ hours of playback: http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-E510.html The R900 is excellent in terms of looks, functions and ergonomics. With some searching on eBay it can be found in excellent condition with "low mileage" for not much money indeed. It's my favorite out of the whole range. It also has a full aluminium shell and feels, expensive and solid. Ironically, it can be very attention grabbing when everyone around you has an iPod of some kind. Of course, flash-based DAP are extremely popular now. I found this Google Trends graph of the term "minidisc" interesting. Looks like a gradual (logarithmic?) downward trend since Google started tracking search terms in 2004. http://www.google.com/trends?q=minidisc

Talisin, http://www.dansdata.com/xitel.htm It's detected as a "USB audio device", in theory no drivers needed and it should "just work". I've got a couple of DG2's on the way and also plan to use them with Windows 7. In theory under Linux also and I plan to try with Ubuntu too. A Xitel DG2 is my recommendation given your scenario with digital optical recording and laptops.