shedshrine

Maybe this stuff will be of interest to you.. Early (first?) Sony ad campaign- u.s. early Aiwa and Kenwood portables ] Aiwa integrated tuner/md/cd unit: ] source for these:

Got a second (functioning) md deck unit, a Sony JB-930 for this little setup. Minidisc is just fantastic for flicking a couple switches and capturing ideas. Love it for that. To make it somewhat rack mountable I put a couple zip ties around the feet and through a couple rack rail screw holes to keep it in place. My SONY JA3ES deck is out of commission. Opened it up to see if I could find anything obvious. I appears that when I set it on it's side for storage, a connector ribbon fell along the tray transport and caught on it. Some component must have fried when it tried to eject a disc. Damn.

After taking the collection pictures I thought I'd plug in the MZ-1 and check it out. I hadn't played a disc in it for over 10 yrs. It sounded great and I was happily reminiscing when I suddenly remembered a particular issue it had. I tried to eject the disc. Not happening. The MZ-1 has 2 slot covers that slide in place over the opening. One says "insert disc" and one says "disc inside". They jam up from time to time on mine and prohibit the eject function. But hey, taking it apart was a great excuse to post some more pics. Watch out for the invisible laser radiation!

Here's the manual if you want to check it out.. http://www.nodevice.com/user_manual/aiwa/other3/xrh66md.html Ha, the amazon page for it is still up. Check out those reviews. http://www.amazon.com/Aiwa-XR-H66MD-Compac...m/dp/B00001P4PR

Had forgotten I had this in a closet. It's an Aiwa XR-H66MD, a tuner/3 cd/5 minidisc carousel unit. It's not really meant for editing as far as I could tell, far too tedious. But for playing 5 md's nonstop it pretty much rules.. (click to enlarge)

Too bad. I've been using an Alesis masterlink for the same kind of thing, and while 24 bit and all that, it's a slow and cumbersome interface. This is all the more apparent once you've experienced the ease of use a decent minidisc deck offers..

Great, yeah those look nice. I'll look around that part of the site. Specifically for a hi-md deck with a keyboard input as that would be ideal, backwards compatible and everything. M

Hello fellow minidisc fans My minidisc journey began while I was living in Japan teaching English. I had just begun making my way into cassette four track recording of my musical efforts and a mix down deck was a must. I'd been using a funky boom box and saving up for a DAT deck when I saw an article in a recording magazine about a new format soon available, the minidisc. Digital mixdown with editing, yeah! I waited and waited for this new miracle to show up in the stores of Japan, ignoring the Phillips digital cassette offerings that had come out around the same time, and grabbed an MZ-1 off a stack of about 40 or so for around 60,000 yen or $600. I completely loved using it, and the editing was incredible. It felt so modern and futuristic. I did find out a short while later that the sound quality was not as perfect as I had expected digital to be. When I'd listen to the original cassette track of a slightly overdriven fender rythym track and compare it to the MZ-1 recording, a lot of the subtle detail and tonal quality was missing. Regardless, I loved the format and Sony, Kenwood, Aiwa et al were in a race to come out with the newest, best sounding, best designed and best featured units. Every few months or so I'd hit Akihabara and stalk the electronics stores to see what was new and improved. By the time I left Japan after five years I had accumulated four portable recorders. I still remember showing the MZ-1 to folks at home in the SF bayarea that first summer when I came home to visit and the stunned reactions. "Wow, what the hell is that? Japan must be amazing.." A couple years later my bass fell over while leaning against the wall and the headstock came down full force on the MZ-1's lcd display, completely shattering it. While it was no longer my main mixdown deck, I still had it repaired though the face of the unit still bears the scars I couldn't pound out from the inside of the faceplate. When I got home I wanted to get a deck and a Sony JA3ES was on sale as a demo in a Good Guys store. It had L and R mic inputs in the front and I just had to have it. Later I bought a JB940 and enjoyed still better sound and the addition of the keyboard input for labeling all the individual mixdown takes. I spent a lot of time making cassette mix tapes as a kid, and that was taken to a whole new level with minidisc. They could make the train commutes around Tokyo and Kanagawa something to look forward to. At this point I just use apple lossless and an iPod playlists, but I still use minidisc deck for mixdowns and editing. The HI-MD thing came along after my minidisc honeymoon, but if they come out with a home deck I may be tempted. Mike (pictured:<b> Portables</b>: Sony MZ-1, Kenwood (blue) DMC-E7R, Aiwa AM-F1, Kenwood (silver) DMC-G7R, Sony MZ N707, Sony MZ-N505; <b>Decks</b>: Sony JA3ES, Sony MDS-JB940) See Aiwa 5-disc minidisc carousel deck in post #14 of this thread..