alxwz

Hi, just wanted to let everyone interested know that the German Minidisc forum at http://www.minidiscforum.de/forum/ is back online, after quite some time of outage. Although there is already a thread about it being down, I made this a new thread so it would be more easily discovered. Cheers!

Very interesting thread (that I happened to find rather late ) MDietrich, can you give pointers to such measurements? I wasn't able to find much, esp. about the phase error.

Wow, fascinating story! Must have taken the seller quite a bit of work to assemble such a wreck ...

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll have to think it through and sort it out for my little mind. Until I can perform additional checks, it'll probably be well after the next weekend, I'm afraid. I'll keep you informed of any progress I make. Again, thanks to all so far. Alex

Well, the deck did record correctly. It was just that the display and the buttons (partly, it did show the recording level right) stopped working correctly after the recording started. That doesn't resemble a deck that's stuck in service mode. I'll try your suggestions. Personally, I have no problem to enter service mode. It wasn't me who went into service mode without knowing what he does, mind you. But the deck isn't really stuck in service mode. It just acted weird on the initial recording. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to perform any more checks ATM, but I'll do so ASAP. Yes. I can only try to understand what you're saying here. Checking solder joints, checking CPU crystal oscillators and so forth is well beyond my skills. Doesn't sound good to me at first glance, I'm afraid. Maybe we're on to something here. Which kind of check did you perform? Sorry, but who's Bruce? Bluecrab? Not me, for sure. Maybe that's something I should check, too. But the deck did perform later recording normally, after all? Regards, Alex

500 EUR and some change. Actually, I would have preferred a 333, but finding a 555 in mint condition that I could pick up personally without driving > 200 km (which I had done for several gear in the past) was too good to let it pass by.

Hi, something weird happened to me lately with a MDS-JA555ES: By some strange coincidence, not one, but two minty 555s showed up on German eBay two weeks ago, on two different ends of Germany, and one of it in my very hometown! I took this as an unbelievably happy coincidence, so I just had to get this thing. And so I did. When I went to that place to pick it up I noticed that that guy had no more than 5 (five!) self-recorded MDs (he had set his MDs, most of them still unwrapped, in another auction, which I hadn't noticed). So the tale of this machine only having 10 hours on it may well have been true. I insisted in having it plugged in and trying it, and so it was set up to record from a small portable CDP I had brought with me, connected to the analog input. Of course I had also brought the correct cables, but the stupid part in me had packed headphones with the wrong plug, so I couldn't listen. When I put in the blank CD (an obscure used one I had got from somewhere, sometime), a strange thing happened. The display showed that the deck recorded, but the display was stuck at 0:00. The drive buttons wouldn't respond to stop, eject or anything. The deck wouldn't even go into standby anymore. It wasn't until we pulled the wall plug and plugged it back in, that the deck would act normally again. It wasn't very helpful that the vendor couldn't remember (or pretended to) how to operate the deck at all. After that incident, I ejected the failed disk, inserted another one, erased it, and started all over again. This time, everything went fine. I had been ready to cancel the deal, but decided to go for the chance that this would have been a singular incident. After all, I had already had a disc that (while playing) got stuck on 0:00 before (although it hadn't taken the whole deck's operations down), on a deck that ever since has been working 100% reliably. And when would such a lucky chance (no parcel service to throw around the deck on transit) come along ever again? So I decided to carry through. Since I had lugged that thing home (it is heavy!), I haven't had any time to play with it yet. But today, I had this weird MD in my hands, when I wanted to make some test recordings in another place, and I decided to use it, and see whether it would fail again. Then I noticed that the "0:00" recording was completely intact. It seems that the deck's firmware had somehow crashed, but the deck had still recorded fine. (And when had the deck updated the TOC? I hadn't noticed that at all.) So WHAT ON EARTH WAS THAT? BTW: The seller told me that one bidder had sent him instructions on how to go into service mode an read out the hours played/recorded (he even showed me a printout of the instructions). And he'd gone there and done that. Maybe this has something to do with the phenomenon. Any way to reset the deck to factory state? Regards, Alex

IMHO, Sony's ES decks were in a league of their own. For a while, Denon, Kenwood and Onkyo also offered high-quality decks, but they stopped before Atrac-R (and MDLP). After that, only the Tascam MD-350 (with undisclosed ATRAC version) could come close to the quality of Sony's top decks, if you believe some audio magazines. Maybe there were some more good decks in Japan (Onkyo offered two small Hi-MD decks there, but w/o digital out).

Ah, I thought it would be here in the downloads section. Thanks. I have a KMD-673R (actually, three ). But that's definitely better than nothing (edit: I meant having a 671 instead of 673 sm).

Where does one find the Kenwood KMD-671R SM?

Disks or devices? As for devices, there are no more any new ones. As for disks, dunno. Just was about to post something about those as well. P.S.: Forgot to add that you can still get some new RH1s in Japan at extraordinary prices.

I'm having the same problem with an RH1, but in the opposite direction: Switching from Hi-MD to NetMD, I always have to unplug and reinsert the USB connection. Not using the SS 4.3 'Ultimate' install, but the 'regular' SS 4.3, plus the NETMD052.sys driver installed separately. Going from NetMD to Hi-MD works fine, surprisingly.

Thanks for your answer, but ... MZ-Rx -> both are recorders, so both should be "Rx"? MZ-Nx -> both are NetMD-capable, so both should be "Nx"? MZ-NHx -> both are Hi-MD units, so both should be "NHx"? MZ-RHx -> Sony switched from "NH" to "RH" with the second (not the third) Hi-MD generation, but why? And why is the MZ-RH1 the "1" (after there already was a "10" and a "910")? Doesn't make much sense to me. And that's exactly what has been baffling me. Apart from that, I still hope that someone will chime in on the main topic. (Really no pun intended on PhilippeC, I hope I get that across without misunderstanding, English not being my native language...) Regards, Alex

Hi, my first post here, so hello to everybody! I've recently rediscovered my love for Minidisc after about a decade, and I'm now thinking of getting more into Hi-MD. I have an RH1 that's strictly tied to my PC for up- and downloading, so it won't get the additional wear from portable use. For that, I have an NH1, but its lack of an additional battery case (plus the weird stand it needs for charging) has always bothered me. So I'm thinking about getting an RH910, which not only has a battery case but also a much nicer display on the unit itself. What bothers me is that I've come across some posts mentioning failures of RH10/RH910s. Mostly the display of the RH10, but also the RH910 failing to format or record 1GB Hi-MDs. My use is primarily for playback, not so much recording. (I would have preferred to get an EH70 or EH50 player, but they're almost impossible to find around here.) So here are my questions to those who have experience with the RH910 or both the RH910 and NH1: If I don't record a lot - but only occasionally - on an RH910, will it last a lot longer as a recording device? Even if it failed in the recording section and I wouldn't bother, is it at least reliable as a playback device or is the RH910 an all-around lemon that should be avoided, and should I stick with my NH1 instead? BTW: What exactly does "RH" and "NH" stand for, what's the difference? Regards, Alex