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Have: Sony M200 (RH1) black M100 EH70 black EH50 Blue NH3D Silver EH1 black NH1 Gold NH700 silver NF610 blue N707 black/red R91 blue R55 blue E520 silver E900 silver E60 blue Sharp: DR77 silver MT770 blue MT877 silver SR75 champaign MT821 silver ST66 silver Decks: MDS-JE480 MXD-D40 MDS-E10 Never sold anything.

Good to here that your unit is functioning ok. No idea what's going on the the two LP2 discs. I'm still waiting to receive the factory made MD so I can get through the CD tests and get out of Test Mode on my E900.

For older NiMH batteries or those not used in a long time, use the refresh mode to restore them to optimum capacity. Did your BC-700 come with any instructions? I have the BC-1000, Maha C9000 and the BT-C2000 charger/analyzers. For charging gumstick batteries, I modified an old sony BC-7DC2 charger to work with these charger/analyzers. I gutted the BC-7DC2 and soldered wires to the battery contact terminals and brought them out to connect to the BT-C2000 charger (or either of the other two charger/analyzers I mentioned). I can now charge two gumstick batteries at a time using a battery holder built for them. My old home made holder worked but not as good as the modified BC-7DC2 solution. I personally prefer the BT-C2000 charger because it can measure battery internal resistance which seems to be problematic with these gumstick batteries.

I'm going to get a prerecorded MD anyway but does the tricking firmware procedure require dissembling the unit?

That sounds good if I can't do anything with mine. I will be around, I usually check the new posts daily. I just bid on a prerecorded MD so at least I'll be able to get thru the electrical tests and get out of TEST MODE. I don't really know if this E900 is dying or just out of some adjustment. Before I erased the NV ram, I noticed that there were several error codes (abnormal spindle error, real data error and focus off center) recorded but I attributed them to a mechanical disorder of some kind because if I squeeze the back hing area when starting to play a MD it will most of the time start playing. But if I don't it just rattles around for a while and says NO DISC on the remote.

I don't know why but every time I tried to get into TEST MODE by exactly following the procedure, it did not work. Out of desperation , I tried it while it was playing a MD and it worked. It didn't make sense to me either but it did work at least in my case. I am using the RM-MC11EL remote. I'll be sure that the prerecorded MD I get comes in the large plastic case.

Thanks sfbp for the info. I used the keystroke method described in the E900 Service manual (page 7 section 4.2.1). However it doesn't work exactly the way its described. It seems you have to have to be playing a minidisc before starting to do the procedure. So first make sure "Hold" is engaged on the minidisc player itself then start playing a minidisc. Next hold the stop button down on the minidisc player and do the rest of the button pushing on the remote as described on page 7. This process will get into TEST MODE every time on my E900. I just looked at the E909 service manual and its the same procedure. I always wanted to try a commercial minidisc, guess that's next on my "to buy" list. I guess any commercial disc will do regardless of year of manufacture or any other factor? http://minidisc.org/manuals/sony/service/sony_MZ-E900_service_manual.pdf Let me know if this works to get your E909 into TEST MODE.

The E900 Service manual talks about using CD and MO discs during the Test Mode (section 4.1 General, page 7). I can't find any information in the service manual or anywhere else that defines what a CD or MO disc is. I supposed that a MO disc was a magneto optical disc (a Minidisc) but maybe that's wrong. I have no idea what a CD disc is with respect to minidisc maintenance. Anybody done the power adjustments on the E900 or know anything about CD or MO discs? Once you have done the NV reset on this thing it stays in Test Mode forever until you finish the electrical adjustments and these discs seem to be essential to get thru that process.

There is one on ebay. Search for BCA-MZNH1.

If I ever get one I'll do the comparison.

Well the E10 (CXD2662R/AK4524) has arrived and I've done some comparing against the D40 (CXD2662R/UDA1350AH) and JE480 (CXD2664R/AK4552VT). To my ears there isn't a night and day difference between any of these decks. However,I can with my old ears distinguish a difference in soundstage and muddiness in the mid and low frequencies between the decks. The D40 sound was a bit muddy but the JE480 and E10 had good clarity of sound. The E10 had wider soundstage than the D40 but only slightly better than the JE480. In fact the E10 and JE480 sound very similiar and I guess I would expect as much since their DAC's are both from the AK45XX family, baring any design goofs in PCB board layout, etc. So I would rank them at least according to sound quality (and my hearing) this way: best is E10 followed by JE480 and last is the D40. All in all I'm glad I have all three decks as they each have there own good features, for instance the D40 is best for copying CD's. Anyway, I wish I had gotten an E10 sooner.

I didn't initially think it all the way through, I can use the tape inputs for one deck and the aux inputs for the other deck and switch from the front panel. Guess I'll have to make two MD's with the same tracks and play them simultaneously while switching between the two decks. That should do it.

Oops! Spoke to soon, I forgot Onyko makes a couple of HiMD decks but also crazy expensive.

Well, I won my bid on a MDS-E10 yesterday, so it will be nice to see how it stacks up against my other 2 decks. I decided to go for the E10 instead of the E12 because the E10 has type-R DSP also has optical I/O which is better for me than any of the I/O on the E12. Since the E10 uses the CXD2662R DSP chip and the AK4524 codec chip it certainly has the capability to be a good sounding device, depending on the implementation of course, but I'll assume that Sony did a good job laying out there PCB board, etc, to produce a good design. This is probably the best I could do with SP (I don't use LP2 for anything so I don't really need Type-S) and I can only use ATRAC3plus on my portable MD's. I don't think there are any HiMD decks. First I think I'll hook the E10's analog outputs to my NAD 7250PE receiver, driving some KEF C95 speakers and play some MD's I recorded in real time on the D40. I know this is older hardware but it still sounds good to me. I wonder if I'll really hear a marked difference between the E10 and the other two decks; I guess I should. One of the big problems with comparisons is not being able to switch back and forth between two hardware configurations in a short time. But I'll do the best I can.

Well, I got ahold of an E10 service manual and it shows it uses a CXD2662R DSP chip, so its Type-R after all.

I just checked E10/E12's on ebay and the tag on the backs of some of the units show the manufacturing date. All the E12's were in 2002 and the E10 was in 2000. Shouldn't it be the E11 was made first followed by the E10 then the E12? I've not seen anything that connected the E12 with type-s DSP.

Yes, I would connect it to an analog amp for a try, as well as comparing headphone out. Not sure what you mean punkrockaddict by "other" one? If I got an E12 or 930, I could only compare it to either the D40 or JE480, or are you referring to a situation were I obtained both an E12 and a 930 and comparing those two decks? Why does Sony have so contradictory information on some of their products? I notice that one place says that the E10 and E12 both have type-R DSP but then other information says the E10 only has ATRAC 4.5, not type-R. The only thing consistent is that the E12 has type-R. http://oyvind.servehttp.com/minidisc.htm

Thanks for all the info, guess I'll keep an eye out for a 930 but may get an E12 (type-R) anyway. I'm curious about how good the professional decks sound. Right now I have a MXD-D40 (hybrid pulse dac) which I use to make SP recordings from CD and an MDS-JE480 modified with an optical output which I've connected to a Benchmark DAC1 HDR (for a test) and it sounds great from the headphone output. The D40 is good for recording from CD but only sounds ok from analog out to amp and speakers and the analog out of the JE480 is about the same to my ears. So I'll probably try an E12 and 930 too if one comes up on ebay for the right price. There seem to be a lot of 920/940's but few 930/980's.

Thanks for looking. I was looking for a deck with a current pulse dac and almost bought an MDS-JB940 before I saw all the info about it having a hybrid pulse dac instead of current plulse. Then I thought that the professional decks should have the best of everything but apparently Sony doesn't want anyone to know what's in them. Maybe I should just wait for an MDS-JB930 to show up on ebay since later ES decks are crazy expensive.

I can't seem to find any information about what DAC is used in the E10/12 professional decks. Does anyone know what type of DAC is used in these professional type decks? Is it current pulse, Hybrid pulse or other?

I use a Lowepro Santiago 30 case to carry/store an MZ- EH70 and RM-MC40ELK remote, plus a couple of minidiscs. Works pretty good.

I saw the optical output mod for the JE480 deck and just finished the transmitter installation and it works great. Anybody else do this? I noticed the directions for this mod were from back in 2005 but I didn't find anyone had tried it or made any comments.

I too am an RH1 owner. Bought it last year, never having previously had an MD player/recorder. I now have several recorders/players, both Sony and Sharp. They are great little gadgets.