SileEeles

Recieved the unit today, havn't had much time with it as been out with the girlfriend enjoying the sunshine. *shakes fist* damn you, life! (i joke) So far it seems pretty cool though. i have no Hi-MD discs to test, and I may or may not get any, dont know yet. Are they worth it? Tested it as a data drive and transfered a few things, and that went fine, so i will test some music at some point.

the black liner is nothing at all as far as I know, its just a visual part of the plastic casing. I could be wrong however. Most other discs dont have this, though, but do say Shock Absorbing Mechanism on, so one would assume it is something else. The main theorys I have heard is the coating on the disc, which has been mentioned, or the discs being slightly thicker in some brands.

Is the main audio fine? For instance the music?

This has be floating around my mind for a few days now, and ive looked at all the discs I own (around 80-ish) and I cannot figure out what the difference is between shock absorbing mechanism discs, and ones that aren't. They look identical to me, bar obvious differences such as colour, brand, etc. What I mean is the plastic housing itself. What makes the shock absorbing ones different? Or is it some strange marketing thing?

Sorry for late reply, been away. Thanks guys, looking good then, we shall see when the unit comes. Stayed away from hi-md units mostly, since regular minidisc was all I needed, but the price on this was like "meh why not" Will keep you up to date

Older units, and particularly decks also allow net md erasure. I know my Mds-je440 allows it, I think because (and please correct if wrong) it is from before net md was a think, so it has no idea what the security is, and ignores it.

My mds-je440 supports mdlp

Hi guys. Just bought this off of eBay. Can anyone give me any more info other than what minidisc.org has, or is that pretty much the whole unit? It says it has hi-md, is it any good, just basic, personal experiences? Thanks

Strangley enough, look what turned up at work today: It is a mini cassette recorder. It differs from the microcassette I believe in that it has no capstan and pinch roller etc. It is just moved passed the heads by the reels. It does not record however. At least the built in microphone doesn't. Could be the batteries (duracell from 2001, they were in the unit when I found it) or it could be something else.

Pretty much the same as everyone else. They are cool, but ultimately fairly redundant, since most people will use their headphones of choice, nobody needs a cable that long, as Ral-Clan said. I find the buttons on the unit itself work well enough. I'm not really using Minidisc much at the minute, mostly because at work I just leave my phone on Shuffle which has a 32GB sd card in it. Much as I love the player I use, Power Amp, I wish Android would build in the volume rocker to change track feature, rather than just being a cyangen mod feature.

eBay is pretty much the only place I've ever bought or been able to buy minidisc stuff. Except of course for a unit I bought from a member here, Jim.

I suppose, it just seems like something that I thought I would see a little more often. It is not just schools and businesses, but people will drop stuff off, or we collect from them, which is possible where it came from. We get a fair amount of tape decks in, from schools especially albeit with no tapes. I have yet to come across the micro-cassette dictation machines, but we have plenty of answer-machines that used the same tapes, again with no tape. We have a redundant supply of DAT Tape though. We get ALOT of computers and server machines that used it as their backup system.

I feel like I should have come across Minidiscs at work before now, but strangely, this is the first. I work in a PC refurbishment place, but we collect crap from schools and businesses who are getting rid of theirs, and recycle it (we resell it, or it gets shipped in a container to pakistan for some reason). Much of the stuff that comes from these places isnt just computers. You are likely to get boxes full of old mobile phones, ethernet cables, projectors (which just get chucked, so I aquired one for myself without thinking that I couldnt really use it ), keyboards, mice, TV's, speakers, whiteboards, and so on. Generally the stuff that gets chucked you can have if you want, since we have a warehouse full already. The only thing we can't really have are hard drives, since these NEED to get wiped and/or crushed by law. I would have expected to come across Minidiscs sooner, but today is the first that I've seen any. Alas, there was no player, but some cables and a Sony battery pack thing (the grey boxes that take 2AA batteries, it often screws to the player/recorder so as to extend battery life etc). I am always looking out for them, and for anything MD Data related since we get alot of old white/beige computers in from Windows 95/98 days.

I wouldnt say I have an addiction per sé, certainly not compared to many of the people here, I just like the idea of the format more than anything, and feel like it was such a waste. I only have two units now ( technically three since I have two Sharp MD-MT80's and a Sony MZ-N710) plus my deck (MDS-JE440). I have plenty of discs full of music, and I loved doing it, but I'd love to explore more of the data side of the format. I know Hi-MD allows data storage but is prohibitivley expensive, and I'd love to see MD-DATA, which seems to have all but dissapeared (apart from the discs, which are fairly common on eBay). I'm keeping my eyes out at work, since we recieve older systems from schools and stuff wishing to get recycle or get rid of thier old equipment, but the oldest we get really is DAT back up drives and tapes. Although we did get a still working (with working RiscOS and everything) Acorn A5000

Hi guys. I'm wondering about what the cheapest Hi-MD player/recorder would be? Just a little curious about it really, I feel like I've explored regular MD's to death. I'd love to get my hands on an MD Data drive, I love computers and still think alot of retro technology is cool, and minidisc -> computers seems like such a missed opportunity. But as far as I understand, data is still possible with Hi-MD units. Any info would be of help, thanks

Windows 8 (or 8.1) isn't as bad as people make out I think. It's definitley different, but Microsoft are rectifying the more "touch" and "tablet" aspects of it for desktop users, even in the newest update, 8.1 Update 1. They will also be bringing the start menu back in a later update, although you can do this already with a tool called Classic Shell, which I recommend, its incredibly configurable and customizable (there are others, but none match the scope of this one IMO). For me, 8.1 works essentially like Windows 7, and the Tiles and apps are like extra features, some of which are awesome. As for this problem, I also had it, which was resolved by the same method (disabling the os requirment for signed drivers, which I've left it disabled).

For me, when I WAS on Win7, it was running perfectly. Currently using 8.1 Pro and getting the driver to install on that was .. well ... "pain" is an understatement. However, never had an issue under Win7 64-bit. I don't recall using any compatibility settings, just the software and drivers from this forum. Beyond typical (often unhelpful) troubleshooting steps, such as re-installing the program, I don't know what to suggest. Are the OS and drivers of your system up to date?

I have in the past dual-booted Linux, but I've only ever had problems getting everything to work properly. That, and I play a lot of games on PC and they just simply aren't available to Linux. I mean they might run via WINE but I haven't ever had the patience to be dealing with that. It just works in Windows, so I stick with it. This is my system: http://sileeeles.tumblr.com/mypc

AMD FX4100 - Quad Core (although there is some debate about that). Has a default clock speed of 3.6Ghz but since I have an aftermarket cooler, I can manage 4.2Ghz without a problem and stay between 30 and 35 degrees C at minimal use - pushes about 50 degrees at the highest for certain games. That is paired up with a (somewhat dated some would say) HD5750 graphics card, which still manages to play many of the latest games at very decent settings, I feel no need to upgrade it yet. And indeed. I remember being back on a laptop from such a time, which only had a single core Intel M celeron or something similar, at 1.8Ghz? When I was using Reason (Not a DAW as such ... more MIDI based), it would constantly tell me that I don't have enough CPU power, and even on a Pentium 4 machine at 2.8Ghz, when I pushed that it would give the same warning. Never had it once since moving to multiple cores.

Seems (after looking) that it is capable of 192Khz. I have a fairly mid-range system (I built it myself), but I've yet to see it struggle with anything. Games, audio, HD footage, you name it ... So many people bash the CPU I have and yet it is so capable its ridiculous.

It's quite alright, mad people are the best Thank you for your very informative replies, it certainly clears up much of what was on my mind, and what I was thinking in the first place ... It's nothing overly brilliant. For me, I have no idea why I stick to 48Khz. Or why I don't go higher when I can. Ultimatley the difference between them isn't noticable to me, and 96Khz wasnt compatible with Minidisc, so I ignored it from then on really.

The only thing I could probably make you aware of is that optical removes any kind of electrical hum that you might get going from one device to anther and if I'm not mistaken, coaxial does not escape this.

I use a DAW during my daily-ish routine because I record alot of my own music. I'm not concered overly with the result that ends up on a Minidisc, usually what my computer optica out gives off is decent to me. I just wonder what the point 192Khz at the moment, if it makes a significant improvement over what we already have, or if its just one of those things to suck people in when they buy stuff.

Something came up the other day that has been bugging me ever since. Doesn't refer to Minidiscs as such, more to audio hardware in general, but I figure you people are a knowledgeable bunch, you'll fill me in. I was always under the impression that 96Khz is the is the highest that most audio hardware is capable of. Personally, I have never used it whatsoever, even for my own audio recordings. The default for me has always been 48Khz, no idea why, just has. If what I've read is correct, humans can only hear as high as 20Khz (Obviously this varies between people and as you age this apparently decreases). 44.1/24 is what Minidiscs support, CD's are 44.1/16 if I'm not mistaken. I couldn't say what it is for Vinyl, I don't know, only that having more audio on one side of the record decreases the dynamic range that is possible. I found out that 192Khz is now possible on some audio hardware. My friends motherboard supports it, advertising itself as "Absolute Pitch 192kHz/ 24-bit True BD Lossless Sound". If BD is blu-ray, am I not correct in my assumption that blu-ray uses 48Khz for the most part? Even if it can go higher, 192Khz must take up quite alot of space for not alot of noticable improvment over what already exists, certainly at least that we can hear, audibly? I gather at this point it's a thing to draw people in, so they'll buy it and "believe" that there's a difference when there isn't, but I'm stumped as to why it exists. Theres only so much our ears can pick out.

That being the case then, I don't think you will have any issues going from optical to optical.