syn010110

Nevermind. The thing just died anyway. Won't play, motor doesn't spin up, just beeps at me...

So the battery door on my DR80 is missing a chunk out of it. Unfortunately the chunk it seems to be missing is the part that locks the door closed. Right now I can't put gumstick batteries inside without the springiness just pushing the door open or the battery falling out. Here's a picture of the broken bit:

I'm also wondering where to get decent quality gumsticks. I see loads of the Vapex ones on eBay and they certainly look far more "legit" than the HQRP ones on Amazon (though I used some blue offbrand ones that looked very much like the HQRP ones back in the early 2000s, and they worked fine), but they're all shipping from the UK so that's annoying.

I haven't tried any old remotes with it. I'm actually a bit concerned about buying anything for it. The unit's working fine... I'm listening to it right now and marveling at how much its sound quality blows away anything else in my house, my other MD recorder (Sony N505) and my Nexus 4 included... but it wasn't working a few nights ago. I'd put a disc in and it'd just beep at me when I pressed buttons. I tapped it against my palm thinking maybe it got jostled around in post to see if it'd dislodge anything that might be stuck and sure enough, it did. Now it's working, not stopping no matter if I turn it different directions or shake it violently. Maybe the laser assembly got stuck from years of disuse, I know the guy I bought it from said it was collecting dust in a drawer for years. Still concerns me though. Finding another Sharp Auvi unit isn't super easy, those folks who have them tend to hang onto them. >_>; It's kind of ridiculous, though. My Nexus 4 sounds pretty damn good (certainly beats low-end MP3 players and the other MD unit I have), but the Sharp is just so much clearer, more defined and more energetic-sounding... and it's playing an LP2 encode (converted from FLAC) from SonicStage. The same album I have on my phone is in 320kbps MP3, converted from the same FLAC source. I can't wait to find my optical cable or buy a new one so I can get some real SP discs recorded.

MT15/16/20 looks nice. Battery life isn't that spectacular but I have zillions of AA NiMH batteries due to wireless mice/keyboards/remotes/etc. Has a nice big display and all the controls are on the unit. I'm pretty annoyed that the player-only models, which seem to have the best battery life when playing discs (likely due to the lower mass of the laser read mechanism), almost universally seem to have no on-unit display and only very basic controls on the unit, pretty much forcing you to use a remote. I like the option to use a remote (so I can pause/play without having to take my device out of my purse or pocket) but I don't really like being forced to use them. Because of that my DR80 is stuck with bass-boost on maximum and doesn't reliably start playing because some settings are all fouled up, and I don't have its remote so I can't fix it. >_>;

The thing about the AA battery caddy is it feels really delicate, like it would be easy to knock it loose and strip out the single screw that attaches it. I was referring to those that take AA batteries natively, rather than gumstick or proprietary Li-Ion.

Pretty self-explanatory actually. I'm trying to find out which MD portable sounds the best and runs off a standard AA/LR6 size battery. I know plenty of gumstick battery players and recorders that sound fantastic, but not sure about the AA ones. The reason I ask this is gumstick batteries are getting harder to find; I can really only find two brands reliably, Vapex and HQRP, and the HQRP ones look kinda... shady. AA batteries probably won't ever go anywhere, though. Just in the interests of future-proofing myself, so to speak, I'd like something that sounds great as a player and can use standard batteries without the delicate and cumbersome attachment. Would prefer it has MDLP capability but doesn't need NetMD, or even the ability to record at all. Prefer not Hi-MD since those command a significant price premium and I am not all that wealthy.

No worries! Send me a PM when you get everything located. I've spent some time trying to find remotes online, but mostly I just find Sony remotes (and likely because they were also used for PCDPs as well as MD units). I did manage to get some recordings so I could give the DR80 a good test--it works very well, but it sounds like the previous owner had put bass-boost to full! (Really wish I would have found a DR77 instead of a DR80, heh).

I sent him a PM, but we never got anything arranged. Maybe because of the holidays?

Still looking for a dock and remote, or barring that simply a remote. I can't disable bass boost without it! D:

Got something off ebay cheap. Mods can delete this thread.

Bump. Anyone else might have these things? Or at least another recorder that I can possibly buy and use until I can get ahold of the other parts? Preferably something with NetMD as well as recording via optical.

I am interested. Back when MD was still a thing and I was pretty involved in it, I always wanted a DR80 but never could afford to have one imported (I had a secondhand DS8, though, and loved it), so it was kind of a super nostalgia thing when I caught this one on eBay. If you could take a few photos (color isn't important to me, but my DR80 is silver) so I can have a look...

So I have obtained one of these Sharp MD recorders but unfortunately the seller claimed the accessories were included and they were not. Without the dock I can't do much of anything with this (no optical in, no line in, no NetMD transfers) except live record via mic and listen to already recorded discs. Without the remote I can't do anything at all except play discs. Anyone have any ideas where I could find these things? Long shot, I know.