BearBoy

This week I’ve mostly been pottering about on the beach as I’m on holiday 😀 Prior to that, in this site’s absence, I’d picked up a bunch of blanks and a couple of new portables. I’ve still not got around to trying to fix one of my MDS-JB980s, which is struggling to read discs (I’ve swapped it out of my office set up for my MDS-JB940 for the time being). I’ve also been doing some recording and using up some of my blanks.

It’s surprising, to me at least, how error strewn Sony’s MiniDisc Service Manuals appear to be. Must have made being a repairer in the late nineties trickier than it needed have been…

In his YouTube videos, Techmoan uses Brasso to remove scratches from plastic screens etc on MiniDisc players/remotes etc. I’m not sure how widely available it is internationally. Not tried it myself but I think @kgallen has used it successfully.

Just to update from the parallel conversation elsewhere, an owner of an MDS-JA20ES has posted a photograph of the inside of theirs over on Tapeheads showing that it does have the Type-R CXD2656 chip.

🤣 Well, I’m glad you did find the time. I’m certain it’ll be a really useful resource and with all the knowledge on here I’m sure we’ll be able to expand it and clarify any potential anomalies.

Nice work Kevin. I started doing something similar a while back but gave up when I encountered discrepancies that I couldn’t easily check. I’m not at home at the moment but seem to recall the Service Manual for the MDS-JB940 listed two different CXD ATRAC decoders? Although it that case it was fairly obvious the Type-R one was correct. Similar to the MDS-JA20ES Service Manual we’ve been discussing recently… Speaking of which, someone over on the Tapeheads thread has posted a photo of the inside of their MDS-JA20ES confirming it has the Type-R chip.

Nice. I’ve got the MZ-E630 on my watchlist too and, like you say, they’re often a bit “scarred”. Looking forward to the pictorial.

That’s my next (and probably last) intended portable purchase. I’ve only been able to find pretty expensive ones from Japanese sellers so far (so have to factor in the additional costs of importing). Will stay patient and keep them peeled though. I got lucky with my MZ-N920, another Japan only model (I think), and found one from a UK seller at a reasonable price eventually.

Haha 🤣

That’s great. Thanks for taking the time to upload. Just a shame I don’t understand any of the Japanese ☺️

It’s an MZ-N920. A blue one. I think it was one of (if not the?) last non HiMD machines Sony made.

Great work restoring another (lovely looking) machine, Kevin. It’s also clearly trying to tell us something 😀

Did you used to live in Japan or somehow import them? I’d definitely be interested if you can find the time to upload them. I recently bought something that was, I think, released in 2004. It’s not mentioned in any of the pages you’ve posted so far but I’d be interested to see if it’s in the catalogue somewhere.

Are these yours Richard? Interesting how, at that point in time, Sony were making MiniDisc, CD, Cassette and HDD Walkmans.

Glad to hear you've got it working @AltEvolutions. Thought it worth mentioning as I encountered a similar problem when I first got mine and convinced myself it was faulty🙂 Not sure why yours was going in to NetMD mode though 🤔

Welcome to the forum! Not sure if this helps at all but when I connect my MZ-N910 to the power adaptor, it doesn't start charging until I press the STOP button on the player. Mine doesn't go into NetMD mode though so not sure it's the same issue. Maybe worth a try though?

I think it might well have been Japan only as there seems to be very little information around in English. Looks like Bluecrab has (had?) one so maybe he might know?

The MDS-JA22ES might be different to the MDS-JA20ES. There's an article on MiniDisc.org that is a translation of a Japanese Sony brochure, which says: MiniDisc.org Link

Prompted by a question over on Tapeheads, I have been trying to confirm whether the MDS-JA20ES is ATRAC 4.5 or Type-R. According to MiniDisc.org, it I checked the Service Manual for the MDS-JA20ES and that also states that it uses the CXD2654R ATRAC encoder/decoder. It looks like the CXD2654R was also used in the MDS-J..20 decks (MDS-JE520, MDS-JB920), which are ATRAC 4.5 rather than Type-R. I've not been able to find a Service Manual for the MDS-JA22ES so cannot verify which chip that machine has. Anyone able to confirm?

It did go AWOL for a couple of months until Christopher got everything back up and running just over a week ago. Nice cat! I assume the receiver is a nice warm place to sit?

Great to see you've found your way back, Bluecrab 🙂

I've used my Marantz SA8005 as an external DAC for an MDS-JB980 and it sounded really good. I didn't do any real comparisons with the onboard DAC though (it's one of the things on my "to-do" list) and the sound would have been a combination of the DAC/Amp/speakers in my living room compared to my office set up, so not really comparing apples to apples. I keep meaning to get one of my decks permanently plumbed into my living room set up so once I've done that I'll do some tests.

At least with remotes they're basically all compatible, in my experience at least, with only minor changes to add stuff like the Group function on the final couple of series of decks.

Yeah, I've seen those and thought the exact same thing.

Haha. No pressure, Kevin 🤣