BearBoy

I had considered that but, as you say, it wouldn't really help with my overall aim of a simple/neat cabling set up. The switches also require power (they seem to be USB powered) so I think I'd end with a right mess of cables

I think you might be significantly over estimating my electronics skills

Thanks for the replies and the link. Unfortunately the switch in that link, like many of the others ones I've found, doesn't have a coaxial digital output, just optical and analogue. I've found this one on eBay that looks perfect but is significantly more expensive (it costs more than I've spent on most of my MD kit): http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TOSLink-Coaxial-Digital-Auto-Switcher-Switch-SPDIF-Audio-Authority-1177A-1-GSP-/361415723423?hash=item54260e499f:g:8V0AAOSwAYtWK6w6 I've also found this one, which would probably suffice but only has two inputs (and I would ideally like three): http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Coaxial-Coax-SPDIF-Bi-Directional-Switch-Box-Converter-Selector-2-to-1-or-1-to-2-/371627677571?hash=item5686bc5783:g:cWMAAOSwdV1XN3Gj

Trying to solve something of a cabling conundrum and wondered if anyone here might be able to offer any advice. Is there any reason a switch like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/HQ-3-Way-Stereo-Input-Control/dp/B000I8OOS8/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1476379763&sr=1-1&keywords=rca+switch+box couldn't be used with coaxial digital cables? i.e. I would like to connect multiple sources to a single coaxial digital input on a MiniDisc deck and switch between them. Obviously this switch is stereo but if I just used the red connections would it be likely to work? I have seen plenty of optical switches but cannot find anything for coaxial.

I picked up an MDS-JB940 for £70 the other day, which is a lot less than I paid for my MDS-JB980 a year or so back. The 980s do tend to be priced higher than the other QS decks, presumably as they are the only QS/ES decks with NetMD functionality.

Congratulations on the acquisition NGY. Looks lovely and a great price too.

I've seen JB980s regularly sell for over £200 on eBay. Was hoping to pick up a second one (or a JB940) as a spare but didn't really want to spend that much

Afraid I cannot offer you any technical advice Bluecrab but would like to wish you good luck with getting it fixed. It would be a shame if such a nice player had spun it's last MiniDisc.

Sony still make them. Take a look here: I bought some from the eBay link Jimma provided but they are now available via online shops over here (UK) too - albeit at a higher price.

Would $2 for a sealed blank (the 80 minute Sony ones) be reasonable if I paid postage?

I might be interested in some of the sealed blanks. Would probably depend on postage costs to the UK though. What blanks do you have?

There was some discussion about this last year, although no real firm conclusion:

Yeah they're definitely not the cheapest place. It's considerably cheaper to buy those discs Jimma posted from Japan via eBay than it is to buy them here in the UK. It was more the news about availability and the relocation of production I thought people might be interested in.

Looks like they have updated their website with the new discs now.

So I got an e-mail a day or two ago from a company in the UK who sell blank media, including MiniDiscs: "We are being told that Sony has moved it's MiniDisc manufacturing from Japan to China. As such they will be producing less discs in the future. So for the short term there may be some supply issues. Therefore if you need some MiniDiscs, i would recommend that you get these now whilst we still have stock available. We don't have the Neige MD's in stock, but we do have Sony MDW80T, which are exactly the same Sony branded discs made to the same quality. We think that moving forward, Sony will just make these discs and all other sub brands such as Neige, Basic, Premium etc will no longer exist." They're still showing the Neige MiniDiscs on their website (www.tapecity.co.uk) at the moment but it looks like they've actually got the discs Jimma posted instead.

Just had a packet of 10 of these arrive from Japan. Thanks for the heads up Jimma!

Thanks for posting these. I might pick some up.

I've got an MDS-JE500, which afaik was produced between your two machines, and have never had any issues with 80 minute discs. From what I remember, only 60 or 74 minute discs were available when I bought the machine and 80 minute discs came later.

Thanks for all of the suggestions and advice. I moved all of the units (RDR-HXD860 / BDP-S580 / MDS-JB980) down to my living room last night and connected the DVD and Blu-ray players to a TV so I could access their settings. The issue with the RDR-HXD860 was simple enough to resolve. The coaxial digital output had been disabled for some reason (not sure if this was its default setting or whether I did it at some point in the distant past). As soon as I did this, the C71 error message disappeared and I was able to start copying a CD. The track divide points copied across from the CD correctly as well. So I tried switching between the 96/24 and 48/16 settings on the RDR-HXD860 and this appeared to make no difference to the MiniDisc deck. The manual isn't 100% clear but I think this setting may only apply to outputting audio from DVDs and not CDs. When I checked what sample rate the MiniDisc deck thought it was receiving it displayed 44.1 Either way, I left it set to 48/16 in case I ever wanted to try to copy the audio from a DVD (although not sure if this is actually possible). I did not have as much luck with the BDP-S580 unfortunately. I played around with the audio settings but nothing seemed to address the track divide marker issue. The manual for the MDS-JB980 says that this does not work with some CD players so I guess there is just a compatibility issue here. I did, however, manage to resolve the C41 error issue with SACDs by setting it to play the CD layer by default. So it looks like I will be able to use the DVD recorder as my "CD player" in my office. It's not 100% ideal as I don't think there is any way of programming what tracks you want it to play back, at least not without being connected to a TV, but I can live with that and it saves having to hunt down a new CD player. Thanks again for the suggestions and hopefully this information might be of some use to others in the future.

Thanks for the reply Bluecrab. I think you're probably right re the digital output on the RDR-HXD860. I need to shift everything down to a room with a TV so I can run through the settings and see if it can be changed to a sample rate the MDS-JB980 can handle. Or it may have been set up to output Dolby Digital or DTS or something for DVD soundtracks. Even if I can alter that, however, I am not convinced it will pass the track divide information across as the Blu-ray player doesn't seem able to do this, although maybe I should be a bit more optimistic as the DVP-S725D seems to handle that okay. If I do need to pick up a dedicated CD player, would I be correct in thinking that, within reason, the quality of the player would not matter too much as I am just using it as a digital transport and wouldn't be using its DACs or anything?

Having a few issues and wondered if anyone could offer any advice. My main hi-fi system is in my living room but my MiniDisc deck (Sony MDS-JB980) is in my office. I do not have a dedicated CD player in my office but I do have a number of old DVD/Blu-ray players that have ended up there and I am trying, with mixed results, to use these as a source for recording CDs to MiniDiscs. Sony DVP-S725D – this is my original DVD player. It’s a nice sturdy “QS” model so matches the MDS-JB980 aesthetically, which is nice. It does, however, have two problems with acting as a CD source: 1) It has a tendency to skip every now and again. Nothing major but enough to be a pain when recording MDs. 2) It will not play CD-Rs. Sony RDR-HXD860 – this is my old DVD recorder. I am having no joy with this one at the moment and just get a C71 Din Unlock error message on the MDS-JB980. The device does play CDs (and CD-Rs) fine and the analogue outputs are okay. I am going to connect it up to a TV and check the audio settings in case the digital output is disabled or set to output Dolby Digital or DTS or something. Sony BDP-S580 – this is my old Blu-ray player and also has a couple of issues: 1) When I try to record from a CD the Blu-ray player does not appear to pass track divider information. i.e. if I record a 45 minute CD album I get one 45 minute track on the MiniDisc and not the individual tracks. 2) It plays CDs and CD-Rs okay but I get a C41 error on the MiniDisc deck with SACDs. I think I might just need to change a setting so that it plays the CD layer of SACDs by default but will need to connect it up to a TV to do this. I know in an ideal world I would be using a dedicated CD player as a source but I don’t really want to purchase another machine when I have the DVD/Blu-ray players gathering dust. Has anyone had any joy getting these machines, or anything similar, to work correctly as a CD source for recording on to MiniDiscs? I need to shift them to another room to connect a TV to check their settings so any suggestions anyone has as to what to try would be very welcome.

Thanks for that Jimma. Will have a play about with it later

Not sure if you have found a suitable keyboard yet but when I picked up an MDS-JB980 a few months back I bought one of THESE from Amazon.co.uk for £6.99 Probably not the best keyboard money can buy but perfectly satisfactory for titling MDs.

Are you talking only about MDLP compatible models here sfbp? The other JBs (except for the JB980) and the ES decks have this don't they? Although they are SP only.

Good point. All of the units I bought, bar one, came with blanks too. Many of which were still sealed.