BearBoy

I opened it up and took a photo for you. As far as I can see there are no electrical components on the underside of the circuit board so I'm guessing that it is nothing more than a mechanical switch with LEDs to indicate which path is selected.

Yes, I've got an old Sony VHS VCR with just such a switch on the remote control. I wondered if the MiniDisc decks were a bit cleverer and had some setting in a menu somewhere that would allow you to differentiate between different machines. Many thanks for the confirmation NGY.

So after receiving my new digital coax switch (http://forums.sonyinsider.com/topic/29423-switch-for-coaxial-digital-cables/), I spent some time this afternoon tidying up my office MiniDisc set up and getting everything connected. At the heart of this is a pair of Sony QS decks: an MDS-JB940 and an MDS-JB980. Both have their original remote controls, an RM-D49M and an RMD10E respectively. Unfortunately both remote controls seem to control both decks (i.e. if I turn on the MDS-JB980 using its remote, the MDS-JB940 turns on as well. If I press play on the MDS-JB940's remote, both decks start playing). Is there anything I can do about this so each remote will only control the appropriate machine? I have checked the manuals for both decks but cannot find any instructions on what to do if you have more than one MiniDisc deck in a set up (which surely cannot have been that uncommon back in the format's heyday). As a last resort I could obviously use some sort of physical obstruction in front of the remote sensor of the machine I didn't want to respond but I was hoping there might be a slightly more high tech solution.

Well, I ordered the two input switcher I linked to above (but from Amazon rather than eBay) and it arrived today. Seems to work fine so far. Also, in case anyone was interested, it works without the power connected, although the input select light doesn't work. Should cut down on the wires...

Interesting, thanks sfbp. Looks like I would be better off with using a switch designed for this purpose rather than a general RCA switcher.

Absolutely no need to apologise. I am endlessly impressed with the technical skills of some of the people on here. Thank you for your very kind offer. I have been having another think about how all my various devices can be connected and I think I can get away with a 2 way switch for now (as long as I don't buy any more decks.....) If that changes though I would certainly be interested in a switch with more inputs/outputs so might get back to you on that. Thanks again.

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.