BearBoy

I had a similarly good experience with Gerry. Very responsive and quick to dispatch. Let us know how you get on with your order @jmsla Looks like the range of items available on the site has increased since I last looked too.

Have you got any way of testing the laser aside from using a disc @sfbp? e.g. some sort of laser power meter? Just grasping at straws though tbh. Hopefully one of the more technically savvy members will be along with something more useful. As a somewhat irrelevant aside, the MZ-EH930 looks really similar to the MZ-E630. Looks metal though, as opposed to the plastic case on the MZ-E630?

Yeah, completely agree. Discs are available elsewhere with a greater selection at lower prices but some of the accessories could be of interest to people.

Saw this new MiniDisc related site on the r/minidisc Reddit earlier: https://mdgadgetry.com/ Not sure if any of you have ever bought anything from a guy called gerry88inHongKong before but he's now set up a website, rather than just selling via Reddit/Facebook etc. I've got no affiliation to this whatsoever (only that I did buy a Sony PC-MP1S from Gerry via Reddit about 3 years ago and had no issues) but thought it might be of interest.

Was about to ask whether it was an MZ-E909 or MZ-R909 but just noticed you said "recorder" and @Richard has changed the title to reflect that it's an R909? Are you using an AA battery in the external battery case or a gumstick battery in the unit itself. If the latter, have you tried the former (or vice versa)? Are you connecting the DC PSU directly to the unit itself or via a charging cradle? If it is an E909, do you know if the charging cradle is functional as you can't connect a DC PSU directly to the unit?

Continued with my not very scientific testing this morning. Just tried a 14 track playlist and it got as far as track six before the titles started getting out of order.

Oh, that's a bit disappointing that you're having issues with Nero too. I can sort of understand that Apple might see the CD burning functionality in iTunes as an increasingly redundant feature, and therefore it wouldn't be much of a priority to fix, but you'd have hoped that Nero would ensure it worked given that it is the primary purpose of their software. Hope you manage to work out what's going wrong. Any chance you could use something like Web MiniDisc Pro and bypass the need for a CD-R in the first place? Can't remember if you were just using the CD as a method to get the sound effects onto a MiniDisc or whether you used it at the shows as a back up or something.

Fast forward a couple of years... I burned a CD-RW from iTunes earlier and all the track titles came across correctly. It was only a six track CD so I tried again with an 11 track one and, again, all CD Text titles present and correct. I then pushed my luck with a 20 track playlist and it all went wonky again. So they've clearly not completely fixed the issue but it does seem to be better than when I burned a load of test discs a few years back. Might not be much help to you though @kgallen as I think your issue was with sound effect discs with high numbers of tracks?

I received a similar, albeit slightly smaller, mix of boxed and unboxed discs today too 🙂

Shame we didn't get them in the UK.

The tinted case looks really nice. I don't think I've got any discs with (coloured, rather than just grey) tinted cases. Seems like such an obvious thing to do with all the coloured discs that were released though. Are coloured cases like that fairly common on Japanese releases @Richard?

I guess they became “collectable” as interest in the format increased. Not sure how rare they are, I don’t remember any of my MiniDisc using friends back in the 90s owning any so maybe not too many got produced (in the UK, at least; Japan could well be a very different story)? Either way, I’m not prepared to pay £75 plus to get an inferior sounding copy of an album I’ve already got on CD for the novelty value.

I completely missed the boat with buying any pre-recorded MDs. I didn't really see the point of them back in the 90s as it was generally cheaper to buy the CD and a blank but I do wish I'd picked a couple up before the prices went completely nuts. I do have a cleaning disc which is pressed that I can use for "diagnostics" but it would be nice to have a proper album or two. Unfortunately any of the ones I was vaguely interested seem to be silly money.

Are these recent releases that bands have been putting out on normal blank MDs?

Yeah, it does seem excessive 🤔 I've probably used 100 or so of those since then. There was a time I'd get a whole bunch of sealed blanks every time I bought a deck or a portable. That was before the prices starting heading upwards and people realised they could make more money selling things separately rather than just offloading everything they had in one go. At least I can rest easy knowing my stockpile is only a tiny fraction of what @Richard must have 😉

Ooof. You have been stockpiling! I think I had just shy of 500 sealed blanks at one point but lost track of how many I'd opened and used so it will be a fair bit down from that now. I certainly don't have any immediate need for any new blanks but just like to keep an eye on the supply in case it starts to dry up and the prices on the secondary market go nuts (like the prices for decent sealed cassette tapes did).

I've been keeping half an eye on Amazon.co.jp over the past few months and, although there are still lots of MDW80Ts available, none of them seem to ever be available for deilvery to the UK. Not sure if it's the same for other non-Japanese addresses. It's encouraging that supply doesn't seem to be drying up but a bit frustrating that I can't actually order them any more without paying the inflated eBay UK prices.

Welcome to the forum @sirbu 🙂 I've never used SonicStage myself but thanks for posting your fix. I'm sure other people will find it useful.

Well, there's one for DCC... DCC Museum

The disc itself is maybe a little dull (reminds me of some old floppy discs I used to have 🙂) but I really like the packaging. Similar to the current day MDW80Ts but it looks smarter, to me, with the dark grey/black. Also, that disc is over 30 years old 😯

🤣Took me a few minutes to work out what you were talking about. I think "Proficient" is already pushing it a bit as far as I am concerned 😂

Doh. Ignore my last question!

^^ They're the ones I've got. Always thought they were nice discs. Do the Flower Mix ones only come in Green and Orange, @Richard?

I've got some very similar to those in your last post, @Richard. Except they're 80 minute ones and have a different shutter logo (no "HO" branding). When I first saw your pictures of the Flower Mix ones I initially thought they were the same but in different packaging. The colour patterns on the discs are quite distinct though. Nice score!

Hey, we're back 😄