BearBoy

Phew. I can hold off setting up eBay notifications 😂 Shame actually, I really like the aesthetics of the grey Pro decks.

I've boxed myself into a bit of a corner as far as decks go by making frequent use of the Group function on my MDs. Although there's a fairly large selection of the later portables with this functionality, the only full size Sony decks that have it are the MDS-JB980, MDS-JE780 and MDS-JE770. Every time I have seen a reasonably priced QS deck recently, I've ended up talking myself out of it. The 920 and 930 because they lack MDLP and the 940 because it doesn't have Group. The 940 I do have gets some use if I'm recording from a CD with CD Text (via the Control A1 cable connected to a CDP-XB740) but otherwise I use a 980 most of the time. Unfortunately they tend to command the higher prices, presumably because of the NetMD functionality (for which I use portables). I've stopped looking at any of the lovely ES decks for similar reasons. Only the MDS-JA333ES has MDLP but it lacks the Group function. Well, that and the fact they're in an entirely different ballpark price wise 😲 I probably don't want to know the answer to this but do any of your Pro decks have Group @kgallen? 🤣

Last time we brain sync'd on anything I ended up buying far too many MDW80Ts from Amazon Japan 😲 🤣

🤣 I believe you, @kgallen. Honestly... I've been making a conscious effort not to look at decks on eBay recently but the BIN prices do seem to be the wrong side of £200 these days (not that I'm sort of looking either 😉). Not sure what they're actually selling for, and eBay is a tad misleading in this regard as it seems to show the original advertised price against its sold listings, rather than any lower offer the seller may have accepted. Glad to hear you've rescued another defunct 940 @M1JWR 👍 I suppose one positive of the increase in value of these decks is that people are possibly more likely to try to sell non-functioning ones, rather than just take them to the tip.

🤯🤦‍♂️ Good to hear you're making progress and the drive etc are (now) sound.

Good luck with the repair @M1JWR! If you get a chance, take a few photos as you go. Might help others with similar issues in the future.

Supposedly NoS spares for Sony decks sometimes appear on Ali Express (I've seen laser assemblies, drive units etc). If you know the relevant part number it might be worth taking a look there? I think @kgallen has bought some bits from there in the past. Otherwise you'd probably have to cannibalise the part you need from a non-functioning MDS-JB980, although even the broken ones seem to cost a lot these days... I'm guessing you'd need one from an MDS-JB980 and it would differ from the ones in the 780 and 480 (i.e. not a direct swap like the MDM-7S1A drive units are)?

Hi @Mr. Milchgraf - welcome to the forum. I've got no direct experience of the MDS-JE510 (I do have the earlier MDS-JE500, which I think is very similar, but the eject mechanism has, so far, been fine). There are a couple of older threads here relating to eject issues with the 510. Not sure if any of them offer any possible things to try?

Is it worth reseating the ribbon cables, if you've not done so already? Doesn't sound like the usual symptoms for something amiss with the cables but probably worth a try.

I've been wondering where I knew that guy from as he looked familiar. Was even wondering if it was someone I actually knew before I finally twigged 🤦‍♂️ One of the little pleasures the format brings 😀

I made a template for the MDW80T slipcases. It fits well enough but the sort of frosted finish on the cases means that the inlay doesn't show through terribly well, at least not with the test one I made. Might need to experiment with different colours/fonts a bit and see if I can make it more legible.

I had a little play about in Microsoft Publisher and have managed to pull together a template for jewel case inlays using the measurements from https://www.bandcds.co.uk/minidisc/minidisc-duplication-and-production/ Might try to make an insert to go in the MDW80T slipcases next.

So a few years back I bought a load of the mini jewel cases and started to use a free template that was online (www.minidisccover.com). Unfortunately I'd only made a small number when they started charging a fee to access the template (I think it was something like £50 for 6 months) and I haven't really found a suitable alternative since. I'm not really up to speed with design applications etc so don't really know the best way of creating one of my own. Anyway, here's one I did whilst the site was still free:

Nice work! Although it reminds me I have a load of discs I need to sort out labels/inlays for 🙁

I've not yet tried it myself but it looks like gapless SP over NetMD is now possible using NetMD Wizard: The app can be downloaded here: https://github.com/Jo2003/cd2netmd_gui/releases Might be worth a try @Alfred Stuckmann?

So that's where all the MZ-RH1s went 🤣 How are the displays holding up on yours?

Hi @migeror, welcome to the forum! Lovely deck and you have the matching blanks 🙂

Is your PX7 displaying the same symptoms, @sfbp?

I was going to suggest it might be the belt when I saw your first post. Same thing happened to one of my Sony CD players. Glad you've got it sorted 👍

😄 I don't mind opening MDW80Ts as I have quite a few of them, they're still readily available new (as an aside, someone over on the MiniDisc Discord server e-mailed Sony and got confirmation that they are still actually manufacturing the MDW80T, not just clearing existing stock, which I thought was great 🙂) and they're individually wrapped. I get cold sweats just thinking about breaking open a block of Biancas or some of my older discs though 🤣 Bit daft when I think about it as they're not really in that short supply. I dread to think about @Richard and all his super rare discs though. I don't think I could bring myself to unwrap any of them...

Hello @Daniel Madrazo de Juan - welcome to the forum! Does your DHC-MD373 play discs recorded on the MZ-NH1 without using Web MiniDisc? e.g. recorded using the optical/line in? Do the Web MiniDisc recordings play back okay on the MZ-NH1?

@asivery has just posted a whole host of updates for Web MiniDisc Pro over on the r/minidisc Reddit, including Hi-MD support: Link:

Good to see you're keeping these old machines working and in circulation, @M1JWR. I've been using the MDS-JE500 this week and I think it's probably just a case of the older style mechanism not being quite so slick as my MDM7 decks, all of which have had belt replacements fairly recently. One pleasant consequence of using the JE500 is that I've had to dig out some of my older MDs to listen to as most of my more recent recordings have been done in LP2. It's been nice listening to a few things, especially old "mixtapes", that I hadn't heard in a while.

Thanks for the information @Michael Stieb. Do you know if that Gerri Li is the guy who's often on the r/minidisc Reddit as gerry88inHongKong? I bought something from him a while back and had a good experience.

I've not bought any more discs since our last little box of MDW80Ts from Amazon.jp back in February. Although I did notice they're back in stock for UK delivery again 😂 I did pick up another MZ-R909 a month or so back as the dodgy jog dial on my silver one was continuing to annoy me. So I now have three of those 🤦‍♂️ Oh, and I got an MZ-E720 back in April, which I posted a photo of somewhere. Been doing more recording/playing than eBay hunting, which is probably a good thing...