kgallen

First test would be to try with an external Sony power supply. Also try with a primary cell not a rechargeable.

Yea I’m only using CD-R as a means to get stuff off the PC and onto MD. Other than the pain points of titles (iTunes) and unintended track reordering (Nero) going via CD-R isn’t too much of a pain (*) as I can just chuck it into my MXD-D4 (or Tascam MD-CD1) and roll off primary and backup discs. (*) The other pain point (and I don’t know if this would be solved my WMDPro or similar) is where I have short tracks that I need to play quickly back to back in the show. CD has a minimum track length - Nero seems to enforce 4 seconds (iTunes was 6 seconds). So where I have say a doorbell sound effect (say 1 second long) quickly followed by another sound effect I need to manually trim the doorbell track once I’m in MD land. This is a pain if I need to change something and have to go around the loop again plus the manual edit(s).

Yes that’s right. I gave up with iTunes and paid money for Nero Burning ROM. However whilst titles are fine with that, I have a different bug with it, that when I add tracks beyond about 20, it sometimes swaps the position of one or more. I’ve raised this as a bug report but they claim they can’t repeat it - but it happens for me regularly (but not always in the same way). Obviously I’m just trouble… I’ve a show coming up in August so I’ll be revisiting this all again soon…

Oooops. @BearBoy and I have to break this habit. We can't dual-handedly keep the Sony MD disc factory open (although we seem to be trying)...

yea, sort of. Those are all TechMoan's fault, they're sets from that bloke he features (can't recall his name, sure it will come back the minute I post!). I must dig them out, but they are more a novelty than stuff I would actively listen to... I guess my "prize" pre-recorded are the twin-disc original War of the Worlds which I picked up before those prices went through the flippin' roof! (I'm sure I've spoken about these a few times - one time when I was finding stuff tripping up the LP2 codec).

OK, so I've been over-egging my pudding... and clearly I need to try harder in the face of my more committed co-conspirators. My disc count comes in at 547 plus 6 "pre-recorded" on MO plus 4 pressed "CD" discs plus two duff ones (both TDK; one MD-RXG 80, one MD 80).

Not blank ones, discs in total! At work and just had a count and I've got 223 here! 😀 So i'll have to count up at home later. Maybe 1000 was over stating it but I can see it easily being 700-750. But 500 SEALED BLANKs @BearBoy, clearly I'm an amateur at this!

Oh gawd, don't start me off again! I'm scared to count up how many discs I have, because it's probably scarily close to 1000 (if not over!) - that's recorded ones plus blanks "in stock" (as I like to justify them!). I've been being "good" and erasing and reusing some past eBay bulk buys of used discs, but I need to catch up on some more recording of radio programmes so I might break into a few more new-new ones!

Oh my gawd. @Richard you must have the ultimate minidisc museum!

I'm on to your game @BearBoy, you're just trying to get your post count up to get to 11/14 first 😄

This month we've... mostly been trying to resurrect the Forum from suspension! Well done to @sfbp, @Richard, @BearBoy for persevering with contacting the owner! We're good for now, let's hope we can secure a more stable future 🙂

Indeed! These are the type I have. Sorry my photography skills are severely lacking!

Ah, I'm sure I have some discs similar to the green one at least (I think the shutter is different). However since I don't have this limited edition set, mine must be inferior somehow! I will check...

Fantastic! I guess we’ll never see an actual disc!…

Hi Dim. (ETA I should have looked at your photo in detail first - I didn't!) You don't have to buy them, you can have them for free. I probably got 10 in the PCB order and I've built one as the prototype so the others are sitting around. You other question is related to a comment I've just made on the other thread. We need an SPDIF signal, not separate DAC/ADC clock and data, which is what I think we've got. The Sony decks I've looked at have the digital data in both formats on different pins of the DSP, so probably as the Onkyo uses a Sony DSP, the signal will be there, but I don't know if it's accessible. So in answer to this question: then no, my board can't work with the clock plus data serial interface seen on e.g. the AK4524 DAC/ADC, my board is just a buffer and electrical interface where the deck already has SPDIF available, which as above is quite usual with the Sony DSPs, but possibly not guaranteed. This Onkyo probably uses the CXD2687 which is what I believe is used in the MZ-NH1 portable. It includes the integrated ARM controller. Since it's a fully integrated IC for a portable unit, quite possibly they didn't put an SPDIF interface on it? I'm not familiar enough with the CXD2687 to know off the top of my head. There does seem to be a Service Manual for the MZ-NH1 with schematics so with some study maybe the above questions could be answered. I originally designed my board for an MXD-D4 CD/MD combo deck which uses SPDIF natively internally. The Philips DAC they use has an SPDIF interface which takes SPDIF from the CD and MD sections. This is generally different to the MD decks I've looked at which use e.g. the AK4524 DAC/ADC which has a clock plus data serial interface along the lines of the test points you've flagged on your photo. But then this decks almost always already have either TOSLINK or Coax SPDIF out, so piggy-backing on that to provide more outputs is easy. That wasn't necessary - the deck is already using SPDIF natively internally, so the signals are just grabbed from appropriate vias or component pads on the main PCB. So in summary, more study of the Onkyo design is required to know how easy it is to add TOSLINK/Coax SPDIF out to these machines. Gut feel is if the DSP provides the output it should be perfectly straightforward. If it doesn't then it's a bit of a non-starter as a serial-to-SPDIF format conversion would be required. Hope that helps... a little! Regards, Kevin