kgallen

Picture attempt… didn’t work, same issue as reported by @BearBoy

MZ-R909 seems have charged the new gumstick battery just fine and works with it! Charging the second battery I bought in it now. As @BearBoy says it’s always a worry when you spend out on a machine! So far this week it looks 2-for-2 🙂

Well the MXD-D4 CD section reads CD-R which is great. As I trial I've just dubbed a CD-R of show music to MD at x4 rate. Seemed to work perfectly (just listening through now). Track titles are also copied. Up to now, I've been using my Tascam MD-CD1 to dub CD-R masters of show music/sound effects to MD (which are used live in the shows) but the MD-CD1 machine do have some issues with titles (in addition to adding gaps between tracks). So I'm hoping this MXD-D4 can take over those dubbing duties, which in theory means I can also create a backup MD more easily. With the MD-CD1 I would often need to go in with a PS/2 keyboard to fix titles (these are key since the titles hold the cue number) so making a second copy was always a pain... 👍

This week I've also mostly been buying an MXD-D4. 😄 Arrived today. Gave it a service, seems to work ok. More later... The MZ-R909 also arrived just as I was finishing up with the D4. Seems to work ok with AA cell (in sidecar). Gumstick contacts a bit green. Given them a clean and it's now charging on in the unit. Also more later...

That's a good point - I should buy an external charger as I won't get the cradle. Suggestions?

Silver. Hoping it lives up to it's description. Due Friday... I also ordered a couple of those gumstick batteries - until now I've stuck with machines that use AA. The MZ-R909 looks to be one of the last before NetMD and Type S. It's Type R MDLP. If my other portables are anything to go by, this 909 looks close to the pinacle for construction. The MZ-NF610 I'm borrowing from my son for example is quite a plastic affair, even compared to my MZ-R700. I have high hopes and hoping those hopes aren't dashed by a machine that doesn't live up to it's listing! 🤞

Today I've mostly been... happy! One of my colleagues from my new team came up to me today and said "I see you've got a minidisc player.... I've got one too!"... and proceeded to show me his gorgeous MZ-R909. A sleek all-metal player/recorder that has a large 3-line display. He also has minidiscs on his desk, in a box. I tried his machine with my power supply and it fired up straight away. He dug out the charging cradle and the gumstick battery, put it together and it started to charge fine. Hopefully tomorrow he'll give some of his discs a whirl. Oh did I say... I found what looked like a nice MZ-R909 on "the bay" at a sensible price. Might be heading my way... ooops.

😁😁😁👍

I’m an hour in. I know he said he spent 500 quid on 100 but he’s got some fair resale value there. Such a massive variety in design (well except the Panasonic’s which are consistently boring).

I’m like 1:46 into the video and I’m ‘WTF???’!!! We’ve got nothin’ on this guy!

Weird! I think you need to elaborate a little more @slugbahr!

We wanna see 🙂 On a similar note, I "stole" my son's MZ-NF610 to use at work. I'm currently working split between two teams so have acquired two desks. MZ-R700 upstairs, MZ-NF610 downstairs. Interesting that the NF610 is the newer model, but compared to the R700, it does seem very slow to startup the disc and the case does seem somewhat more "plasticky". Anyway they are both a source of some amusement in the office with my "legacy media collection". A member of my "new" team said "What's that? It's huge!". Really? An NF610 is 3 inches square and about 3/4" thick! Also with us often lamenting the huge variety of designs of both machines and discs, it was interesting to hear some chatter in the office about how the new iPhone 13 looks just like the last one...

It's oh so quiet... (Rich's Disc Pictorials don't make no sound!). I have a niggle that I need to look into a little more. Sharing it for chatter. Let's talk SP (various ATRAC1 versions) vs LP2 and maybe even Type-S: The only MD-CD I have is Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. But you know that. Depending on which date in the booklet is relevant it's either 1995 or 1998 so could be ATRAC1 v3 or ATRAC1 v4 maybe, but not later. Probably not relevant. It's two SP discs. The other week I did an MD-MD copy using my MDS-E10 into (one of) my MDS-E12 via coax digital so I could take a copy to work. I've been using LP2 a lot, so that's what I used to get 2xSP onto 1xLP2 disc. Listening back I wasn't happy. After Richard Burton's intro speech, we launch into the big orchestral[*] intro: "Duh, Duh, Derrrrrrr..." ([*] ok, I know it was probably synths.) Click. That's what I heard on the first "Duh". Click. The LP2 copy has a click right there on that orchestral strike. The LP2 encoder couldn't handle it??? Took another disc and recorded that part again in LP2. Click. Record that part in SP (will be Type R on the E12). Perfect. It's real - the LP2 encoder can't handle it! So am I imagining it? Any ideas? Is this a pure LP2 thing? Or is this an SP in ATRAC1 v3 (or v4) decoded and then re-encoded into LP2 artifact? Anyone had any similar experiences? Experiments to do: (1) Does using a Type-S decoder help here and avoid the click? (480 or B10 to try) (2) Do I have this album on CD (maybe?). If I repeat this recording do I get the same "click" in LP2? For now I'm sticking with two discs of SP Type-R. Also I bought TWOTW "New Generation". Nah, not up to the original in my view (although half of it seems to be the same instrumentation from the original version!). Discuss! Further, that "same" strike from TWOTW NG - from CD - doesn't cause LP2 any problems...

Old thread I realise, but as we're in those kind of days it's worth pointing out that before you start ripping your machines apart with some fanciful notion of replacing the part, it is worth just giving the control some gentle action back and forth a few times to move the wiper across the track and move any dirt or oxidation. This works for both AMS "digital" knobs and analogue controls like the headphone volume. Sometimes this is really your only option, since having been inside a few decks recently, the pots that Sony has chosen to use are often (better quality) fully enclosed types, so there tends not to be a way in for much dirt - or thus attempts to inject switch cleaner. In this equipment, Sony haven't used cheap open-construction pots that can fill with dust, even if there is the added "benefit" you could get some cleaner/lubricant in there. Better to not have the problem in the first place? So give 'em some action, especially if this is a machine that you've just picked up and has been sitting around for a decade or more. There may be a slight benefit to doing this with the machine on, as a small amount of electrical current flow can help the cleaning action of switches (although I suspect this is marginal given the low currents passing in such designs).

Great thanks. Feels a bit like a software issue rather than hardware though. I could well be wrong. Come back to us with any more info you learn and we’ll continue to brainstorm it with you.

That's computers for you. They drive you potty! Still things look like they are going in roughly the right direction. For inexplicable reasons of course!

Just to check: when the audio stops after 30 minutes is the unit still operational just without audio? 1) you can eject and insert discs and the NT1 will read and ‘play’ but there is no audio or 2) the unit powers and will take a disc but there are disc read errors or 3) the unit is unresponsive from front panel and/or PC or 4) something else

Ah your adapter is a SMPSU. Output should be notionally 9V for the input voltage range. Scratch that then!

Yes @sfbp is somewhat correct. There are a number of linear regulators in the power supply that will dissipate power proportional to the voltage drop across them ie input voltage minus output voltage. However from what I recall there was a switched mode regulator to 5V which would be more immune to a higher input voltage with respect to power dissipation. Upshot is I expect there will be slightly more heat dissipation as a result. However I wouldn’t expect this to cause an issue, unless the ambient temperature in your location is very high (say above 40degC, don’t know what that is in old money sorry!). But none-the-less the info on timescales is interesting…

Thanks Rich, I am comforted. They are pretty discs. Since mine are NOS they haven’t been abused, so I’ll look after them. 🙂

I think the signal path for both is the same - through the ADC, into the DSP, loop back out of the DSP, through the DAC. Delete ADC and/or DAC if using digital I/O. So this includes going through (at least part of) the DSP. Whether or not this includes the Copy Bit reassignment logic is the question. Results from your experiment suggest not. Service Manuals tend to not include a detailed block diagram of the DSP chip - which we must remember since CXD2654 (ATRAC 4.5) - includes pretty much all of the digital audio chain in one chip - sample rate converter, shock memory, ATRAC enc/dec, ACIRC error correction enc/dec, EFM enc/dec, plus servo control. These functions were largely in separate ICs if we go back to the first machines, even one chip per stereo channel in the case of ATRAC. Minidisc is not like a 3-head cassette deck. When recording, what you’re hearing/monitoring is not being read back from the disc. Indeed the disc writing will somewhat lag the real time audio due to the encode/decode process latency and the buffer/shock memory.

Just found this photo on my phone. Darn it, you’re right - plastic shutter! (No idea why this photo is rotated, it was the correct way up on my phone!). Wanders off to cry into his pillow...

Eeeek! I'm pretty sure my Maxell Color are metal shutters, but you have me worried now! My open/recorded ones are all at the office, so I'll have to check tomorrow.

Wot he sez ^^^^^^^^ Get's my vote over anything in the electronics.

One other check - the lithium battery, BT420, and that the link, CN420, is in place (and not dropped off). I can't find the battery listed on the parts list, but in the other decks it is a Panasonic ML2020. If this is dead then maybe the NT1 looses config information which means the USB driver doesn't detect it properly. Just guessin' (no 'g'...). Just saw the comment above about a "heater". Not sure what the heck this is. Not in this machine! (And I certainly wouldn't describe the laser in record mode as a "heater"!).