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kgallen

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Everything posted by kgallen

  1. Yep. Beautifully captured in this ongoing thread here:
  2. Yes I've always wondered that. You're out there somewhere Mat aren't you! Probably find he's a regular contributor on one of our recent threads!
  3. I'm sure you're right. It's done a lot of work recently - and the past week I've not found this happening. It's not an MDM7, it's a Tascam drive, but based on the Sony chipset. It might be in need of a very tiny amount of lubrication (Molykote EM-30L) as you say.
  4. I'm working from home with the current situation and in the background dubbing a lot of CDs to MD for when we return to the office (I have my MZ-R700 there). I'm having similar issues occasionally happen with my Tascam MD-CD1. Some discs are dropping out at least once per track, some not at all. If I re-record I can get the drop-outs but at a different position. I've tried brand new discs (old stock) discs from Sony, TDK, Maxell etc plus erased/previously recorded of same. The skip position moves. (The CD I'm dubbing from is not scratched/skipping at that point). I've yet to track this down to a definitive reason. I've been using SP and LP2 and SP is the most common but it does happen on occasion on LP2. I thought at one point the Type-R encoder might have a fault - I don't believe LP2 is Type-R - although this might only be with 2x/4x dub? Also I have it with both real-time dub and high speed (2x, 4x dub) - again at one point I thought it was a high speed dub issue. Anyway, all to say, I think I have a similar issue on a totally unrelated machine (although the MD-CD1 is based on the Sony CXD2662 chipset). Interestingly, MZ-R700 I think is of a similar generation (MDLP but not Type-S) - not the "fullsize" CXD2662 but the walkman version thereof... Kevin
  5. Please try a different disc first and a new one if you have one. Also confirm you’re using a new battery or it’s powered from the mains with a wall-wart. If you have a disc already recorded on another machine, confirm that plays back across the whole disc ok. Another idea if this machine has been idle for a long time, is to step backwards and forwards through a full disc to ensure the laser sled can move across the whole disc smoothly and is not sticking. Kevin
  6. kgallen

    Sony MDS-JB980

    530 still sweet as a nut! :-D (was using it yesterday so I’m not making it up!) MD kit still seems, in the main, to be fetching decent prices. Some prices are of course ridiculous, but if you bide your time and pick your machines carefully as you say above, you can get some decent kit for reasonable money.
  7. kgallen

    Sony MDS-JB980

    It is, but it's also rewarding isn't it. Look at the traffic on this site from the past couple of months. On the software side, there have been some exciting new projects and others have their SS installs working. On the hardware side, we've got a bunch of machines working (usually for nothing but a bit of time) and many of us have learned a lot about our machines and others along the way. We've still got some machines "in progress" but I predict we'll get there in the end, even if if means we have to source some replacement parts. The contributions from around the globe have been fantastic - well informed, knowledgeable and exceptionally well presented. And, if I might say, I've not seen any of the bitchiness and one-upmanship that I see on other semi-professional forums. Give yourselves all a big pat on the back. Keep it up people and keep sharing your experience and knowledge! Kevin
  8. Sorry I’m not helping you guys much but this thread is fantastic. Loving the diagrams and annotations being presented. I confess, I’m playing Lego with my 8 year old which is something I do far too infrequently...
  9. You're right (again!). I thought it was slow to start too, but you've clocked that one too and have identified the cause!
  10. Yea, I think we first saw the 980 on the recent titling video. We're also due that video on the dubbing deck he got from Japan (that triggered his "Importing from Japan" video). Was it an MXD-D40 or similar?
  11. Doh! (Blush emoji!). I'll get my coat...
  12. Welcome! I don't see NW-S603 listed on minidisc.org. Can you elaborate on make/style? Comments I just made in this thread might help you get SonicStage up and running on your PC:
  13. Stephen will say the same in a moment, but many users seem to have success with SonicStage on Win10. There are instructions and popular downloads on this site to help with that including SonicStage and drivers that work on Win10. Also several recent topics have covered this. Also take a look at the hit Web Application thread that's currently running. Sorry, I have next to no knowledge on SS/NetMD, but before Stephen comes along and points you in the right direction, it's worth having a read of some of the information referenced above/below. Web Application thread Downloads (drivers etc)
  14. Can you elaborate more on why it doesn't/might not open? i.e. the catch not operating, the door jammed, the case twisted, the door only opening partially etc
  15. I've been watching this thread but so far haven't really had any meaningful contribution to make. Apologies I should have commented at least for the "moral support" to a fellow user. I've watched the video and agree with @jonathanpotato: the OWH and the laser sled are linked and are not returning to the parked position to the left (disc centre) prior to the eject mechanism running; you can see in the video it jam up against the plastic tab on the OWH. Fortunately the Sony engineers set the threshold for the disc insert/eject detection such that the eject doesn't continue forcing past the "jam" point on the sled which could have lead to irrepairable damage. Also well spotted that the OWH is not properly fitted into the carrier frame - I thought it looked a little weird the way it was hanging down but could not see the detail. At this point I can't help more as I don't know why the sled does not return to the parked (disc centre) position prior to eject. However Jonathan seems to be well on the case. I'll keep watching this thread but it seems you are already in good hands! Jonathan is advising temporary removal of that plate which looks like it will allow eject to operate without hitting the OWH/sled assembly. I'm interested in the outcome of this. However given that I understand this machine has worked, something is amiss with the mechanical assembly that is causing this issue. Stephen has probably already suggested looking for broken teeth on the gears and racks. I would add belatedly just to check if the mechanism looks "together" correctly - that sliders etc seem to be located in their correct locations/tracks. That one on the top that Jonathan also refers to looks interesting... Also if you can go into Service Mode I believe the IN/MID/OUT Cont.Play setting should allow you to move the sled manually using the front-panel controls (this is certainly the case for JE520 and above, so I'm making the assumption that the 510 has something similar). Kevin
  16. Other than threshold crossing detection to insert track breaks when doing recording from analogue, I've no idea how track marking works. I assumed over SPDIF there would be information in the frame that provided either some kind of sequence number (change in sequence number = new track) or an explicit track marker packet. Looks like I need to do some material research and reading up! Yes, Stephen, I do see you replying at what must be unearthly hours in your neck of the woods, I hope you are looking after yourself!
  17. I'm a little lost - are we talking here about external kit (like Behringer SRC2496) preserving track marks, or about killing the SCMS bit? Thanks!
  18. Super! All's well that ends well! Simple explanations are the best. Particularly on fairly costly and treasured pieces of equipment! We'll add 'hair' to the list... Well after we get though this Covid thing, a trip to the barbers will be pretty high on the list! Hopefully we learned a few things on the way too. I'm still reading that MD technical document in between family and "proper" work! Wikipedia searches tonight have included Wollaston Prism and Canada Balsam :-D Stephen - can this get any sort of "Solved" badge?
  19. In Service Mode, it doesn't try to read the disc in the normal way (you can do naughty things in Service Mode) so C13 wouldn't be an issue :-)
  20. I don't recall anything but I wonder if in service mode there is anything that tells you what type of disc it thinks is in there. I wonder if any of the service items change based on CD vs MO inserted disc. Do you have any other CD discs you could try? (With my own escapades I managed to get a copy - at sensible price - of Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds 2MD as a "collectable" and as CD-type discs for test purposes. They are my only MD-CDs...)
  21. Not sure if your machine is one of the fancy tray-loading ones. In my machines, the disc goes in horizontally then drops vertically down by 5mm or so to locate the spindle and to lower the holes onto the WP/REF switches. So looking in the slot from the front, the switches are to the left at the front of the machine, but they are lower down than the slot. Easily seen with the drive in your hand, but probably still not easy to see from above with the lid off your machine. You're looking for a white and a blue pin, about 1mm diameter and 2-3mm high. On the first frame of the YouTube video on this link, you can see the two pins to the left corner, left of his finger. So blue is WP and white is REFLECT.
  22. It's the hole or otherwise next to the hole that has the write protect tab. The machine can get the CD/MO information from the disc itself, but it's possible this case coding might help it read the premastered section. I'm still looking in the Primer document for this info, but I think we've covered this before in one of my posts. Stephen and I had a long conversation on this after he pointed me at this doc and I was having a read and learning lots about the technology. Possibly in my MDS-JE530 thread (we went off on one for quite a few posts on our journey of discovery). Anyway there are two tiny pin switches - one white and one blue - just to the inside of the drive where the WP and "REFRECT" (sic) (=REFLECT) holes end up when the disc is mounted. Possible the REFLECT pin got broken? However the MO discs have the hole and on the CDs the hole is blocked. So in MO discs the pin switch would be "unpressed" as it goes into the hole. If the actuator on the REFLECT switch was broken it would thus read as MO, so I'd expect the deck to read MO disc ok and CD discs possibly not. Primer Fig 2 (p2) and Figure 14 (p12).
  23. I blame this forum for many of mine! :-D Oh and buying machines for parts and then finding they just need a little fix to make them fully working, rather than breaking for parts. Then seeing a nice one on eBay and not being able to resist it getting past. I often wonder, if the MDS-JE530 I bought a couple of years back (at the start of my MD resurgence) had worked out of the box (ultimately the ribbon cable joke!), would I have started buying my Tascam machines that lead onto the Sony MDS-E12 that lead on to a duff E10 and trying to fix that, that lead onto... :-D Maybe I've had a series of MD epochs... the early years (1998-2000, [JE520/R700]), the resurgence (2018), broken down into the "belt" period, the "IIC Stop" period (still ongoing), the "ribbon" period, the "MDM7" period, the "SIF" period (still ongoing and growing) and currently the "LP2" period! For completeness I'm afraid I've never had a HiMD epoch or a NetMD epoch! Anyway, enough of this! Back to the problem...! (I just counted, it's 15 machines: 3 portables, 1 system, 11 decks... ooops.)
  24. I know we haven't solved your issue but I'm kinda relieved it hasn't fixed it! I've never known "switch it off and on again" be a solution on any of my decent equipment. More a "solution" for "lesser designs" and anything computer related.
  25. Sorry it is just "blather". Thinking out loud really and sharing the thoughts. All the better if it's "educational" or useful! The Sony decks pretty much display the disc name/track name from the moment you turn them on if they already have the disc inside, they know if it's been ejected (TOC cloning aside) so don't bother spinning up the disc to get information they already have. It means playback can start much quicker as they already have the TOC/linked lists in memory so know where to put the laser to get at any requested track. Smart people did this stuff and with the demise of such equipment I fear the world is losing some of the skills of smart product design... In practical terms probably not, but like any component there is manufacturing variability and they can fail. Although I've bought "spares" (my MDS-E10 saga is well documented!) I've not needed to replace it in any of my ummm 12-13 decks, including my MDS-JE520 I've had from new (1998, maybe 1999) even though that machine did spend some years in the loft (unfavourable temperature swings for any equipment!). As you'd expect from Sony, it's a top quality Panasonic cell. A failed cell would probably exhibit as not retaining any machine settings or the data we discuss above. The machine is likely to operate normally when it's powered on (unless the battery failed with a low impedance short, but I don't know whether that is a viable failure mode for such things, probably not. For now, my assumptions are that the lens is clean (enough), the laser and detector block are fine, the spindle motor runs and the servo can track, so we hopefully don't have a major problem. One easy test for now would be the "unplug it for a few minutes" test. I'm not overly familiar with your machine but I suspect it's like my MDS-JE machines in that the on/off power button is "soft" in that it is handled by the machine's microprocessor rather than being a traditional clunky power switch that breaks the mains supply. This means that when plugged in, the machine has some "always on" circuity and is "woken up" by pressing the "power" button. It will be a "soft" button if you can have a disc in the machine with a dirty TOC, and pressing the power button will cause the TOC to be written before the machine "goes to sleep". Similarly on my MDS-JE machines, I can press the Eject button and the machine will eject the disc without "powering on" the machine first (and those smart engineers even put the machine back to sleep once the disc has been ejected).
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