Trumie35

I have that exact USB to Toslink/Coaxial converter. It works great as a transport from my computer to hifi stack.

No worries, that is a really sweet setup

Now I'm curious lol

Great, will do later this week. So far I've listened to these MD's - Blur: Best Of (prerecorded), Daft Punk: Alive (recorded on Type-R Walkman via WebMD FLAC 16-bit 44.1khz), and Eric Clapton: Unplugged (prerecorded). These are three really well produced albums in my opinion and all sound good on MD. I listened to those three MDs earlier this week on the Sony MDS-JE510 so it's just an unscientific ears-only comparison, but I enjoyed the sound of the Kenwood more. With regard to recording, I'm only able to record analog right now due to some technical difficulties on the digital side. I'll try an analog recording later this week and hopefully get my digital side worked out. I'll snap a few more photos as well.

Wow! Incredible. They've really opened my eyes on the importance of good speakers.

RDM-2. I found them on Craigslist a few years ago and really love these things... https://us.kef.com/pub/media/pdf/Monitor_Series_RDM1_RDM2.pdf

Thanks! I think the MD slot looks a little better in the middle and the Sony is a little more intuitive but this seems a pretty solid, well-built machine. I had seen a couple of negative reviews on the Kenwoods' sound but I would say for a mid-tier deck the sound quality is excellent. I'll post once more once I get a chance to record a MD or two.

UPDATE (if anyone cares): I received the Kenwood DM-5090 a little while ago and it's in pristine condition and works great. It's hard to know how much of a refurbishment has been done because the guy put a seal over one of the screws with a note that breaking this seal voids the one-year warranty on his workmanship. So, I guess I'll wait a year to open it? haha - Until then hopefully it will suit my needs better than the Sony MDS-JE510 which is beginning to malfunction. I am listening to Blur: Best Of pre-recorded MD and it sounds lovely over a Marantz 2216 connected to vintage KEF bookshelf speakers and a Cambridge Audio Minx 201 sub in the home office. I have not recorded anything yet to test the audio quality on recordings. Also, kinda funny the guy included a minidisc head & lens cleaner at no charge!

Interesting, I Interesting, I may have to peek into the unit when I get it

Thanks bluecrab, good to know. The nice thing about the Kenwoods is that they have both optical and coaxial inputs/outputs and my JE510 doesn't. One source in my stack I would like to do some recordings from only has a coaxial output so I thought the Kenwood might be a nice option to open up more opportunities for digital recordings. I recently grabbed a Sony Walkman Type-R NetMD recorder to record FLAC files from my home server and I have been very impressed with the sound quality. RE: the Kenwood ATRAC versions, if you Google the service manuals for the 2070, 3020, 5090, 9090, etc. they all list CXD2652AR as the ATRAC chip, which is only ATRAC 4. I have been unable to figure out if Kenwood just flat out lied about its ATRAC version in marketing materials, or if there is another explanation?

Thanks, I'll update this thread as soon as it's received. The seller has a good track record on vintage hifi but it's definitely a bit of a gamble.

My Sony MDS-JE510 is starting to show some signs that is in need of repair regarding its loading/unloading mechanism. I plan on maybe trying to do some repairs, but I also purchased a supposedly refurbished Kenwood DM-5090 on ebay. It supposedly has new laser, belt and caps. I have not received it yet but really curious to see how it performs. One selling point is that it is equipped with ATRAC 4.5, while my Sony is ATRAC 4 (although I have no complaints about the Sony's sound quality). In doing some research, I've discovered that the Kenwood DM-5090 is actually equipped with a CXD2652AR (ATRAC 4) chip by looking at its service manual. I found a couple of old blog posts stating that for whatever reason, Kenwood lied about the ATRAC version in its marketing materials. I'm not too worried about that as this is just a hobby for me and obviously better lossless quality is easy to find these days but just curious if anyone has dealt with old Kenwood MD decks? If the deck I ordered is a solid ATRAC 4 performer and truly refurbished, I'm hoping it can be a light workhorse for me for years to come and I can tinker with my Sony at some point (maybe during the next pandemic). If anyone has any Kenwood experience or thoughts, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!