Richard

Hey everybody! Nice to see you all again, and hope you had a good Xmas. Thanks to @BearBoyfor the letting me know about the site being back up, I had no idea..

Thanks! Yes, they were both Japan only players, I picked both of these up on Yahoo auctions in Japan. Have a couple more on the way - the XM-C31 and the XM-S51 and then that's probably enough Victor's for a while!

Victor MD | Victor XM-C17P-S (Silver) This is the silver version of the Victor XM-C17

Yes, they feature Saehan's classic design as featured on other discs with the semi frosted front, but in neon yellow and dark blue, with matching translucent cases (photo courtesy of Jay Tilston).

Victor MD | Victor XM-C17-R (Red) Presenting the Victor XM-C17 in Red. I love the deep red colour of this one (compared to the slightly more garish red of the C11).

Benetton MD | MD74 I'm not too sure of the year on these ones, but they were made by Saehan of Korea for Benetton, sold in Japan. Two colours - Blue and Yellow.

I've not heard of that before - interesting!

Nice!

If you need some discs I can send you some - not MDW80Ts but can no doubt find something to suit!

Me too! That is true for quite a lot of blanks! 😅

The discs themselves are indeed relatively plain. Black rear shell.

Scouter MD | Scouter 80 Minute series The Scouter brand was produced by the Komodakamikogoyo corporation, a company mainly concerned with producing paper and other raw materials for stationary. It was the only series of discs ever released by them and came in 3 colours - Black, Blue, and Red. Manufactured in Korea by Saehan.

I'm not sure he is even into collecting MD blanks is he? I don't know, I haven't seen too many of his video, the ones I have seen were mostly hardware related

Daiso MD | Cutipop Series (2022 Revisited) This series from Daiso was released originally in 2005, although only the black and white discs. The grey appeared much later in 2007 and is believed to be a limited edition. It is one of the hardest (if not the hardest) of all Daiso MD's to find (and indeed of any brand). The grey was only available in the "no case" variant, but the white and black came in "with case" and "without case" variants.

Daiso MD | Window Series (2022 Revisted) Daiso's Window Series is available in seven color schemes: Silver, Black, White, Blue, Red, Yellow and Green. This series was released in 2004. Made by Saehan of Korea. Only available in 74 min variants. * Individual disc photos to follow White Disc - Detailed Overview

The 520 looks to be in good shape - nice! ☺️ I never use VPT either, I think it's a fairly useless feature - a bit of novelty, but generally makes everything sound worse in my experience.

Thanks! It's one of my favourite players ever.

Sony Hi-MD Walkman| MZ-EH1 (Black) I actually posted a pictorial of this exact machine many years ago, all the way back in 2006 (see here). 16 years later, I thought it was time to revist this beautiful unit. Enjoy ☺️

@Rick Tusgafson, @sfbp Just wondering - by any chance were we ever able to obtain a copy of this software?

Yes, there is a lot of dev going on the Minidisc Wiki Discord server. Reverse engineering remote protocols, developing WebMD pro version, dumping firmware etc.. I guess for "old school" gapless SP indeed real-time is the way to go (that's what I do if I want SP, for Atrac 3+ I use Sony Software (X-App)).

Sonic Stage has always done gapless. I believe WebMD doesn't do it becuase it is built around open source NetMD libraries which had never implemented it (as opposed to the Sony code). Downside of course is that Sonic Stage doesn't do true old school SP.

@comspec Welcome back! Fellow NH900 owner here. I need to give mine a bit of a disassemble / clean at some point as it's suffering from the flakey behaviour on the front panel buttons..

🤣 - Yeah you're right about that That last piece is indeed done on the computer - usually in X-App or SonicStage (I mean I could record direct in Atrac on the deck, but 352k is only available on the PC, and I keep a backup of the PCM files in any case) Just analogue / optical inputs You can of course use any blank, not just the 1GB ones. Of course if you are doing a recording in PCM of a concert or something it's handy to do it on a 1GB disc first and then after I have converted it to 352k I'll just put it on 80 minute discs

My setup is as follows - a bit of a mix 'n' match, but mostly Onkyo. Onkyo CR-N765 networked bookshelf system - used for CD's, streaming Hi-Res FLAC files from the NAS drive upstairs, internet radio, amp Onkyo C-705FX2 CD Player Onkyo MD-105FX Hi-MD mini deck Sony BDP-S5100 Blu-Ray player The Onkyo C-705FX2 is connected to the MD-105FX for synchro recording via optical from CD to MD. It is also connected to the CR-N765 via another optical for CD playback only. The Onkyo components are all connected via the control cables as well, so if you power off the amp it powers off everything else and if you switch on the C-705FX2 it powers on the CR-N765. The CR-N765 is connected to the MD-105FX via analogue for recording from the radio to MD. The MD-105FX is connected to the CR-N765 via analogue for MD playback The Sony Blu-Ray player is connected via coaxial to the CR-N765 for BD playback or if I want to record from a Blu-Ray I connect it via my SCMS stripper and a coax to toslink converter to the MD-105FX and I can record in PCM (which I usually then convert down to Atrac3+ 352k).

* Pictorial updated (added 2nd variation of Music Jack gift box)