DAXMD

Well, the Magentic Head itself is "floating" above the disc, but there is physical contact between a nylon or plastic tab of the Magnetic head assembly and the top of the disc surface. This contact keeps the Floating Magnetic Head at the correct distance from the disc surface even if the disc happens to wobble a little bit when spinning. http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/odfaq.htm#odmdrwp http://www.minidisc.org/disk_technology.html#partC

All you people having problems with your portables not recording... might have a problem with your recorders' "over-write" electro-magnetic head losing contact with the top of the disc when recording. The over-write head must contact the top of the disc while a laser gun heats the disc's recording layer from below. I had a similar problem with my home deck, Sony MDS-JE320 and it was caused by the problem I described above. I fixed it by making an adjustment to the over-write head assembly. Your recorders are portables so I'm not sure that the same thing would apply, but it's just a suggestion that you might want to look into.

Anybody who can tie their shoe laces can use an MD deck or portable. Those that think MD recorders are complicated to use by an average person, here are some helpful tips/instructions on how to use them. 1. Load an MD disc into the recorder. 2. Press RECORD and PLAY buttons together to start recording. 3. Press the STOP button to stop the recording. 4. Press PLAY button to play your recording (you don't even have to REWIND!!!) 5. Press the STOP button to stop playback. 6 Press EJECT button to eject the disc from the unit. WARNING: The above instructions might be a little too complicated ...for those who don't know how to tie their shoe laces.

Well, If sound quality matters to you then MD would be better compared to MP3. MD's record at 5 times compression while MP3 system records at 12 times compression. The less the compression ratio, the better for sound quality. MD also uses ATRAC compression scheme that is better at recreating the parts of the sound that is thrown away during compression recording (according to ATRAC specs). Also MD deck has unlimited capacity in that you just keep using new discs when one is full. But with MP3 when you run out of recording space...what can you do? Need to offload what you have in the MP3 unit and delete to recover some usable space.

Ok, Thanks Devilbunny, Your info and link about adding digital out to my MD deck is very helpful. I'll try the suggestions on the article. My MD deck has been out of commision for a while. I've just finished fixing the deck (MDS-JE320) of it's problem of disc getting stuck and chattering noise of the loading mechanism and also the problem of the deck not recording on the disc due to the over-write head not contacting the disc. So now I can get back to the original issue of trying to add a digital output to the deck.

I have a Kenwood KMD-42 receiver/MD player in my car. It was relatively cheap and simple unit. I've had it for a couple of years now...been happy with it. Has good sound quality for both the radio and MD.

Well, mdurois, the previous two people's reply to you question is correct. I think you were asking about making digital copy of your MD recordings to your computer. Well the NetMD units only allow USB transfers from the computer to the MD recorder, but it can't go the other way (i.e. MD recorder to PC via USB). If you made the original recording of your concert through the digital input of your Sony MX-N707 (if it has a digital input) then you cannot make another digital transfer because SCMS will block it. But take heart mdurois, you can make analog copy of your MD recordings to your PC and then burn CD's with it.

Ok, Thanks norrad.... I understand that now...after your explanation and after looking at the SCMS signal flow chart in my 320 manual. But this really sucks. What if I want to make digital recordings back and forth of my own productions? Recording SCMS flag just because the input is digital is not fair. I can understand if the digital input signal contains SCMS flag, like from a store bought (copy righted) music CD, but arbitrarily putting SCMS on any digital input is not right.

Sorry about that Guest, no hard feelings. Well as for my issue....I recorded music from my computer from the net in real time on my 320 through it's optical digital input. So there wouldn't be any SCMS on the digital audio coming from the computer. But if I record from minidisc back to my computer through optical digital connection (from an MD deck that has digital output) and then record back to another minidisc through an optical digital connection from the computer, would this work? It may be confusing what I'm asking but basically I want to digitally record back and forth to an MD deck with an audio that originally never had SCMS.

I KNOW...MAYBE YOU SHOULD PUT YOUR GLASSES ON WHEN YOU READ STUFF ON THIS BB. YOU DIDN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT I ASKED..READ IT AGAIN !!!! Does anybody else have an answer for my question..please ?

Hello all, I'm wondering if SCMS would prevent me from digitally copying some of my MD discs to my computer hard drive. I originally copied these music tracks from my computer to my MD recorder (Sony MDS-JE320) using the deck's digital optical input; (my computer has a sound card with optical digital output). The reason I have to do this is that my computer's hard drive crashed and I've lost everything on it. The only thing I have now are the copies I made on to my MD discs. So I want to copy my music tracks back on to the new hard drive in my computer. I haven't found this out myself because my MD deck, Sony MDS-JE320 doesn't have digital output, so I was thinking about buying a deck that has a digital output to make the copies that I mentioned above. If SCMS would prevent this type of copying, then there's no point in me buying a new deck with digital outputs. I hope someone can answer this question. Thanks