MiniDisc Addiction. Do you have one?

[tiesto2.0]

So here are my acquisitions in this last couple of months

Sony mz-n1 + Remote  rm-mc11el + battery sidecar.  Price USD $50

Sony mz-ne810 with all its accesories. Price USD $43

 

Sharp md-ds70s + remote + battery sidecar. Price  3400 Yens

49 used MD. Price USD $55

[kgallen]

Ooops, OK, so I lied. I somehow seem to have acquired a rather nice MZ-B10... :-D

[freddyjollo]

I used to be an addict. I have 3xJB940 and 1xJB980 and 3 sharp portables - MT88/99 ( 2 unused)  and 3 Sony NH600  ( 2 nice blue ones  unused bar testing) a Sony MZ-RH1  and 2xMZ-B10. I should  think about selling a few as I doubt I will ever use them all.  And boxes of discs full of BBC comedy show recordings and Radio 3 early music & about 15 HiMD discs, 10 unused & about 50 or so unused standard discs  bought when Sainsburys were flogging them off at £3 for 10 ( I think i was)  Good days. Good memories.

[freddyjollo]

I recorded a BBC 4 radio programme the other day on my Sony JB940 deck from DAB. I dont do this often these days as the BBC has so many of their information programmes on podcast so I download  them onto my windows  mobile. Any way had to do it this time as it seems The Archive Hour  is not one of them. So there it is.  How to play it back? Mobile make you lazy. I didnt want to sit in front of my hifi system. Lucky I have a couple of Sony MZ-B10s with DPC type-S,  the small device with built in speaker, the mini deck intended for dictophone use I suppose. I had forgotten  how  good the little speaker is for  voice. They cost me just £50  each from Ebay a few years ago. On a whim I looked there to see what chancers are trying to get now and I was shocked. £150-£200+ to you guv. Even the cheap non working ones were £50-£100. Gosh how things have changed.  I suspect these days they are the best portable to get as they take 2xAA and also have a built in mic and optical in.

http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-B10.html

 

[Perus]

I got addicted by MD quite recently and apart from using Hi-MD on a MZ-NH700 and NH900 I also have two Sony decks incoming, the JE470 and a JB980 - need more discs now

[BearBoy]

Welcome to the forum Perus!

I'm sure you'll like the MDS-JB980 - lovely deck (albeit both of mine need a bit of fixing atm)

[kgallen]

Ramblings of an Addict.

My wife is laughing at me.

At the weekend I recorded my first LP (MDLP) discs...

At work I can't get any indoor radio reception (even if I had a portable) and our IT department can't decide whether I can access online BBC radio or not (sometimes it works, mostly it doesn;'t). Basically this means I use my MZ-R700 a lot at work to listen to my largish stock of MDs (dubbed CDs, recorded radio documentaries and the like). I'm desk based, so having a stock of MDs in my desk pedestal drawer is not an issue.

At the weekend I was in our local town with the intention of getting my hair cut. There was a queue of gents waiting so I thought I'd have a wander around our (small) town a bit to while away a little time and I don't get there that much so it's good to have the odd wander. I ended up in one of the many second-hand shops (I think they use the word "antiques" quite a lot), having a rummage around in the back dusty quarters. When I'm about I like to have a little look in such shops in case any MDs (discs) turn up. Well you can never have enough can you. As ever, they didn't have any (although I mentioned such to the proprietor who at least commented that she'd heard of them). As it was I ended up looking at a few compact cassettes. I have no outward love for this format, but as it happened a couple of months ago I rescued a Tascam 112 cassette desk from the skip at our local hall where we do our theatre shows, and with a little love I've got it working nicely. Not that I have any specific use for a cassette deck, I just hate seeing good quality equipment go into landfill when all it needs it a little "fix" attention. Well I happened across a couple of audio books - voicings of two books behind a popular comedy series from back in the day here in the UK. Two books from Red Dwarf, one read by one of the main stars and the other by the author and TV director. Each comprised 4 cassette tapes in "as-new" condition. Said proprietor wondered where on earth I found these things in his shop, and being unable to raise change for my 10 pound note he proffered them free of charge. Well I like a bargain as much as the next man, but I'm strangely unhappy taking goods from a shop without any payment, so we agreed on the price of 2 of my finest British pounds which I would return with once I had broken my tenner.

Subsequently finding the barbers still busy I wandered again and having broken my note with a small purchase returned to the aforementioned shop to settle the agreed payment. At which point, the proprietor being busy with another customer surveying his vast selection of silverware, I retired to the rear of the shop to see what else I could find. This ended in the purchase of a set of CDs for a very small number of coins. Setup was my weekend to get these dubbed onto MD to replenish my catalogue for use at work.

The remains of the weekend was spent with the Tascam 112 and my newly rejuvenated MDS-E10 (see elsewhere in this forum!) to do the cassette-MD dubbing and my Tascam MD-CD1 for the CD to MD dubs.

The audio books. Well, how many discs was I going to need and was the split of cassette to MD going to work. Retrieve my stock of MD blanks and consider my collection of 74 and 80 minute options. Anal am I that I wanted each "book" across the same type/colour/size of MD so my filing looks nice. Length of the first book, 5 hours across 8 sides of compact cassette. The second book, 5.5 hours also on 4 cassettes. Hmmm 300 minutes. Hmmm how to split that into 74 or 80 chunks coincident with the cassettes - otherwise I was in for a weekend of faffing around with the partitioning of cassette onto MD.

Hold on. 80 minute MD. LP4. Debate with the wife that four 80's are 320 and 5 hours is indeed 300 minutes and we haven't both forgotten simple arithmetic. Dang it. The whole book is going to fit on ONE MD!!! One! OK, the second book might be marginal, but the cassette liner did say "approx 5.5hours". Well that is 330, so I might be lucky.

I was. Quite a few hours later I have ONE LP4 MD with Red Dwarf "The Last Human" and another with Red Dwarf "Backwards". How happy am I. Small things.

I never did get my hair cut. That's a job for this weekend. Unless...

[BearBoy]

Great story Kevin. I've never really thought of looking for MD stuff in antique/second hand shops. Maybe I need to keep my eyes peeled next time I'm being dragged around somewhere...

I've also never used LP4 for anything but it sounds perfect for audiobooks.

 

[kgallen]

12 hours ago, BearBoy said:

I've also never used LP4 for anything but it sounds perfect for audiobooks.

Indeed! Not much use for music I understand, although with a Type-S player apparently LP4 can be quite acceptable. 
 

Prior to my more recent spate of desk acquisitions I only ever had my trusty MDS-JE520 from new, which is just prior to Type-R and MDLP, so I never really got into LP2/LP4. All of my discs prior to this story are SP.  At least my MZ-R700 portable at work is MDLP so I’m game on for the audio books now! I’ll be paying more attention in the dusty back sections of Charity shops from now on!

[BearBoy]

Same here. I bought my MDS-JE500 back in 1997, together with an MZ-E30 for portable use, and never got around to upgrading to anything more exotic whilst MiniDisc was current. I've only ended up buying a whole load of decks and Walkmen with MDLP, Type-R, Type-S etc since the format became "obsolete".

Still trying to convince myself that I really don't need to try HiMD out...

[sfbp]

It took me a while to figure out how LP4 works. I have probably 1000 hours of classical music recorded at LP4 that I use (mostly) to listen to in the car (MD changer = 6 x 5hrs 23m). What you DON`T want to do is to transfer from high-rate ``good`` audio using realtime downconversion. What you must do is to record in real time to the optical input (decks are good but portables will work) so no conversion takes place.

That`s about it.

[kgallen]

I’m getting cocky now. Stevie Wonder’s Secret Life of Plants, couple of quid from the second hand shop. Double CD. So my first LP2 in the bag now! (Dubbed from 2 CDs in LP2 using my Tascam MD-CD1 then track-labelled very quickly using PS/2 keyboard).

And as a bonus I got my hair cut too ;-D (see my earlier post if you don't know what this is all about...!)

[M1JWR]

ive had md since 99/2000 , still got the md gear, i come back to it from time to time, it can spend months and not get looked at.

back then i moved on from cassette tc k611s, dont get me wrong tapes can sound fantastic but you need good gear and good tapes.

i found md gave great sound for a compressed format, its very clever, its much easier to record to etc than cassette.

suppose md decks have better sound than what you may think because they have very good dacs in them, especially the higher end ones.

addiction in my case, not sure but i have a friend that has 22 cassette decks sony es, naks etc and loadsa unused and used chrome/metal tapes.

now thats an addiction !!!

[bluecrab]

I used MDLP4 for audiobooks for many years, mainly for my wife's car. At last, she learned how to make them herself, on an MXD-D400. Not long after that, she bought a new car, sans MD. Audiobooks now going onto CD-RW—which she also has learned to create. I still have good use for the D400, though!

[M1JWR]

i used mono for 1 job when i had the 930, it was to record a morse code tutor coarse for a friend about 20 years ago

it was on at least 4 c90 tapes, it went onto 2 74 min md's, its only spoken word and dots and dashes but it did the job

the tapes died long ago the md recordings are still alive

[Stachu]

Hi

2 weeks ago I had to find something on my attic and re-discovered I still have my Sony MZ-RH1 in an almost perfect shape there ;D It was still in its puch so clean and to my surprise - its battery still works after like od 10 years of no usage at all. I also found like 25 MD + 3 HiMD didsc in a perceft shape, too. 

I must confess I got hooked up with them all again and started to use it. Last week, I managed to buy Sony's MDS-JB940 QS n a a perfect shape for like nothing. Connected it to my Denon AVR-X2300W and  now enjoying the bigger brother as well. To my surprice, both MDs still produce pretty nice sound quality ;D

Now considering a purchase of more spare blank or second-hand MD discs to transfer more CDs :-)

I also had a great fun to introduce the MD technology to my bf's nephew (20 y. old) and he was socked such technology exists and said it's really fancy and he needs one to show off among friends LOL ;D

Bests

Stan

[Stachu]

On 3/16/2020 at 1:59 AM, M1JWR said:

i used mono for 1 job when i had the 930, it was to record a morse code tutor coarse for a friend about 20 years ago

 

73 de SP8S ;D ;D ;D

[kgallen]

Hooked son... Would like MD player... eBay salvaged MZ-N510 incoming... Not working -> needs fixing... Standby forum...

(It's quiet around here today...)

[BearBoy]

Ha. Good to see you luring in your offspring :-) Look forward to following you tackling its faults*.

I think I mentioned in another thread that I'd been vaguely looking for some of the TDK "Colour Splash" MDs, which appeared in a YouTube video Kevin posted. Well, I got a bit more organised and made more of a concerted effort to pick some up. Set some price per disc limits and started following a few on eBay. I've now managed to acquire 45 of the things...

Need to get around to making some more recordings now ;-)

 

*The MZ-N510's, not your son's.

[M1JWR]

just got another 470 for 25 quid inc post, it came with a remote for a jb920, needed a belt, thats all,

otherwise cleaned it up and cleaned laser etc and all working.

cant beat that can ya

[kgallen]

Each of our homes must look like a branch of Richer Sounds from the late 90's-2000s. I remember my younger days going around the specialist hi-fi shops (in the UK midlands and north, with the very occasional trip down to Tottenham Court Road in London for an eye-boggling feast). Pretty much all of the products were well out of my price range! Some must still exist, but it's not the sort of shop I see around these days. Has everyone gone off "proper" hi-fi? I remember around 1990 visiting one such independent shop in our local town to buy a pair of "proper" headphones. There was one pair I could afford - some Sennheiser HD 40s. I still have them now. Not quite Trigger's Broom - all original and I think only one replacement set of ear pads. Grey ones now as I couldn't ever find a yellow pair to match the originals. They are currently plugged into my oft-mentioned MDS-JE530 :-)

[Another MD fanatic]

On 5/15/2020 at 8:40 AM, kgallen said:

Has everyone gone off "proper" hi-fi?

Not sure if everyone's gone off it, or just become obsessed with ease, convenience and the latest trends. As regards Hi-Fi shops, I think there are still a few around, but nothing like there used to be. In my opinion, whether it be MD in particular or hifi generally, everything went downhill with the introduction of the IPod. Which is exactly the route my son took. Started off with Sharp MT290, which he thought was the greatest thing since sliced bread when he bought it. Year or so later got a Sony MZ-G755, but then a year or two after that he bought an IPod. That was it, whole music collection in his pocket and all that business. Don't think he's touched an MD since.

Wonder how many more people took a similar route? Bit sad really.

[Perus]

I kind of like the idea of all music in my pocket but still recording lots of MDs - lately I've been (hoarding?) Network flash based Walkmans with true Atrac support to extend the heritage of MD onto newer platforms (read less space consuming) 

/Per

[Peter Gold]

I have a new Dell laptop and have successfully installed SonicStage 4.3.01.14050  but can't get my MZ-RH1 to be recognised. Don't seem to be able to find a driver update anywhere to install. Any help would be much appreciated. 

[sfbp]

You will need our one-size-fits-all download (32- or 64- bits) driver for NetMD. You will need to disable driver signing for one reboot cycle. Google it and look on the site, there are endless descriptions of what to do.

Good luck!

[freddyjollo]

I used to have have an addiction but these days rarely use them. Glad I did though as with any old technology the older they are the more likely they are to go wrong so worth having a few spares - I bought mine when they were reasonable prices eg Sony JB940 decks at £75 each now more like £200 and too much?

[Perus]

Having a few spares is one thing, to decide which to use is another - needs to find a cheap 480 as spare for the 980 mech - in case it breaks - not sure if that qualifies as addiction or just being cautious

[slugbahr]

That's basically how my addiction started ... gotta have a spare portable unit if mine breaks down.  Gotta have a backup unit that will be spare if the spare is needed. And on and on ...

 

I regret nothing!

[freddyjollo]

having spares is not an addiction just sensible. I also have 3 olde core 2 windows 7 desktops only because I still use Windows Media Center that was built into Windows 7 and not available for Windows 10. I couldnt do without Media Center for organising my mini Netflix of 1000's of media files acquired over many years .There is that bath tub law of electrical item failure - they either fail within a few months of from new or after some years when they become O.A.Ps. Any minidisc item is now an O.A.P?

[Perus]

To minimize the space needed for the (cautious) addiction I sold every MD deck except for the 480 and kept a few portable ones instead, they are so much easier to stuff away 🙂

[KJ_Palmer]

Good to see this site keeps going, was a regular back in MD's 'heyday'. 

 

Still an MD addict I guess. Glad I stocked up MD (mostly Hi-MD) gear and discs 15 or so years ago, when it was going 'cheap', though they've mostly lay unused for about 10 years. Was mainly using MP3 DAPs for portable use then. Since the covid lockdown however, I'm, still working from home, and started making Hi-MD compilations on my stock of blank MDs and some leftover 1GB Hi-MDs. This has become my preferred format 'at work' (i.e. home), more focussed than listening to the whole collection at random, can't really be bothered with playlists, and at 8-10 hours per 80 min disc (at low but acceptable quality) perfectly gets me through the workday.

 

Listening to one of my Baroque-Classical-Folk-Rock compilations on my MZ-NH600 through speakers, perfect background music and enough variety to keep entertained! 🙂

[Richard]

Wow KJ Palmer.. there's a name from the long and distant past! Great to see you still around and still into MD!