MXD-D400 bug?

[bluecrab]

I thought I'd mention this situation in case anyone else has encountered it on any Sony CD/MD unit.

I have two Sony MXD-D400 CD/MD decks. One is the US model and the other is the Japanese model. I bought both of them new. I've had the US one longer and have used it more. Last night I discovered what seemed to be a bug in the Japanese MXD-D400.

If I am doing a high-speed copy on it and I stop the copying process manually (with the stop button), then instead of my getting an MD with recording up to the point where it was stopped, I instead get a "Blank Disc" message and indeed, a blank disc. I checked a number of such discs on the US model, which recognized them as blank. I used a number of source CDs and target MDs with identical results. This happened with SP/LP2/LP4. I next tested letting the high-speed copy fully complete - not stopping it manually - and this worked as it should, in that recording was completed and the MD was not blank. This I tested LP2 only.

I can probably live with this situation, although occasionally I might want to stop a high-speed copy and retain what I have already recorded. I'm concerned that other problems could exist or could develop. I will just have to wait and see. Although the unit is still new enough (I think) to be under warranty, I'd have to ship it to Japan, which I am not going to do if the problem remains relatively minor.

As for HCMS (which the US model does not seem to have, but the Japanese one does), I had no knowledge of it before last night - I did not even know it existed. I was making a copy of a CD on the Japanese unit, stopped it, restarted, and got a Retry [HCMS] message. I had no clue, there was nothing about it in the US MXD-D400 manual, and I'd assumed the US/Japan versions were pretty much identical. I was wrong. Eventually a little poking around on the Web gave me enough info about HCMS to figure out what'd happened, but for a while it seemed like some kind of weird bug. I couldn't imagine what I'd done to cause it or what had gone wrong with the deck. I DID notice that the "Blank Disc" copy problem occurred after I got the Retry [HCMS] message, but I don't know if there is any connection between the two events.

Here are some HCMS-related links I found:

http://www.mail-archive.com/md-l@amulation.com/msg07311.html

http://www.minidisc.org/system_table.html

http://www.audiotstation.com/forum/archive...hp/t-15169.html

Not a whole lot of fun and I am hoping for the best with the Japanese MXD-D400. The MXD-D400, US, Japan, or Euro, is now rare and expensive. My worst fear about MD units is their breaking not being easily replaceable. It's not like Sony will be making any more. :-(

[bobt]

AFAIK you have to wait for the unit to write your TOC before the disc is readable. Next time after pressing stop or pause, ait a few seconds, and see if the TOC is written.

Just a thought

Bob