MiniDisc bargains

[Soundbox]

Last week I won an auction for a portable MD player - the MZ-E310. It came today and it is brand new in its box (with all supplied accessories). The seller also included two sealed boxes of 5 Sony Premium 80 minute disks.

I am sitting here with these items in front of me in semi-shock that all in all they only cost me £15 plus postage (which cost £1 more than I paid). After PayPal fees I almost feel I have robbed the seller, but when I checked today there are similar bargains to be had on BRAND NEW players.

I know that I-Pods are the in-thing, but surely these lovely Sony machines should be doing better than this?

So, tell me about any bargains you have found online (or elsewhere).

Ian

[md user]

Yes, I have had one or two similar (but not quite so good) purchases - typically

[freddyjollo]

well in general old technology doesnt usually sell for much unless there is a real demand and short supply. I bought recently a Fujitsu Pocket Loox 710 pda for £28 incl of postage from Ebay. Almost mint. New in circa 2005 these cost about £240, even the more advanced 720 model only costs £45 when they cost £360 new. These are still good machines and make good audio & video players amongst their talents.

My favourite md is the Sharp MD-MT88 portable. - It has a thick metal body and has a mic input, and mine have been ultra reliable for the last 6+ years. They have a real classy feel to them. I bought 3 when they were being disposed off by Argos about 7+ years ago now. I am still only on the first one, everything works. lol. I doubt if I could get more than £20 for them if I sold them.

[Arr-Nine-Hundred]

I'm a bit of an eBay demon and also like to monitor auctions just to see how much they go for.

Recent purchases have been a mint condition blue R900 for approx £15. It really is a beautiful machine "in the flesh", here's a photo of the actual unit:

I also bought a great condition N510 for £15 and a boxed, complete E510 for £10. As MD is so cheap these days I can justify having specialized MD for different purposes (this is my recording unit, this is my everyday playback unit etc).

Often folks offload ALL their MD gear which they find in the back of a cupboard when doing a house tidy or when moving. This means you often get 10 or 20+ discs thrown in. A good way to stock up on spare discs I guess.

I've also bought a couple of Vapex brand gumstick Ni-MH's (1450mah), brand new for a £1.50 each.

It's an ambition to own a Sony JB980 deck one day but right now I cannot justify the space and cost! A UK-tuned, good condition black one recently went for almost £200: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110514979613&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_1182

I find eBay a great way to source new and uncommon discs, I have bought several Japan-only packs through and outside ebay from this seller: http://shop.ebay.co.uk/chiebesson/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25 She has none for sale at the moment though.

I also sell stuff, I sold a good condition N1 (unit only) recently to a friendly chap in Australia.

I'm thinking of buying one of these as I'd like the 12 character width rather than 9 that my MC33EL does. A bit on the expensive side, I think £10 is the most I'd pay for one: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130379980056&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_2065wt_1217

How about a Xitel DG2 for under £4? Were these not £50+ back in the day? I've made an offer for £2.50 for 2 and will report back here on how I get on: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280394420253&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_4580wt_941

I currently use optical to record MP3-to-MD but these gadgets supposedly support the auto-track marking without resorting to a manual ~2 second silence gap.

Update: the seller agreed so I get 2 Xitel DG2's for £11 delivered. I'll report again on the quality after living with them for a while.

[bluecrab]

It's an ambition to own a Sony JB980 deck one day but right now I cannot justify the space and cost! A UK-tuned, good condition black one recently went for almost £200:

I have always wondered, Arr-** what they mean by "UK-tuned." Do you know? How's it differ from the stuff we get here in the US...and elsewhere?

[Soundbox]

I have always wondered, Arr-** what they mean by "UK-tuned." Do you know? How's it differ from the stuff we get here in the US...and elsewhere?

I heard that they bottle and transport UK air to the assembly plant and pre-fill all JB980's with it prior to final test and shipment ;-)

Seriously though, I feel that it is tuned to 50Hz supply and maybe a few more capacitors in the output stage. Whetever they do, it sounds nice.

[Arr-Nine-Hundred]

I have always wondered, Arr-** what they mean by "UK-tuned." Do you know? How's it differ from the stuff we get here in the US...and elsewhere?

Hey bluecrab,

A quick Googling does not get an official answer but most of the confident answers are that UK-tuned Sony equipment, signified by the red label, is tuned to match the sound to UK listener preferences.

Check the review below in [3] in which the reviewer remarks on it in the first few paragraphs. Many moons ago I had a UK-tuned Sony QS-series Home Cinema amp and thought the sound was perfect, exactly what I wanted. I'm in the UK. So it really does seem to work? :-)

From [1]:

"I remember Japanese hifi always sounded bright but with a big bass too. If it said 'uk tuned' on the unit it would mean less emphisis on bass and treble giving a more balanced sound ,thats from my experience with sony products at least."

From [2]: "... changes to the power supply and higher grade capacitors compared to the standard model for the rest of the EU. Just tweakery really I spose to alter the characteristics of the sound."

The remark above is a bit suspect but I do vaguely remember reading somewhere that the UK-tuned Sony gear having differences in the toroid/transformer/power supply area of the electronics. Also, I think Sony hired a UK specialist who was well-known in the UK audiophile community to assist them.

Personally, if I was after a JB-980 I would not look at anything but a UK-tuned version. Yes, I'm a bit of a snob. Black too, silver has been over-used so it's become hackneyed. Black is the new silver. :-)

Sources:

[1] http://community.whathifi.com/forums/t/240111.aspx

[2] http://www.avforums.com/forums/av-amplifiers-receivers/197020-sony-uk-sound-tuned-question.html

[3] http://hcc.techradar.com/files/reviews/WVTV/103_WV_0704.pdf

[freddyjollo]

The UK tuned ones also used copper screws!!!

[sfbp]

I always wondered if it had anything to do with environmental details like:

FM (or other) carrier frequency

AC frequency and/or voltage

Line out characteristics (in both directions, to and from the deck) common in UK

[Arr-Nine-Hundred]

How about a Xitel DG2 for under £4? Were these not £50+ back in the day? I've made an offer for £2.50 for 2 and will report back here on how I get on: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280394420253&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_4580wt_941

I currently use optical to record MP3-to-MD but these gadgets supposedly support the auto-track marking without resorting to a manual ~2 second silence gap.

Update: the seller agreed so I get 2 Xitel DG2's for £11 delivered. I'll report again on the quality after living with them for a while.

They arrived this morning. Looks like a copy of Xitel and not a genuine one. Appears to be reasonable quality though. Comes with TOSlink optical digital cable (square port at one end and pointed connector into MD at the other end). They have plastic caps on both ends but the one on the square end appears to have been placed by Superman and I cannot get it off yet. Also comes with a USB standard-A male to standard-B male cable. Plugged it into Ubuntu 8.04 and it is detected as:

[96.853746] input: XITEL MD-PORT DG2 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb4/4-1/4-1:1.2/input/input7

[ 7096.881650] input,hidraw3: USB HID v1.00 Device [XITEL MD-PORT DG2] on usb-0000:00:1d.0-1

[ 7097.319358] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio

The snd-usb-audio refers to it's use as a "USB Audio Device". As an experiment I cue up a bunch of .m4a files into movie player. I set the Sound playback prefs to use the "USB Audio Device" (neat thing about Ubuntu 8.04 is that one can choose which device to play certain classes of sounds, hopefully Windows 7 is the same). On playback the Xitel optical port glows red signifying a digital signal present, good. As I spot no switch for discrete and continuous recording modes, I decide to see what happens when the track ends and next one plays. There is a very brief gap in red light on the Xitel so that must signify a new track mark to the MD. As there is no switch, and based on the above observations, I infer that the device is permanently set to discrete mode. Fine with me as this is the behaviour I want. I had my E510 and no spare discs so I could not try a recording test. I will do a proper write up another time with photos. Looks good so far though.