Point me in the right direction

[Daddy Rabbit]

Good Evening,

I am attempting to undergo a personal minidisc revival but I am rediscovering the reason I nearly abandoned MD around 2005.

It appears as if my beloved MDS JE510 randomly skips a beat. I am attempting to playback my MDs through the optical out into my optical in on my PC. I "set it and forget it". By that I mean I press record on my PC software, play on the 510, and go enjoy life for 80 minutes. I am finding 1 or 2 second gaps in my wav files later on in random locations.

I suddenly remember this unit was doing the same thing when I used it last probably in 2005.

What could possibly be wrong and how do I fix it?

I do appreciate any and all feedback!

Thanks!

[sfbp]

My best guess would be the PC needing to buffer stuff and being totally taken up with disk i/o for a second or two.

I've never seen an MD deck do this - they usually either work or not. If going bad, usually the first thing that goes is the overwrite head, presto blank disk every time you try to update TOC.

Now sit down for the whole 80m and see if there really are gaps in what the deck has output, please.

PS. How old is your PC, how much RAM and what version of Windows? The problem may be that 1MD at 1411Kbps is 700MB or so.

[Daddy Rabbit]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I hope it is something on the PC side.

I'd say the PC is 2 years old. AMD quad core, 8GB RAM, Win 7 Home Premium. I'm using an external Soundblaster soundcard with optical in.

I was thinking a good test would be for me to plug headphones into the MD unit itself and listen as I am recording via optical on the PC. I am as knowledgeable as you guys are about how MD works but my thinking was if I find gaps in the wav on the PC I should have heard it through the 'phones when it occured right?

Thanks!

[sfbp]

We agree.

It's not impossible that the 510 needs replacing. It's one of the models known to have a few very significant defects. I owned one until it developed one of said defects.

Decks are pretty cheap these days. Get yourself an MDS-JE640 if you can, you won't regret having MDLP.

The other thing is that decks are great for recording, but with an MZ-RH1 (or MZ-M200, same thing + mic) you can upload all those recordings at about x10, no restrictions.

Stephen

[Daddy Rabbit]

Thank you for the reply,

Ah I have been stuck at these crossroads for 6 years now.

* I want my recordings on the PC (I don't mind real time transfers so I don't *need* RH1 or M200.

* I don't really want to spend any money if I don't absolutely have to (another deck or portable).

As I get older and into my career and with children growing up I have less and less time to do the things I used to do.

That being said I don't mind a real time transfer as I set it up, press record, and go to bed or feed some kids. I have a lot of MDs to transfer but I don't mind doing 1 a night until the project is done. I don't have time to listen to them all at once anyway. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time they say.

If there is something more that could be done to diagnose the MDS JE510, I would like to do that. If there is something I could repair on it - I'd like to investigate. The deck has some sentimental value to me as well.

Does anyone have any test ideas?

Thank you all for your replies,

Steve

[Chickenvenus]

I have not found this issue with my MD equipment. Have you tried the process on another PC? Do the MD's play OK, that is no skipping? Are the toslink cables fully secure?

I'd say to get past this crossroad you are going to have to eventually spend a little bit of money. Get the deck serviced and see if they can fix it (if it has sentimental value, you might like it working 100% correctly), or get another second hand deck (buy or borrow), or get a RH1 (new/second hand). I don't know of any disgnosis tool for an MD deck.

[sfbp]

It's not impossible that this fault occurs because the read power is set too low (or too high!). Does a disk feel really really hot when you take it out after playing for 80 minutes?

If it's a matter of adjusting the Laser power, it's doable but probably only properly with a Laser Power Meter. You can buy a deck for a lot less than you would pay (or pay someone to fix including all the shipping) for an LPM.