Money no object - Which was the very best full sized MD player/recorder ?

[BearBoy]

The £70 I paid for the MDS-JB940 back in 2016 seems like an absolute bargain now!

I’ve been keeping half an eye open for an MDS-JE480 (in case I ever need to steal the drive for one of my 980s) but even they seem to be commanding much higher prices now than a year or so back. 
There was a time when I thought about trying to pick up an ES deck (555 or 333) but I don’t think I’d ever be prepared to spend the sort of money they go for these days. 

[M1JWR]

i will never own a es deck, so i will leave those out of the equasion, so for this i will mention the qs decks mostly, the 980 for years i would have called it king, its all about that usb socket isent it, ive had one for about 15 years and only recently looked inside it and there is no comparison to say the 930 in build quality, inside its like a 480 in drag, the cost cutting is there for all to see, gone are the toroidal psu and quality board plus components etc, instead is a rather small board and standard iron core psu, so that dosent justify the crazy prices they fetch, so the previous 3 are where its at, each one is exellent in build only some bells and whistles added to some and not others and vise versa to differenciate them, so for me the 930 is the new king but i am biased as it was one of those i bought new 20 odd years ago that introduced me to minidisc in the first place, but be quick as prices are going up on those big style, well maybe not the 920 just yet, its still a little bit of a sleeper, its only a matter of time, the lesser models 470's 480's etc are going up too, a working 480 last summer was around 60 quid, now they are asking over a ton for them,and a guy asking a ton for drives for 980's,wonder where he got those from !!!

[BearBoy]

NetMD aside, I think the MDS-JB980 still has some advantages over the earlier QS decks: Type-S for higher quality playback of MDLP recordings and the group function.

If you're not interested in MDLP then you'd probably be better off saving some money and going for an MDS-JB930 or MDS-JB940. They're both Type-R and, like you say, appear to have better build quality. They also have more connectivity options if you're connecting up a lot of kit.

I wonder if the MDS-JB920 tends to be cheaper than the others because it's "only" ATRAC 4.5?

[BearBoy]

23 hours ago, kgallen said:

I had a quick look on eBay out of curiosity and there is a unit currently at 27 bids and a healthy price for the seller of £640 (885USD) with 8 days to go...

I added that to my watch list. Not because I was intending to bid but just out of interest to see how much it eventually goes for. It's up to £660 now with 7 days left. Obviously these things tend to shoot up in the final 10 seconds so it'll be interesting to see what it fetches.

There's a BIN one in the UK on there for £1,295 as well.

[M1JWR]

59 minutes ago, BearBoy said:

I added that to my watch list. Not because I was intending to bid but just out of interest to see how much it eventually goes for. It's up to £660 now with 7 days left. Obviously these things tend to shoot up in the final 10 seconds so it'll be interesting to see what it fetches.

There's a BIN one in the UK on there for £1,295 as well.

so there you go "money no object", es decks will become exotic items for the rich and famous a bit like posh cassette and dat decks, and yes i agree that the 980 adds bells and whistles that the previous 3 dont have,i bought it in around 2007, it was around £100 with remote, it was the going rate at the time, i wanted it for net md which is as we all know, can be a pain, its still handy for naming tracks via pc easily,i dont bother with mdlp anymore although ive got quite a few discs recorded that way via net md from that 2007 time,over the last year i have bought 3 930's spares or repair, its well documented on here the history of those, and one of them was an absolute steal !!

[BearBoy]

On 4/4/2021 at 11:37 AM, BearBoy said:

I added that to my watch list. Not because I was intending to bid but just out of interest to see how much it eventually goes for. It's up to £660 now with 7 days left. Obviously these things tend to shoot up in the final 10 seconds so it'll be interesting to see what it fetches.

There's a BIN one in the UK on there for £1,295 as well.

That MDS-JA555ES is up to £740 now but one sold last night in the UK for £624. The ad only had a single (blurry) picture though and a brief description.

[sfbp]

Starting to sound like bitcoin - people got nothing better to speculate on....... now the pubs are shut.

[NGY]

I wish we had the same market and buzz. There are several MD deck ads overhere, with complete lack of interest for literally months. Few examples: mint 480 with remote, manual and original box, cannot sell for 65 Euros (been reduced in two steps from ~95€), fully working MXD-D3 with minor scratches on the front and on the top, with RM-D7M remote cannot sell for ~45€ (was ~65€ two months ago), mint silver 980 with its own remote, manual and box for ~180€ is up here for months now, and if someone wanted some ES gear, multiple 3/5/20/30/50 ES decks below 250€, some for ~150 Euros. The market does not seem resonating at these prices.

[kgallen]

18 minutes ago, NGY said:

I wish we had the same market and buzz. There are several MD deck ads overhere, with complete lack of interest for literally months. Few examples: mint 480 with remote, manual and original box, cannot sell for 65 Euros (been reduced in two steps from ~95€), fully working MXD-D3 with minor scratches on the front and on the top, with RM-D7M remote cannot sell for ~45€ (was ~65€ two months ago), mint silver 980 with its own remote, manual and box for ~180€ is up here for months now, and if someone wanted some ES gear, multiple 3/5/20/30/50 ES decks below 250€, some for ~150 Euros. The market does not seem resonating at these prices.

Careful otherwise you're going to become some intermediary seller for us in the UK!

[BearBoy]

:-)

Where is it you live NGY?

[BearBoy]

13 hours ago, BearBoy said:

That MDS-JA555ES is up to £740 now but one sold last night in the UK for £624. The ad only had a single (blurry) picture though and a brief description.

The one that "sold" last night is back on eBay this evening. Bidding currently at £155 with 21 hours left. Seems a bit odd. Still just the one blurry picture and a short auction period.

[NGY]

12 hours ago, BearBoy said:

Where is it you live NGY?

Behind the "Iron Curtain" ... Literally, but it is then sheer politics from this point, that I'd prefer to avoid on these pages.

More seriously, there are two factors that would prohibit exporting such stuff to the UK for example: 1) insane shipping costs (accompanied with endless bureaucracy) of our "Royal" Post, and 2) recent impact of Brexit on import duties/taxes at the other side of the Channel.

Sadly all those possible price advantages would be gone by when a box gets shipped.

[sfbp]

4 hours ago, BearBoy said:

The one that "sold" last night is back on eBay this evening. Bidding currently at £155 with 21 hours left. Seems a bit odd. Still just the one blurry picture and a short auction period.

Sounds like jiggery-pokery (hanky-panky if you prefer) to me. There are any number of scams people can and will pull with highly priced equipment. From both sides (vendor and purchaser). I never could figure out what that guy in Israel was doing with his RH1 listed at over $5000.

[BearBoy]

Well, it's completely vanished from eBay now (including details of the previous "sold" listing) so I think you're right that something shady was going on...