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Minidisc Deck Still Being Manufactured And Sold By Tascam

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Kona702

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Hi All!!

I just stumbled across something REALLY cool and shocking. Tascam still manufactures and sells a combo MD/CD deck with all the digital I/O's and bells and whistles you need!! (SP and MDLP formats) When I acquire the $650 that is the listing price Im definitely ordering one before they discontinue them. I was floored and excited when I stumbled across the product on Tascam's website. I'm fascinated that they are still making them, they can't be selling many of these because I think the only people that still use minidisc are the few that belong to this forum. Lol!!

Check it out!!! http://tascam.com/pr...cd1mk3/buy_now/

Enjoy!

Sean

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Kona702 that is a sweet unit, I looked at them a couple of years ago and decided against one because of the price. All of the a 13+ year old units mentioned by PhilippeC are rarely available and will not be better specifically if you are looking for a combo CD/MD deck, the last time I saw a 555ES it was listed on eBay US (not ebay.fr phillipe) for $1200+.

The 50ES is old with ATRAC 4.5, the 555ES is at least Type-R as is the 333ES which also includes MDLP capability without Type-S. You can't do high speed rips as you can with a CD/MD combo deck.

I decided to save some money and held out for an Sony MXD-D400 and scored it for around 200 bucks, it was like new in the box, this unit has the Type-S DSP which gives a better sound on LP2 and LP4 playback decoding. Another similar unit is the Sony MXD-D40 which is also a combo deck but without the Type-S DSP. If you plan to use the deck for creating disks and playing back on some other unit which has Type-S (such as every HiMD portable made) the D40 is a perfect unit. Both of these are regularly up for auction on ebay.com. You can grab a D40 for $125.

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Azureal,

This looks like a great deck (D40) but I just read some specs, and if they are correct, the deck doesn't have a toslink out. This is a requirement that I must have. Thanks for the input though!! It's appreciated!

Sean

True, but it's pretty easy to add if you are so minded.

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True, but it's pretty easy to add if you are so minded.

Is this an easy mod? Or is it difficult. I am average at mod's and soldering etc...but not an expert. I wouldn't attempt it if it was complicated.

If you could quickly explain to me what this mod involves I would appreciate it.

Thanks,

Sean

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1. You need the right Laser Diode

2. You need to mount it (duct tape may well do)

3. You need to tap the right pins on the ribbon connector (separate) BD board of the D40.

You're not the only one considering this mod at this time, I can tell you that. I did it the hard way, someone else came along just after and figured the easy way. Mine is still working.....

Cheers

Stephen

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No MXD-D40 has a factory installed opt. out that I am aware of. For that, in a CD>MD deck, you'd step up to the MXD-D400 or the Tascam. The more I see of sfbp's descriptions of the mod, the more I inch towards truly considering it. I believe the decks I have mentioned here all are compatible with LP; in fact, the MXD-D400 has Type S, as well.

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The point is, neither Tascam not MXD-D400 can be hooked up to M-Crew, which is pretty important if you want to do editing of your MD's conveniently. (Titling, track splitting etc). The D40 is the last one that can be, and it has the Type-R chip which is as good as you can get for recording purposes.

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The point is, neither Tascam not MXD-D400 can be hooked up to M-Crew, which is pretty important if you want to do editing of your MD's conveniently. (Titling, track splitting etc). The D40 is the last one that can be, and it has the Type-R chip which is as good as you can get for recording purposes.

I consider that this is not a problem as such deck owners can also find a lot of cheap portable Net-MD units to do the job after their recording.

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The point is, neither Tascam not MXD-D400 can be hooked up to M-Crew, which is pretty important if you want to do editing of your MD's conveniently. (Titling, track splitting etc). The D40 is the last one that can be, and it has the Type-R chip which is as good as you can get for recording purposes.

What is MCrew? I just googled it and I cant find anything about it. Is this something that I can hook up to the control ports on my JE-630? Can I use this with my RH-10? Where can I download it?

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Like I say, there's an extremely limited set of machines which support it. It's in our download sections in a couple of different versions.

The JE630 and 640 do not support it. It's not for portables either. Main targets are combo CD/MD and Bookshelf units of a certain age, also the MDS-PC3. It predates the "protected track" idea - once you get to NetMD, Sony got paranoid; instead of adding to function, they started removing. There is no HiMD unit with this functionality.

MDS-JB940 claims to have it but so far no one has reported it working.

MDS-JE470 and -JE770. MDS-NT1.

MXD-D40 (neither -D4 nor -D400 had this feature).

MDS-PC3 (-PC2 doesn't have it)

Japanese (Cream/Gold) version of MXD-D5C only (black US/EU one doesn't).

CMT-PX3 (aka HCD-595MD), -PX5, -PX7

CHC-CL5MD, CMT-CP500MD/CP505MD, CMT-M100MD, CMT-C5.

All of the above need the (extra) PCLK (-MN10 or -MN20, doesn't matter which) device which can be very hard to find. There's one on Ebay Italy right now, brand new. Nothing else will do.

After this point they all combine NetMD and control into one standard USB cable with 2 drivers.

CMT-C7NT, -SE9, -M333NT and M373NT.

Various LAM models (almost impossible to find) - Z1,Z10/10

PCLK driver will run in W7 (to be accurate, in 64bit Windows) only in XP box, so need Pro or Ultimate version. Vista and XP 32 bits both fine. Not sure about W7/32

Hope this helps.

Stephen

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