Just picked up a MDS-JE520 deck

[JG98258]

For 5 bucks from a second hand place. They didn't know what it was. This is actually my first deck; all my MD recordings were done with an MZ-N505(replaced by Sony with a MZ-N510) in SP mode, or a MZ-RH1 in hi-SP or PCM mode directly out of my Denon analog CD player using a Monster Interlink 400 Mk II cable or from vinyl through my venerable Tandberg receiver.

 

So cool! I can play my SP discs in my stereo system! I don't need to connect up the RH1 into the receiver and play that way. I can save the RH1 for portable use only. I still have plenty of regular discs left, and they're still available, so new recordings can be done with the new deck. Cool. Plus I can then play them in either of my portable units.

 

The service mode says this unit has only been in record mode 12 hrs, although the manual says this is like one quarter the actual amount. Says playback mode 115 hrs, assuming it hasn't been reset.

 

I've never actually done optical in/out recordings with the RH1; none of my other components have that type of connector. The sound card in my computer doesn't have an optical in/out either, but a new card wouldn't be terribly expensive. All my discs are backed up and non-copy protected in SS.

 

Can I do this: with an optical out sound card and using an optical cable, play a hi-SP recorded album in SS on the computer, and have it be recorded into the 520 deck in SP mode?

 

Or import an album into SS in SP mode(can I do that?), then play it going out of the sound card optically and into the 520 optically?

 

I suppose a CD player with optical out would be very useful, but this Denon DCM-360 player sound really good, and I've always been happy with the sound quality of the MDs recorded out if its analog connectors.

 

[sfbp]

Unfortunately the SP codec does not exist on hard disk. It could and I think some of the linux crowd did it, but that format was not allowed by Sony (probably some restriction placed by Dolby would be my guess).

 

The good news is: your 520 has digital optical out. So all you need is a nice receiver with optical in..... of which there are legions.

 

Going from Hi-SP (256K) to SP may not work all that well. YMMV. By all means give it a shot, making sure that you can set your PC output card to sample at 44.1kHz. If not then it gets upsampled to 48 and down again to 44.1 and the result is duck soup.

[JG98258]

 I didn't think of that- hi-SP out of the computer would be 256 kbps, and going into the 520 deck using standard SP would be 292 kbps. If there is something I have on hi-SP that I want to play on the big stereo through the 520 deck, I can either rerecord the original CD or vinyl using the deck, or connect the RH1 using the Monster stereo mini to RCA cable as I've been doing. But the idea is to minimize the use of the RH1. . .

 

After connecting the 520 deck to the receiver and playing some of my SP discs, my first impression is man, this deck sound pretty darn good!

 

I think I'm entering a new world of minidisc by having a deck, albeit SP only, in my home stereo system. If only I had one of those Onkyo hi-MD decks. . . maybe someday. The next step is to enter the world of semi- high end sound card on the computer.

[sfbp]

This issue raised has nothing to do with the bit rate of the (compressed) music. Sony's ATRAC codecs all function using 44.1kHz sampling rate, which is independent of the data rate. But if you have a sound card most often it will be locked to 48kHz (the rate for all DVD video and most computer-based video downloads).

 

The Hi-SP->SP conversion is another problem but most likely an insignificant one - as I said, YMMV.