MZ-RH1 Repairs

[henry's cat]

Has anyone recently used the UK Sony Repair service?  According to their website they still repair MZ-RH1 minidisc recorders.  Mine has lost the ability to record, it goes through all the motions of recording but the content is never actually written to disc.  Playback is still fine.  Seeing as it is such a sought after model I might consider getting it repaired.

[PhilippeC]

Hi. First read that : 

That UK Sony Repair service can cost you a harm... Maybe that will be cheaper if you buy another Hi-MD unit (for me the best choice is the first Hi-MD generation, see the browser of minidisc.org) IF you record in Atrac3plus audio formats. Any  non Hi-MD recording unit (preferably type R or MDLP type S) will do the job if not.

[sfbp]

Sorry for your loss ;(

I've said at least a thousand times: no one should use the RH1 for playback, maybe not even for actual recording. Why? - because it contains unique firmware and circuitry to allow the upload (from MD to PC) of all formats. Sad, but true: the build quality is not that great and generally something wears out. Typical is the "jog lever" (replacing jog wheel on earlier models) on the unit itself.

HOWEVER, if you try to upload HiMD from a unit which cannot record, you will be completely out of luck, as Sony (bless 'em) insists on updating the "checked out count" on the disk to facilitate copy control. Meaning that you are forced to check back into the PC that which you downloaded from it before you send that music to some other device. Thankfully they removed the restriction, so the copy count is generally unlimited (except perhaps for tracks from the now-defunct CONNECT store). The "must be able to write to the disk" behaviour remains. Very sorry for their awful design. I mean, forcing you to write when all you want to do is READ. Sigh.

I'm not sure what impact this has on legacy uploads (SP, MDLP). They are easily "undeleted" by TOC cloning on some other unit (eg a deck). But a single bit error is enough to kill the contents of a HiMD formatted disk.

I'd try to get it fixed. After that, I would stop using it for anything except uploads (MD->PC).

Stephen

[freddyjollo]

20 hours ago, sfbp said:

Sorry for your loss ;(

I've said at least a thousand times: no one should use the RH1 for playback, maybe not even for actual recording. Why? - because it contains unique firmware and circuitry to allow the upload (from MD to PC) of all formats. Sad, but true: the build quality is not that great and generally something wears out. Typical is the "jog lever" (replacing jog wheel on earlier models) on the unit itself.

HOWEVER, if you try to upload HiMD from a unit which cannot record, you will be completely out of luck, as Sony (bless 'em) insists on updating the "checked out count" on the disk to facilitate copy control. Meaning that you are forced to check back into the PC that which you downloaded from it before you send that music to some other device. Thankfully they removed the restriction, so the copy count is generally unlimited (except perhaps for tracks from the now-defunct CONNECT store). The "must be able to write to the disk" behaviour remains. Very sorry for their awful design. I mean, forcing you to write when all you want to do is READ. Sigh.

I'm not sure what impact this has on legacy uploads (SP, MDLP). They are easily "undeleted" by TOC cloning on some other unit (eg a deck). But a single bit error is enough to kill the contents of a HiMD formatted disk.

I'd try to get it fixed. After that, I would stop using it for anything except uploads (MD->PC).

Stephen

 

have to agree with that.

[PhilippeC]

Sadly Jim Hoggarth (UK) is no more available to repair to repair our units. That would have been perfect for henry"s cat as it has been even for me. This UK Sony Repair service will be costly but at least will do the job.

[henry's cat]

Thanks for all the replies.  I will investigate further and see if my recorder will record through the line input or microphone.  I only noticed this problem when altering disc titles etc. in Sonicstage and they failed to write back onto the disc in the MZ-RH1.  Fortunately, I've uploaded all my important recordings to Sonicstage as a back-up.

[PhilippeC]

On 10/19/2018 at 4:54 PM, henry's cat said:

I only noticed this problem when altering disc titles etc. in Sonicstage and they failed to write back onto the disc in the MZ-RH1. 

I have the same problem with my deck JB980 QS. Sometimes, it refuses to write the titles (disc, group, tracks). I can transfer 25 tracks with Sonic Stage and for one strange reason, the 5 last tracks do not have titles. No way to write them manually afterwards

 

[sfbp]

That's because you cannot write more than 1700 characters to a minidisc. BUt a different problem from OP, I think.

[PhilippeC]

That was what I said that to me when that happened. With classical music you can have kilometric titles ! I decide not to correct that now.

I will edit later all my MDs to check those faulty titled MDs. 

 

[zzzuppp]

I wonder if the UK service could repair one of my MZ-RH1's., whih developed the other classic fault with these machines - the display OLEDs stopped working. It still plays and records but it's pure guesswork as to what is happening, even with a functioning sidecar display.

The other maddening thing is that since Sony stopped supporting Hi-MD transfers for Mac - several years back now, I can no longer use that most useful facility. I made an OSX Leopard partition on a HD especially so it would still work, but it doesn't, I don't know why. I've heard so much negativity about Sonicstage that I don't want to make a Windows clone. Any help appreciated.

[PhilippeC]

Hi zzzuppp. Sure that Sonic Stage has nowadays a lack of important features. SP "fake LP2" is one of them (my favourite bad feature). Instead of having a second OS on your computer, you could get a second hand computer (old one around 100$ max) et then setup Sonic Stage on it. What is that you don't like so much about Sonic Stage ?

UK repair service is perhaps the last chance IF your RH1 is in perfect aesthetic condition but had a great problem (100£ would seem ok for me if Sony make it as new inside).