This week/month/day/year I’ve mostly been…

[kgallen]

Today I've mostly been... happy!

 

One of my colleagues from my new team came up to me today and said "I see you've got a minidisc player.... I've got one too!"... and proceeded to show me his gorgeous MZ-R909. A sleek all-metal player/recorder that has a large 3-line display. He also has minidiscs on his desk, in a box. I tried his machine with my power supply and it fired up straight away. He dug out the charging cradle and the gumstick battery, put it together and it started to charge fine. Hopefully tomorrow he'll give some of his discs a whirl.

 

Oh did I say... I found what looked like a nice MZ-R909 on "the bay" at a sensible price. Might be heading my way... ooops.

[BearBoy]

Haha. Brilliant 😂

 

The MZ-R909 is a nice looking machine. I'm pretty it's one of the models I've got a watch list set up for on eBay but I'm doing my best to ignore the notifications at the moment... Which colour did you get?

 

On the earlier theme of MiniDisc storage, I'd been looking for a while for something to keep my MDs in and recently picked up a couple of TJENA boxes from Ikea. They're only cardboard but are pretty much a perfect fit for MiniDiscs in their cases. I'll post a picture when I can but it's these ones: Ikea Tjena Storage Box 25x35x10

 

 

[kgallen]

22 minutes ago, BearBoy said:

Which colour did you get?

Silver. Hoping it lives up to it's description. Due Friday... I also ordered a couple of those gumstick batteries - until now I've stuck with machines that use AA.

 

The MZ-R909 looks to be one of the last before NetMD and Type S. It's Type R MDLP. If my other portables are anything to go by, this 909 looks close to the pinacle for construction. The MZ-NF610 I'm borrowing from my son for example is quite a plastic affair, even compared to my MZ-R700. I have high hopes and hoping those hopes aren't dashed by a machine that doesn't live up to it's listing! 🤞

[BearBoy]

I know that nervous wait for an eBay purchase to arrive well. I’m sure it’ll be fine though. 
 

I bought a couple of different types of gumstick batteries and a USB charger a few months back. I’ll post some pictures when the uploading issue is sorted. 

[kgallen]

2 minutes ago, BearBoy said:

I bought a couple of different types of gumstick batteries and a USB charger a few months back. I’ll post some pictures when the uploading issue is sorted. 

That's a good point - I should buy an external charger as I won't get the cradle. Suggestions?

[BearBoy]

If the MZ-R909 is anything like my MZ-N910/710 etc then you don’t need the cradle. It should charge the battery with the power adapter connected directly to the player. You’d need to check the manual but I suspect it would work the same. 
 

The charger I bought was like this one: Gumstick Battery Charger Including 2 x Gumstick Batteries NH14WM 1400mAh AA NiMH

[kgallen]

This week I've also mostly been buying an MXD-D4. 😄

 

Arrived today. Gave it a service, seems to work ok. More later...

 

The MZ-R909 also arrived just as I was finishing up with the D4. Seems to work ok with AA cell (in sidecar). Gumstick contacts a bit green. Given them a clean and it's now charging on in the unit. Also more later...

[BearBoy]

Blimey, you have been busy! 😀

 

Looking forward to the updates. I don't think you'll be able to post any pictures at the moment though 😧

[kgallen]

3 hours ago, BearBoy said:

Looking forward to the updates. I don't think you'll be able to post any pictures at the moment though 😧

Well the MXD-D4 CD section reads CD-R which is great. As I trial I've just dubbed a CD-R of show music to MD at x4 rate. Seemed to work perfectly (just listening through now). Track titles are also copied. Up to now, I've been using my Tascam MD-CD1 to dub CD-R masters of show music/sound effects to MD (which are used live in the shows) but the MD-CD1 machine do have some issues with titles (in addition to adding gaps between tracks). So I'm hoping this MXD-D4 can take over those dubbing duties, which in theory means I can also create a backup MD more easily. With the MD-CD1 I would often need to go in with a PS/2 keyboard to fix titles (these are key since the titles hold the cue number) so making a second copy was always a pain... 👍

[BearBoy]

That sounds great, Kevin. I think you'd mentioned the issues with titles on your Tascam before so this should make your life a lot easier. Good to see MiniDisc still having such a practical application in 2021 too.

 

Should be a nice match, aesthetically, with your 520 and 530 as well 🙂

[kgallen]

MZ-R909 seems have charged the new gumstick battery just fine and works with it! Charging the second battery I bought in it now. As @BearBoy says it’s always a worry when you spend out on a machine! So far this week it looks 2-for-2 🙂

[BearBoy]

Pleased to hear the 909’s working 👍

[Richard]

The MXD-D4 sounds interesting Kevin. Look forward to seeing the pictures! This week I was completely swamped with work, but did get to spend a couple of hours with the Victor XM-B22P which arrived on Thursday. First impressions are very favourable, a nice little player and sounds really good too. I'll post some pictures as soon as we are able. A shipment of blanks from Japan also arrived on Thursday, oh and I bought another MZ-EH50 (silver) - oops..  

[kgallen]

Picture attempt… didn’t work, same issue as reported by @BearBoy

 

[BearBoy]

I think @Richard said he'd tried reaching out to @Christopher to find out whether it could be fixed. Not sure if he heard back?

[kgallen]

3 minutes ago, BearBoy said:

I think @Richard said he'd tried reaching out to @Christopher to find out whether it could be fixed. Not sure if he heard back?

In the meantime I'll dub Steely Dan Aja 🙂 (in real time so I can listen, and hopefully get SP Type-R) whilst looking at the schematics to figure out adding TOSLINK output for both CD and MD. Looks straightforward. Might design myself a small PCB to make the job really tidy 🙂 (if I do there will be lots left over for give-aways 🙂 as I'll need to order 10).

[BearBoy]

Would that work on any Sony deck lacking an optical output or just the MXD-D4?

[kgallen]

4 minutes ago, BearBoy said:

Would that work on any Sony deck lacking an optical output or just the MXD-D4?

Many decks in theory.

 

The beauty of at least the Sony decks (or more specifically the Sony DSP chips) is that they use SPDIF natively for the internal digital audio path - on the ribbon cable from the drive back to the main PCB, the audio is SPDIF 🙂 [Note 1]. This means that adding either TOSLINK or Coax output is relatively trivial. All that is needed is a simple 74HCU04 buffer stage plus the output circuit. For optical this is just the optical transmitter. For coax, this can be done "dirty" by just driving that output to an RCA. To be done properly, the coax stage should use transformer isolation as can be seen in Sony's schematics (I'm looking at the MDS-E10 now for instance). Since coax is an electrical connection, the transformer isolation avoids ground loops since the GND/0V of the two interconnected decks are not commoned together.

 

Optical out is easy for me to do now as I know all of the components. For the coax I would like to do it properly, so would want to use the transformer-based output circuit. At this point in time I don't know the specs of the transformer. I suspect it is 1:1 windings, but I don't know the impedance, so I would want to dig into this and find the correct component - not necessarily the exact one Sony use, but the same electrical characteristics. I would need to find the part first, as I would need a PCB footprint to design it in. Research for "another day", but as you've raised this I might do some tentative research.

 

Would coax output be of interest to you? I could probably design a PCB to support both TOSLINK and coax if of interest. For the D4 I want to make a dual-TOSLINK [Note 2]. However maybe I could do a PCB that is single TOSLINK+Coax if this is of interest.

 

[Note 1] Actually the digital audio exists on the ribbon cable in both SPDIF biphase mark (refer back to our work on the Copy Bit Killer) and data+bit clock. On the MXD-D4, the DAC is a Philips part and this takes SPDIF directly (two streams, one from the MD and one from the CD). In "most" other Sony machines, the DAC is something like an AK4524 and this takes separate data+bit clock. In both cases these come straight from the drive over the "narrow" ribbon cable 🙂

 

[Note 2] You have me thinking now about my own requirements... The E10 has both optical and coax I/O. The E12 only coax I/O. The 520/530/770 have optical I/O plus coax input.

[slugbahr]

18 hours ago, Richard said:

The MXD-D4 sounds interesting Kevin. Look forward to seeing the pictures! This week I was completely swamped with work, but did get to spend a couple of hours with the Victor XM-B22P which arrived on Thursday. First impressions are very favourable, a nice little player and sounds really good too. I'll post some pictures as soon as we are able. A shipment of blanks from Japan also arrived on Thursday, oh and I bought another MZ-EH50 (silver) - oops..  

Blanks for collection? Or recording?

Both?

 

How many silver EH50s do you have?!

😉

[BearBoy]

48 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Would coax output be of interest to you? I could probably design a PCB to support both TOSLINK and coax if of interest. For the D4 I want to make a dual-TOSLINK [Note 2]. However maybe I could do a PCB that is single TOSLINK+Coax if this is of interest.

TBH, I'd had a momentary brain fade when I asked the question and was labouring under the misapprehension that my MDS-JE500 was lacking an optical output. It isn't 🤦‍♂️ What it is missing are any coaxial digital connections. This isn't really an issue as I only really use that deck for wiping protected MDs that I've received bundled with players I've bought on eBay.

 

Where I do have a "gap" though is that my MDS-JB980s are lacking a coaxial digital output (it's one of the things Sony seem to have dropped for cost saving reasons after the MDS-JB940). In order to connect my MDS-JB980 to my PC I need to use a small convertor I bought that converts the optical signal to an electrical one, as my PC audio interface is coax only. It's not the end of the world but would be neater if the 980s had coax outputs.

 

TL;DR You can never have too many connection options imho 🙂

[Richard]

45 minutes ago, slugbahr said:

Blanks for collection? Or recording?

Both?

 

How many silver EH50s do you have?!

😉

 

The blanks were for the collection and for recording also. Box of Panasonics, some Axia singles, Sony Red Hot (will use those as I have dozens already), TDK Fine, and some interesting Sony's in retail hangers and a TopValu 1st series, some Daiso's and probably some other stuff I can't remember... (oh a couple packs of Bit Clubs - the Blue telegraph wires ones and the original translucent bar codes).. 

 

Sorry, I meant another EH50 in general. I just have one silver and one blue. 😉

[slugbahr]

9 hours ago, Richard said:

 

The blanks were for the collection and for recording also. Box of Panasonics, some Axia singles, Sony Red Hot (will use those as I have dozens already), TDK Fine, and some interesting Sony's in retail hangers and a TopValu 1st series, some Daiso's and probably some other stuff I can't remember... (oh a couple packs of Bit Clubs - the Blue telegraph wires ones and the original translucent bar codes).. 

 

Sorry, I meant another EH50 in general. I just have one silver and one blue. 😉

No white or pink ones??

That's racist!

[Richard]

7 hours ago, slugbahr said:

No white or pink ones??

That's racist!

 

I would really like a pink one, but haven't yet managed to find one in good enough condition. Or if I did, they sold before I could get to them.. Not to worry 🙂

[slugbahr]

43 minutes ago, Richard said:

 

I would really like a pink one, but haven't yet managed to find one in good enough condition. Or if I did, they sold before I could get to them.. Not to worry 🙂

 What's your budget? Do you need anything more than just the unit?

[Richard]

4 hours ago, slugbahr said:

 What's your budget? Do you need anything more than just the unit?

 

Ideally, I am looking for one as close to unused as possible, no damage and with all the accessories (preferably boxed). 

[Christopher]

Give me time guys, I'll get the storage issue fixed. By this week

[Richard]

1 hour ago, Christopher said:

Give me time guys, I'll get the storage issue fixed. By this week

No worries, sounds good 🙂

[kgallen]

Just now, Richard said:

No worries, sounds good 🙂

Ditto! Cheers @Christopher 🙂 

[BearBoy]

Thanks @Christopher 🙂

[Richard]

The silver EH50 arrived today. For some reason, the sled with the laser on it was all the way out at the edge of the player as opposed to being in the usual resting place in the centre. Quick test and everything is working as expected, but I do wonder if it maybe needs a tiny bit of lubrication on there somewhere as I'm not 100% convinced about the noise it makes when moving from the beginning to the end of the disc for example compared to my other players.. Other than that, seems to be almost as new, boxed with all the accessories etc.. 

[BearBoy]

So what's everyone been doing for the last 3 months or so?

 

I've actually not bought any new MiniDisc stuff 🤯 Confirmation, if it were needed, that this place really is a bad influence 🤣

 

I have spent the time making use of some of my blanks though and doing plenty of recording.

 

Anyone picked up anything exciting? Brought something back from the dead? Made any interesting discoveries?

[kgallen]

I’ve been doing similar - lots of CD dubbing using my MXD-D4. I too don’t think I’ve bought anything new - but can that really be the case - there must have been something!

 

I have bought quite a lot of used discs.

 

if this place holds up for more than a week I’m sure I could bore you all with project updates! No major progress but all of the projects I’ve mentioned here somewhere are still in progress…

 

oh and my ‘new’ 909 stopped reading discs 😞 and as yet despite some successful calibration runs it still won’t read ☹️ using my old faithful MZ-R700 at work again.
 

Cut and shut MDS-E12 is still working well - it’s on my desk where I work from home. (The missus insisted my large racks went back into the shed before Christmas - well my parents did need the bedroom put back to ‘normal’ after lockdown so they could visit!).

 

I did end up buying Nero Burning ROM (software) for writing CD-R. Finally proved iTunes doesn’t write labels correctly. Dubs from CD-R to MD always had corrupted labels. 
 

Panto cancelled here in Wales. All that music and SFX prep went to waste…

[BearBoy]

20 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Panto cancelled here in Wales. All that music and SFX prep went to waste…

Oh, what a shame. I hope things will be back to normal (or at least some semblance of normality) by next Christmas.

[BearBoy]

21 minutes ago, kgallen said:

I did end up buying Nero Burning ROM (software) for writing CD-R. Finally proved iTunes doesn’t write labels correctly. Dubs from CD-R to MD always had corrupted labels. 

Ah, that reminds me. I bought some CD-RWs to do some CD-Text tests with iTunes but never got around to it (sorry!)

 

How are you getting on with Nero?

 

I did raise the iTunes issue to Apple but don't have a huge amount of confidence that they'll do anything about it. Suspect the number of people burning CD-Rs/CD-RWs from iTunes with CD Text is probably not that great these days...

[kgallen]

1 minute ago, BearBoy said:

How are you getting on with Nero?

 

I did raise the iTunes issue to Apple but don't have a huge amount of confidence that they'll do anything about it. Suspect the number of people burning CD-Rs/CD-RWs from iTunes with CD Text is probably not that great these days...

Nero is a bit clunky to use but it works. For instance it won’t access my NAS so I have to copy all the sound files to the C drive. Also understandable but annoying is it doesn’t take the title from the WAV filename, it takes it from the metadata. This means that where I have multiple instances of the same SFX, like a thunder clap (plenty of those in a Panto for the baddy) I have to go in and rename each one (since each track title includes the cue number). But the main thing is the titles seem to work reliably when dubbed to MD - both using the MXD-D4 and my existing Tascam MD-CD1 machines. So all along the problem was iTunes. I looked on the Apple forum and this issue has been reported a few of times since 2017.  I tried to back date my iTunes version to before they broke it but then it couldn’t read my libraries. Stuff it! 😆

[sfbp]

Today after many weeks of waiting, I finally got a battery for my NW-ZX1 (as opposed to NWZ-ZX1, which does not speak ATRAC). With quite a fight to get it in the case (it was a teeny bit oversize) and a considerable effort to get the terminals correctly soldered (all the while wondering if I was going to melt the circuitry to death), it finally came up and started charging. They sold me a slightly higher capacity battery than the original, which is excellent, and it only cost about $20. Apart from the original one (the unit was second hand) this must be the third or fourth battery I tried. None of the previous ones would both charge and hold a charge reliably. Finally (touch wood) something that functions as it is supposed to. I think the key is the third lead (white) which obviously passes sensor information (to or from, I've no idea) between device and battery, as I read somewhere that the different versions reported different information. Be that as it may, this one followed a normal charging pattern and seem to work.

[kgallen]

@sfbp the third wire is probably to a temperature sensor embedded in the battery pack. This is so the charger can optimise the charge current based on the temperature of ambient and the battery during the charge cycle. This is to prolong the life of the battery and as a safety cutout. 

[BearBoy]

On 1/13/2022 at 6:49 PM, kgallen said:

oh and my ‘new’ 909 stopped reading discs 😞 and as yet despite some successful calibration runs it still won’t read ☹️ using my old faithful MZ-R700 at work again.

That's a shame. The MZ-R909 is a lovely looking machine.

 

Might be worth posting about the issue if you get a minute? See if the SIF hive mind can help.

[BearBoy]

On 1/13/2022 at 7:12 PM, BearBoy said:

Ah, that reminds me. I bought some CD-RWs to do some CD-Text tests with iTunes but never got around to it (sorry!)

 

So I just gave this a go with some singles I had bought from Bandcamp that I wanted to put on a MiniDisc. Now, I know there are a number of other ways I could do this without burning a CD-RW (e.g. digital out from PC to MiniDisc deck or by using Web MiniDisc) but I was intrigued by the issue @kgallen and I had encountered a while back.

 

The CD-RW had 10 tracks for a total of 35 minutes (we had wondered previously if the issue occurred when burning CD-Rs/CD-RWs with a higher number of tracks e.g. 20+).

 

Artist and Disc Title transferred across successfully.

 

Track 1 - correct

Track 2 - correct

Track 3 - incorrect (had track 6's title)

Track 4 - incorrect (had track 8's title)

Track 5 - incorrect (had track 9's title)

Track 6 - incorrect (had track 10's title)

Track 7 - incorrect (had track 8's title)

Track 8 - incorrect (had track 9's title)

Track 9 - correct

Track 10 - correct

 

It doesn't really matter particularly for this specific purpose as my CD player does not pass CD Text information to my MiniDisc deck but CDs burned with iTunes were causing Kevin some issues with his equipment, which does pass CD titles across.

[BearBoy]

Did a couple of follow up tests:

 

Using the same set of files I burned a 3 track CD-RW and then a 6 track one.

 

On the 3 track disc, all the titles were correct.

 

On the 6 track disc, however, I got:

 

Track 1 - correct

Track 2 - correct

Track 3 - incorrect (had track 4's title)

Track 4 - incorrect (had track 5's title)

Track 5 - correct

Track 6 - correct

 

Think I need to find some new software...