Sony MDS-JE500 Eject Mechanism

[BearBoy]

I turned on my Sony MDS-JE500 (my original deck bought way back in 1997) today for the the first time in a year or two and the eject mechanism seems to be more "laboured" in comparison to my other decks. I know the later decks (MDS-JB940 & MDS-JB980) use a different belt-based system, and so maybe are not directly comparable, but the MDS-JE500 is noticeably slower and requires more pressure to trigger the deck to pull the disc in.

 

I can't remember if it was always like that and I've just got used to the later decks or whether something is seizing up inside, possibly due to lack of use or just age.

 

Does anyone have a deck with the earlier MDM-3 / MDM-5 mechanism that they're able to compare it to a later deck with an MDM-7 mechanism? Not sure if I might need to lubricate something or just accept that's how it always operated.

[kgallen]

I'd say my 520 requires a *tiny* bit more force than the 940 or 770 to trigger the grab-and-pull but there's very little in it.

 

Whilst the MDM7 uses a belt to actually do the moving, I suspect the "trigger pressure" of pressing the disc into the mech to get it to activate has a lot of similarities in both mechs. I guess on the MDM3/MDM5 you might just come up against the resistance of the gear train in the case of those mechs.

 

Do a bunch of disc inserts/ejects to get the mech moving again and see how you get on.

 

Don't have anything earlier than my 520 to try (otherwise which deck would you like me to try? 🤣)

[BearBoy]

59 minutes ago, kgallen said:

I'd say my 520 requires a *tiny* bit more force than the 940 or 770 to trigger the grab-and-pull but there's very little in it.

 

Whilst the MDM7 uses a belt to actually do the moving, I suspect the "trigger pressure" of pressing the disc into the mech to get it to activate has a lot of similarities in both mechs. I guess on the MDM3/MDM5 you might just come up against the resistance of the gear train in the case of those mechs.

 

Do a bunch of disc inserts/ejects to get the mech moving again and see how you get on.

 

It's not like I need to really shove the disc in, or use a hammer 😆, but there is noticeably more resistance. I'll plumb the audio back in to my office system and give it a go for a few days and see if anything changes. I am quite possibly over thinking this though 🤔

 

59 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Don't have anything earlier than my 520 to try (otherwise which deck would you like me to try? 🤣)

 

Haha. I think I've long lost track of how many (and which) decks you have. I knew you had a couple of MDS-JE5XXs but wasn't sure which ones. Your profile doesn't mention the 940 or 770 so you must have picked up some more since you last updated it?

[kgallen]

14 minutes ago, BearBoy said:

Haha. I think I've long lost track of how many (and which) decks you have. I knew you had a couple of MDS-JE5XXs but wasn't sure which ones. Your profile doesn't mention the 940 or 770 so you must have picked up some more since you last updated it?

It does now! I think I ran out of characters in that field, so had to prune some info!

 

Believe me, @BearBoy, you are fully implicated (one way or another!) in the 940 and 770 purchases let me tell you! 🤣  940 was from @M1JWR last year and 770 was part of that Control-A1 investigation "we" were doing, probably around lockdown...

 

Nothing new MD-wise in recent times other than maybe a batch of used disks a few months back... (still resisting breaking into many of those new-new ones, how about you?!)

[BearBoy]

I've not bought any more discs since our last little box of MDW80Ts from Amazon.jp back in February. Although I did notice they're back in stock for UK delivery again 😂

 

I did pick up another MZ-R909 a month or so back as the dodgy jog dial on my silver one was continuing to annoy me. So I now have three of those 🤦‍♂️

 

Oh, and I got an MZ-E720 back in April, which I posted a photo of somewhere.

 

Been doing more recording/playing than eBay hunting, which is probably a good thing...

[M1JWR]

can only compair just now between 930 and 980, 980 is a tad slicker than the 930, always was, i just put it down to the mdm 7 with its simple belt set up and not much holding back the 2 sliders, well, once its lifted into eject position sort of thing, one slider, and with the mdm 5's ive had anything to do with a much more complex gear driven set up and i just accepted that was normal, any other deck i have or have had was just the same, maybe some parts dry out over the years, that would be the only thing i could think of otherwise, dont think md decks are at the cracked gear with age point ...yet.

buys, i bought a 470 before christmas, usual issues shot belt and this time a sticky sensor where disc would come out and would go stright back in again, sorted that and turned it round fairly quick, sold on a couple of 440/470's since then, i had quite a lot of those, at the end of the day one will have to remain as a player only as it has a dicky owh, can be a pain in the arse those, hope you are all well

[BearBoy]

Good to see you're keeping these old machines working and in circulation, @M1JWR.

 

I've been using the MDS-JE500 this week and I think it's probably just a case of the older style mechanism not being quite so slick as my MDM7 decks, all of which have had belt replacements fairly recently.

 

One pleasant consequence of using the JE500 is that I've had to dig out some of my older MDs to listen to as most of my more recent recordings have been done in LP2. It's been nice listening to a few things, especially old "mixtapes", that I hadn't heard in a while.