So, I recently delved into the MD world, and today got my first MD Walkman, Sony MZ-E40. Minty, made in Japan, and seems quite well-built. Not a very high feature model, but sounds quite good and feels nice in the palm. Anyone else listening to MD on the go?
More often, I like to listen in private through a pair of headphones without having to fire up the stereo. Nice MD unit you have there. I got the same one a few months back. I found it in the local mini flea market. The store owner, Jack, who I know quite well, said, "It's like a game-boy but I don't have any of the games to go with it." I told him it was a MiniDisc player and the next time another one came in he was good enough to set it aside for me and that one came with MDs, too. Nando.
I haven't been flea marketing in some time. I can't believe what people get for MD on ebay these days, kinda crazy. I imaging they are like unicorns and don't expect I'll find many at local record stores or thrift shops, but now at least they are on my radar
MiniDisc recorders/players haven't quite got the nostalgic allure that portable Walkman-style cassette decks are enjoying. I find prices for those are getting exceedingly high. But, with portable MD decks I have yet to find one that hasn't worked properly. That's a whole lot tougher with compact cassette. Nando.
Nando, I feel the pain. I love the portable cassette players especially for the nostalgia but I feel like two in three have issues. I have a whole box of units needing repair that are on the schedule for the upcoming rainy months when I need a good project to keep me busy. I look forward to finding more MD units; I burned my very first MD tonight on my larger deck and it felt really cool to take it out and put it in the portable.
That's a nice color too! I only have the MZ R50's in all three colors. Once I move to a bigger place I can then set up all the decks I've accumulated.
I scored a silver Mz-R50 in its box the other day, I'll post a pic when I can. I've sort of cooled down on the cassette side for a bit, but now I have the itch for MD haha. Can't win, it's always something!!
It seems to me you are contradicting to yourself. If they don't have the allure, why the prices are high? I think they do have the allure, but the devices were always expensive and to some extent, elite-ist I always liked their look and the combination of mechanics and electronics, but between ATRAC, check out / check in scheme and high prices, I figured it was not worth to bother. I moved on to CD-MP3 and then to solid-state MP3 player. I never had an iPod either.
I think when elite-ist said that three years ago the prices of MD players had hit rock bottom and were starting to march upwards. Now they have some credibility with the tangible media crowd in the US and we're seeing professional units going for WM-D6 Money. The MD group is a little smaller club so you'll stand out more than a portable cassette collector. I find myself lusting after these units more now that they have some age on them but they're still difficult to find in the wild, I've only seen a handful over the years compared with hundreds of portables.
mz-r50 is the sony classic. the one, who rules them all ok, the very very last one is better. but after the mz-rh1, it's the r50
A couple of videos for the Minidisc fans a summary and for those with 73 minutes to fill I'm not sure if it is in the video but Techmoan worked out these were all lost property picked up on Japanese transport.
Welcome to the Minidisc World! The MZ-E40 is a very nice looking Unit. On clear shell minidiscs, you can see the Disc spinning, which is rarely found on any Portable Player.
In the later units you can 'occasionally' see the disc spinning (see my post about the E710). These are so optimised that they fill the cache as quickly as possible, and then switch all motors off again, until cache is almost empty. Wish the E710 would not have it so the bulge could have been removed, making the device even thinner. On the MZ-40 (or MZ-20, they seem identical) it might be a nicer view and it did not even increase dimensions.
Because of the fast Filling of the Cache, it wasnt so much exciting on later units, but cool nethertheless. The missed opportunity is the MZ-R37. The Disc spins all the time and it even has the Window Cutout on the Lid. I saw people cutting this piece off and replacing it with Plexiglass. It looks freaking amazing!
That must depend on the version, since one had 16Mbit and one only 4Mbit. I have the R37 and will try to find out how much cache it has this week I bought it because of the design, although it does not feel as sturdy as it looks.
According to minidisc.org, the R37 has 40 seconds shock memory. I love the Design because it looks like a miniature Deck. The button Layout however is a nightmare.
Correct, the button layout is horrendous with a few of them on the bottom of the unit. I do believe it is only the US version has 40 seconds cache; when you browse the service manual (v1.4) you'll find two versions. The other way around does not seem to make sense: if 4M were to hold 40 seconds (of Standard Play, no MDLP support), 16 would hold 160 seconds. Since the disc is spinning quite a lot, that is most likely not the case. Note: in some service manuals they explicitly stated 4M Bit, here is it not.
Thats very interesting. I didnt know that! I think its time to put my Unit into the Shock Test and figure out what cache Capacity mine has
See for yourself in the service manual. Colin (This does not compute) took a R37 apart and it has the 4M chip: See the chip with print M5M4X...
