Hello Stereo2Go users, I love collecting Walkman/Discman stuff, but i'm also a rather serious game collector, so I'd like to share my favorite Discman in my game collection: This is the SEGA CDX, it's a SEGA Genesis, SEGA CD, and portable CD player all in one! This unit is pretty incredible. If you are a UK user, it's called the MultiMega, and it plays Mega Drive/MegaCD games. The unit was released in late 1993 for a price of $399.99 and discontinued in early 1995. It is estimated that less than 5,000 units were produced. The physical: Physically, the unit is much longer than a traditional SONY Discman, since the Genesis cartridge bay sticks out the back, and the play controls are spaced up front. It's about as thick as 2/3 90s Discman units stacked up. Hence the need for the pictured carry-case bag. It weighs about 1.5 lbs. This unit is not really that portable... Electronics/Audio stuff: This side of the CDX/Multimega contains a headphone jack, volume, line out, and battery door for two AAs. You can play a disc for about 2-3 hours on alkaline batteries... not great at all! As far as sound goes, it has a 16-bit DAC instead of the typical 1-BIT DAC that was mostly used by this time, so it definitely sounds clear and powerful. It also has this barely noticeable always on bass booster, that I'm not a huge fan of, but it's tolerable. The CD portion of the unit was designed by Sanyo, which means reliability is questionable. The Sanyo SF-C93 laser is typically failed in these, and the LCDs are also known to fail as well. The spindle motors, also made by Sanyo, seem to stop turning after awhile as well. All in all, playing a disc on this thing portably, is an interesting experience, but in no way would this ever be a daily driver. If you are really serious about it as well, you should replace the motor, laser, and all of the Sanyo caps. Jukebox on the TV: Obviously, the CDX connects to the TV via composite video to play SEGA games, but you can also enjoy a nice User Interface for playing CDs as well: This interface is very enjoyable and you can program and set shuffle/repeat from this as well, You can also enjoy CD Graphics discs in this mode. It might support the Mega Mouse, but i'm not sure on that... Finally, here is the unit in Genesis/Mega Drive mode: So there it is, the SEGA CDX. I've replaced the motor, caps, and i'm waiting on a laser and disc platter for it as well. It's been a wild ride, but certainly worth it.
Thanks for posting, I've never seen one of those before, I've got a handful of Sega Game Gears but most of those first generation CD game systems are super rare around here. A college buddy had a different one, and it was ok but it was just too easy to pop in a cartridge instead of the CD. When I look through the old magazines, it's amazing how many systems were made that didn't catch on, even Pioneer had a laser-disc system that I think was tied into Sega.
You're certainly right about the rarely of 1st gen CD systems. In fact, CD systems were not very popular anywhere except Japan, since CD's didn't enable better graphics, just more content. The amount of content was never an issue at this time for USA and UK gamers, just the graphics and quality of content. JRPGs certainly required a lot more content, and the CD shined in that area. That Pioneer system you mentioned is the LaserActive, an LD player with plug in modules that enable more functionality. Yes, one of these is SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive. The CDX is an interesting crossover into the portable CD player market, but by 1995, you could get affordable Discman units, and the Genesis was losing popularity fast because of the PS1, and the upcoming Nintendo 64. Sure, there was the Sega Saturn, but that's a completely different story.
In case you don't know, there's a treasure trove of information and old magazines on Archive.org, here's Sega Visions Magazine from back then, it's not easy but there many more, it just takes a lot of looking and use Google to search, the website SE stinks. https://archive.org/details/segavisions One of my favorite games from back then.....
Wow, this collection is awesome! I'll throughly enjoy looking through these for sure. I have used Archive.org to download SEGA CD game images, but I didn't know they had these. These sports games are true classics, and you certainly can't go wrong with EA. I was definitely a Nintendo kid, so I'm familiar more with Nintendo Power, not so much SEGA Visions. I do have some favorite issues of Nintendo Power framed in my game room. Looking through the the April 1995 issue of SEGA vision, it's interesting that the 32X takes up page 6, right next to a Saturn promo.... that was a big mistake.
Retromancave has one The real action starts at about 14 minutes. Yes, There were all sorts of oddities left behind when companies linked up and then fell out like the Sony portable CDi player. http://www.icdia.co.uk/players/nonphilips.html The Nintendo Playstation https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51628836 and, back to Sega, a few that were moderately successful like the Mega PC from UK purveyor of cheap Hi Fis and Computers Amstrad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_Mega_PC
Yes, I often go for a walk on that site in search of old magazines about various equipment and computers.
Make sure you sign up for a membership, you can virtually "check" out all of the books on the website. YouTube is becoming invaluable as well, I've been watching a ton of videos on old electronics and cars, guys are pulling out just about everything made and fixing them. Unfortunately YouTube's Search doesn't do a deep dive, it rarely comes up with the low view videos.
