Once hailed as the future of recorded music, Sony's MiniDisc format failed to deliver in almost every area. Its lifespan artificially prolonged by its adoption in the broadcast industry, this relic has struggled in the consumer arena from it very conception. However, with the JE520, Sony might be onto a winner... Alongside the expected features, such as Play, Pause, Fast Forward, Fast Rewind, Stop, Record, Eject, Power On/Off etc, Sony have introduced some new, and most welcome features. Foremost among these is the ability to program the device to play tracks on the inserted disc in any order you chose, as well as a "random" (or shuffle ...  Read the complete review

I have regular access to a Sony MDS-JE520 and have found it so EASY TO USE! Due to poor eyesight, I often find that small or dim displays are a pain to use. With this unit, the display is so bright and easy to see. As for use of advanced functions, this deck makes them available in an easy-to-understand manner. If you use REPEAT or change PLAY MODE, the unit confirms each action by flashing up a brief message. This came in handy when I was at the church who owns this deck that I use. The unit was being used to play background music before the service and it was set to Shuffle-Play mode, but was acting as though it was "stuck" on a particular song. I ...  Read the complete review

After buying a MD for my car I needed a MD recorder for my hifi unit so I could make up MDs for my car. So I went along to Scottish power & Comet had a look in both and saw this model the MDS JE520 on display, in fact it was the last one they had. I did not know much about them I just knew that £99 was a good price. Once I got it home and plugged it in and pressed a few buttons I started to think that I had got a bargain, I put in a blank MD to record something just to see what options it had, to my joy it had the lot. You can totally edit the discs to suit yourself and its so easy a couple of touches of a button and youre in to most ...  Read the complete review

I've had mine for about two years now and it is one of the few bits of hi-tech gear that I have found to do exactly what it should do. The sound quality is fantastic, you will never use tapes again and it is so easy to use that I still haven't read the manual. The range of inputs and outputs (analogue and digital) are good and the setup menus are obvious and quick. If I could find a bad word to say I would but I can't. Forget some of the others like Sharp as I have found for the extra money this unit is quite unbeatable. ...  Read the complete review

Oh God, I love this unit!! OK, I got it some time back, so by now it has probably been superceeded several times. That doesn't mean that it is out of date though; oh no! The 520 does everything I want it to and more. The controls/menu system are intuitive and easy to use (only had to get the handbook out a couple of times!). All the MD functions are available: erase; move; split; join etc. The sound quality is, of course, quite superb and cannot be faulted - in my humble opinion. There is an optical output on the back which I haven't had the chance to try, but I am using the digital co-ax link from the CD player and that works very well. My ...  Read the complete review