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Sony MD Walkman MZ-R501
by danny691
I bought this as my first minidisc player back in the day these were all the fashion and it has been the only one I have had apart from my mindisc 'seperates' unit. The player is very easy to use, i found the menus easy to navigate but I found it very thirsty on battery, especially nowadays with mp3 players that last much longer without ... a recharge. It has great connectivity to almost and audio/PC with audio ins/outs. The manual line-level record input stage level can be manually set to whatever the user wants - none of this auto-setup nonsense! It comes with an optical lead which may not be enough for some of the less technically minded who would rather use the line-in approach. Whilst recording it even knows when to put track numbers in which was quite a smart feature in its day. This is one of the models that became very popular and came in such a variety of colours, I can imagine most people who have ever used a portable minidisc player have come across this model.
I was never a fan of minidisc until I bought this, and then I didnt accept it with open arms. I spent an age recording my collection onto the discs via my main unit, and I guess that because the player was trendy and compact at the time, it was always going to be popular to some extent. I cant say the minidisc actually took off as other formats have done. If you are looking to buy one of these now I would definately suggest taking a look on the auction sites and you can pick them up for literally a couple of pounds. A bargain in my mind!
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Sony MD Walkman MZ-R410
by Hexachloraphene
I HAVE THE POWER.....
The MZ R410 is in my opinion quite a legend, here is why I think so:
Now first of all this review your reading is recent; I am writing this on the 28th of May 2008, I purchased the R410 in Feb 03 and started to archive Vinyl Records via the Line In, at this point in the review I would just ... point out that admittedly the quality of sound on LP4 is Very inferior to LP2 or SP...the difference between LP2 and SP is hardly perceptible.
Some people have expressed a dislike of the AA Battery bulge on the back, these people tend to be the fashionista and therefore their views should be taken with caution.
Now on to one of the larger points I intended to make...After comparing this model with many more expensive models I started to notice something which made me keep making a beeline for the R410 when 'leavin the Ouse..and that thing is that this model (compared to several other minidisc players I have used, one of which was quite a lot pricier) seems to kick out quite a Punch!!! Especially when used with BIG Headphones, Now I have noticed that all the modern mp3 players I have ever experienced sound very malnourished or even inaudible when outside, and as small is currently still the dictat there is not many modern portable appliances which have the Power.
In a final note I would also like to say 2 other things I think the interface is intuitive and easy to use after apprx 5hrs of use(basically menu's sub menu's & sub sub menu's).
And lastly I foolishly dwopped this thing on three seperate occasions...twice outside on to concrete pavement, and once when I was sitting on a very high Barstool on to said Bar's V hard floor, my R410 has visible damage from this last adventure and still works perfectly.
I would definately buy one if you can find one on 'T Net...
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Sony Hi-MD Walkman MZ-NH900
by mgoldman
The bastards who stole my wife's car got my old sony minidisc (but none of the kit necessary to make it work!!!!!!!). These days, insurance companies don't give you the money, but give a direct replacement via a contracted out supplier. The closest they could get to the MZ707 was this, and as a hi MD recorder, I am mostly ... happier.
Now, you have to be a fan of minidisc, and so far the battle against hard disc systems like iPod is pretty much lost, and also against the solid state flash. But imagine this: a system that can carry, potentially, an infinite number of tracks, that can record radio or data, and still leave you room for more. The Hi MD is pretty amazing. It is backwards compatible with the older formats, and your old discs will hold approximately 10 hours of sound each. These discs retail for about a pound each. Fork out a bit more for a hi density 1MB disc, and you are talking 45 CD's recorded on one disc. That sounds good to me.
The newer minidisc recorder looks pretty much like all the Sony predecessors. The docking cradle looks the same, but is subtly different, meaning that I don't have two docking sets. That is a pity, and there is no obvious reason why Sony should have changed this. The display is complex, and unless you are in bright light with good eyes, can be hard to read. There is a backlight, but I have not discovered it yet.
There is a computer interface, and this is a magnitude better than the old Sony MG jukebox. The rapid burn programme does exactly that. The beauty is that it links with the internet and downloads the details of the CD's it is recording. I don't know how it does it, but it is damn clever. I have tried it with some fairly old and obscure stuff, and it just goes ahead and finds the disc contents, and just simply labels the recording. This clearly has to be done to compete with the iPod system.
I simply hate the contemporary earbud earpieces, even though they work well. I find them uncomfortable. Replacing them with conventional earphones was not a great success, as the power of the setup is not great enough to produce volume loud enough for outdoors. I eventually settled on a pair of powered noise cancelling earphones from Thompson (!!!!!!!!), bought from Makro.
The other pity is that the simple AA battery has been replaced by a Sony NiMH oblong. This means that you can't simply carry a supply of spare rechargeable AA's. However it is slightly better than that, in that there is an AA battery holder supplied, and you can pop any sort of AA cell in that and screw it on to the base in an emergency, but you have to carry it with you.
The other loss is the rather nice carrying case. A simple cloth drawstring bag is supplied which seems a bit nasty. However, you can carry extra discs and batteries. I will probably go and buy a generic case soon.
Operating the system is quite complex, and there are lots of menus. You won't guess how to do everything intuitively, and the use of icons means that you really really have to read the thick instruction book. However, the machine produces a great sound, seems to work well, and I will get used to it.
Given the choice of defecting to ipod, I chose minidisc. I have also discovered software that will allow you to record Internet radio to MP3, so unlike ipod, you can listen to your favourite audio radio.
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