... We stayed in, had a great meal, did loads of nice things (saying no more) and I had lots of fun learning how to use my new Sony MZ-R500!!
This portable MD recorder was a superb gift from my beloved. It was not expected, I wasn’t sure what I was getting, maybe a Gameboy advance, but the ... Read review
Advantages: Small compact, very functionable personal audio. Disadvantages: No control within headphone cord. Low battery life but ONLY when recording.
...how to use my new Sony MZ-R500!!
This portable MD recorder was a superb gift from my beloved. It was not expected, I wasn’t sure what I was getting, maybe a Gameboy advance, but the MD player was a better gift for sure!!
I am told it was purchased from electricalappliancesdirect.co.uk, for around £125.00. The ‘high-street’ price is generally around £130-£150, so a bargain was had.
Anyway, the MD recorder ... ...can!
The Sony unit I have is great, it’s really simple to use with the minimum of buttons. You have the following to use.
Volume up and down. Say no more.
Pause, Play, and Record. Again, simple. Press play and record to ‘do one’. I’ll say at this point you can ‘protect’ a MD recording by flicking a tab on the disc, so accidents can be avoided!
Enter and menu up/down. Through the intuitive menu ... more
It was a very happy birthday I had this year. We stayed in, had a great meal, did loads of nice things (saying no more) and I had lots of fun learning how to use my new Sony MZ-R500!!
This portable MD recorder was a superb gift from my beloved. It was not expected, I wasn’t sure what I was getting, maybe a Gameboy advance, but the MD player was a better gift for sure!!
I am told it was purchased from electricalappliancesdirect.co.uk, for around £125.00. The ‘high-street’ price is generally around £130-£150, so a bargain was had.
Anyway, the MD recorder in my hand is silver in colour, and is around 1.5 inch square, and isn’t much thicker than two mini discs put together, so is quite small, certainly very pocket sized!
I have never intended to used this as a machine for playing pre-recorded music on, despite the fact that most major release albums do come on this format nowadays, they are very overpriced still, when compared to cd’s. A comparison tells me most chart MD’s are £15 minimum at Amazon.co.uk, whereas CD’s are generally £12. No, this unit is purely for personal compilations, best of’s, B-side discs, and just pure indulgence in my head of my favourite music (and there’s a lot of it I can tell you!)
More about the unit, and why I’m recommending it.
It’s very simple to use, you simply have to insert a blank disc, connect an external music source and record away. There are different ways you can record onto a MD, depending on your existing equipment.
Ideally you need an optical output on your cd player, DVD, hi-fi or PC soundcard. This will enable you to connect (using the optical lead provided) to you recorder via the most advanced route possible, and it will allow for a digital – digital recording. (assuming you are copying from cd of course) Most newer hi –fi’s will have this facility, as will high end sound cards, such as the more expensive CreativeLabs offerings.
If you optically connect then you can take advantage of in built features, which MD was designed for, such as sync record. This is where your unit will only start recording when it picks up a signal. In this mode the recorder will automatically set any recording levels to the optimum so the potential for a distorted MD is avoided. Also, track marks (gaps between songs) are automatically added, to aid your disc making skills.
Other routes to connect to any MD recorder are via a line-out socket, or via headphone out socket. Either route will enable you to make a mini disc copy, but will not be digital, there may be distortion, and you copy will never by cd quality, or even MP3 quality. So, stick to digital-digital if you can!
The Sony unit I have is great, it’s really simple to use with the minimum of buttons. You have the following to use.
Volume up and down. Say no more. Pause, Play, and Record. Again, simple. Press play and record to ‘do one’. I’ll say at this point you can ‘protect’ a MD recording by flicking a tab on the disc, so accidents can be avoided!
Enter and menu up/down. Through the intuitive menu you can select Bass levels, volume limitation levels (to protect ones tabs!), Sync recording status (on /off), play modes, (intro, random etc) and record modes (most useful is ‘from end’ so you don’t copy over existing tracks)
All very useful, and all very simple to operate.
End search. This will tell you how much of the disc space is remaining for recording purposes. With Sony you can use three modes for recording, in the mould of LP on a VCR. There are three modes available, Normal. LP2 and LP4. With a standard MD, you’ll get 80 minutes in normal, 160 minutes in LP2 and a whopping 360 minutes in LP4. Think before you make a disc, as if you try to play a LP disc in a non-Sony player you may have problems.
LP4 mode is thought to give distortion on certain types of music from what I read, I have not tried that mode yet myself, but I can say LP2 mode is perfect, and I can easily fit 3 or 4 albums onto 1 MD with no loss of performance!
The aesthetics of this Sony unit are set off by the brushed silver front casing, with contrasting silver buttons. The back of the unit is black. There is a small digital display on the main unit, which is essential for operating, as unlike the £200 + machines, this one does not have a control within the headphone cord.
The unit takes just 1 AA battery, which will last around 20 hours play time, but considerably less when recording. Usefully a power-supply is included by Sony. The headphones supplied are adequate, but not impressive, I find they don’t cope with bassier tracks well. This is common-place with personal audio I find, headphones always need upgrading. (A friend recently paid £80 for some Bang and Olufsen headphones, they look very stylish and sound superb!!!!!!! I can dream….)
The player has 20 second anti-skip, so in addition to the durability and stability of the format, it's well backed up, so no matter how hard you work whilst using this machine you shouldn't have a skippy song!! I've never had a track skip I have to say.
Overall it’s a great machine, but to recommend purchase I must also recommend you have a optical output on your equipment, in order to produce a CD quality disc. If you don’t optically produce a disc you are not doing the technology any justice!!
If you don’t have an optical output (Al, shut up about optical stuff!) then check www.xitel.com for a wonderful solution, which I can recommend and will be reviewing on Ciao in the near future.
Useful resources can be found at www.minidisc.org, and www.sony.com
Advantages: Small, excellent battery life, flexible Disadvantages: Poor headphones, can't get it off my girlfriend
...It was invented by Sony and released onto the market back in 1993. If you’ve never seen a minidisc, they are like little CD’s, about 7cms in diameter and encased in a plastic cover to protect them from dust and the possibility of being scratched. The whole thing looks a bit like like a small 3 1/2” diskette, but infinitely cuter and much trendier, especially if you get the coloured ones that are available!
OK, now you know what they look like, what’s ... ...minidisc is extremely flexible. Sony claim you can rerecord on the same disc up to a million times without losing any sound quality, I haven’t actually tested this yet, but I’m working on it, ask me about it in around 200 years! The discs themselves are very small, durable and portable, and only cost around £1.50 each as blanks. When recording from a digital source such as a CD you are making a digital copy, so the sound quality should be the same ...
paule23 17.10.2001 (18.10.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Sony MiniDisc recorder
Advantages: compact, not as pricey as other models, good quality recordings Disadvantages: price of mini discs, an information manual is essential!
...MD player).
Perhaps if Sony needed a new mascot, I could be it: the attraction of my 50 useless mini discs meant that friends began to buy Sony personal MD players in anticipation of stealing the above mentioned MDs. However, the day that I would receieve a personal mini disc player of my own, wasn't far away as my boyfriend (probably feeling guilty at his thefts) bought me a Sony MZ-R500 for my birthday. The best thing about my mini disc player, ... ...better model, for example the Sony MZ-R700. However, my MD came with a simple pair of Sony earphones while the MZ-R700 comes with remote control earphones, not to mention rechargable battery and case. A slight disadvantage, but i don't think it's worth the £30 extra! There are 10 buttons on the front on the player with a small display screen (there is also an eject button on the side and a HOLD button to freeze the keys if desired) and althought ...
emilystobbs 13.10.2001 (14.10.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Sony MiniDisc recorder
Advantages: Longplay, Jog proof Disadvantages: No remote control, deterioration over 2 yrs.
...meaning I have bought a SONY MD hi-fi, which I have also reviewed, which also features MDLP. RECORDING Recording onto this portable player was fine, although it was difficult to find many Hi-fi's with optical outputs, so analog was my preferred method. this is slightly lower quality than digital though if its just background music that you are after then you are very unlikely to notice any difference. DURABILITY I have managed to drop the player ... ...minor scratches. However after using it for 2 years, the play button has become loose, the lid is not closing properly every time and most importantly the sound is not always as good as it should be. The headphones need to be in a certain orientation, and any slight movement of them causes noise, or the loss of some audio channels. TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY??? If you can find this MD player new for a decent price, then this is a definite must buy- however ...
Andyopinion 22.03.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Sony MiniDisc recorder
Advantages: Very cheap! Disadvantages: Bit basic, no remote, non rechargeable
...the £100 mark so as Sony MDs go thats pretty damn good as its recordable. The sound quality is brilliant which at the end of the day is what i bought the thing for. Its got long play so you can fit up to 4 albums on it, think thats 300mins of music or something like that!
The only trouble is, i'm a bit of a gadget man and love to fiddle with gizmos. And the thing is with this one, there's not a lot to mess with! There's no remote which is a right ... ...out into broad daylight, and risk getting it stolen just to nudge the volume up or to change tracks. Thats not my only complaint. It uses standard AA batteries so unless you have your own batteries and charger, it'll gobble up Duracells no problem! You get a fair amount out of a standard battery but i reckon in the 2 years i've had it i've spent just as much on them as i have the flippin MDman. Apart from adjusting the bass, and juggling the tracks ...
DirtyBerty01 14.10.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Sony MiniDisc recorder
Advantages: The name (Sony), size, looks Disadvantages: Longplay compatability, time taken to enter track names, automatic track end marks
My main quibble with this MD player is that the longplay feature is not supported by many other MD players. If you use MDs on your Hi-Fi, or in your car, then this can be disappointing as a disc that has been recorded using the longplay format can not be replayed on units that do not support longplay.
If you, like me, want to put the song titles on your discs then you will need a lot of patience with this MD player. It takes a good hour to put in ... ...CD!!!
Track marks are another problem. This MD player adds a track mark whenever it perceives a gap in the recorded sound of more than 2 seconds. This is not good news if you like to listen to classical music - because it is full of pauses and silences, which get interpreted as new tracks. Admittedly, the marks can be manually erased, but there is no way to stop the unit from putting them in there for you during the recording session.
The good ...
Longshanx 26.07.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Sony MiniDisc recorder
Sound Quality
Ease of Use
Look & Design
Range of Features
Value for Money
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Advantages: Looks good, good price, quite a few good features. Disadvantages: Not as many features as some MD's, not a NetMD
If you have had a look at my reviews, then you will have seen that I wrote about a MD player that I had before a few weeks ago. Unfortunately I left it on the bus a couple of weeks ago so I had to buy a new one. I saw this cheap on Ebay and decided to snap it up.
I'll start off by describing what a mini disc player is for those of you that don't have a clue what they are.
MiniDiscs were brought out by Sony in 1991 as a disc based digital medium for recording and distributing audio that is near CD in quality.
There are two types of discs: Premastered MDs, similar to CDs, and Recordable MDs, which can be recorded on repeatedly, like a CD-RW.
Anyway onto this MD player? I have only had this for a couple of days but I can still tell that it is better than the mp3 players that I have had in the past. With mp3 players the battery ...
Product Information for "Sony MiniDisc recorder" »
Audio system
Sound Output Mode
Stereo
Sound Effects
Mega Bass
Tone Control
Yes
Automatic Volume Limiter System (AVLS)
Yes
Features
AVLS, ATRAC technology
Md system
Type
MiniDisc recorder
Media Load Type
Slot-load
Playback Modes
Programme play, random play / shuffle, all tracks repeat, one track repeat
Sample Rate
32 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz
Shockproof Memory
Yes
Features
MDLP
Headphones
Headphones Type
Headphones - binaural
Connectivity Technology
Wired
Sound Output Mode
Stereo
Connections
Connector Type
1 x SPDIF input ( TOS Link )
1 x headphones ( mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm )
1 x DC power input
1 x microphone
System requirements
OS Required
Microsoft Windows 2000
Manufacturer's product description
The jacket size MD Walkman player/recorder MZ-R500 easily slips into a pocket for personal enjoyment just about anywhere. MDLP Long Time Recording and Playback lets you record 2X (LP2) or 4X (LP4) longer on an 80-minute MiniDisc to provide as much as 320 minutes (over 5 hours) of music with excellent sound quality. Skip-Free G-Protection technology makes the MD Walkman an ideal on-the-go companion, with an advanced system that provides more than 10-times faster shock recovery compared to conventional systems, ensuring perfect playing performance without skipping even during such active uses as jogging. Download new songs from the net in any format you like with the Analog PC Link cable. Digital Mega Bass sound system provides rich, deep bass tones with digital signal processing for virtually inaudible harmonic distortion. Digital recording level control allows you to achieve a consistent recording level on your MiniDisc no matter what the source of your recording. When the eject mechanism is pressed on the unit, the lid pops up and ejects the disc approximately 1/2 inch making for easy loading and unloading. Digital Synchro Recording lets you make digital copies of your CDs onto a MiniDisc with synchronized operation that begins recording when digital input signal is received. You can create or modify individual track information as the MiniDisc is being recorded. The LCD display alerts you to the time left on the MiniDisc for additional recording or to conclude playback, and provides a visible symbol battery power remaining.
