In terms of functionality, a great unit - large, clear display, easily-navigable editing and setup menus. But sound quality ? Well, I may have picked up a faulty unit (the next few days will reveal this) but I suspect Sony's ATRAC 4.5 may not be all it's cracked up to be. Digital copies from CD sound uniformly excellent, but the problems start with vinyl. If it's in good condition - no problem. If it suffers from a signficant degree of surface noise, then you're in trouble. The ATRAC algorithm (or possibly the ADC chip ?) exacerbates every pop and click making the recording almost intolerable. My Sharp 702 portable doesn't do this - its recordings are faithful to the vinyl source with no more or less surface noise than is on the record itself.
A couple of folks on Usenet have had similar experiences, which seems to indicate that the versions of ATRAC that Sharp and Denon use are inherently superior to the ubiquitous Sony algorithm. I find this hard to believe (MD is Sony's baby after all), but the body of anecdotal evidence seems to be growing.

All in all, a disappointing first encounter with a full-size MD deck.

Mike.

I know it's not really the done thing to post more than once on the same product, but I thought I ought to revise my grading below.
Truth is, it's input saturation that's the problem with recording from my vinyl source, not the Sony's ADC or ATRAC algorithm. My phono pre-amp has an unusually high gain and, used with a medium-output MC like my Ortofon, is actually slightly louder through my system than my CD player. This seems to be too much for the Sony - creating overload at the point of input that subsequent reduction of REC-LEVEL can't eliminate.

The Sony *should* be able to cope (my cassette deck, line-level pre-amp and MD portable all happily deal with the high output of my turntable), but it can't and I'm going to have to look to another deck or a relatively loss-free way of attenuating the phono stage output in-line.

The encoding hardware is clearly not the culprit - so add another star...

Mike.

Great sound, great build quality, very versatile, highly functional remote

a-b editing a little too awkward to control

This deck sounds fantastic, about equivalent in sound to a Marantz CD-48 (the CD player I use) although the bass is a *little* fuzzy (only just a little) and the dynamics leave a *very little* bit to be desired, but it probably still needs a little bit of breaking in. Almost no perceptible difference between the source (going through the MD deck's DAC) and the recorded disc - ATRAC really is as good as it's purported to be.

The remote, while admittedly bulky and a tad ugly, is highly functional, particularly for entering titles - the only other deck I was looking at was the MDS-JE330 which had a smaller, neater remote, BUT you were missing features and versatility on it. (not only this but the JE330 seemed a far inferior unit in build quality plus there was no digital out or coaxial in)

The build quality is excellent, my only real complaint being the switches for input/stereo-mono/timer control, but apart from that a fantastic deck.

(For purposes of comparison, I'm running the deck with a preamp and MOSFET amp of my own design - 125W into 8ohm, ~40A peak current - into a pair of B&W DM302s)

Similar Products Used:

various micro/mini systems with inbuilt MD + MDS-JE330

It records and paysback fine. The builid quality is rahter poor, I think. But then it is cheap...

Pitch control, Fairish sound quality through internal dac, Coax input

No coax out, feels a little plasticky

I've got the MDSJE530, which offers pitch and coax input in addition to the optical in and out. It also has the Atrac type R, the latest compression system. I have an extremely revealing system -£2000 Mordaunt Short speakers etc but, played through an external dac, theres no difference in sound quality between this and my PIoneer Precision cd player when through my Sennheiser 580 headphones although theres a markable difference when through the Ms's. The internal dac is pretty rubbish though, and lacks bass detail. But its easy to use, the pitch control is excellent fun, you can title tracks when recording, and theres a standard analogue tape loop as well. THe pitch control only works in large steps- it goes to -24 and +2.
A quick note, Richer Sounds and Sevenoaks do this at good prices, around £140 instead of RRP of £200. Its also just won the What Hifi award, but I wouldn't personally think too much of that!

Similar Products Used:

None, just had a go with a Technics md100, which was pretty average, as usual with Technics

Ease of use, great sound, no hiss, small handy recording format.

Format has not reached widespread popularity. Can't adjust record level while recording. Sometimes have a problem inserting mindisc into unit.

Great unit, so far no problems,never a bad disc. I have used Maxell, Sony, and TDK blanks. The sound is more than acceptable. Slight loss of some detail compaired to origional CD source, but only noticed it in a direct A/B compairison. The difference was very slight. The absence of hiss and tape drop outs makes it worth the price. Minidiscs themselves are durable. Throw out your cassettes, buy a minidisc, and hope this format catches on. It really deserves to.

Similar Products Used:

Open reel and cassette.

Recently replaced a 5-year old MiniDisc deck with this model. Love that it has more detailed editing capabilies. Don't love that you can't chnage the play mode (shuffle, repeat) while a disc is in play. Otherwise, has everything you could want on a MiniDisc deck for a very nice price. And if you're considering getting a MiniDisc, DO IT. It's an awesome format that will rock your world, especially if you love to make mixes of your favorite music. I have one in my car and it's the best!

Smallness

Battery- & Dischatchett

This little piece of high-end technology is neat. Though it's smallness it's very good. Good recording and editing. Very nice sound, plugged it in to my 1500 $ Hi-fi and it sounded really ok. To much bass maybe and the vocals could sometimes be unclear, but with such a little portable audio-player it's much more then expected. BIG minus for Sony's fixation to optical recording. Coaxial recording it should be, because it works better on cheaper systems. The Minidisc-hatch feels a little bit weak and so does the battery-hatch. Overall it's a really good buy for walkman-fans.

Similar Products Used:

MZ-R33

quality build

constant mechanical problems

Sony should be ashamed of itself for releasing such a flawed and buggy product. The 520, and I have had 4 of them, eventually develope bad micro switches and also jam disc. While I am sure there are people who manage to get a good unit the 520 in my opinion is not to be trusted to stay working and SHOULD BE AVOIDED. Try the 530. I use the 330 as I could not find a 530. The 330 is great and works.

Similar Products Used:

None