The 510 is starting age a bit now, but I doubt that the current model (530) is a staggering improvement on what was a cheap, but exceptional design.
Confusingly, this appears to be both one of the best sounding MD recorders of all time (see The PC AV Tech website for proof) and also one of the most troublesome. Thankfully, mine has never had a single problem - and I use it a lot (it stores all the audio information I use to feed my Akai S1000).

As for sound quality, I personally can't fault it (and I am very picky) when taking digital copies, and so long as you use a good quality source and set levels right, the results from the A/D convertors can be equally good. It can seem to get a bit flustered with dynamics, but this is barely noticeable, and with a DAC upgrade may well be sorted (it seems to disappear when I tranfer to my pro sampler).

To sum up: an absolute bargain (well under £100 these days)that should not be missed if you're at all interested.

This is the biggest piece of CRAP Sony have ever brought out. If you're lucky, the machine might last a year without breaking !The mechanism has just given up after a years usage and will cost $100 to repair.
This is a VERY common fault apparently.
Go for an ES model if you can. That's what I'll be doing now.

All I can say is that, I'm glad that people are more open minded to the MD. I know I don't own the MDS-JE510 but instead I owned MDS-JE500, there isn't much difference. Just a few features but the same ATRAC chip 4.0, I must say
is a wonderful invention of all time.

Sony MDS-JE510 MiniDisc Recorder/Player
I bought the 510 about a year ago to "back-up"
my brothers LP collection. He got the portable
and a FM modulator to play at work, in the car
and at home. He loves it and he doesn't have
to mess with a turntable.

I've used it to record movie sound tracks - in
mono. I then transcribe them into screen-
plays. The 510 is the best "cassette deck" I
have every used. Even better than the
Nakamichi [sp] units.

I copied old cassettes that had been recorded
in the mid-seventies between my parents,
while they were in Africa, and the people that
were living in our house in the States. The
minidisc can improve some poorly recorded
sources. I used a parametric EQ from a
Yamaha C-85 to tame the sound.

WARNING - WARNING - WARNING

When recording in mono to achive +148 minutes,
DO NOT DIVIDE, ERASE, JOIN tracks. I
consistantly get errors ranging from: 34 minutes
remaing and 135 minutes recorded, protected,
- - - min. - - - sec., sound from adjoining tracks
play back together. Granted, I'm not using Sony
Minidiscs - I'm currently using Maxell (Max-Hell).

Kudos to Minidisc. I liked the magneto-optical
technique for storage so well, that I bought a
Fujitsu 640MB MO drive for my Macintosh.

If there were only a way to record from a
Minidisc player to a 640 MB MO drive. Instead
of 140MB of data, you would have 640MB and
a potential of five and a half hours of stereo
content uninterrupted! ! !

Chris J. Browne
e-mail: mkbrowne@pacbell.net

Four & 1/2 Stars (for minor mono editing errors)

JUNK - Sony stamps out another looser.
small, cheap sub-miniture surface mounted switches fail on the input sense and prerecorded sense and the record lock sense.

Just a playback unit now. . .too many headaches to count.

I got the JE-510 about two years ago and am not overly impressed with it. I have had the same problem as others that have reviewed this product, where the auto-loading mechanism is messed up and turns the unit on all by itself. Also, I have found the recording problematic because it chops off the last 1 to 2 seconds from when I actually hit the stop button (its better to hit pause and then stop when done recording, as this seems to avoid this prolem - but don't stop recording by hitting pause if there is less than tens seconds left on the disc, or the recordings on the minidisc will get completely garbled up and it will report a false recording-time-left reading (another flaw I found)). The reverse scan function is also garbage, as after you release the button after backing up, it usually jumps ahead about 10-15 seconds from where the button was released (this is an important function when recording, as you usually have to scan back to chop off the last part of the recording if you record the start of the next song from the CD). The song selection dial on the unit seems poorly designed as well, as it usually doens't switch to the next song when I turn it.
Buy another brand of minidisc player/recorder. One star.

Purchased this minidisc player to record my live tape collection over to a digital medium, and am certainly very glad that i did. The minidisc is a wonderful transitional medium until cd recording becomes a reality. minidiscs can be had for $5.99 each and actually improve the sound of a tape recorded at a low record level. I wouldn't give mine up!