fully disassembled my Sony MZ-N1 #MiniDisc player to lubricate the optical pick up slide rail mechanism and geartrain, worm gear, and overwrite head actuation geartrain
I truly cannot help myself. Of course I had to dive in a few more times. Here are pictures of the worm screw geartrain for the laser sled assembly, and the worm gear assembly for raising and lowering the overwrite head, respectively. I've ensured everybody had the appropriate amount of teeth and a thin film of white lithium grease exists on all touching components. For added measure, I removed, de-gunked, and added tension to the copper follower that rides the laser sled screw.
Finally dug my #MiniDisc player out. Currently charging some batteries; gonna make some nice #VGM mixes... But more importantly, why have we abandoned physical media?? Just look at these. Look at what you could be storing your music on. 🤩
@Hundstrasse Does it make any unusual sounds when you insert a disc? Often the grease on the gears can get gunked up, and if the read head can’t move freely you’ll see a disc error message. If it is the case, it’s not too hard to fix.
@rizer thanks for the suggestion. I don't think that's the problem; sounds normal, and if I put it into test mode then I can manually drive the head across and it all looks smooth. I know that the Sharp players are prone to the plastic drive gear failing too, but the movement seems so smooth that I struggle to believe it's that.
... Sadly nobody seems to have written a guide for systematically adjusting each of the various alignment settings... 😶... But I feel like that's waaaay beyond me 😅
@vga256 Yep, there's now reproduction cases available of the type pre-recorded MDs came in in North America but I find them too bulky and they're expensive, so I go with this option. Someone on the MiniDisc Discord imports them in large numbers and sells packs of them on eBay. A bit of cardstock and some time putting designs together and they look pretty neat :)
so after three days of listening to music on my 20 year old minidisc player, I forgot to bring my crappy wired headphones to work and had to go back to my airpods and iPhone.
i can say without exaggeration that anyone would be shocked at how terrible sounding the airpods are in comparison. these are clearly engineered for voice: podcasts, audiobooks and phone calls. you don’t need to be an audiophile to hear the difference.
i am totally fascinated by the process in which we gave up the experience of fidelity purely for convenience over the past 25 years. i remember first noticing it with MP3s in the 90s. 128kbit was awful, and no one seemed to care because it was faster and easier to download at 56kbaud.
music sounds musical on this old MD player. the people building it clearly wanted people to close their eyes and lay back in an armchair and listen for hours.
i wonder what other technological fidelities we’ve given up just for convenience?
@lunarloony i can imagine. you're the second person to have mentioned problems with speech on TVs.
to be completely honest, i don't have this problem at all. we have a 7.1 system for our tv, and all speech is sent to the centre channel which is perfectly audible.
there are so many factors involved in mixing audio that must be downmixed for television (2-channel, 3.1, 4.1, 5.1, etc), that i can't begin to imagine how complicated this is.
it took 20 years, but i finally got my dream minidisc player: a Sony MZ-S1 Sports NetMD. 🤯
a neighbour down the street listed it for sale "untested" which usually means 'i tested it and it's broken'.
i gambled and bought it on sight. i practically ran home like a 9 year old just to put it through its paces, and it is perfect. 😆
the build quality is rugged and beautiful throughout. many of the surfaces are rubberized with a polymer that is still soft (and hasn't broken down). the curvilinear surfaces feel so good in the hand, makes you want to hold it. the pearlescent white finish hasn't even yellowed yet (!)
instead of a jog dial, you get a mini thumbstick which rests surprisingly well under the thumb. the deep orange display of the Sports S2 line has always been a favourite of mine - something no other company did.
i can't wait to load up SonicStage on my iMac and start transferring music :D
failing that, i'll be using WebMiniDisc to transfer music in-browser
seriously, webminidisc.com is a masterpiece of engineering and UI design.
i dragged an album from my music library onto the page, and it automatically converted it to ATRAC format, uploaded it, and wrote it to my md player connected via usb.
I decided it was too messy, so I re-did the whole thing in Affinity Publisher; using text frames, shared cutting guides, and better text layout, and now I can fit a bunch more into a single A4 sheet!
2024 will be the year of the Minidisc in my hobby.
After finding out so many records I couldn't buy due of vulgar overprices I plan to buy a lot of blank minidiscs and a deck to create a different collection! #MiniDisc#ATRAC#MusicLover#MusicCollector
@jnv bro!! I noticed that change in the last months, I saw prices rising suddenly... I think there are many people interested to get into MiniDisc, no matter if that's an "obsolete technology"...
I suggest to try any Japanese shop (I will start to buy blank discs and find an deck) there are so many good options.
@gavin57 I was well into MD, but bought all the gear before the net parts. I had (still have in store) hifi separates, a portable recorder, and numerous head units in the car. Loved it!
WTF. We wuz robbed of our steampunk musical future decades ago.
A Pocket-Sized Record Player Circa 1924
Before the iPod, before the Walkman, there was the Mikiphone, a portable record player that folded up into a case that you could fit in your pocket. Invented circa 1924, this portable phonograph was powered by a hand-crank and could play 10-inch records.