Pros: Excellent Battery life! Awesome audio quality, even in LP4 mode
Cons: no backlight, manual song titling, no remote
The Bottom Line: if this is an example of a budget MD device, the format should be around a LONG time, and I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to try an MD
jbach36's Full Review: Sony Walkman MZ-R500 PC Personal MiniDisc Player
Well, I finally decided to try a Mini Disc player, I was looking locally (at Sears), not a major variety there mind you.. Sony and Sharp closeouts.. I wanted to save some money, so I bought the least expensive one they had, the Sharp SR-60.. I had it a few days, and wasn't disapointed by the features or sound quality, in fact I was very impressed.. til I started copying a lot of songs over.. I found I was filling the 74 Min MD discs I had very quickly (I am taking a long driving trip next week, and I wanted music for the ride).. so I started reading up on the other models they had, namily the Sony MZ-R37Sppc, and the Sony MZ-R500PC, they both seemed good, but I decided on the R500 for one main reason, it has MDLP mode, letting you decide from 3 different recording modes (not counting the Mono Mode ) mainly, Stereo, or uncompressed, then there are the LP modes, LP2 and LP4, LP2 doubles the recording time, with VERY little loss in audio quality, and LP4, which again, doubles what LP2 mode gives you, in other words, you get 74 min in Stereo mode, 148 min in LP2 mode, and about 296 min (mine tells me 299 min ) in LP4 mode, however, there is some audio quality loss in LP4 mode.. Kinda like encoding an MP3 in 96-64 bitrate)I tend to use LP4 mostly, as I get more music on the MD, and since most of my MP3's and WMA's are around 64 or 96 (I used to have a smaller MP3 player)
this is fine, as I am used to the lower quality sound, however, don't copy 64 bitrate WMA's or MP3's to the MD at LP4 mode, or you'll be in for a surprise..lots of strange sounds pop up.. but recording from a CD, or higher quality MP3/WMA gives great results, esp when recorded using the PCLink device that came with the MD.. basicly it's a USB Audio device.. when installed (which is VERY easy, just plug it in, Win 98 does the rest) it takes over as the main sound device, does digital audio great, much cleaner than running through the sound card even (I have a SB Live Value)
it doesn't seem to handle MIDI though, or CD audio yet.. but that's not a major prob really, for those you can always use a patch cable from the sound card or CD drive to the MD (in fact, I'm doing that now), and listening to it at the same time through the headphones connected to the MD.
Sony calls this the entry level of it's new MD player/recorders, and as such it's missing some of the nice things the Sharp SR-60 had, like a corded remote, included AC adapter and rechargeable battery, and other nicer functions.. But overall, I prefer the R500PC, it's smaller, the sound (to me) is a lot better, and of course the MDLP mode.. yes it would have been nicer to have a better model of Sony MD, but at the price, I feel I got a wonderful deal on this one *smiles* I'm just about finished filling one MD I have about 60 songs on it right now, a combo of MP3, WMA, and CD audio files.. and all sound very cool, nice and clear..
I also love the battery life in this player, I had it about a week now, and just finally replaced the battery I had in it (I tried an Energizer E2 Photo Lithuim in it, and it got a LOT of use, the book says 48 hours of play time in LP4 mode with one of Sony's AA batteries, I think I did better.. (recording time is rated at 13.5 hours, again, my use was a combo of recording and playback)
in Stereo mode (no compression) you ought to get about 36 hours playback, and 7.5 hours recording.. again, very impressive, esp for the quality of music it plays
things I haven't tested yet are the Optical input, as I don't have anything that does optical yet, and ac use, since I don't have an adapter yet, I've just started trying to title my songs and discs, it's tedious, but I finished my 60 songs in about 45 min , give or takesays I have about 4:30 left on the disk... trying to decide what to record next...
Also another thing they omitted from this unit is a Mic jack... it has Line in, but, no power for a normal mic... however I found a solution here... I have a Radio Shack Amplified listener (I have a popped eardrum and sometimes I can't hear well on that side so I use this device ( RS CAT #33-1097) it works in Stereo too... anyway, I used a patch cable from the listener, to the MD, and the recordings were crystal clear...
One other thing (for now).. song titling.. usually I leave them untitled, til I have the ones I wanna keep on the MD then I start naming them...
Anyway, that's all for now, when I find something new I'll pass it along, thanks for reading this Epinion
Portable mini-disc player with recording capability Digital gain control ensures quality recording Automatic Volume Limiter System for even, consisten...More at Amazon Marketplace
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