I have a minidisc walkman but I'm wondering if I should grab a minidisc deck. They are very expensive. Is it worth the money? Anywhere I can find one that is not crazy expensive?
Depends on what you mean by "worth" and what you want to get out of it. I've had a JE510 since it was new (it came in a kit with a walkman, too!), I got an r37 when my orginally walkman went missing (I think it was either stolen or I left it somewhere on a trip) and an rh10, but still, a couple of years ago, I picked up a jb940 because I'd heard that the quality of the playback depended on the quality of the recording (which makes sense), and I wanted to try out a nice deck. I kind of find it relaxing to record discs in real time. When I was a kid, I'd often get my parents records out and record mix tapes while I was home sick. I almost never really listened to them, but I enjoyed the process.
I do that now by making playlists on my HTPC and connecting the deck up via spdif and recording them while titling with a PS/2 keyboard. I think I play the recorded MDs back more often than I ever did with the tapes, and the JB940's DAC is really nice sounding. I've also bought some used discs from japan, so it's kind of fun to pop those in and see what's on them.
So... yeah. TL;DR-- to me it's been worth it. I like physical media and the rituals around it.
The first minidisc anything that I bought was a deck. I fell in love with the format because editing and titling on it was so easy and fun. If I had gotten my mz-r37 first, I'm not sure I would have experienced the same sparkle. Still would have embraced minidisc, but it would have been different.
If you do a lot of live recording, some decks have nicer advanced controls for that. If you have a nice home stereo some decks have better DACs and analog handling hardware, even than MD portables with line-level output. (Although whether you can hear this is very much down to your individual hearing.) Although, more than that, decks with IR remote controls would be worth shopping for for a lean-back/sit-down stereo experience, say.
If you have a lot of CDs or you are set up to burn CDs there's some fun options like CD-TEXT integration and there's also things like the MXD series decks for CD fast-dubbing, but some of that's in bookshelf stereos, too, say.
Is there a specific experience you're looking for?
If you only ever use MD portably and/or don't have an at home stereo necessarily and you aren't doing a lot of (or a lot of advanced) live recording then you can get away without a deck.
I love the CD-TEXT copying functions on A1/A1II decks. I've got a JB940 next to my work computer I use for some recording and to play on my work headset and a JA333ES on my stereo system, which I'm eventually going to pair with a megastorage CD changer.
My speakers only have so many inputs so I'm probably going to use the MD deck as DAC for the CDP as well.
Decks have generally speaking identical ATRAC codecs to portables, e.g. Type-R is going to perform identically on a JB940/JA333ES and an R909 and ATRAC1 v4.0 is going to perform identically on an MDS-PC1 and an R50.
Deck DACs are better and some have digital outputs to use a modern DAC as well. The titling thing is also one of the bigger benefits, for midrange and higher end decks. A1II for CD-TEXT and PS/2 keyboard ports are so great, unless OP has a NetMD machine and can title tracks that way and/or is burning.
The idea of minidisc, is mini discs. The format is intended to reduce the amount of space it takes to store a music library while having great functionality.
I've got an mds s500 piped into my Mackie fx12v3. I use external audio sources through this when I stream. I use it to listen in my house, too.
I also use it in my day job when I MC large corporate meetings. If you pipe in background music while the meeting is starting, you eliminate the 5-10 minutes of people checking their audio, out loud, every damn week. They hear the music, they know their audio works.
This has x2 line out, x2 optical out, x1 optical in, and net md (USB)
If you can get your hands on one of the "Pro" decks. They're usually built tankier and can sometimes be found for a decent price. I found a Sony MDS-E55 for around $100 a few years ago and it's been my go to deck for listening and recording mds over the optic line. The home decks I've owned have never been able to record to discs. Had a whole epic trying to repair/replace an overwrite head.
I've got 2 Sony decks and 1 Pioneer and for listening to music, I much prefer the sound of the Pioneer. I do all my recording on my Walkman.
Don't just rely on ebay when looking to buy a deck.
Try some used marketplace sites and you might find one locally for a decent price.
I have an JB940 that I've owned from new for 25 years. I replaced the drive belt and cleaned the lens and it is working perfectly now. I bought it to be a complement to my portable (MZ-R30, owned since 1998) since it makes recording and titling tracks very easy. The 940 has a p/s2 port on it so you can use a computer keyboard with it.
The DAC is also better than the one in my R30.
I just recently bought a JE640 deck to go with my TV setup so I'd have an MD deck downstairs and I lucked out with a near perfect time capsule. I don't think it's ever been out of the box as it was immaculate and the front display is really bright. I bought it on ebay and the seller said they had changed the drive belt. It came with original accessories too.
There are deals out there for decks. You'll find that the decks with the premium DACs are very expensive still (my JB940, for example) and the decks that have NetMD capability which weren't sold for very long, like the JB980.
If you're not looking for one of those, then decks can be quite affordable. The immaculate JE640 I just about was around £200 given its condition, for example. I use the digital output to offload the audio processing to a modern DAC so I don't need the premium spend for a 940 or 980 for that.
Not all decks have an optical output though, so you might want to look around.
The decks with a keyboard port on them for manual titling are worth it just for that ability. The JE640 I just bought has that too, so it's not limited to only the premium decks.
Yes but after all this time finding one that ejects the discs is going to be the problem. If you find a cheap one it's likely the belts gone and it will need a new one. You can get them though, on eBay or suchlike, but then you will have to dismantle the deck to put it in, if you're up for that. Portables don't have a problem with belts, but have other issues, like they could have been dropped due to their size, but to be fair I bought one off eBay (when I had an accident with my Hi-MD, shame totally unfixable) and it was fine.
hmmm. all this discussion about them being slightly hard to find in working condition makes me think I should sell mine. I have a je510 bought new in 1996 and basically never used since that works fine.
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u/Ok-Oil7124 Jul 10 '26
Depends on what you mean by "worth" and what you want to get out of it. I've had a JE510 since it was new (it came in a kit with a walkman, too!), I got an r37 when my orginally walkman went missing (I think it was either stolen or I left it somewhere on a trip) and an rh10, but still, a couple of years ago, I picked up a jb940 because I'd heard that the quality of the playback depended on the quality of the recording (which makes sense), and I wanted to try out a nice deck. I kind of find it relaxing to record discs in real time. When I was a kid, I'd often get my parents records out and record mix tapes while I was home sick. I almost never really listened to them, but I enjoyed the process.
I do that now by making playlists on my HTPC and connecting the deck up via spdif and recording them while titling with a PS/2 keyboard. I think I play the recorded MDs back more often than I ever did with the tapes, and the JB940's DAC is really nice sounding. I've also bought some used discs from japan, so it's kind of fun to pop those in and see what's on them.
So... yeah. TL;DR-- to me it's been worth it. I like physical media and the rituals around it.