[razvitm]

Some of them have built-in sample rate converter, they accept both 44,1KHz and 48KHz optical spdif.
You can fool the player that you want to record, it starts converting the digital stream and outputs audio to line-out so you can set recording levels, and you keep the player in this state, you don't start the actual burning of the disc.
I'm at work at the moment, but when i get home i will try this with my sharp and sony minidisc players, maybe run some RMAA tests on them, to see how they compare to my Fiio X3 portable DAP and DAC. 
The thing is they are battery powered, battery lasts long, there's volume control while converting, maybe even bass boost.
Did i mention remote control?

 

[razvitm]

Just finished running some RMAA tests on several portable minidisc recorders.
Hardware: Asus X99A onboard soundcard optical out set to 16 bit 44.1 khz
E-MU0404 USB analog input set to 24 bit 44.1khz
Put a blank disc in your minidisc recorder
Start the RMAA test
Push record without pushing simultaneously play
The player starts to output through headphone out what you feed it through optical in jack
Adjust levels both on player, usually a few values below max, and on soundcard, so the RMAA recording level is about -3dB
Start the test.
Repeat for all the players you have.
Compare results.

I tested 3 sharp units, a panasonic and 2 sony.
All tests done with bass set to 0 on all players, yet sony insists to boost the bass anyways... they call this the sony sound. Pure crap if you ask me.
Anyway... results are mediocre at best.
Was hoping for 90dB SNR and 0.00X THD+N.
Interesting to see that while transforming from digital to analog, the signal does not pass through ATRAC codecs, if it did, there would be no frequency response past 17KHz.
 
What do you say? Will you use a minidisc player as a 16/44 DAC or not?
I have a bunch of portable cd players with optical out, made by sony, which have very low headphone output.
Will be connecting them to a sharp minidisc so i can get 1V RMS out on the headphone jack, VS the lower 0,4V RMS of the cdplayers output.
So basically use them as a dac+amp as an upgrade to the crappy low output incorporated into the portable cd players dac+amp.