gloco
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This is a comprehensive review of the Sony MXD-D5C 5 CD changer/MD deck.
First let me backtrack so you'll understand my plight...
Back in the Spring of 1999, i was very tired of using bulky cassettes and a
Japanese slimline walkman. The sound was actually quite horrible and i was fed up,
so i took a dive into the MD platform after my brother checked prices at his store
and found the Sony Minidisc Bundle 5 for $179! What a great deal i thought, i get a
deck, the MDS-JE320 and a little player, the Sony EP11. Well, 2 months after that
(around July 1999) the EP11 died on me suddenly. So i went out and purchased a
MZE33 player which sufficed quite well. It has a very warm sound (yes it still works
wonderfully!). After 6 months, i started searching for something a little more high
quality for a MD player, and i came across the MZE75 BLUE unit as a import from Minidisco.com.
The price itself wasn't a problem but the loss of the warranty was, so i opted to wait
for the american version. By the summer of 2000, i saw the unit in a local electronics
store and decided to buy the unit. The 8 steps of bass and treble were a huge step in
the right direction. Unfortunately, BOTH jacks on the unit started showing intermittant
problems by the winter of 2000-2001. By February 2001, the jacks went out on me and i
was very lucky to find a RED model at JandR for $99. Mind you, this was for a brand new
unit. It still works fine, no intermittant problems, but i do notice the preset go out
once in a while. As for the MDS-JE320 deck? The thing started acting up soon after the EP11
died on me. First the phantom powering on of the unit in the middle of the night. I would
wake up to find the unit turned on all night. My family thought i was leaving the unit on
by accident. Hell, the thing would turn on while we would be watching a late night movie.
That stopped after a few months and then the famous grinding noise associated with the loading
mechanism started. This problem worsened as time passed. After a year and a half i couldn't
take it any longer so i decided to buy a new deck, which leads me to the MXD-D5C. I purchased
mine for $200 from advantage123, which is a Sony authorized store located in upstate New York.
The transaction went very smoothly and the deck was shipped in its original box within a larger
plain box via UPS ground, all in 3 days. The Deck normally retails for $400.
Alright on with the review:
Cosmetics/Design:
The unit itself looks pretty sleek and easy to operate. The left side is for the CD changer and
the right side is for the MD recording. The loading mechanism for the MD is very fast and quiet.
Ejecting a MD takes seconds. The CD changer is also quite fast but noisy when loading discs and
choosing a cd, so it might not be a good idea to operate it late at night if a bedroom is nearby.
I also found the unit not to be as sturdy as i expected. The top is a little flimsy as is the
back with the RCA jacks. Consideryourself forewarned not to place another component on top of
this deck! Also, the unit is HUGE! It takes up the entire space provided by my rack system.
Functionality:
The ease of use on this particular deck cannot be praised enough. Normal and High speed dubbing
can be initiated with one touch (well, actually two). First hit the desired key, Normal or
High speed dubbing, once this is initiated, the MD and CD go to automaticpause, just unpause
the MD dwelling and both dwellings will start the recording process. Very easy. Choosing
sources, like CD, Analog or Optical are all done with a simple tap of a buttonlocated in
the lower right-hand corner. You wont find a volume recording knob on the deck, but there
is an option of changing the recording level afterwards, called Scale Factor Edit. You can also
change the pitch of the recording. The deck supports MDLP recording as well as Mono recording.
I briefly tested a recording done in LP2 and LP4, LP4 sounded like a low grade mp3, probably around
64kbps, meanwhile LP2 sounds very close to a stereo recording. If you record at Normal speed, Atrac R
is used, which brings out the best reproduction in a recording. High Speed dubbing uses Atrac 4.5. I also found
programming 5 cd's to be very easy. Basically pop in each disc, then choose that specific cd, rotate
the knob to which song you would like to program and push in on the knob and that track is selected.
Repeat the process until your done then choose Normal or High speed dubbing and off you go. I also found
the track marker to work on live albums that DON'T have 2 second gaps. The only time the track marker
failed was when i was recording from a Vinyl record. The deck lacks a optical in and only offers a optical out.
The unit also comes with a infared remote, 2xAA batteriesincluded! Also, if the deck recognizes the titling
from the cd, it automatically transfers all the titles to the MD! I find some of the features useless for myself,
the likelihood of using the pitch control is next to nothing as is the optical out. You dont need to have
this deck plugged into anything else to record, which is nice. It also has a sleep mode, which can be set
up to 120 minutes for you types that pass out after a late-night listening session. Lastly the unit has a
keyboard input in the back to make titling very easy!
Sound Quality:
Simply put, Atrac Type R kicks ass. Recordings sound very life-like. Minidiscs cloned
on my old deck, which featured Atrac 4.0, sound bland and cold. There is a considerable lack of warmness
in those MD's. Type R carries over what was being cut out in previous compression routines, namely the tape
hiss or air that gives instruments their separation in sound reproduction. I honestly did notice that MD's
recorded on Atrac 4.0 lacked any tape hiss, is it possible that quiet passages were totally cut out due to
this method? It's possible, Type R reproduces everything, even the most minute passage. I decided to
record the "Taxi Driver" soundtrack from 180gram Vinyl. I jumped straight to Side B which has the original soundtrack.
Now, anyone familiar with this soundtrack knows the score was done by Bernard Hermann, which offers loud crashes
of fury then very quiet passages. The MD clone captured everything the recording had to offer. Another reason
Tupe R knocked my pants off was what i had to do after hearing a TYpe R recording for the first time on my portable...
i had to reset my presets to accompany the added bass and midrange warmth by lowering down the bass preset by 3 notches.
I also had to lower the treble preset by one notch. MD's encoded with Type R sound JUST like their CD counterpart, if
not better. There's warmth, tight low end, glowing midrange, finely detailed. Everything has punch and crispy highs.
In comparison Atrac 4.0 sounds boring, plain, cold, no bass warmth, lacks some midrange. I have to keep the bass and
treble set all the way up to make up for this loss, but not with Type R recordings. The headphone jack also sounds
warm and detailed, the jack itself is rated at 10mW@32ohms. Which is more than enough to drive my 7506's. As far
as i'm concerned the 7506's sound great with this deck, with its characteristics (the deck that is) the headphones
don't sound overly bright, in fact they are very non-fatiguing and simply enjoyable.
*Features:
Wide Bit Stream technology
ATRAC circuitry: V. 4.5
8x Digital filter
D/A converter: Hybrid Pulse
A/D converter: 20-bit
Transformer: EI Core
Off-center Insulator Feet
Sampling rate converter
Integrated CD player: 5-CD changer
High-speed CD-to-MD dubbing: 4X speed
Bundled portable MD player:
Display (lines): 2
PC Keyboard input
Scale Factor Edit
Jog Dial
Shuffle Play/Program Play
Repeat Play (1/All/A-B): 1/All
Name Disc/Track
Time Machine Recording: 6 sec.
Smart Space Recording
Auto Cut
CD Synchro Recording
Analog record Volume
Digital record volume
Digital peak meters
Playback pitch control
Remote Commander unit
Editing Features:
Combine tracks
Divide tracks
Move tracks
A-B erase
Erase track
Erase disc
Un-Do last edit
Rehearsal
Stereo record/play time: SP mode 80 min.
Sampling frequency: 44.1 kHz
Frequency response 5-20,000 Hz, ± 0.5 dB
Dynamic range (playback) > 96 dB
S/N ratio (playback) > 98 dB
Harmonic distortion (playback) < 0.005%
Wow & flutter Unmeasurable
Line input lacks Phono
Optical inputs 1
Analog yes
Headphone output jack yes
Power consumption 18W
*I copied this directly from hometheateradvantage.com
Wrap-up:
All in all, this is a great deck regardless of the missing coax/digital in, which would have been nice. The deck
definitely lacks that great build quality which Sony has been known for in non-ES equipment and this shows. I'm
actually nervous about placing even the 25S on top of this deck due to the flimsy top side. As many of you may wonder,
yeah, the price does seem too good to be true but i can tell you with confidence that this is a new unit and the
packaging did not exhibit any "refurbished" qualities. The sound quality is superb and so is the ease of use, i
have not bothered reading the manual too much besides the specs to see what the headphone jack was rated at. If
you need a new MD deck and want to try something that can save space all i can say is "Go for it!"
First let me backtrack so you'll understand my plight...
Back in the Spring of 1999, i was very tired of using bulky cassettes and a
Japanese slimline walkman. The sound was actually quite horrible and i was fed up,
so i took a dive into the MD platform after my brother checked prices at his store
and found the Sony Minidisc Bundle 5 for $179! What a great deal i thought, i get a
deck, the MDS-JE320 and a little player, the Sony EP11. Well, 2 months after that
(around July 1999) the EP11 died on me suddenly. So i went out and purchased a
MZE33 player which sufficed quite well. It has a very warm sound (yes it still works
wonderfully!). After 6 months, i started searching for something a little more high
quality for a MD player, and i came across the MZE75 BLUE unit as a import from Minidisco.com.
The price itself wasn't a problem but the loss of the warranty was, so i opted to wait
for the american version. By the summer of 2000, i saw the unit in a local electronics
store and decided to buy the unit. The 8 steps of bass and treble were a huge step in
the right direction. Unfortunately, BOTH jacks on the unit started showing intermittant
problems by the winter of 2000-2001. By February 2001, the jacks went out on me and i
was very lucky to find a RED model at JandR for $99. Mind you, this was for a brand new
unit. It still works fine, no intermittant problems, but i do notice the preset go out
once in a while. As for the MDS-JE320 deck? The thing started acting up soon after the EP11
died on me. First the phantom powering on of the unit in the middle of the night. I would
wake up to find the unit turned on all night. My family thought i was leaving the unit on
by accident. Hell, the thing would turn on while we would be watching a late night movie.
That stopped after a few months and then the famous grinding noise associated with the loading
mechanism started. This problem worsened as time passed. After a year and a half i couldn't
take it any longer so i decided to buy a new deck, which leads me to the MXD-D5C. I purchased
mine for $200 from advantage123, which is a Sony authorized store located in upstate New York.
The transaction went very smoothly and the deck was shipped in its original box within a larger
plain box via UPS ground, all in 3 days. The Deck normally retails for $400.
Alright on with the review:
Cosmetics/Design:
The unit itself looks pretty sleek and easy to operate. The left side is for the CD changer and
the right side is for the MD recording. The loading mechanism for the MD is very fast and quiet.
Ejecting a MD takes seconds. The CD changer is also quite fast but noisy when loading discs and
choosing a cd, so it might not be a good idea to operate it late at night if a bedroom is nearby.
I also found the unit not to be as sturdy as i expected. The top is a little flimsy as is the
back with the RCA jacks. Consideryourself forewarned not to place another component on top of
this deck! Also, the unit is HUGE! It takes up the entire space provided by my rack system.
Functionality:
The ease of use on this particular deck cannot be praised enough. Normal and High speed dubbing
can be initiated with one touch (well, actually two). First hit the desired key, Normal or
High speed dubbing, once this is initiated, the MD and CD go to automaticpause, just unpause
the MD dwelling and both dwellings will start the recording process. Very easy. Choosing
sources, like CD, Analog or Optical are all done with a simple tap of a buttonlocated in
the lower right-hand corner. You wont find a volume recording knob on the deck, but there
is an option of changing the recording level afterwards, called Scale Factor Edit. You can also
change the pitch of the recording. The deck supports MDLP recording as well as Mono recording.
I briefly tested a recording done in LP2 and LP4, LP4 sounded like a low grade mp3, probably around
64kbps, meanwhile LP2 sounds very close to a stereo recording. If you record at Normal speed, Atrac R
is used, which brings out the best reproduction in a recording. High Speed dubbing uses Atrac 4.5. I also found
programming 5 cd's to be very easy. Basically pop in each disc, then choose that specific cd, rotate
the knob to which song you would like to program and push in on the knob and that track is selected.
Repeat the process until your done then choose Normal or High speed dubbing and off you go. I also found
the track marker to work on live albums that DON'T have 2 second gaps. The only time the track marker
failed was when i was recording from a Vinyl record. The deck lacks a optical in and only offers a optical out.
The unit also comes with a infared remote, 2xAA batteriesincluded! Also, if the deck recognizes the titling
from the cd, it automatically transfers all the titles to the MD! I find some of the features useless for myself,
the likelihood of using the pitch control is next to nothing as is the optical out. You dont need to have
this deck plugged into anything else to record, which is nice. It also has a sleep mode, which can be set
up to 120 minutes for you types that pass out after a late-night listening session. Lastly the unit has a
keyboard input in the back to make titling very easy!
Sound Quality:
Simply put, Atrac Type R kicks ass. Recordings sound very life-like. Minidiscs cloned
on my old deck, which featured Atrac 4.0, sound bland and cold. There is a considerable lack of warmness
in those MD's. Type R carries over what was being cut out in previous compression routines, namely the tape
hiss or air that gives instruments their separation in sound reproduction. I honestly did notice that MD's
recorded on Atrac 4.0 lacked any tape hiss, is it possible that quiet passages were totally cut out due to
this method? It's possible, Type R reproduces everything, even the most minute passage. I decided to
record the "Taxi Driver" soundtrack from 180gram Vinyl. I jumped straight to Side B which has the original soundtrack.
Now, anyone familiar with this soundtrack knows the score was done by Bernard Hermann, which offers loud crashes
of fury then very quiet passages. The MD clone captured everything the recording had to offer. Another reason
Tupe R knocked my pants off was what i had to do after hearing a TYpe R recording for the first time on my portable...
i had to reset my presets to accompany the added bass and midrange warmth by lowering down the bass preset by 3 notches.
I also had to lower the treble preset by one notch. MD's encoded with Type R sound JUST like their CD counterpart, if
not better. There's warmth, tight low end, glowing midrange, finely detailed. Everything has punch and crispy highs.
In comparison Atrac 4.0 sounds boring, plain, cold, no bass warmth, lacks some midrange. I have to keep the bass and
treble set all the way up to make up for this loss, but not with Type R recordings. The headphone jack also sounds
warm and detailed, the jack itself is rated at 10mW@32ohms. Which is more than enough to drive my 7506's. As far
as i'm concerned the 7506's sound great with this deck, with its characteristics (the deck that is) the headphones
don't sound overly bright, in fact they are very non-fatiguing and simply enjoyable.
*Features:
Wide Bit Stream technology
ATRAC circuitry: V. 4.5
8x Digital filter
D/A converter: Hybrid Pulse
A/D converter: 20-bit
Transformer: EI Core
Off-center Insulator Feet
Sampling rate converter
Integrated CD player: 5-CD changer
High-speed CD-to-MD dubbing: 4X speed
Bundled portable MD player:
Display (lines): 2
PC Keyboard input
Scale Factor Edit
Jog Dial
Shuffle Play/Program Play
Repeat Play (1/All/A-B): 1/All
Name Disc/Track
Time Machine Recording: 6 sec.
Smart Space Recording
Auto Cut
CD Synchro Recording
Analog record Volume
Digital record volume
Digital peak meters
Playback pitch control
Remote Commander unit
Editing Features:
Combine tracks
Divide tracks
Move tracks
A-B erase
Erase track
Erase disc
Un-Do last edit
Rehearsal
Stereo record/play time: SP mode 80 min.
Sampling frequency: 44.1 kHz
Frequency response 5-20,000 Hz, ± 0.5 dB
Dynamic range (playback) > 96 dB
S/N ratio (playback) > 98 dB
Harmonic distortion (playback) < 0.005%
Wow & flutter Unmeasurable
Line input lacks Phono
Optical inputs 1
Analog yes
Headphone output jack yes
Power consumption 18W
*I copied this directly from hometheateradvantage.com
Wrap-up:
All in all, this is a great deck regardless of the missing coax/digital in, which would have been nice. The deck
definitely lacks that great build quality which Sony has been known for in non-ES equipment and this shows. I'm
actually nervous about placing even the 25S on top of this deck due to the flimsy top side. As many of you may wonder,
yeah, the price does seem too good to be true but i can tell you with confidence that this is a new unit and the
packaging did not exhibit any "refurbished" qualities. The sound quality is superb and so is the ease of use, i
have not bothered reading the manual too much besides the specs to see what the headphone jack was rated at. If
you need a new MD deck and want to try something that can save space all i can say is "Go for it!"
