From: daniel@nstn.ns.ca (Daniel MacKay)
Subject: Re: More Sony MZ-1 weirdness
Organization: NSTN Network Operations Centre, Nova Scotia, Canada
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 20:40:55 GMT

In <1992Dec30.143618.22963@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> joe@avs.com (Joe Peterson) writes:

>Twice I have seen (heard) a problem on my Sony MZ-1 MD machine.  While
>scanning through a disc, suddenly the audio output changed from nice music
>to a terrible load buzzing noise.

I think there are some serious software problems with the machine.  Mine
does the same thing during fast forward once in a blue moon.  Hitting the
<pause> button twice fixes mine.  What it sounds like on mine is two
sections of music, time-sliced and played at half-speed at the same time.
Not particularly loud.

Other software glitches (from home recordings only - I don't have any
prerecorded discs yet)
 - when you use the "resume" mode to continue playing from where you
   switched off the power, the screen displays the title of the first
   track, not the correct track, when you hit <play> again.
 - After you've spliced two tracks together, rewinding and fast forwarding
   back and forth over the splice will do some very unusual things.
 - Once, only once, the recorder tacked about 1/10 of a second of some
   other piece of music -- it was a chord I recognized -- onto the
   beginning of the first track.  I could edit it out -- divide the track
   after the chord and then erase the new (very short) track -- but it was
   a little bizarre.

Wishlist:
 - I wish there was a button I could push in the dark to turn on the
   display backlighting when on battery power.  The backlight only works
   when you're plugged in, which seems a little silly.
 - I wish I knew what the tiny threaded hole on the left side was for.
 - I wish I knew what the "Plug In Power" notation under the stereo mic
   jack means.  Is it SonyTalk for some specific feature?
 - There should be a timestamp on each *track*, not on the whole disk.
 - Since the thing has a clock in it, it might as well have an alarm so 
   that it could start playing or recording at some time.
 - A remote-control jack so you can control recording or playback from
   a plain ol' toggle switch.
   
Absolutely gorgeous machine, though, with a fabulous feature set. 
 - The "Refresh" feature where it completely drains the NiCADs before
   beginning to charge is a *great* idea.  
 - Showing recording time left during recording is *real* nice.
 - Being able to drop track markers without interrupting recording if
   super.
 - I love being able to move tracks around (er, ok, directory entries)
   chop tracks, rearrange them, splice them back together.  Just like
   the Bad Old Days with 1/4" tape!  They're beautiful crisp splices too.
 - Hearing the sled whizzing back and forth putting the music back
   together after you've fragmented the disk and rearranged the tracks
   is mildly amusing in a geeky sort of way.

I *want* my 74 minute recordable discs!  I'm shopping for a reasonable
priced mic for it.  May try the Rat Shack stereo mic- it's a small loss if
I hate it.  Apparently Aiwa makes a good value stereo mic as well.  If
anyone has any suggestions -- DAT people I assume would want more or less
the same thing -- I'd love to hear them.
--
Daniel MacKay					daniel@nstn.ns.ca
Homo habilis					Nova Scotia, Canada