MDS-JA20ES Thrift Score - My First Minidisc Player

[Craig25]

I now have a whole new audio hobby. I had seen this player at one of our local independent thrift stores for a couple of weeks, and nobody seemed interested or knowledgeable about it. I kept thinking about it and went down last week entirely expecting it to be gone. That's usually how it goes for me at thrift stores if I hesitate. There it still was! 15 dollars later, it was mine.
I've downloaded and bound the manual and have already ordered blanks from ebay. (I later found that Crutchfield has a very reasonable price also). It looks fantastic next to my other ES components, (STR-DA777ES receiver, and SCD-C555ES sacd player), although I need to get some space for the receiver to stay cool. It looks to be almost new, probably 9.7-9.9 in appearance and the few recordings I've made so far sound fantastic, although with vinyl, it will record every dust speck to annoyingly accurate detail. It may have one glitch, which may not be one at all, just something I'm doing wrong- When I finish recording and press stop, the deck seems to lock up and the small red TOC light stays on. No other button functions and I can't even put it in standby. The only thing I can do to restore normal operation is to unplug it and plug it back in. Then it works normally again.
Does anyone have an idea what's going on here? Other than that, I am really, really pleased with this deck and plan to start putting a lot of my favorite cassette recordings onto MD.
Regards, Craig

[R.Daneel]

Hi Craig!

Let me first say congratulations on your new MiniDisc deck! Indeed, 15$ is nothing for a Sony ES machine.

TOC is short for Table Of Contents. Once you have pressed the stop button after recording, the deck will write down the TOC to the inner side of the disc. Writing down TOC on the disc is essential procedure after every recording or disc editing during which no other operation on the deck can be performed. In fact, if you interrupt the TOC writing procedure by unplugging the deck from the wall outlet, the disc will be unreadable and most likely damaged beyond repair. In extreme cases, the magnetic writing head of the deck can be damaged.

[Glantoir]

I now have a whole new audio hobby. I had seen this player at one of our local independent thrift stores for a couple of weeks, and nobody seemed interested or knowledgeable about it. I kept thinking about it and went down last week entirely expecting it to be gone. That's usually how it goes for me at thrift stores if I hesitate. There it still was! 15 dollars later, it was mine.

Great find there Craig!
Welcome to the word of Minidisc*bigthumbup*

[HeadGap]

Great find Craig!... You got an ES deck for less than my thrift store JB930.
I’m real happy with mine. It records, plays & sounds great! I picked up a $1.99PS/2 keyboard like new with dust cover last week and used it to edit my Doors disk to add the song names.

It sounds like it might be a good idea to use a UPS with a MiniDisk Deck. Those are usually pretty common in the thrift stores but they usually need batteries.

Jeff

[Craig25]

I called the thrift store back to see if the remote had come in with it. Unfortunately, it didn't so I'll bide my time until I find one. The remote that came with my 777ES receiver will perform all the basic functions though. When I did call them they told me that they had found a bunch of discs that had come in with the deck, so I went and picked them up. There were about 15 with 4 unopened blanks. Of the remaining, only 3 or 4 looked clean enough to put in the machine. I can see dust inside the case on most of the rest. The info from minidisc.org told me that the proper remote is the RM-D19M.
There is one on ebay now, but it's too much for me (50.00 plus shipping). It seems like all of the functions can be performed from the front panel anyway, unlike my Denon receiver, where you HAVE to have the remote. Are there any other models of remote that would have all the functions for the JA20ES?
Regarding the lockup issue, it hasn't done it again. I'm just taking my time after recording and not pressing too many buttons! I also want to get a portable now as well. (The MZ-RH1 looks very nice.)
I saw some sort of head cleaning disc also on ebay. Are these safe and recommended?
Regards, Craig

[R.Daneel]

The provided remote control is the only one that controls all the features of the deck and you will have to get it. There are cleaning discs but their use is generally not recommended and they won't solve any issues, they are a maintenace tool that you can use once in a few years, nothing more. use of dirty discs is not recommended at all and any dirt will cause serious damage to the head/laser assembly as well as damaging the drive mechanism. The shells are ultrasonically welded and cannot be disassembled for cleaning, the only thing you can do is slide the cover and clean them with a dry cotton swab.

50$ for a remote is not that much and you certainly won't find an RH1 for that price.