Topic: MD recommendations?

[billpann]

Thanks for your help... went ahead and bought a Sharp MD-MT290 and so far am pretty enthusiastic...
only recorded one show (Bruce Cockburn w/Julie Wolf on keys) in Italy and it sounds pretty good transferred to CD, even via the analog port. The PR wasn't great to begin with, but I can't discern any significant difference between it and the same tour recorded with my Aiwa DAT and the same Core mikes  in the UK three weeks back. I agree I should find a used mains deck with optical out for transfer.

I think the reason a lot of MD stuff sounds bad is that people tend to use the sort of small Sony mikes  "recommended for MD" in stores.

Plus points: practically weightless in a rucksack and tiny, easily concealable; battery life- I recorded this show and have listened to it 4 X using a single generic AA duracell- type battery and it still shows 2/3 full!; grey plastic case but tough seeming, more so than some of the smaller, rather tinny looking metal ones; has a 4LP mode which obviously cuts quality badly but allows 320 mins! of  walkman type on the move listening on one disc

minus points - like all but the very top end MDs, this has no illumination on the panel so you need a lightsource to alter levels etc. The remote has no display at all.
-- the unit does allow level changes on the fly but when I made a couple of radical, large adjustments (which one shouldn't do anyway) it put a half-second blip in the recording where it "caught up." Small adjustments don't do this.
- couple of short bursts of interference I think from cellphones going off nearby- seems sensitive to this.

Overall though, a deal at the price, with transformer, bag, AA niMh rechargeable, optical lead, remote, thrown in, and if anything did happen to it, a lot less painful than losing a DAT.

[Willie T.]

I have been using the core sounds battery box with my MD for about 1.5 years, works great.  I have a sony MD, and it works really well (SR.73 been droped a couple times and still seems to work fine.)