I just answered my own question the optical input on the md recorder will not work for micrphone recording it only works for digital device recording i.e. cd players, dvd players. That really sucks. My next question is now that I can only use the UA-5 with analog rca>mini>md, will the sound improve using the UA-5 or will it be the same as using HOSA MIT-176>YMP-137>MD. Hopefully I will receive a better quality recording.
OK, you have two issues here. First, that first sentence doesn't make sense to me. How would the optical input on the MD be able to tell whether there is a DVD player or UA-5 on the other end? And the UA-5 IS a digital device. I think you misread something there. I don't know anything about MDs, though, so you're on your own trying to figure out what the problem is.
Second, I don't know what the HOSA MIT-176 or YMP-137 are, but if you use the UA-5 => MD via analog, you willl still use the UA-5 preamp stage, just not the A/D conversion. If the UA-5 pre is better than the those other devices (and I suspect it probably is), then you can still improve your recording using the UA-5 analog.