HMS Whelp (R37) Puns

Somehow, I stumbled on a YouTube video about Minidiscs, and fell into a rabbit hole. I decided to pick one up. After a little bit of browsing I snagged an MZ-R37 on eBay for about $120. It was just the right style for me physically. I got it today, with no Minidiscs (ordered some on Amazon) so I don't even know if it works yet.

I do have some questions for anyone that owns this model to get me started!

• Does the line in need to be a special optical cable? I only have the device (no adapters or anything) Well I be able to hook up aux cable up the line in and record something?

• It doesn't come with a remote, but I heard that the R55 remote works for this device. Will the R55 remote make recording/titling/easier? I think the specific model of remote was RM-MZR55. I found some online and was wondering if it's worth the purchase.

• The manual says that the output port kicks out 16ohms. Will MZ-R37 drive 32ohm headphones, or well I need an amp of some kind? (Particularly a set of Grado SR-80x)

• I plan to record audio straight from my computer. The plan is to connect the R-37 to a USB DAC (a BTR5) and just play an an album through it, while the MD is record mode. Will this work alright?

I'm sorry for all the questions, and thanks for your help in advance!

I just got an R37 and am not sure how to transfer my current discs, which are netmd recordings to a format it can understand. It can read the discs, show track title and time, but no audio comes out from them. I'm assuming it is because they are netmd from my Sony Psyc MZ-N420D I had from forever ago.

Sorry if these are dumb questions. I've been OOTL with minidisc for a couple decades and don't know where to start for really using the R37.

Thanks!

Hey guys.

I was looking for a birthday gift for myself, and I found two players in good condition - R30 and R37. The latter is almost twice as expensive and is in a very nice, purple color. However, I struggle to understand whether it's actually technically better than the former.

Does anyone have any experience with those models? Is it worth to pay more for the R37?

I pulled out my Mz-R37 earlier this week. It has been a while since I used it. Last time I did have it out it was running fine. Now I have no audio. Everything's appears to be working fine. ALVS is off. Tested the disc in another player...its OK. Volume is up (31), animation on screen indicating disc is being read...just no sound. Anyone come across this before?

Which remote works with the R30, R37, N510 or the N910 player?

Tape head will change positions then chang back to playing to the right unless I hit stop then play to the left. Can't seem to find any caps or anything leaking on the board so I'm assuming this is a mechanical issue. Still plays tapes fine. Can't seem to find a sensor or anything either. Started happening after I cleaned the head capstans and pinch rollers a couple months ago.

Just bought a Sony MZ-R37 that was sold as not working - cleaned the contacts and it fired up!

It plays and records MDs fine - but just as I finished titling the first song, the display started to go all garbled, random elements of it were coming on and off. I restarted the player and it's playing fine, but the display isn't showing anything now.

Is there anywhere that sells a replacement display? Is the MZ-R37 compatible with Sony remotes that have a built-in screen? This is my only MD player/recorder, so I'd need one to properly erase/record..

edit: okay - this seems to be an issue with one specific disc? I have two Sony discs - one recorded entirely on another machine by someone else, and one that I had recorded to with this one. This issue doesn't happen on the previously-recorded disc. Weird...

Solution: The problem seems to have been caused by the corroded contacts - I hadn't cleaned them off as thoroughly as I'd hoped. I took the player apart and cleaned them completely, it's now recording without issue!

I just acquired my second MD recorder, a Sony MZ-R37. She's a beaut, but it feels as though playback quality when Mega Bass isn't enabled is lacking — as though there is a lower-quality decoder being used. I know bass is a cheap way to make music sound better, but when recording and playing back on my MZ-N505 I swear it sounds better, Mega Bass disabled. The disc I'm using was recorded SP over optical with the MZ-N505. My understanding is that Type R is limited to encoding, so should sound the same on both, but am I mistaken? Is there a reason playback would sound more compressed on the MZ-R37? Are my ears just playing tricks?

I recently purchased a used Sony MZ-R37 Minidisc recorder off of eBay, listed as "sold for parts". The seller stated that it powered up but that he didn't have a disc to test it farther. So, I decided to get it on the cheap, trying to see if I could get lucky and fix it. I discovered a problem. It sounds like the disc is spinning and the head is trying to read, but after a couple of minutes of trying to spin up and read, it displays ERROR on the screen. Following the service manual I found online, I managed to get two different error codes. The first one says that it had an ADIP read error (Unable to read the ADIP address) and the second one states it's a CRC error (unable to read the address). So, I'm confused as to what the ADIP and CRC errors are, and there's not much means of troubleshooting in regard to those problems in the service manual. I was wondering if anyone had any idea what they were, if they've encountered them and what solution would be best to fix them. I have tried two different Minidiscs to test out if it works (the first is a recordable minidisc, possibly blank as it wouldn't play in another minidisc player I picked up a while ago, long before I got the MZ-R37. The second is Bruce Springsteen's album Born To Run, which I used to test the minidisc player to confirmed it worked. Both of them give the same end results). So, is it a hardware problem? Software? Is it an easy fix or should I cut my losses and just get another minidisc recorder off of eBay that actual works? Let me know of any information if possible. Thank you for your time. :)

UPDATED (3/18/2020): I got it temporarily working and then not again. I could hear the mechanisms working on the inside, but after removing the top over, it still seem to have the same issue, even after I cleaned the lens. The servos and mechanisms appeared to be functioning properly. So, I did something insane. So, as you all may know, the laser is on this piece that moves from the inside of the disk on outward. So, I decided to use a clean Q-Tip and push the entire piece to where the laser was at a position on the outside of the disc. I reinserted my Bruce Springsteen Minidisc and it instantly saw the contents. It's played as I initially typed this. But then when I tried a blank Minidisc to see if it could read it as blank, but it gave an error message. After I reinserted the Bruce Springsteen minidisc again, got the same error message as before. Even when I try to the sam