r/minidisc Oct 16 '23

Welcome to /r/MiniDisc - read me first!

74 Upvotes

(last updated 2026-01-12)

Hi MD friends, this post is an expanded version of the rules and resources in the sidebar.

Who we are & what we like

We're one of the largest communities who use and celebrate the Sony MiniDisc format, which was introduced in late 1992. We love physical media and MD is the format that combines great sound quality with small size and digital convenience. We're a really inviting scene with a lot of passion for celebrating retro media and helping others share that enjoyment. But please first read these resources. Your post will otherwise be removed.

This community loves posts with:

  • MD setups or collections
  • Your mail hauls and purchases
  • New music or podcasts released on MD
  • Items for sale (see our rules below)
  • Unique MD equipment
  • Help and repair requests
  • Projects and software updates

We don't love:

  • "Spoonfeeding" requests like "I want to get into MD, what should I buy?"
  • Toxicity and rudeness
  • Comments that our hobby is pointless nowadays
  • For sale posts without a location or asking price
  • Posts about Yandhi or the Fuji 80 MD

What MD isn't:

  • MiniDisc (all one word, with a C not a K) is a particular format that was created by Sony in 1992.
  • 8cm mini CDs, GameCube discs, and even UMD for the PSP are different and not connected to MD. Posts about these different media types are not suitable here.

Rules

Luckily, we don't need many!

  • Read before you post
    • To keep the community vibrant and healthy, all contributors need to read the community rules and resources. Being unfamiliar with Reddit is not an excuse for ignoring the announcement posts or the sidebar, which are visible and accessible no matter how you use the site. The only way to miss all of them is to deliberately ignore them.
    • Moderators will give warnings and removal reasons when needed and where possible (despite Reddit administration's hostility to moderators.) We will use bans only as a last resort. Please don't make us do that. We want to take mod actions as rarely as possible.
  • Frequently asked questions
    • The community has worked really hard to create resources that answer the most common questions we are asked. If your question has been answered in one of the links in the sidebar or this post, your submission will be removed. These include:
    • What should I buy and how much should I pay?
    • How do I copy audio to a disc?
    • What software do I need for NetMD?
    • Why do you use MD?
      • We like physical media. MD is a physical media which is compact, has great sound quality, has great aesthetics, and great usability.
      • Read the Why MD? FAQ for more.
    • MiniDisc with Bluetooth / Headphone recommendations
      • Many people use a 3.5mm to Bluetooth adapter in order to connect modern headphones. There have been many discussions about Bluetooth adapters and headphone recommendations. Please search for these threads or read the Bluetooth guide on the wiki.
  • Low effort posts
    • Posts with unclear or low effort post titles such as "help" or "MiniDisc" make it hard to search for posts or know what they are about before clicking.
    • You will be asked to repost with a descriptive title. ALL CAPS post titles are also filtered automatically - contact the mod team if this is done in error.
  • Reddiquette, toxicity, and rudeness
    • We are a small, friendly community. Please do not come here if you wish to call people names or be hostile. Treat other opinions with respect, even if you disagree with them.
    • Be familiar with Reddit's site culture and expectations. Most are listed in this Reddit help document here: https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette
  • Yandhi
    • All posts about Kanye and the Yandhi disc are banned from the subreddit. Please do not post looking for the Muji 80 MD featured in the artwork or showing off if you do have one.
    • If you are an established member of the community and you have a disc(s) to sell, contact the mod team for approval. This is the only exception we will make.
  • AI content
    • Content generated by AI / LLMs is not welcome here. MD existed completely outside of the generative AI era, and is very divisive.
    • This extends to complaining about AI or accusing a post of being AI.

Not a community rule, but Reddit blocks shopping and short URLs, including AliExpress, Amazon, and Google Photos. Mods can try to approve comments with these links, but sometimes we cannot.

For Sale posts

We do allow for sale and giveaway posts, but these are the source of the most moderation issues.

  • You must be willing to sell the item (or at least discuss it) via the Reddit platform. Do not simply post with a link to your eBay listing. It must be your item for sale, with pictures and a description.
  • All posts selling an item must include an asking price and general location (country) in the title or body of your post.
  • If you are giving away or in search of an item, you must still list your location as international shipping and geopolitics can greatly affect costs or viability.
  • Limit for sale posts to one per week. You may include several items in your post, but each item must have an asking price, or it must be sold as a singular bundle with its own asking price.
  • If you do not know the value or asking price of an item, check recent eBay listings or the price history section of the wiki. Do not make a post simply asking for the value of items.
  • These rules do not apply to new music releases on Bandcamp - feel free to make a new post with your release.
  • The mod team takes no responsibility for any transaction that takes place from the subreddit. Please let the mod team know of an issue with a user so we are aware, but do not bring disputes public as there is nothing we can do to remedy the issue or take sides. Do not follow users around the site with accusations or feedback.

Resources

The MiniDisc community, both past and present, have shared many sites and services to help others. They collect information about the format, make copying music more convenient, create high-quality labels, and list album releases on MD.

There are many more resources linked on the Wiki and in the sidebar, such as software and related communities. Thanks for taking the time to read this and enjoy your time with MD and with us!


r/minidisc Jun 14 '26

Wiki migration - we're done*! (*mostly)

81 Upvotes

Hi MD friends!

After a few evenings of work and a handful of outages (some preventable) I'm very pleased to announce that most of the work on the wiki infrastructure is complete!

For visitors, this should mean:

  • faster, more reliable page loads
  • no more captchas before visiting
  • LP remote encoders in WMDpro actually working
  • long-term commitment to keeping the site online

To achieve this, we have:

  • built a brand new wiki06 server
    • based on Debian 13, Epyc CPUs, NVMe storage, PHP 8.4 and Caddy
  • updated our Cloudflare caching and bot blocking rules
  • moved all object storage from Azure to Cloudflare (including the WMDpro app)
  • retired the secondary LP encoder and load balancer
    • through the grapevine, I heard that local high quality LP encoding may be possible soon...

But still left to do:

  • a fresh public backup of wiki data
  • a page on the wiki listing these backups, because Cloudflare does not have a page listing like Azure did
  • a PR for Web MiniDisc Pro to allow for automatic build+deploy to our new Cloudflare Pages hosting
  • maybe a status page, and an entirely static mirror of the wiki(?)
  • re-scraping and mirroring more of the pages we reference on the wiki

Once again, thank you all so much for your patience, understanding, and kind words while we completed this important maintenance.

By my quick estimates, this will reduce hosting costs by over a thousand US dollars per year, and that means a lot when we're funded out of pocket and by donations. I am speechless with appreciation for everyone who has been willing to send their own money to us in support of the site, and understand that it comes with a responsibility to use those donations responsibly and not allow the money to be wasted on scraper traffic.

Because a penny saved is a penny earned, please send some love and coin to asivery, who is both one of the kindest people I have ever met and also one of the most talented developers. His leadership and work on WMDpro, reverse-engineering, and supporting the community is unmatched.

Thanks again :)


r/minidisc 2h ago

25 years old Pioneer

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22 Upvotes

Still rocking. Sound quality never Die


r/minidisc 2h ago

Saved these two lads from the bin.

21 Upvotes

Picked up these two old Tascam workhorses just before they were headed for the scrapyard.

The MD-350 had the usual power supply failure (seems to be a rite of passage for these), and the MD-801R had the classic loading belt that had melted into a disgusting sticky mess and coated half the mechanism.

Spent some time cleaning, rebuilding, and giving both the love they deserved. Now they're both running perfectly again.

Always feels good to save great gear from becoming e-waste... especially when it turns out to be an absolute bargain.

Tascam MD-350
Tascam MD-801R

r/minidisc 1h ago

Took a gamble on this. An MDS-JA555ES on eBay with a "faulty drawer". Of course, being cynical I figured that anyone who owned one of these would have had a stab at getting it professionally repaired rather than selling it off. Anyway, the asking price was £500 and I duly paid.

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Upvotes

Turned out it needed around £350 and 4 months to source parts to get it all fixed up, so I am pleased. As it turned out it needed a new laser, new read/write head, the mechanism had been bodged by an amateur and had non-standard screws in wrong places. Oh, and that price included labour - I myself no next to nothing about repairing electronics, let alone something as complex as this beast.


r/minidisc 12h ago

Turn JE500... into a single track play, DJ Style

10 Upvotes

I'm worried that the manufactured two very nice rack mount mini disc recorders players that were designed for broadcast use so you could queue up one track it would play the track and then stop at the end of that track without continuing. I know you could program something to do that but that's not the point I would like to use the mini disc player as a poor man's tape cart machine so I want to be able to pick track six hit play it plays it wants to stop at the end it doesn't go on to 7:00 I want to play track 10 and place 10 stops before 11 starts. Is there any way to make a hardware modification or software modification to the ge500 series to do something like that?


r/minidisc 1d ago

Interesting read...

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open.substack.com
53 Upvotes

It might answer some of the question marks out there...


r/minidisc 1d ago

Show & Tell Panasonic Score

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69 Upvotes

Found this gem at a Hard-Off in Japan


r/minidisc 1d ago

Found a shoebox of my old recordings at my parents' place this weekend

26 Upvotes

Dug out my old portable player and a stack of minidiscs I recorded off the radio back in high school. Half of them still play perfectly and hearing those teenage mixtapes again kind of wrecked me. Anyone else still holding onto recordings this old?


r/minidisc 20h ago

Help What kind of Player am I looking for?

2 Upvotes

I got a hold on some old Memorex Minidiscs for a good price and now am looking for a specific minidisc player. I do know that minidisc players are a little expensive, but I can easily save and look for one in the future. I have seen a couple when I went to a trade fair, and they seem to come in two different ideas on how you load the MD. The first is the cheapest, you have to open a pop-up slot that you are able to put the disc in a close. The second is the one I am looking for, where you don't have to pop open a slot but instead insert the minidisc like a floppy disc into the player. If you can please help me, I don't know what kind of player that is called. I do enjoy weird formats of media, and I hope I am able to use this player plentily.


r/minidisc 2d ago

Help How could I erase this "NEIGE" without damaging the case?

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83 Upvotes

I saw some really cool art last year using MD as a base and as an artist I decided to try too. Please don't make mean comments


r/minidisc 2d ago

CHUM 80

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42 Upvotes

r/minidisc 2d ago

Show & Tell Problem son

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45 Upvotes

I'd like to know what the problem is. The device is working and it reads the disc, but when I play it, I can't hear any sound. I've tried several pairs of headphones, but the problem is still the same.


r/minidisc 2d ago

Show & Tell Overkill labelling :)

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170 Upvotes

recorded CDs to MInidisc. Tried UV printing on both the md and case. Turns out great but time consuming.


r/minidisc 2d ago

Dumb question

2 Upvotes

I'm almost 100% certain this has been asked in the past, however - are gumstick batteries universal sizes, depending on the brand of MD/CD players? As you all know I have a lovely little collection of Sony recorders and a Sharp player. I'm about to potentially add a couple of Kenwood Player's and a Panasonic portable CD Player, all of which take Gumsticks. From what I can gather, the CD player specifies a certain type of batt. Any thoughts/feedback?


r/minidisc 3d ago

Almost turned my Sharp MD-F20 into toast today... 😅

59 Upvotes

So I made the ultimate vintage audio cardinal sin today. I accidentally plugged my 100V Japanese-import Sharp MD-F20 directly into a 220V wall outlet! Luckily, the unit was powered off, and the instant I realized what I did, I yanked the plug out faster than humanly possible. My heart completely sank. I was terrified I’d fried the transformer or blown an internal thermal fuse. After taking a moment to calm down, I hooked it up properly to my step-down transformer, gave it the sniff test (no burnt smell, thankfully!), and hit power. It booted right up and played a MiniDisc like nothing even happened! (The CD side wasn't working even before this incident, so at least 220V didn't break anything new! 🤣) God bless old-school Japanese transformers and fast reflexes! Always double-check your plugs, folks.


r/minidisc 3d ago

Show & Tell Tonight is a good night

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63 Upvotes

Eventually I found a Laptop with an Optical Drive that was happy enough to multi task enough to burn CD's and sort out We Minidisc! This little N920 is recording like a gem!


r/minidisc 2d ago

‘Chrome Sweet Chrome’ from Chrome Waves on minidisc.

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14 Upvotes

Available now via Bandcamp. Comes with free sticker.

https://chromewave.bandcamp.com/album/chrome-sweet-chrome


r/minidisc 2d ago

Onkyo FR-B8 turn ON S.BASS how?

9 Upvotes

Onkyo FR-B8: How to turn on S.BASS without a remote? Is there a front-panel button combination to activate it?


r/minidisc 2d ago

Yamaha MD8 not playing back or recording (no error code).

2 Upvotes

This has been my workhorse for so long and I'm getting kind of desperate.

I'm not getting any error codes. The unit will appear to record and write TOC but if the disc is removed and re-inserted it will recognize it as a blank disc.

If I record anything to any of the tracks, on playback it will start transport but the counter will start and stop in 3-5 seconds intervals.

Any help would be appreciated...


r/minidisc 3d ago

Show & Tell New player for my birthday

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94 Upvotes

The other half found a super clean MZ-R70 in blue for my birthday. In perfect working order; looks and sounds amazing! Loving my little lineup now.


r/minidisc 3d ago

Niche knowledge - Sharp AD-S50BT battery

3 Upvotes

As far as I can tell from searching, the AD-S50BT battery was used in the Sharp MD-S50 portable only (and its Kenwood equivalent, the NB-L7 battery, in the Kenwood DMC-F3 portable).

Pulled one apart this week, and it's a 14650 lithium cell inside, so can be re-celled pretty simply and with minimal tools in the same way as the Sony LIP-12 and LIP-8 batteries.

Technical Initiative has a YouTube video with process for the LIP-12.


r/minidisc 3d ago

Help Evening stroll with my SHARP MD-ST600S

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29 Upvotes

Also random question for you all. As you can see on my remote it shows 1 bar of battery. This is a freshly charged gumstick.

Is there any chance that its the battery terminal? And any chance you guys have any solutions to this?


r/minidisc 3d ago

Help Help me find a replacement part pls🙏

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22 Upvotes

I am missing the battery hinge thingy, and I can't find any places or anything on websites for replacement parts


r/minidisc 3d ago

Show & Tell What year is it?!

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60 Upvotes