Sony MZ-R501 Review

Overall Rating

Easy to use; great on batteries (A rechargeable NiMh lasts the full 35 hours playback)! Great sound. Easy connectivity to almost any audio/PC device with audio ins/outs... Manual line-level record input stage level can be manually set to whatever the user wants; none of this auto-setup rubbish!

Heavy on battery if recording; remember your mains adapter if recording a gig or live DJ set!
Ships with Optical lead only, bad for non-technical folks! (Who may prefer the old Line-in approach).

I was never much of a fan of Mini-disc, the first generation attempts sounded splashy and muddled, with obvious artifaction of the audio stream, even at modest listening levels.

This 4th generation Sony MZ-R501 Mini-disc player appears to have ironed out the wrinkle's as copies sound crisp and clear; especially when using the supplied Optical lead, that connects to CD players or PC's with suitable sockets, it will even automatically index the tracks in more or less the correct places (occasionally, mix CD's cause the odd error; understandable really). Even when using the analogue input. However this little box is amazingly capable, and can outperform the majority of "separate" MD decks that cost 4-5 times as much; and of course aren't portable, which is the whole point of MD technology; to be an ergonomic and cost effective, re-recordable (with no degradation due to re-use), easy to use, portable recording solution.

The single most important feature (which to my knowledge is a first considering the year this machine hit the streets) is the ability to override the automatic record level and set it to much higher, meaning much more personalised recordings, and the ability to keep it sounding RAW instead of lacklustre (typical auto level is 2.5-3 notches. Mine is more like 4.5-5 notches), and it saves so much time trying to normalise the volume levels in post production.

It can also double up as a very versatile studio sampler, as long as you have a means to input the signal (Mic, desk, P.C or Mac); plus an infinite resource as working tracks are developed and reviewed, being constantly updated and monitored; I would say the sound quality is easily good enough to get a good Post-production sound and an impression of the final result...(It is also quite nice to add some really hefty bass to some home-made beats courtesy of the 2-step Bass boost, come on admit it!)

The only thing keeping this product from getting straight 10's, is that surely nothing is ever quite THAT good! I would recommend this to anyone as a multi use piece of audio hardware. Mine has served me well, and I have only had it for 4 weeks!

Members' Comments onDeadlock's Review

• Bertie on 10th Oct 2005

  '......none of this auto-setup rubbish!'
  
  Quite!!.....and an extremely useful review too. I must say that I've never found ANYTHING from Sony that doesn't sound at least very good.

• collodi1970 on 26th Mar 2006

  will it allow you to record music live and then download it on to the computer? jason