r/minidisc Oct 16 '23

Welcome to /r/MiniDisc - read me first!

72 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)

85 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 8h ago

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

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41 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 8h ago

CHUM 80

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13 Upvotes

r/minidisc 13h ago

Show & Tell Problem son

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30 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 1d ago

Show & Tell Overkill labelling :)

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137 Upvotes

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


r/minidisc 13h 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 1d ago

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

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44 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 1d ago

Show & Tell Tonight is a good night

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54 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 1d ago

‘Chrome Sweet Chrome’ from Chrome Waves on minidisc.

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13 Upvotes

Available now via Bandcamp. Comes with free sticker.

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


r/minidisc 1d ago

Onkyo FR-B8 turn ON S.BASS how?

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6 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 1d 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 2d ago

Show & Tell New player for my birthday

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91 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 1d 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 2d ago

Help Evening stroll with my SHARP MD-ST600S

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26 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 2d ago

Show & Tell What year is it?!

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52 Upvotes

r/minidisc 1d ago

Help Help me find a replacement part pls🙏

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16 Upvotes

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


r/minidisc 1d ago

Help Does anyone know how to fix this display? (Sony MXD-D3

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5 Upvotes

Basically the title, I've been looking for anything similar to this issue I'm having, and I have yet to see anything else like it, I got this for like 7 dollars so I knew it would have issues, but only the display doesn't work, playback and everything else, for both CD and MD works just fine. Does anyone know what could be causing this? It also seems to be flickering a lot across multiple points in the display. I smacked it and it made it flicker in different places too, so could this be a cracked solder joint?


r/minidisc 2d ago

Show & Tell Newcomer!

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102 Upvotes

Hello all! Longtime lurker, first time poster

Just got into MDs a few weeks ago, and already I’m deep down the rabbit hole. Bought an orange MZ-R50 off eBay, and then a DSC-MD1 just a little while later


r/minidisc 3d ago

Show & Tell I just picked up an absolute unicorn on FBM.

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132 Upvotes

r/minidisc 3d ago

Hi-MD Goodness

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240 Upvotes

I suddenly find myself in minidisc heaven! One pristine RH-1 from eBay, a lucky find, and then a friend brings back a seemingly unused one from Japan, almost at the same time as the NH-1 I ordered from Gerry and his wonderful store arrived. It's a bit of an embarrassment of riches and now I don't know whether to keep them all, or sell the NH-1 and one of the RH-1s. First world problems eh?

However, with the unique privilege of having these in my hands, I have done some extensive sound testing. The two RH-1's (unsurprisingly) sound pretty much identical. But the big surprise is that they both sound a little better (cleaner and seemingly slightly better D/R) than the NH-1. That might help me make up my mind, except that I prefer the form factor of the NH-1...

Kudos and thanks to Sirk68 for firmware and (just ordered) display for the RH-1s, and to Asivery and the whole team for Web Minidisc Pro. Your efforts are keeping this wonderful format alive!


r/minidisc 3d ago

Sun cap vintage from Sony !

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28 Upvotes

Original Minidisc Goodie !


r/minidisc 3d ago

SONY Hi-MD Walkmann MZ-DH 10P

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72 Upvotes

r/minidisc 3d ago

Show & Tell This colour match was surprisingly perfect

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55 Upvotes

Artist: Bring Me The Horizon
Album: Count Your Blessings (Repented)
MiniDisc: EMTEC/BASF Colour Maxima 74 Green


r/minidisc 2d ago

Help Websites to find MiniDiscs sold on Bandcamp

7 Upvotes

Is there any website that can help with trying to find MiniDiscs sold by artists on Bandcamp? They're normally labelled under 'CD' on there which kinda sucks.