Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony MZ-R410 Silver MiniDisc Walkman

Yes it is. The Sony MZ-R410 is well made and is very light and compact. I have found that the Sony is very reliable and that it gives excellent sound - the headphones supplied are also excellent. even though the music being recorded is of a similar volume. The optical cable supplied is good as you can link it up to a PC or a normal CD player and record from CD or even record form tape, the sound quality from the recording is very clear and crisp. The amount you can fit onto one minidisc is astonishing and you could easily fit 4 albums.

Recording with the digital cable is very easy. You can set the recorder to start recording at the point where you are, or to follow all the already recorded material on the disc, so as not to erase anything. This is a preference which is retained when you eject a disc or even disconnect the power /battery. The 'sync' record function is similarly retained, so if you have both these preferences on, all you ever have to do is plug in the optical cable, slide the record button on the minidisc, and then it waits for the digital signal and starts to record. It does not start to record when it hears sound, but when the digital signal begins, so don't worry about the start being clipped off. The track numbers are also transferred to the minidisc copy, so you can skip ahead to exactly the same places as you do on the CD.

When using the non-optical line-in or the microphone, you have to change the setting each time you record to manual record level (if that's what you want) - you can't leave it on the same level all the time. This is inconvenient. The unit always reverts to auto record level, which for music is a bit silly. Another thing which is a bit funny is the fact that when it finishes playing a disc, it reaches 'end' and then if you want to play from the beginning, you can't just press play, you have to jog back through the tracks - or eject and reinstall the disc.

Another excellent feature is the bass boost, it's excellent. It's very surprising to listen to. You sort of think - where does it come from? The other great thing about it is that it is clean and does not alter the detail of the rest of the sound spectrum. The bass boost also doesn't 'wear' on your ears, as you might think it would. In any event there's a setting on the player that prevents higher volumes to protect your hearing. You can change this setting and the setting is remembered until you decide to change it back.

I think the only real problem i can pick up is that you can not record from MP3 files, although this does not bother me as it takes very long for these files to download from the internet and i tend to just use CD's.

In short, the MZ-R410 is a gem for music lovers.

This is a truly exceptional small and compact minidisc which is great value for its price. An added bonus is that it comes with an optical cable making it possible to transfer music from nearly any source (computer,cd,t.v.,radio...).

This is definately one of the best mini disc players on the market considering its price and it offers exceptional features including:

Rich sound quality which equals and betters certain other players.

Skip-Free G-Protection minimises loss of position and provides quick recovery from both horizontal and vertical shock just like that of a cd player.

The Easy Skip Group/Folder function allows for easy navigation between multiple file folders. There are multiple playback modes, allowing extreme versatility in track programming.

A certaim thumbs up from me!

this is the minidisc player you have been looking for. You can do so much on it and its all so easy thanks to the on screen display. one of the most impressive things is the Lp4 i have put 6 full albums on one regular minidisc. The quality is perfect and can easily be adjusterd to you liking. another cool thing is each track can be named along with a group (album name) so you can choose what album you wish to listen to. Also one sony battery can last up to 51 hours in it or you could just use the mains adaptor. Finaly this minidisc player looks fantastic and is alot smaller than the size of a floppy disc. most of the time its in my pocket and i dont even know. Get this one!!!!!!

from ib

Excellent little player, with an unbelieveable battery life! Almost 48hrs with a single AA battery. Unfortunately not everyone has optical ports on their hi-fi and computer so I had to buy a 3.5mm to 3.5mm jack lead to record onto disk. The only gripe is that the recording to disk takes a long time compared to other minidiscs(ones with USB or firewire)/ media.

This is a great product that is very reliable. It is simple to use and very light. It small so it can fit in any pocket and the headphones fit great in your ears. It looks cool and the sound is vey clear. It doesn't use many batteries so it doesn't cost to keep running.