Sharp MD-SR60 Personal MiniDisc Player

I bought the Sharp MD-SR60 about 2-years ago from Amazon.com for a price of 159.00, which was good at that time, plus $7.00 for 2-day UPS. ( UPS can't count... it took 4-days) Minidisco and others wanted $179- 225 plus $12-15 for shipping.
I am a professional audio engineer and needed a redundant back-up for my R-DAT machine (Rotating head digital audio tape recorder), recording seminars for my corporate clients. I looked into the $1,000+ portable pro-models such as the HHB and Maranz but considered that overkill for what I was going to use it for. I also considered the Sony MD-R37, 70 and 90 and Akais' but the Sharp seemed right for my usage and the price was right.
Construction: Not the lightest, but feels real solid, amore so than the Sony MD-R70 & 90s I looked at. The buttons are small as with all the portables but have a robust feel to them. The body seems to made out of plastic with an aluminum door which opens to get the disc in/out has a well-made feel. The unit can also be fully operational without the cheap plastic remote. The headphones?: Why even bother... they're cheap and flimsy and do not sound good.... again, like most of the headphones that come with portables, but might be acceptable to some. Serious listeners should plan on buying a better pair of headphones.
Performance and features: ATRAC-24 Codec. Great sound. The highs are a slightly harsh but an untrained ear would never hear the difference without a A-B comparison... even then, many would never hear it. (This MD sounds as good or better than my pro-DAT machine in the long-play 32k-12 bit mode.) It has a decent headphone amp and can drive my Sony-7506 headphones to more than adequate levels. It has a manual record level control which can be adjusted on-the-fly, unlike many of the portables and a mono long play mono mode. But it doesn't have a automatic gain level control (AGC)which some people may desire. The SR60 has many of the editing features as the pro portables, including; disc and track titling, track erase, divide, move, re-name, etc. Unlike many of the portables in which you have to do an "end search", the SR-60 automatically records a new track so you would have to work at it to accidentally erase previously recorded material. It has a small but readable LCD display with a record/playback meter, but it is NOT back-lit. (unlike how the promo pics appear.) It only has a 10-second buffer memory, so if your going to be jumping around a lot while listening I would look for a model with a 40-sec.. buffer memory. The Sharp gives you a 6.5 hr.s battery life, which is also shorter than the Sony's competitively priced model. It comes with double-A size 1.5V nickel medal-hydride (NMH) rechargeable battery and any standard "AA" battery works in it's place. Also comes with a digital optical record cable, but no blank disc to get you started, but MD discs are cheap and available at many electronics stores and stores with electronics departments, such as Walmart, Target and BestBye.
PROS: Solid construction, small size, great sound, decent headphone amp, manual record level, record levels adjustable on-the-fly, no special batteries needed, fully operational without remote, clearly written owners manual. Separate line-level & mic level input jacks.
CONS: Cheap headphones, cheap remote, no back-lit LCD, shorter buffer memory and battery life than the Sony or more expensive models.