Sony MZ-E300 Personal MiniDisc Player

Lets get one thing straight. The Sony MZE-300 is certainly not an MD player for everyone. I personally would not recommend it on one virtue alone - no MDLP.

It was the summer of 2001. I was a little geeky year 8 student looking for ways to make me look cool. Listening to The Wiggles on my bulky CD Walkman just did not cut it. So my rich friend Erwin offered me one of these Sony MD players for the bargain price of $110, hardly used in great condition. Despite warning me that it was just a player with no recording capabilities, I bought it anyway because my dad has a Sony MZR-500 recording MD player which I used to record all the classics such as Hot Potato on to MiniDiscs (which look like the coolest pieces of electronic gear bar my Sony Cli?ĩ NX-70V).

So, I bring the cute little player home, steal a MiniDisc off my dad, deleted his Paul Kelly compilation (he reckons the MD went corrupt, I agree with him :-D) and recorded my music on to it. Then I popped out the MD, put it in the MZE-300, and was woefully disappointed.

You see, I recorded two Wiggles albums on to one lonesome MD via MDLP2 technology, something I use religiously on my dad's unit. This is where I can get 160 minutes of stereo music on one MD (different ATRAC compression techniques are used). Well, I put the MD into the MZE-300 and get the letters L and P flashing on the miniscule screen (seriously, its 4 digits big). Confused, I consulted the manual to the device (which is more like an A3 sheet folded many times to fit in the tiny box). Well, this particular player doesn't support MDLP! I may as well throw it out the window at this stage!

My very favourite feature of MiniDisc technology, being able to record up to 320 minutes of music on one MD (using MDLP4 mode) is unavailable in this model. Time to use it as a doorstopper! I made do by recording in Mono mode which gave me 160 minutes on an 80 minute MD but the sound was rubbish. So bland it hardly seemed worth listening to.

In terms of appearance, the unit is really chic, a beautiful blue. The functions (play/program/shuffle/stop/skip track/mega bass/ volume/Automatic Volume Limiting System - which is useless) are really easy to use. Large buttons on the back make it easy to navigate tracks and change volume, but that is all you can do. No changing track marks. No viewing track names (as I said before the screen is tiny, and not alphanumeric). Play music, view track numbers that is it. While that is enough for most people, it is not for the uber-geek like me. I want features I will not use. I want to pull out my snazzy device and turn heads. My MZE-300 just does not do that.

Another complaint, this thing has a lack of volume. When at the maximum setting I can hardly hear my music over the rumbling engine of the bus. Yes, I do record with the volume control of my dad's $800AU Marantz stereo system as high as it will allow without major distortion. And I use $50AU Sony headphones. It's definitely the MD player's fault.

One aspect this player shines in is battery life. While my CD player would not last 5 minutes on $2AU batteries from Golo discount stores, my MD player will. I have been able to play music on it for ages without changing batteries. Recording is what kills batteries and this player cant do anything of the sort (which is really irritating).

I agree with the other two reviews on the part of portability of the system, it is very small and relatively light (at the expense of basically all functionality and an AC jack). But i use a CaseLogic MD carry case anyway so it does not really matter how big the unit is, its going to carry the same bulk for me.

I believe the theory that Sony had in mind when creating this MD player was that MDs would be sold, pre-recorded, in music stores like CD albums. In Australia this has not happened and never will, considering MiniDisc technology has essentially died. Like SmartMedia, DataPlay discs and Iomega's Clik drives, MD has died at the stake. Sorry to break it to you, guys. However I can still find blank MDs anywhere and record my CDs to them (but the tightaﯼﯼes at the RIAA will probably burn down your house and fine you exorbitant amounts if they caught you doing this. I'm safe, they're not coming to Australia any time soon).

In conclusion, if you want to play MDs and that's all you want to do, then by all means buy this device. But remember you are going to need facilities to record MDs elsewhere. This is going to my mother for Christmas, she might prefer simplicity to features. I prefer loads of features so I bought a Sony Cli?ĩ PEG-NX-70V handheld computer which has MP3 capabilities. Much more suited to the geek in the world trying to look cool :-)

PS: All monetary values in this review are in Australian dollars. I suggest you whip out that currency converter!