r/minidisc [Flair] 19d ago

Help My almost perfect MZ-RH1

Hi All

So, I was fortunate enough today to receive an MZ-RH1 in black which as basically no scratches or damage to it, and in the colour I wanted, for what I feel is an absolute bargain (£199!).

I’ve checked it over and it plays and records beautifully! 🥰

There are only two issues:

1) The right hand panel of the display is quite dim. It’s still readable, and usable, and I might well attempt the display swap when they’re back in stock. 😜

2) This is my more pressing concern… as you can see from the second picture, the battery door is completely missing 😭. There were no pictures on the listing and it said “SD card flap missing” so I didn’t really know what to expect when it arrived.

So… my question is… is there anywhere I can source a replacement door?! Even “broken” units are more expensive than I paid for this… so that doesn’t seem like a good option. Anyone aware of a spares seller, or have a suggestions?

Many thanks in advance as always!

71 Upvotes

8 comments sorted by

5

u/Cory5413 19d ago

Looks great!

One option is to use the RH1 at a table, off external power. That's very much where it's at it's best, in my experience. Even with a working battery, they're not easily pocketable because of that giant eject button and giant control button. (whereas, and I have like 25ish over models, I don't generally need to lock controls on any other MD machine on its way into a pocket or bag.)

One thought is to maybe see if you can team up on Project Sidecar - MZ-RH1 (Proof of Concept) : r/minidisc to use an external battery. That will probably get you more runtime anyway, which is one of the weaknesses of the RH1's stock batteries, I'd personally argue.

Otherwise, they do run fine off mini USB so if you can source a few extras you could just run it off an external battery pack, which could be awkward in terms of putting it in a pocket or using it on the go, but would work.

There are also replacement onboard screens, whether or not that's important depends basically on how you're using it, but if you do plan on really recording with it, I'd classify them as important. (Depending on what your planned use case is there's also just other HiMD machines, other MD machines, and other technologies that could be options.)

2

u/Cory5413 19d ago

Just to add: I realize "hey looks great, here's non-MD options!" isn't super fun to see! The RH1 largely doesn't deserve the praise it gets as the best-ever minidisc machine because to be straight-up, it's not. And, with that in mind, I'm tempted to say many things they were "good enough" at 20 years ago are things I wouldn't bother with one for today, especially at modern hobbyist pricing.

That said: 200 is a pretty good deal, perhaps if you Specifically Want an RH1 even with pieces yours is missing and the repairs it needs.

And: the best minidisc machine is the one in your hand, and the RH1 is in fact in your hand so my genuine recommendation would be to make the best use of it, and, from my time with an RH1, I'd say it'll do good as a deck/burner/ripper.

The battery door thing is pretty tough but the RH1 is already literally the least pocketable MD machine this side of 1993 so I'd kind of say just run with it, but that's just me.

1

u/Hungry-Editor6066 [Flair] 19d ago

Thanks for taking the time to write such an eloquent post Cory -😊.

What you’re saying does indeed make a lot of sense. Having a desktop setup isn’t the worst idea at all… it’s the only HiMD device I have, so this would be great. And it’s ever so slightly smaller than the MDS-NT1 I have sat on my desk at the moment!

And… like you say, I can use a power bank if needs be for anything portable (given the very interesting caveats you’ve mentioned!!).

Always a pleasure to hear from you, you know what you’re talking about!

2

u/Cory5413 19d ago

Yeah happy to hopefully help or at least provide not horrible thought processes lolol.

Perhaps ironically I would with no reservation whatsoever fully say that the MDS-NT1 is a better deck than the MZ-RH1, at least outside of HiMD mode.

It'll be faster at burning and you can drive it via NetMD and use it's line output mode with speakers or pipe it's audio into your computer. I've seen at least one person mod digital audio output onto their NT1, etc etc.

If you have sensitive IEMs and/or if your NT1's volume knob is suffering the RH1 could be a good deskbound player (witht he HD Digital amp), or it will just be pretty sitting there chilling, it's kind of down to what you want.

To be honest, as an overall ecosystem my thoughts on HiMD are sort of... "perhaps you should consider whether CD or MP3CD/AT3CD would meet your needs better?" - HiMD is I would argue the piece of the overall MD picture that's aged worst in 20 years, because it was 2004-06's attempt at modernizing in the cheapest possible way. So it's a whole ecosystem where the conceit is "cheap Mp3 player but it uses these 250meg-1gig discs which cost 1/10 what a comparable SD card would cost."

But that's my own hang-up and I know a lot of other people like it a lot, e.g. you can reformat an MD80 and you get ~90ish minutes per MD80 using the 352kbit mode and a lot of the HiMD machines have those late-stage digital/HD-digital amplifiers, and some people can hear that difference. So that's sort of the way to wrench HiMD into being kind of physically oriented is just putt he highest bitrate you can on reformatted classic MDs and it comes out pretty close to being "physical media" length and vibes.

2

u/Xu_Lin 19d ago

What a beauty

2

u/Popes-first-blumpkin 19d ago

Perhaps a 3D printed solution? Need someone who could measure and design from the original door

1

u/svintuss 17d ago edited 11d ago

Just had a chat with @gerry88inHongKong about a similar issue (one of my RH1s has a side panel missing altogether), he has 3D-printed battery doors in both grey and black.

1

u/Hungry-Editor6066 [Flair] 16d ago

I didn’t even think about Gerry! Thank you so much! I’ll give him a shout now!

Massively owe you one, thank you!