by Chuck Ritchie
The Sharp MD-MS702 released in August of 1997 asks questions like “how do we represent the 90s and look rugged yet oddly beautiful at the same time?” From it’s wonderful round disc G-SHOCK looking face, to it’s handheld remote with animation, it’s hard not to see why this MD player definitely belonged in the mid-late 90s.
During the boom of the MAC color variety and choices in life for our electronics, Sharp dared and seemed to say, “let’s let our device speak for itself.” It has a gunmetal color, with a mirror laser type finish on the disc inside the circle face where buttons are laid out in said circular pattern. It is a slot loading mechanism with a wonderful ejection arm(which locks when the disc is in use for safety reasons and health of the MD) and the ejection of the disc is so very satisfying. A bold move when other MiniDisc designers were trying to make theirs slimmer with more functions.
This device also has the ability to record like many other MiniDisc devices, which is wonderful for on the go listening and recording. The record button is the red button that looks like it should light up when you record, but it in fact is just the button to record! It only has Standard recording, no LP or NetMD here. (less to go wrong i suppose?) Labeling the disc took a bit of work but was actually easier than many other devices i’ve used thus far.
The player uses a Gumstick battery that is larger than the normal gumstick battery that you will find in use for MD players to keep the design slim. The battery is easily purchased off the internet, ebay/amazon/etc for a few bucks, but i’d say with my record, half of the batteries i’ve purchased have gone bad within a short time. Moreover this device has the option for a Sidecar for that extended use during the day, and you can charge the gumstick battery in the device while using it. If you lose the charger or the charger goes bad (like mine did) you can purchase a PSP usb charge cable and plug it into a standard phone charger as shown below.
The device has two headphone inputs, one with remote and another for a friend to listen along, on top of having a dedicated Microphone/input port for recording. The remote is small and fits well into the hand, buttons are easily reachable once you learn which ones do what so you don’t have to keep looking at what you are pushing.The remote is backlit which helps for those late night jams. There is also a wonderful animation of a fish leaving behind musical notes as it swims by.
Now the issues with this device. The biggest offender is so far the worm gear for the laser assembly that has a terrible tendency to grow brittle and break after some time causing the dreaded TOC ERROR message. With some parts and a wonderful video on Youtube a few hours later you will have a working device. While it does not have LP or even NetMD, it is still quite the charming device.The battery life will give you several hours of play between charges(depends on the battery) It’s a bit bulkier than other devices, but you won’t need JNCO jeans for this player. (image taken from REDDIT for the worm gear)
Overall a solid recorder/player, definitely one of my favorites to have and use on occasion. You can pick these up decently cheap online “broken as-is TOC Error” and fix them yourself if you are handy enough. A real piece of history here, highly recommended for anyone's collection.