The Top
I am known by a few names that you may or may not be familiar with. For this, I am HexaPunK (HPK or Hex/Hexa, because nerds, acronyms, and shorthand), known to all on the MiniDisc Wiki Discord. This is all my opinion, experience, and photos, etc.
I’ll stick this right at the top: DO NOT buy an MZ-R2 to use it. Just no. That applies to….98.5% of anyone reading this, anywhere, at any time. If you read nothing else from this, that’s all you need. As a showpiece, a conversation starter, nerdy home decor, sure. More on that later.
Specs and things
With that out of the way, let’s get into the weeds: Sony’s MZ-R2 (that’s one of mine there) was (as the name implies) the 2nd generation of their MiniDisc portable recorders. It was the first of its name, giving us the MZ-R naming convention. And MZ-E for player-only units. It retailed at launch for ¥82,000 in Japan and the US for $750. Let’s not think about that in 2025 ¥/$, shall we?
It has all the things you wanted in the ‘90s; lasers, magnets, spinning shiny disc……. auto-switching line-in for analog or optical, microphone in, line out, and of course, regular volume-controllable audio out. All standard 3.5mm. It introduced the 3.5mm+4-pin remote port used from here on. Though the one that came with the R2 is useless these days outside of its transport controls. The mini-plug port for headphones basically doesn’t exist for modern headphones. It’s not 3.5mm and it’s not even 2.5mm; I have plugs for both, and neither fit in this remote.
This has cut-down controls for editing (compared to the MZ-1), cleverly hidden behind a spring-damped door emblazoned with ‘MD WALKMAN’. It’s a nice fidget contraption.
Another first for the MD equipment was the use of Lithium-Ion as the portable power source. For those in the know (and you may be one of today’s 10,000), the LIP-12 battery is just an 18650 lithium-ion cell in an ultrasonically welded case. Why? Because Sony, that’s why. Lithium-Ion was pretty new back in the early-90s, so I guess it was fair game at that point?
That just means it’s usually destructive to open and replace the cell (which is possible). Speaking of, battery life of the original battery was listed as: Recording, 2 hours; playback, 2½ hours. Not a lot of improvement from the MZ-1, but using a better battery technology, at least. Current cells should at least double those numbers; see below. Charging is provided by a smaller 6V AC adapter that is in wall wart format this time.
It was almost literally less than half the weight of the MZ-1 (680g, 23.9 oz), at 310g (10.9 oz for those using US Imperial). Less than a 355ml (12 fl oz) can of Coke/Pepsi, but more angular than cylindrical. Obviously a lot of this is due to the materials chosen (more plastic) and the no-longer-a-tank overbuild. Still has a nice heft in the hand (or pocket if you’re brave), but not cumbersome.
[No idea what to put here for size/weight comparison; banana is always an option]
This also switched out the finicky (but way cool) electro-mechanically operated insert/eject mechanism for just a mechanical spring-loaded ejection door. It’s fine; doesn’t open very far, which can be annoying. There is also a tiny window at the bottom right of the door as well, for some reason.
The screen is comparable to that on the MZ-1, but just not lit, even on AC power. Nice and readable, no notes.
Controls & features
The main transport controls (Play, FF/REW, Stop, Pause and volume up/down) are on the top of the unit, along with the screen and editing controls. There is a ‘Bass Boost’ feature with two levels, that will only work with the analog 3.5mm jack on the bottom/front of the unit.
Next to the display are…..a Display button, and a Play Mode button. Cycling through the display modes are: the default track title and time elapsed; track title and time remaining; disc title, total tracks, and time remaining. And the fourth option shows date/time when recorded.
Play Mode has: repeat all, repeat a single track, and repeat shuffle.
On the front of the unit are the aforementioned remote/audio jack, hold switch, 2-stage Record slider and the open slider.
On the bottom are a clock set and reset button. I’ve only set the clock a few times, but whatever button cell in the R2 is long dead, and a soldered-on one, to boot. It doesn’t affect the functionality a whit. I’m not sure what the other reset button does. It doesn’t seem to do anything when pressed that I can see. There is no real mention in either manual (user or service) of when to use it.
My Experience
Now, I have a problem; and here is the ‘more on that later’. I have a…. squad of six of these R2s. Only one of them work, and about 90% at that. The working one is US English printed. Of the five that don’t work, 3 are US, and 2 are JDM. And it took, honestly, years to get to this point.
You see, the way the lasers’ tracking system was designed, it used a small nylon spring system. This material was used because it was easy to make into small complex shapes that can be flexible. Over time, it got weaker due to the heat of the laser and/or electromagnets they were attached to, when writing an MD, and just because of the specific type of nylon not being a particularly long-lasting variety. Its smallness also did not help. So, over time, and for 100% of these units, they will eventually stop reading MDs altogether. Either a ‘No Disc’ or a ‘Disc Err’.
Both might be fixable through service mode adjustments alone, and it’s a ton easier with the original remote because of the layout of that remote. But that’s beyond the scope of this. Perhaps a story for another time.
Given this was only the second MD portable, and setting laser powers higher for the writing process of MD were still new, I can forgive Sony for trying to shave costs and complexity where they could. Obviously they weren’t planning for a future where people were still using these 30+ years later. And even fixing them to continue working well past their time.
I miss the physicality of media of my youth. MiniDisc seems to check a lot of boxes for me. It’s very physical; it makes noises that soothe my soul. Just reading an MD, it makes some seeking noises as it moves along its worm gear. It’s all-digital, so it’s ‘easy’ to use (with some caveats if using it the way Sony wanted you to) with no loss in perceptible quality (which is a whole other conversation that I won’t get into). I have limitations on the amount of music. It’s finicky, being electro-mechanical; I get to fix them up. For myself or others, as I have done for the proprietor of this site, on occasion. No algorithms, no ads, no outages, no ‘cloud’. Just a thing, in my pocket, playing music. My chosen, curated, music. A favorite album, a mix from a friend, a bunch of singles from a single artist, etc. With the sappy bits out of the way…..
My experience with the R2 as a daily driver on and off for a few weeks has been sub-par alright. I needed to keep reminding myself this is: 1) an early-90s device, and B) an R2 specifically. I mostly use my MD portables in my car (with good ol’ aux cable, none of this Bluetooth malarkey) for my commute or travels longer than, say, 15 minutes. And recently, with the empty office around the end-of-year holidays, at my place of employment. It’s been a bit cumbersome, but everything was in the ‘90’s.
There have been times that I plug in my R2, it does what I expect, and then I stop to get out of my car, or leave my desk; usually I’d press stop to save the battery. I have found that there is (was?) a 50% chance it will spin up the MD, think for a second, and decide that, ‘No, I don’t think I will’. To fix that I need to eject the disc, slap it back in, and hope I remember which track I was on (or just start over, only (up to) 80 minutes to go through). Alternatively, just pop the battery out and back in again (yes, I work in IT, how did you know?).
I have learned that pressing Pause will make it much more likely to continue giving me that sweet ATRAC into my brain. So there’s that, I guess; still learning tricks on a 30+ year-old device I’ve only recently gotten to actually work consistently. I have no desire to find out how much this practice affects battery life. Probably not a lot with only 10 seconds of buffer for audio.
I kind of don’t like how the Record and Eject sliders are placed right next to each other, but I’m sure there’s some reason Sony decided not to use the entirely empty right side of the unit for that. I have my theories…
I’ve only recorded optically a few times with the R2, and there isn’t any kind of sync recording function that I am aware of. ‘Synchro Recording’ just means you tell the R2 to record, but it won’t actually start to record until it sees some kind of audio signal on any of its inputs. So, without that, you’ll likely get a few seconds of silence at the very beginning of any recording. And you have to stop recording manually, at least in my attempts. I’m sure there is a power-saving thing in there somewhere that will stop recording after a certain time with no signal.
After extensive testing (and knowing how MD generally works) the R2 will play SP on 60-, 74-, and 80-minute MDs with zero problems. It will also record to all three varieties with no problems; I just used an 80 because doing a full test with all three capacities just seemed like one of those ‘if the largest works, the smaller ones will too’ scenarios.
Using a modern 18650 cell in a 3D-printed carrier does not exactly double playtime. (Also a method of recelling the original battery can be done) Maybe it gets 3 to 3½ hours tops; that’s almost 3 80-minute MDs (if the MDs are full to 80 minutes). According to my entirely unscientific testing, I got 4 hours and 5 minutes. Using an MDW-60 with 15 tracks totalling 56 minutes exactly, on repeat. Which is not my normal usage pattern, but illustrative. Until the low battery beep scared me in the middle of a Nexpo video.
So during my workday when I use my R2, one battery gets me to lunchtime at best. Scares the jeebus out of me as I keep the volume pretty low; in an already quiet office environment, remember. The low battery beep is a full send type of sound; a last, dying gasp of the battery, no matter what you’ve set for volume. Slap in a new battery (I found another LIP-12 replacement) and it lasts the rest of the day, including my return commute. That then means, I have to charge both batteries overnight. But I bring a backup MD unit, just in case. And I have plenty of choice for backups.
I have also noticed that just playing for a while, the area of the unit where the battery sits gets a bit warm. Not anywhere near-enough for me to be concerned, but I am using modern cells and a 3D-printed carrier/shim, so it could be something to do with that. I don’t believe the 3D-printed carriers have any sort of voltage/current protection circuitry like the original LIP-12s had. This also happens with my MZ-1 3D-printed carriers and 2 18650 cells. (Aftermarket replacement)
A note on the early 90s rubberized coating; those of you that are fans of Thinkpads will know what I’m talking about. On all 6 of my examples, they have not turned into goo. They have decayed a bit, some spots look to have flaked off; it seems this is some kind of rubberized paint, rather than a coating laid on top. The rubber feet are all over the place though, in condition; I don’t mind that at all, and am doing nothing about them.
Full Disclosure
For all of the MDs I’ve been running for this review/rant/infodump, none of them were recorded on the R2. I did record a full CD a few times (Paul Oakenfolds’ Tranceport, for the curious) optically via my PS2, and play-tested those just to make sure it was able to do so. I am not a fan of the actual 90’s way of authoring MiniDiscs. It was fun in the beginning when I was getting back into this format, in the Before Times, but below is how I did this.
My setup has been an N710, using the SP speed-up exploit in WebMiniDisc (which I helped to test out and refine!). Mostly self-ripped FLAC, but also a smattering of random MP3s, MP4s, OGGs I have acquired over my long career as a nerd on the Internet. Yes, that means exactly what you think it means.
For the service mode, there is NO one-size-fits-all adjustment for the R2s. Every single one has a different amount of drift/decay over the years, and it’s a tedious process to dial it in. And there are a few settings that can be adjusted; I have adjusted laser power and laser focus bias. In which direction (more/less power, higher/lower bias) and how much (-0.001W or +0.1W)? I have no idea; until it worked reliably.
For the tape ‘fix’, that’s also extremely tedious given the absolutely tiny components involved. I haven’t measured any of the R2s I have slapped some tape onto, but I’d say the widest was 1.5mm (probably too much, but that unit is fubar’d in other ways, so I haven’t tried to change that) to maybe a 0.4mm wide strip. Length is whatever the electric tape width I use is; 19mm (¾”) or whatever.
To make matters even worse (because why wouldn’t it, this far in?) I believe both of these fixes are needed to make an R2 go again. You can make the service mode adjustments greater over time, but the physical components will continue to weaken. And I’m sure there is a limit to the software adjustments. So, both, if you want a fairly reliable R2, and fancy carrying around a pocket full of MDs. And another battery; maybe the wall wart or a MyVolts adapter.
I have just tried to do the tape fix on one of my working R2s (I didn’t actually check before using it for this whole review thing). It turns out, the hold switch (the microswitch, not the external switch) is also very brittle. Despite my not touching it while disassembling and making sure it was there before getting down to the laser assembly.
Surprisingly, before I closed it up and noticed the microswitch decided to leave, this R2 was actually reading the TOC much faster after power up. And then decided ‘Disc Err’ was the order of the day. It could be the large values I adjusted the service mode bits, of which, I did not record any of their original values. So. One mostly working R2. And now two of them had themselves an unscheduled disassembly.
I decided board-swapping between the two working units was worth a try. And, well, it worked. I’m not sure how consistent or stable it is going to be from here on. At the very least, I gave these tired devices some nerdly love in their final days. Trying my best (even in a diminished state) to give my best to get them going again. Second star to the right, and straight-on ‘til morning.