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Review: As a MD walkman, this Sony MZ-R700PC player/recorder is perfectly useable. I bought it because my old first generation player doesn't support LP2 (LP4's sound quality is poor). Improvements are obvious. It's smaller, lighter and the menu system is more comprehensive. Sound quality is fine although let down by the poor earphones. (A fault most walkmans seem to suffer from). There were two areas where it dissapoints. I couldn't resist the extra gadget that this MD player/recorder offers but the PC connectivity is near useless. It uses a small USB audio device to take analog audio data from a USB port. The sound quality from this is abysmal! There is so much hiss from the port that the recorder's track detection has difficulty separating the tracks. You'd be better off burning your compilation onto CD (because it's faster than recording real time to MD) and then recording it via a digital cable to the MD - something you could do with any MD recorder. Secondly, how anybody (let alone Sony) can produce a product with a NiCad battery in this day and age is beyond me. My first generation MD player has a metal hydride battery that can stand reacharging without too much memory effect. It's still on it's first battery! Nicad's suffer terribly from the memory effect and need replacing regularly. Having said that, Sony do go some way to redeeming themselves by giving this player/recorder a good battery life on an alkaline AA battery. It's a good little unit, but I'd stick to the MZR700 without the PC facility and save some money. | 
Audio HiFi
