For most people, MiniDisc is just one of countless media formats that became obsolete when music went online. Not so for MiniDisc enthusiasts, many of whom still use a MiniDisc deck at home and a MiniDisc Walkman on the go. Unfortunately, high-end headphones these days often come with Bluetooth connectivity only, necessitating the use of clunky signal converters that ruin the tidy compactness of those portable players. [Daniel Rojas] cleverly solved this problem by directly adding Bluetooth functionality to a Sony MZ-R500 MiniDisc Walkman.
MiniDisc Walkmen are famously compact devices, so adding a full circuit board to one wasn’t easy. [Daniel] managed to squeeze the PCB from a Schosche wireless audio transmitter inside the front of the Walkman, next to the control buttons. He connected the audio signal to the transmitter’s input and rewired the little-used “End Search” button to become the “Pair” button. Sadly, the recording head and some associated hardware had to be removed in order to make space for the new component, turning the Walkman into a playback-only device.
The project’s GitHub page contains a detailed walk-through of the modification process that should enable anyone to reproduce the end result. [Daniel] didn’t arrive at the optimal solution in one go however, and he describes the three major revisions of his project in separate sections. In the first iteration for example, the Bluetooth module caused interference on the audio signal, which [Daniel] solved by adding isolation transformers in version two. He also includes a page full of technical information he collected during his project, which will come in handy if you ever want to perform other modifications on your MiniDisc Walkman.
We’ve seen several impressive projects where Bluetooth interfaces were added to pre-Bluetooth gadgets, ranging from tube radios to 8-track players. Some, like the iPod Nano, are even more space-constrained than a MiniDisc Walkman.
I have two used Minidisc players. The first is playback only, hence I boughtthe next one I saw at a garage sale.
The bluetooth transmitters I’ve bought are pretty small. Im tempted just to glue one to the bottom of a portable CD player, but then I can’t use it with other things.
Velcro to the rescue!! 😀
if it’s a Sony there’s a high chance that they have some kind of anchor point for an external battery attachment, for AA type batteries, if so I think 3d printing a support should be possible
I’m a Mini disc enthusiast I own x4 Mini disc portable recorders Sharp, Sony, Jvc home Mini disc recorder. There are several portable rechargeable wireless Bluetooth adaptors trans/receive. I would prefer to not lose any Mini Disc features and would just externally mount the Bluetooth device. This allows the option to use the Bluetooth with other equipment when not using the Mini disc.
I wanted to make this, it was more stream lined though. I wanted to have a main motherboard with all the Bluetooth components on it, then have different flex cables for boards. And the button to turn it on and off would be a capacitive sensor that you hold.
The problem is I don’t know much on the component side, I was looking for a Bluetooth module but I don’t know how to code the generic Chinese ones. Now I’m thinking an esp32 might be a better option. Also I’m slowly finding out that flex cables are expensive.
So they ruined a perfectly good MD portable in order to use mediocre headphones? To each their own, I guess.
I know, right? They should’ve used a Sony headset like the WH-1000XM4 which have 3.5 mm audio input besides Bluetooth.
From a quick read of all this. Why not just buy a Bluetooth transmitter/receiver that costs £8
The point was to challenge myself to integrate the functionality into the MD unit itself.
That would be a good idea
I miss my old minidisc player, I wish I still had it. I had a sharp one in high school, before I got my first MP3 player with 64MB of storage (not expandable). The good old days.
I appreciate this post for nostalgic purposes.
Personally I would find removing the record function for wireless earphones to be a non-starter. Luckily to each their own.
Since I record all of my music via Web MiniDisc on a separate NetMD player, the removal of the record function on the R500 was no loss at all :-) I would not have done it if it was my only MD recorder.
Could more up to date hardware push the storage density of a minidisc higher, or is it limited by the properties of the coating on the platter/disk itself?
I’m not saying the format will ever be revived but it would be interesting to see just how far it could be pushed before we hit the physical limitations of the material. I’d cobble together a portable player capable of reading higher density data if I could squeeze a half gig of higher quality music onto it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-MD
Apparently they made a 1 gig disk… so maybe a 100 gigs of higher quality music. I need to do more digging before commenting.
Given it used a red laser I’m sure a lower wavelength could store more data. I always thought it was a shame they didn’t catch on as computer drives as they were cheaper than flash discs at the time.
I Think you can say with certainty that all the possible optimizations to put more music on a minidisc have been explored by Sony with their Hi-MD format, which has even found a way to “Zip” the data with a different data modulation see here:http://www.minidisc.org/hi-md_faq.html