The early 510's suffered from the Phantom 'Power On' bug which meant that a slight power fluctuation in the mains supply (like turning on another appliance for example) caused the unit to switch on automatically. This was rectified in later versions. Build quality is high and the unit looks slick (nicer than the 520 in my opinion). However if you need any sort of digital fader or digital level control/ digital input volume control then do not buy the 510. It has an optical input and output and a coaxial input, but the level of these are fixed and can only be controlled when in the analogue domain. The display is large and clear and the remote is big to say the least, containing all of the features from the main unit! Track titling can only be done on the track currently playing (disc titling when the disc is stopped), but the editing method (going into the menu to select required editing facility) is typical of Sony and is excellent to use. The titling process can be speeded up even more by the purchase of the separately available Keyboard Remote Commander which is available from Sony. This is essentially a keyboard which allows you to type track titles and edit mds via a remote interface. Test mode can be entered in the same way as the other Sony MD Decks (see Minidisc Community Page under 'Hacking'). If you have a compatible Sony CD Player then syncronised play/record can be achieved by using the remote of the 510. This is a bonus! The 510 is not A1 compatible though (the system remote facility for Sony decks).

The ATRAC version used is Sony 4.0, and I can't tell the difference between ATRAC 4.0 and the 4.5 version. High quality 20 bit A/D Conversion is used with a good DAC. The unit has a very useful monitor feature whereby the DAC can be used independently by the analogue input or either of the digital inputs between 32 and 48 Khz sampling rate. There is a timer and a good quality headphone socket with independent volume control on the unit.

Recording is very easy thanks to the clear and detailed recording level indicators on the display. Mono analogue recording is possible (doubling recording time of disc). Auto-track marking can be cancelled. As far as I know, there is no way of defeating S.C.M.S on this unit.

The spec. of the Sony states that it has a Signal to Noise ratio of more than 96db. Power consumption is 20W. The unit fits in nicely beside the rest of my Hi-Fi and the sound is very good. I own the Sony 510 CD Player (a sub £200 award winner) and the Sony sounds just as good as that.

I purchased this unit from Richer Sounds in Nottingham, U.K in February 1998. It was a bargain at £150. The unit handles very well, being well built and lightweight, though sturdy, weighing in at 3.5Kg. At the time of this writing, I have owned and operated my Sony MDS-JE510 minidisc deck for about eight months. I bought it as part of the Bundle4, which also included the MZ-E40 portable player (reviewed separately), two sixty-minute blank minidiscs, and a coupon for a free car cassette-type adaptor. I paid 377 USD for the package at the time, an excellent price.

I find the 510's sound indistinguishable from CD, no matter whether the CD is played on either my Technics or Onkyo CD players. The 510's editing features are both powerful and easy to use. My main complaint would be that 74 minutes is just too short of a maximum time for playback. Of course, this is true of _most_ (not all) MD units.

The deck has performed well so far, having exhibited none of the several problems that many other users have reported. This might be in part attributable to the way my system is configured. I have a power strip plugged into the back of a switched outlet on my receiver, with most of my components plugged into the power strip. Thus, the 510 cannot turn itself on, since it cannot receive power unless the receiver is on - and once the receiver is on, the 510 also powers on automatically. I do not know whether the other problems reported are related to the turn-on problem, but in any case I have not yet experienced them.

All in all, I'm very satisfied with the deck. I would like to eventually move on to a professional (SCMS-free!) deck, although finding one suitable for home use is a challenge. This unit has served me well. I got it from camera world in December of 1997 and it has never given me any problems which I could attribute to the deck. The only problem that I have had is using the Autosync recording with digital audio. I very frequently get a fairly large pop at the beginning of a track. I attribute most of this to my digital source (Portable Sony) as it turns on the digital out right as it starts playing. I think the pop is due to the reciever being unsycned. The only other problem which I have seen are the occasional bad disc. The JE510 actualy handles bad discs slightly better than my MZ-E40.

As for sound quality I can not complain. I can just barely tell the differance between a cd and its copy. This is however not a fair test of any recorder. When recording something the only way to go is down. I would like to hear the units performance with a better than CD source. I unfortunatly do not have a high quality record player.

As for this powering on problem I have never seen it. As for SCMS it would be nice to be able to disable, but this is not a profesional unit so it can't be faulted.