It may seem a bit out of date as of this writing (5/23/00) but if you are looking for a inexpensive MD deck that will not fall apart on you a few days out of the store (like a JE500-520) then this could be the MD deck for you. Lets just start by talking about what you really want when you are shopping for a MD. You are looking for Kick-A** level meters. Let's be realistic, who cares how it works as long as you are not embarassed to have your friends see it (comming from a person with over 30 Lumina MDs). We are talking 22 segment meters on a consumer deck here people! For those of you concerned about transfering your DAT tapes, this unit can sample 32, 44.1 and 48 khz signals. It has 3 digital ins, 1 digital out. 1 analog in and 1 analog out. I have had mine for 4 years now, it has gone around from gig to gig. It shows some battle scars, but it has never even made me clean it. It just keeps working and working (if only all other Sony products could do this). Speaking of it's construction, you can accually stand on this unit and it will support my 145 lbs of weight! Did I mention it will play MDs as well?

Good Things: Looks cool, built like a hardened bunker.

Bad Things: It is somewhat hard to TOC clone with this model, does not like hacked MDs over about 77 min (when hacking a 74 min MD).