The MZ-E40 portable player is of course not as full-featured as a deck. Like a deck, though, it's easy to use and although it's not as small as current MD portables, is still compact enough to use while exercising (for me this means walking outdoors or on a treadmill). The unit not only survived a pretty good whack while I was treading rather fast, but did not even skip, despite being forcefully knocked off its perch.

I use a small Radio Shack converter to plug it in to an a/c power supply. This works fine, except the MZ-E40's minimal output means that I have to use a lot of power on whatever receiver or other amplifier (powered speakers, for example) is processing its weak signal. Battery life, using standard alkaline AAs, is about four hours. I'm curious what recording from this unit through its headphone output (no line out) will sound like on cassette or MD, but I have not yet tried it. The unit works just fine in my truck when I use the cassette-style adaptor.

All in all, I'm pretty much happy with the portable. My next portable will most likely have recording ability. I bought Sony's new player MZ-E40 this past Thursday at Best Buy for $189. Here's a review.

My MD perspective--I have a used R2, and I do most of my MD listening in the car, during my work commute. I'll be comparing the E40 to the R2.

I have about 20 "classical" and "rock and roll" premastered MDs, and I've recorded about 20-30 MDs from CD and videotape using the R2's analog in. I got the E40 so that my R2 would last longer.

What you get for $189--A player, a protective case, cheesy headphones, and instructions. You don't get an AC adapter or a rechargeable battery. The protective case slips tightly over the unit, and a clear plastic flap wraps around the front and has a velcro attachment on the top. I didn't bother trying the headphones, since I plan to use the unit almost exclusively in the car--I'll use my MDR-V6's when I'm in the mood for headphone listening.

OK, it's plastic--My initial impression was, "I'm paying $189 for a box of air!" The unit without batteries is incredibly light; however, the R2 is built like a tank, and it's heavy. I think that if I exercise care, the E40 will last a long time. (In other words, I'm not planning to drop the thing any time soon!) In the pictures I've seen on the net and in Stereo Review, the E40 appears to be black; however,the body is silver painted plastic.

Controls--The forward/reverse, play, and stop/charge controls are on the front, whilst the play mode, display, bass boost, AVLS, and hold controls are on the bottom. The volume controls are on the top front. The play mode, display, and AVLS controls are buttons, just like the R2's. The bass boost control is not a button; it is a three-position switch. The hold control is a switch, just like the R2's. I like the controls and their placement, but it is a drag to have to remove the protective case to get at the hold switch. (The hold switch on the R2 is accessible from the outside when the R2's protective case lid is lifted.)

Display--The E40 has fewer display features than the R2. The display shows the track elapsed time, disc title, track title, and disc total time. (When you insert the MD, it tells you the disc's title, the disc's total elapsed time, and then it shows the elapsed time on track 1.) The display shows a disc icon when the title is displayed; it shows a note icon when the track is displayed. There is no clock, no time remaining on track or disc, and no date recorded. The best thing about the display is that it's on the edge of the unit, which means I can stuff it into my VW Golf's center console nook and the display is visible.

Battery Life--The battery life is indeed over four hours. I played out a set of alkaline AA's and they lasted about 4.5 hours. The R2's battery life is significantly shorter, so this is good news. The battery door appears to be really flimsy--this is one reason why I decided to get the rechargeable batteries. (The batteries charge inside the unit. I'm on my third set of AA's until the rechargeables arrive.)

Skipping--I've not heard the unit skip. As I previously posted, my R2 skips every once in a while during the 60-80 minutes of interstate that I drive each day, but the E40 has not skipped once yet.

Sound quality--it sounds just fine. Some people on the list have all ready mentioned that the output "thumps" at the beginning of play or when manually changing a track. I'm not sure what this is, but you can hear it if you turn up the volume really high. The "thump" is worse when bass boost is engaged. I've heard it using my car's speakers, my good headphones, and my computer speakers. The "thump" is not terrible, but it's there.

While performing intensive double-blind listening tests in my car at speeds approaching 65 mph, I noted that the E40 has better stereo imaging, tighter bass, and is in general much more transparent sounding than the R2. The E40 has that how do you say it--"Je ne sais quoi."

The plastic case is a little flimsy but so far has stood up to all that I have thrown at it. This includes laying on it, sitting on it, running with it (though not playing). Even before any of the mentioned tortures I did find one small anoyance. If I press on the front in just the right spot it shuts off. I have only had it do this once by accident, which is how I found out about it. Battery life is not great but it has gotten me through many late night drafting sessions. The lack of a line out isn't all that bad. I would guess that the headphone out doesn't sound as good as a pure line out would, but I baught it for a portable player. A backlight would be nice; why sony has not given every unit this feature I do not know. Why the hell sony put four switches on the back of the unit i do not know. They are very hard to get to when the unit is in the supplied belt pack. They are only Mega bass, Play Mode, Display, and Resume, but taking the unit out of the pack to adjust these is stupid.

This unit lacks many features but it is cheap and it works. I got it because I didn't want to carry around a $300 MZ-R50 which could get broken. Let me begin by saying that the E40 was a reliable minidisc player that was easy to use. I find that most of these reveiews lack solid information on the most important aspect of these players, the sound quality. I was given the E40 as a gift after I had purchased an MDS-JE700 home deck. All my Minidiscs were made with coaxial digital connections from a California Audio Labs CL-10 CD Changer. The codec on the deck was ATRAC 4.0 and the CD player has incredible resolution and jitter on the digital output is below 100parsecs. So how did the E-40 sound, in a word, awful. It's sound is very marginally better than cassette. I was really disappointed in its performance. The fact that there was a high noise floor was my first major dissapointment. All frequencies about 6,000hz were smeared and sounded incredibly shrill. With the megabass engaged the bottom end was overblown and it began to pump as if run through a compressor/limiter. The megabass also affected the midrange and colored it severly. With the Megabass off the bass disappeared and had such a lack of presence that it was unlistenable. One good aspect of the player was it's rather good midrange, but aside from that I would suggest anyone thinking about the bundle or buying one of these to stay away and get a newer unit. I have heard the same MD's on the EP-11 and the Sharp 702 and 722 and both those units sound dramatically better than the E40. While the MZ-E40 is a bit big (it dwarfs my brand new MZ-R90, but that's to be expected), it does have a certain clunky charm, and does it's job very well, when equipped with a rechargeable. I use it for the commute to and from work each day as I don't want to take my recorder for fear of it getting dropped or stolen (my recorder is used after hours for film work) :).

First, the batteries. On a couple of Duracell AAs I find I get about 4-5 hours out of the unit, but in the end this is too much - I used a pair of batteries every two days (sometimes they lasted even less) - for that reason I got myself an AC adaptor and the matching BPDM20 NiMH rechargeable (which wasn't cheap, but what the hell). I find now that I get about the same life out of the rechargeable (4-5 hours) as I did out of the AAs, despite the fact that Sony only quotes 3 hours. I'd advise if you do manage to get hold of one of these that a rechargeable and and AC adaptor are a necessary addition. I've fiddled around a bit with the detector switch inside and found that this unit DOES charge standard Nicads and AA NiMH batteries, which you can find cheaper, but I stuck with the Sony rechargeable (mainly because i had a gift voucher for a shop I never shop at for the amount the battery cost) :)

In any case, the sound quality of the unit is certainly adequate, but as with most portables (not just MDs here, I'm talking any portable) the included earphones are pretty average. The relatively feeble headphone amp is not enough to power my superb AKG K290 headphones, but really it's not designed to do that, and besides, I'd look just a little odd wearing them on the train, so I use a pair Sony's Street Style headphones (the cheapest model) with them and find that not only is the output volume adequate, but the sound quality is quite good too (although don't expect miracles). My only real quarm with the sound quality on the unit is MegaBass - when switched on it does muddy and colour things a bit and the bass is only mono, but the kind of music I listen to (The Dirty Three a lot of the time) is not bassy music so I don't really use the MegaBass switch that much.

The lid does feel a little feeble but probably only feels that way because it doesn't spring up the whole way (like some newer models do - there's no one-touch eject) - however, the lid's latching mechanism actually seems stronger than the latch on my MZ-R90, which is already starting to show signs of wear. Durability of the unit as a whole is very good - it's survived a drop onto a concrete floor... twice - and I expect it should last many years to come.

The supplied case is very good, protects it from scratching, but it does obscure the switches underneath - however the only one that's of real bother to me is the Hold switch - perhaps that would have been better located on the side of the unit next to the display like on the MZ-R37.

Speaking of the display, it's not backlit (which is not really to be expected anyway, and not of much concern), and pretty basic, but it displays all you really need to know (battery status, play mode, track number, spinning disc and 6 characters of text). From examining the guts of the unit it seems like it would be fairly trivial to add a light anyway (perhaps a couple of minature LEDs switched from a disconnected AVLS switch?) if you *REALLY* needed to, but it's probably too risky to fiddle with its innards to that extent unless you have a spare unit.

The shock protection on the unit is the standard 10 seconds, which is adequate for most things although I do find that if I put it in a pants pocket it takes about 100m of brisk walking to make it skip (perhaps the mechanism isn't hugely resillient) but if it's in a backpack or shirt pocket (yes it does fit, although it's a bit of a squeeze) I have no trouble - however, I wouldn't recommend it for running or use on a mountain bike or anything like that.

I didn't get my unit that long ago - it was the last one I've ever seen on sale personally, although I hear you can find them cheaply in a couple of places still, if you're lucky, but I wouldn't count on it. I got mine mega mega cheap (sub $100 AUD - less than about $65 US) but that was because it was the last one the store had and it's been discontinued for ages. If you *CAN* find one cheap, and you're looking for a simple player, get it. It's well worth the money and seems built well enough to last for years to come. I bought this player secondhand and have regular access to a Sony JE520 deck to record compilation MDs with to play on this player. Once I started regularly using it, it has been a wonder! I previously used a Discman and it skipped like nobody's business amd was a bit too big to carry around, especially if I took a few CDs along to listen to. Cassettes have done their dash with me as an "out-and-about" medium because of the predictability of the content -- you know what you will expect, and it is harder to make the perfect compilation because of the "sides" issue.

This one gives me around seven hours of use on the Duracell Ultras that I regularly use, especially since I use it a lot with shuffle-play on and either do a fair bit of walking or make use of the public transport. As for its size, I admire the way it is shaped like a shirt-pocket- sized calculator, which has allowed me to park it in my shirt pocket while using it -- controls within easy reach (if I have to stop it or turn down the volume). As for "fixed-location" use, I run it "off the wall" using a regulated Musicway mains adaptor and haven't had many problems with it. I have yet to find a satisfactory car adaptor before I will use it off a vehicle's cigar lighter socket for long journeys -- I tend to use it to listen to MDs through headphones whenever I am in a car on a long trip and wish time to myself. Another thing I am hoping to purchase is a BP-DM20 rechargeable battery pack so I don't have to keep buying batteries for the unit.

To get a decent volume out if it, it has to be above halfway, but I don't mind because I need to be able to hear traffic easily. The only time I have the music "swamped" out is if a loud vehicle such as a poorly-maintained truck or a Harley- Davidson Motor Cycle goes past.

Sometimes I may want to share a MiniDisc with someone in a car and it works well with a Recoton cassette adaptor -- I usually have to set the volume around 3/4 on the dial and then adjust for comfort at the car stereo.

When I use it as a "source" for dubbing MDs (an activity that I do a lot for our church who lends me the JE520 deck mentioned previously), I have to run it just about "flat out". This also holds true if the E20 is a source for a sound system.

While running the machine in these situations, I have not noticed any distortion -- the sound still comes through loud and clear.

Still I am very happy with this machine and will see it go on.