Pre-pre announced Sony MD equipment
Sony's MD pages covering the 1996 Audio Fair give information about the following items:MDS-JA50ES
- On sale from 12/1, MSRP: JPY 180,000 (yow!).
- Equipped with a high accuracy A/D converter and sampling rate converter, realizing high quality sound.
- Selectable sound variation. Equipped with a variable coefficient digital filter for listening enjoyment.
- Newly developed tray loading mechanism adopted.
- Rigid vibration resistant FB(?) chassis.
MDS-JE700 / MDS-J3000
- On sale from 10/10, MSRP: JPY 69,000 (JE700), JPY77,000 (J3000).
- Same ATRAC chip as JE500 (CXD2650R), which the Sony brochure calls "4th generation ATRAC"
- New "Current Pulse" DAC chip adopted from their ES series CD players.
- R-Core transformer.
- 3 digital inputs (2 optical, 1 coaxial).
- A-B erase.
- JE700 available in black, or a nice gold finish that looks like a low profile JA3ES.
- J3000 has brushed brass tone(?) finish.
- Dimensions:
- JE700: 430mm (width) x 107.5mm (height) x 315mm (depth)
- JE500: 430mm (width) x 93mm (height) x 280.5mm (depth)
- MDS-J3000: 280mm (width) x 92.5mm (height) x 380mm (depth).
- MDS-S37: 280mm (width) x 83mm (height) x 270mm (depth).
MDX-C8000 (car unit)
- On sale from 11/1, MSRP: JPY 63,000.
- New technology W.B.S. (wide bit stream), realizing high quality sound.
- MD title (Roman letters, numbers, katakana), title scroll, etc., unique MD functions.
- Equipped with 4-bit(?) shock proof memory to prevent skipping or muting even when travelling on bad roads.
- ``Safety driving'' realized through rotary commander for the driver.
DHC-MD99 ``Pixy'' System
One of Sony's News pages introduces the new DHC-MD99 ``Pixy'' System:Intro date Nov 10, price JPY 186,000, initial production 10,000 units.
"World's first 5 MD recording/playback changer." (The MD deck itself is called the MDS-MS99). It provides "long play", playing back 5 discs in continuation. [When used in the DHC-MD99 Pixy system] It can record each of 5 CDs onto 5 MDs (using the CDP-MS99 5 CD changer). You can also record from the AM or FM tuner onto the 5 discs, programming separate radio programs to get recorded on their own discs.
The CD player, in conjunction with the optional CTD-S100 Text Display
Unit, can display album names, song names, artist names and other text
information that has been placed on "Music CD's that contain CD Text"