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Reviewer Comments For Click for more reviews! IM-MT880 by MiniDisc T-Station Description: General reviews on Sharp IM-MT880 NetMD MDLP MiniDisc recorder. Read more reviews at eCoustics.com.

Average Reviewer Rating: Number of Reviews: 2 ( Displaying Reviews: 1 - 2 )   The best NetMD so far Reviewer: Brain Williams from Washington     October 28, 2002 Well, I just got my MT-880 for about 2 weeks since the day I bought it. When I first open the box, I was surprised about the size for this unit. The remote looks cool especially with the 2 line separation. This remote actually looks much better than other brand like Sony, Panasonic. The remote just look so sharp and I just love it. At night, the light led just looks totally awesome. OK, lets get back the reason why I bought this MD. Previous, I had own 2 MD, Sony MZ-R37 and Sharp ST-77. MY first MD was Sony because I thought Sony is the best. But after many years of MD development. I find out that Sony does not have any new design for the MD unit, especially the remote control. Have a think, we always want something new, Sony bascially always make the shape the remote in a tube. It is always using the right hand side for turning for changing the track and volume. I think this is boring, don't you think. Since than I observe that every generation remote that Sony is making is always the same. No change at all. Since then, I give up on Sony and went for Sharp. I would never ever buy Sony MD again. My second MD which is ST-77 is looks good, I like it very much. As time got by, after generation of MD development, from SP to MDLP and now NetMD. I want to decided to buy a NetMD because I want better sound quality, smaller in size compared to my MZ-R37, and faster transfer. After the release of Sharp NetMD MT-880, I being waiting for the review and waiting for the price to drop. And now I had it in my hand. MT-880 maybe baulky with the extended of USB terminal but it looks amazing, it has 7 different colours. The sound quality is superb, the bass is pumping at 2 and 3 and also the sound is very sharp and clear. Sony bass maybe good but it is not that clear, what I find out that Sony unit have difficulty with playing treble music. But for Sharp, this got to be the best brand in making MD technology. Overall, this unit is very acceptable, although Sony have released about 4 NetMD while Sharp only released one but Sharp MT-880 still have the upper hand over Sony MZ-N1 and NZ-N10. For sure, Sharp next NetMD is going to be superb, i think they will probably make the 1-bit AUVI (better sound quality than today MD). So lets face it, for those who are MD owner. Go for Sharp because they got design, features, sound quality and many more. Sony is good but they lack of design especailly the shape of the remote, always like a "tube". In all, one of the biggest reason why people love Sony so much because of the introducing of Sony walkman and discman. In the time both walkman and discman are good and I do agree. But when it comes to MD, Sharp is gone to be the best brand to go for. So yeah go SHARP! University student     NetMD goes global Reviewer: Joshua Bishop Keller (joshuabishopkeller@hotmail.com)     February 16, 2002 The Sharp NetMD is probably one of the most eye pleasing MD's I've seen in quite a while. I've grown accustomed to Sony's tiny lcd's and their non back lit remotes and their temperamental equipment. When I received the Sharp unit, I was pleasantly surprised. Lets start off with the packaging. Everything that comes with the Sharp NetMD as of right now is in Japanese, with just a small, NON-ILLUSTRATED section in the back of the users guide in English. However, being as most all of MD users are more than just a little tech savvy, its not hard to find out what to do. The first thing that was a very pleasant surprise was the fact that the player was wrapped in a violet purple felt bag, a very nice, subtle, muted color, not jarring or garish, more soft and pleasing to the eye, kind of like Sony's Viao laptop color. This bag is a great touch. It is of course not the greatest way to carry an MD player, but if you are just going to put it in your pocket, its a wonderful addition. The bag itself is big enough to carry not only the player but the corded remote as well. It could also contain the supplied ear buds with ease, but since I replaced the earphones (more on that later) it does just fine holding player and remote. Enclosed is the software and volumous amounts of paperwork, again, all in Japanese. Pulling the Sharp NetMD out of the bag is like unwrapping a gift at Christmas. As it slid out, topside first, the chrome USB port came into view, and then the rest of the player. The Sharp NetMD is a very sleek, clean, uncluttered player. It is a thin player, so thin that they include a specially made battery that is a flattened AA battery. Some of the buttons are on the small side, specifically the SYNC, MODE and RECORD buttons. But this is not something that should deter you. All MD players have small buttons. So no biggie. The RECORD button is in a ruby red color, and truly does look like a jewel on the matte silver face. You cant see it in the pictures on the web, but it is a very nice contrast. With a total of 6 buttons on the face of the player it is very easy to use, and very stylish with the chrome trim and the bejewled RECORD button. The included remote is also a great bonus. Having a 2 line display is a wonderful feature, and I wish more companies would put this in. Being backlit is also another huge bonus. The controls on it are laid out, in my humble opinion, backwards. The hatswitch on the remote should be where the thumb is going to naturally going to be, and for most of us its going to be the end of the remote that the earphones plug into. We just seem to naturally hold the remote like that. Other than that the remote works well. Most of your editing functions will be done with the remote, for standalone stuff. Otherwise I recommend using the OpenMG software to do titling. Doing titling on this player is faster than on any other that I've tried, and only takes a few seconds to figure out and get accustomed to. The remote only has 2 colored buttons on the backside of the remote, the RECORD and GROUP buttons. Aside from the hatswitch being, again in my humble opinion, on the wrong end, it IS a great remote to work with. A little more research on Sharp's part will no doubt produce one of the best remotes to date. Next is the operation of the unit. I plugged it in to charge the odd shaped battery included with it. The battery is flat, as opposed to round. I'm not sure if they make regular batteries like this one. Anyways, being rechargeable its not that big a deal to me. What delighted me beyond words was that when you do plug the unit down into the charging cradle, the chrome starts to blink 7 or 8 different colors every few seconds. As far as I can see, the colors don't indicate anything, but I could be wrong. There was a whole lot that the manual didn't say in English that it did say in Japanese. Oh well...time will tell. The surprise is that the chrome you see covering the USB port is actually some type of plastic, it has to be, because it lights up and shines all those different colors. For lots of us audiophiles who like psycodelic light shows to go with our winamp and such, this is very cool. Playing an MD is as easy as putting in the disc and pressing play on the remote. If you've done the music in something like OpenMG, then the remote will show you the group title in the top half of the remote and the time and track number in the bottom half along with the recording speed and the battery meter. One annoyance about this, when playing a song, it scrolls the album info, but not the track info. To my way of thinking, Id rather know the track name. It does show track name as you scroll through the songs if the player is stopped. Now to the big thorn in lots of our sides. Sony OpenMG jukebox. Installing the software was a bit scary as the prompts to install all come up as question marks in both XP Pro and Windows 2000. I went through it guessing that the Yes answer was always safest. It does have several installs to go through to install the software and the driver for the NetMD. Installing it in XP, I let it install the XP driver, but it doesn't work. I haven't ironed out that particular wrinkle, but it worked great in 2000, letting Windows pick up the driver from the CD and installing it as just hardware an