It has been my experience that dropouts are usually a *player* problem and not a *disc* problem. (This is not to say that all discs will be problem-free.) My Sharp MD-X5 developed a distaste for some Maxell discs a while back, yet the same discs played and recorded just fine in other machines. Occasionally, I found that just turning the Sharp unit off and on cleared up the problem. Someone gave me some Memorex MD blanks over the Christmas holidays, and I popped one into the Sharp to do an aircheck off FM radio. I came back several minutes later and discovered that the disc had 40 or more tracks, and on playing it I heard numerous "dropouts." I erased it, and used it to record a CD in my Sony MXD-D3. So far, so good. It recorded fine. I played the very same disc in the Sharp, and it played without a problem. I don't want to give the impression that the Sharp MD-X5 is a bad machine. It has a hallowed place atop my computer hutch, and whatever troubles I've had with it can be expressed in fractions of a percent. Nonetheless, it just doesn't like some MDs. The only *true* dropout I had was years ago on a Fuji MD 74. I simply "isolated" the dropout by putting a track mark on each side of it, erased the rest of the disc, recorded on the blank part, and then erased the dropout track. Anyway, before you rush to blame the MD for a dropout, consider that it might be a "mismatch" between the disc and a particular machine. Jim Resinger 12/27/99 0551 |"I have always imagined that [EMAIL PROTECTED] | paradise will be a kind of | library." | --Jorge Luis Borges ----------------------------------------------------------------- To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]