Long Awaited Panasonic MR220 Review!

Well, I did this at nights in latvia when I didnt have much to do but read and listen to music (even though I could stay out kinda late, I still couldnt sleep...), anyway, I felt like this would help some people because there isnt much know about this unit, I know me and matheis have one have one but nobody else is "speaking out", so here goes my little review that i wrote on yellow legal pads:

________________________________________

Panasonic SJ-MR220
________________________________________

Appearance:

Well, you can see it from the pictures , this unit looks good in white. I think its one of those love it or hate it designs. The touch pad is the main design element, although when you use it, it looks like the unit was designed more for ease of use than for looks (which i think is a good thing personally). I also think that the reason this unit looks so great is because of its color, white units are very rear... I think that only 3 recorders were ever made in white (mr220 <, mr200, r900, r91 {thx daja}). The color isnt actually pure white (the way it looks in my very low res picutes) id say its more of a pearl, because if you look at it closly, there is a shimer...
Here are some notes about the appearance:
-This units is small enough for me, and even when i saw the n10 for the first time, i wasnt that impressed.
-Id say that design ways, this thing is 100% bullshit free, intuitive while remaining pretty.
-Buttons are small but i dont find that they work very well, at least much better than any Dpad iv used...

Ease of Use:

Like i said earlyer, this unit is easy to use, there is nothing hidden in special buttons or menues, also, everything is clearly marked. I was able to do everything with the unit withouhg looking at a manual... although some of the editing and recording features took a bit of playing around with. One thing that i find very surprising is that this unit was in the Group Mode generation, and u can display group mode, but how the hell do use it!? Anyway, in general, playback is amazingly easy and titeling and trackmarking is much better than i most units (althouhg its a little annoying when the thing toc edits after every trackmark...). Recording below:

Recording:

To record all you have to do is press a lever, kind a like on the sony units, only withouhg that little red thing (this puts u into paused recording mode)... Press (or should i say push to the side) that lever again to change LP modes, press the Rec Senc button on the touch pad to adjust the levels. The units cant adjust levels during recording, get a shark or a new sony unit if u want to do this. im slightly dissapointed here becasue my 505 can do it, but the top of the line panasonic cant, strange, anyway, although iv only used the feature a few times, i cant belive the feature was ignored when the panas competition (r909, mt770) has them (even though i believe both came out after the pana...). anyway, someone should also check some of my info, im pulling this out of my head... editing below:

Editing:

This is fairly easy, press the edit button and u get a little menu with all the things u can do (things that u get when u press stop): title, erase, all erase, move, combine, title copy, group. damn, i guess i might need a manual, anyway, titling is easy as pie, the tmarks can be made with imense accuacy becasue of the feature that lets u adjust the placement of the trackmark before u place it (u get to listen to it unitl u think its just right). Im kinda a perfectionist when placing trackmarks in dj mixes and stuff, so i really like this feature... the title copy feature is kinda strange IMO, u can copy titles from disc to disc, i dont know why the added it here... Im not sure if it copies every single titles becuase i need 2 discs with the same # of tracks to try it (otherways it says "not equal" hope it doesnt explode like some stupid robot saying "cannot comply :-p"), so i havent done that yet, but it looks interesting, and might come in useful in disc dubbing!

Remote: (none yet)

Build:

Like others have siad, pana units are build strong (something i was afraid about earlier becasue iv had bad pana cd players... remember?). I got this unit second hand, so i didnt know how it was treating, but there are some signs of damage, but besides that, the unit closes dightly, so does the battery door. Everything inside is metal, and the shell that holds the disc feels much tougher than the one on my 505. The front and the back are made of metal, and even the interior metals look of high quality (u kinda have to see and feel them to know what i mean...). only the recording head is made of plastic, but this seems to be normal, and seems to be smart, considering that this makes it lighter and less likely to be moved around by shock (inertial). Also, upon closer inspection, there seems to be a strong metal skeleton holding the unit together... The battery door is plastic and looks a little fragile, but for now it closes tight, so thats good. over all the build quality is great!

Sound:

Well i hope nobody is waiting for this, because i dont have much to say about the sound of this unit, the only thing i know for sure is that it sound better than my 505, which is to be expected considering the price of the units (MSRP). I compared the units with my Philips headphones, which are very flat, at least compared to my other headphones. For the volumes to be the same, i had to run the pana at 12/25 and the sony at 16/30, heres the small things that i noticed:
-the sony has a audiable hiss when music quiets down, were as the pana has slight signs of his when u go to 0 volume and listen, and then press pause, its insignificant because its imposible to notice when there is music. When i listened to Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head (recorded via optical out in sp on my sony) the sony seemed to have more impact on the headphones that i listened to, also the sound just seems more full and crisp, were as the voices on the sony sound a little harsh, and even though the EQ is nice to have, it still kinda sounds weird. Overall, the pana just sounds better. Also, after i got the ex71s i found that the unit matches very well with this unit for some reason, it just sounds good, were as my other headphones (vx100s and my philips) needed eq settings to make them sound "okay" on my sony, also the philips are a good match with the pana, but the vx100s just sound terrible and totally muddy when u listen to them though the pana... Another thing that i noticed and commented on before is that the pana makes LP modes sound much better than my sony, for once i was able to stand a LP4 mix that i made once for a long road trip (dont ask ). Once again im sleepy, so i can leave u with this comment, i like how the pana sounds, and thats all i can say, and the only thing that is a true fact.

________________________________________

Still to come:

-Q & A
________________________________________

pix:

http://einolu.tripod.com/pix/mr220/index.html

^UPDATED!!!

________________________________________

other reviews:

http://www.minidisct.com/forum/showt...t=mr220+review

^mr.matheis' impressions

http://www.minidisct.com/cgi-bin/rms...-lower-limit=1

^minidisct review(s)

http://gear.ign.com/articles/316/316628p1.html

^ign review

http://www.hifichoice.co.uk/review_print.asp?ID=1872

^hifichoice review

________________________________________


well, thats the unit part of it, im not done with the sound part yet, but thats almost unimportant in review IMO, because everybody likes different things, and its hard to tell differences between units (if u care that much, you should always audition), especially of the same class (at least with my ex71s and philips cans...). well i will only be able to give u a vauge idea about how this unit sounds, although i tried my best! anyway, im sleepy now, so i bet there are some amazing spelling errors, but i really dont care, u can always ask me to explain something, and also, feel free to ask questions, because ill try my best to answer them, i know i didnt mention everything in the review up till now... well this is my first hi-end units (even though i got it for $85 without the remote...) and im very happy! okay, im off to bed, ill snap some more pictures later, and show how the ex71 pouch works very well with the 220! hope this will help ppl in the future!

:::

ask question if u have any!

~EO

[me]

Your review is like me DR7 one, building up to 'sound' but having.. 'still to come' next to it. So, i'll just copy that first reply. "Hey einolu, you tease!"

Nice review, man

[darkfusion]

Hey einolu, nice review, one question though...the touch pad buttons. Are they hard to press? Because most of the things I've used with those style of buttons have been a pain to use and I've had to press really hard to make them work, and sometimes they don't work with the first press which is quite annoying. How sensitive are they?

*edit* - oh and "me" , where the hell has the fish gone man? That's like your trademark!

[Déjà Vu]

NOTE: the R91 also had a white version...

if this review extends some more and becomes "complete" (as I guess there's stuff you're planning to add) we can add it to the review DB...

[Mystyler]

I **need** to get my MR200 fixed...

Regarding rec levels, the MR220 is still limited to "LOW" and "HIGH", isn't it?

@me: yes, i tease

@ZeroFX: its very sencitive, all u have to do is slide your finger over the button and it depresses, anyway, you never have to press hard, and like many have said before, the touch pad is a very nice feature.

@Déjà Vu: okay, that would be nice, also, ill add in the 91 thing .

@Mystyler: no, now you have little bars, kinda like the sony remote volume control, i think there is like 25-30 little bars u can adjust, kinda like this:

[+++++-----]

hope that makes sence, anyway, im ganna add these q&a to the review when the tread "dies" so that everyone knows everyhing .

~EO

UPDATE, added:

-sound
-pix

ask questions so i can add them to the Q&A.

~EO