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Korea MD Stores?

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Sonicalflair

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Howdy all,

I'm in Seoul,Korea visiting my gf and was wondering if anybody knew any specific markets to purchase MD, preferably pretty blanks or pretty cheap players.

I visited the Technomart and found many new players and recorders still sitting on the displays windows, but they still want full price for them (pretty Victor players)! Fortunantly I found a store that sells some beautiful blanks . I was able to buy a couple TKD colorfine and newest MusicJack packs, random Saehan designs (penguin alphabet pet!, wave, natural wave), and a couple more.

I'll be going to Yongsan tommorow.

Any direction would help, thanks!

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Well back in the states, all in all a great trip.

There were 2 main markets that I visited in Seoul, Technomart and Yongsan.

Technomart was a open mall type arrangement with many merchants selling the same thing over more than 9 floors. Floors 4-6 had an assortment of cameras, mp3 players, and A/V equipment. Pretty much each seller on each of those floors had Minidisc players/recorders in their display cases, which was very exciting. I mostly saw Panasonic, Victor, and Sony ones. The variety between sellers wern't great, but I only say that because of the great number of MD equipment on display.

Unfortunately, most of the ones on display were broken... and they wouldn't even sell me the broken ones. The ones that did work, they expected full price, and even with haggling, you're better off ebaying. Full price for a legacy md player and recorder? no thanks. I didn't see any hi-mds on display, and I saw a few bookshelves that seemed way beyond my budget. I guess the only positive note was finding exotic players that i've never seen on ebay.

On the bright side, they still sold md and hi-md disks. If you ever go to Technomart, save yourself time and buy from the store on the 8th floor (the remaining supplier to all the stores in Technomart). 74 minute disc cost 1400 Won (a little more than a dollar) and 80 minute disc cost 2000 Won, all which were pretty reasonable given the selection. For some reason, hellokitty discs cost 6000 Won, the same as Hi-md (which ranged from 6000-8000 Won). The more you buy, the better the discount, and the lady even threw in some open ones for free. Though I think the discount would have been better if I didn't look so damn excited.

Yongsan is Seoul's Electronic market (both indoors and outdoors). I went on a sunday, trying to look for players at the used outdoor market, but no luck. A couple of the shops outside sold minidiscs, but just mainly TKD US/Euro-HO ( the milky colorful one) and TKD Fine Color writables. All of these were readily available at Technomart, but you can haggle for a couple thousand Won less if you're good. I even found one store that couldn't find the price of their blanks in their computers...too old they say.

If you go to the inside mall, right near the trainstation, you'll find what looks like another Technomart, but with less minidisc players. They still had them on display, but many sellers said they were just sitting in a warehouse. No good deals.

If you go to the bottom floor, you'll find a Media store that sells minidisc blanks. They had a great deal on 1996 Sony ES ( less than 2000 Won a disc), and more Saehan, Sony, and TKD blanks.

All together I bought 80 new minidisc blanks for about 80 bucks, many which i've rarely seen on ebay. You'll find an OK assort of blanks, but if you've been in the Minidisc game for a while (not me), you'd probably have most of these. Players on the other hand were very exciting to see, but that's about it. I'm just a college student, so even spending 50-70 dollars on a new pretty player isn't a good deal. You won't find any used ones at any open markets. I'm having my girlfriend make some post at some universities to find some on the cheap, so i'll keep my fingers crossed. They say minidiscs used to be very popular (they are still showcased in current Korean Comic books) but technology moves so fast here, I bet most are sitting in the trash somewhere.

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It's the same in Japan. No one wants to be seen using yesterday's tech, so old stuff gets dropped fast and new stuff gets picked up fast. Like you, I think there are a lot of minidisc players collecting dust in many homes across Japan and Korea. When I get back to Japan I'm going to see if I can't help some of those units find new homes.

Thanks so much for the update. No plans just yet on going to Korea, but if I do I now know where to look.

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