saaron

I would have liked to have had one (especially one of the MD dubbing units), but they all seem to have been sold only in Japan. I cannot see any evidence of portable MD-enabled stereos being sold in Europa which I find quite strange.

I just picked up a brand-new in-the-box Sharp MD-E9000H mini hi-fi for my daughter's room for the super-cheap price of £79 on eBay and got it yesterday. This is the second hi-fi MD I've seen with MDLP that lacks group (first was my JB-480 deck) function. My G-755 portable also lacks group, but it's present on the Sony mini hi-fi we have in the kitchen and my MDX-CA790X also recognises it. I'm just wondering why the slipshot application of group function? It would seem to be a core feature of MDLP, but it either came in late or some genius decided it should only be present on high-end kit. Can someone clear it up for me? I still make all my MDs with groups because being able to hop through them in the car is a definite plus and I hope to get a JB-980 someday (again, bizarrely this appears to be the only Sony deck that supports group feature).

I find this attitude (which seems pervasive on this board) both bizarre and a waste of energy. How little a life do you have that you: a) hate a music playback device feel equally strong dislike for total strangers because they buy said playback device Personally I'm glad people are still enjoying music at all. I don't want any kind of mass-storage music playback device because I don't want to store my music on a computer, but hatred seems a bit extreme for what is a fairly benign technology.

Not sure where this impression is coming from. I keep reading that since introduction the shuffle is the leading flash-based player despite lacking a display, and frankly I cannot see the need for one on a device intended for random play. Clearly Sony can only blame themselves for their problems: keeping ATRAC proprietary and licensing rather than giving away MD technology meant that it would stay a niche product. Forget iPods; if people weren't buying them they'd probably buy MP3 compatible portable CD players and load up CD-Rs with MP3s -- it would still be easier than using SonicStage to fill MDs and you wouldn't have the DRM issues associated with either iPod (easy to get around) or MD. Sadly by keeping the electronics arm in-house it's been hobbled by the entertainment wing of the company and I don't see any way that will meaningfully change as long as the company keeps it's current structure. I can see them dumping DRM restrictions on analogue input, but no way that's going to happen with digital unless they want to sell only Sony-owned product via Connect, which would definitely look weak compared to iTunes.

Blankshop.co.uk have the TDK XSIVD series, but other than that no designer ones. I've ordered stuff from them before and they're pretty good. I suspect you'll have to go outside of the UK for more exotic MD designs.

I dump all my CDs to MDLP2 for listening to on the road and the train; CD-TEXT rocks because my shelf-unit will automatically title everything on the MD. What pisses me off is when the Text is copy-protected -- what's the point of that? I have to manually title my tracks now....ooooh!

That would be very cool. I'm already considering a JE 980 for dubbing purposes, but I'd prefer to copy JE480-980 rather than the other way around. Hopefully the soldering skills needed aren't too extreme (it's been awhile and that was only converting PS1 joypads into arcade controllers).

MD probably would have been more successful in the US and Europe if it had been pitched as a replacement for analogue cassette and the emphasis had been placed on the radical editing technology which is quite amazing for a consumer device. As it was MD was debuted with blank and pre-recorded media and seemed to be getting pitched as an alternative or replacement for CD. I think they also would have helped themselved by not charging for licensing the technology and just put the specs out there and let companies make portables and decks like Philips did with audio cassette. Having said all that I think there's definitely a pro-niche there. Someday flash technology may be mature enough to provide an alternative, but it's not quite there yet in price or features, and I think MDs been around long enough that we're not in danger of running out of kit. We just have to hope that Sony opens the format if and when they do stop producing hardware. I also don't understand why people automatically compare Hi-MD to HD and flash-based portable music players like the iPod. Hi-MD is not intended to carry around your entire music collection and it's recording capabilities are paramount. There seems to be this bizarre notion that because the iPod is objectively more useful for transferring music downloaded off of a computer that this makes MD obsolete when it has much greater functionality than that.

£129 for the CA-790x is a good deal and it's a nice deck. Supports MDLP and recognizes group function (the way it ought to work: plays all tracks in order, but allows jumping between the groups. If only my Sony shelf unit worked the same way); plus you can hook up a multi-disc CD or MD-changer to it (I just copy all my CDs to MD, so not an issue for me). I found it pretty easy to install in my Saxo as well, so don't be put off by having to pull your existing stereo if that's a factor.

I've replaced some stuff I sold ages ago and the only compelling music I find nowadays is "world music" and experimental stuff on indie labels. The presence of copy-protection and lawsuits is definitely off-putting; the only experience I had with a "non-CD" resulted in my making a pirate copy of the offending disc and returning it to the shop. I cannot say I'm too sad about it however. Spending less on CDs means I can save more and spend more on holidays and fun times with my family; I don't see that as a negative. I also wouldn't have turned to great shows like Late Junction on Radio 3 without the moribund state of pop music (which, let's face it, is not a recent phenomenon and has been going on since pop music became big business in the 60s and 70s). I think the only way forward is for the big labels to die and copyright laws to be overhauled. The phenomenon of making a living by making music is relatively new (only the last few centuries), and I don't think making a hit single means anyone deserves to be a millionaire. Even if the big labels die and the era of the pop star comes to a close, people will continue to make music; if it becomes more hobby than get-rich-quick scheme, we might even see an improvement in the quality of music people create.

Verrrry interesting...now if HiMD decks and car units surface I might be tempted to take the plunge. Otherwise, I'm thinking a JE980+SCMS stripper is the best way to preserve my personal recordings.

I'm no evangalist and I'd agree the unit looks very nice and the absence of SCMS is a definite plus, but I have to say that I'd need more details on the nature of the power supply (user-replaceable?), and I'd really like to see what to me is the number one killer app aspect of MD-recordable -- whatever the format is: the ability to edit recordings without having to download them or use 3rd party software. If someone can make a flash-based recorder that has MD's editing features and gets excellent lifespan out of conventional LR6 batteries, I would probably dump MD for live recording and only use it as a portable music player.

I'd take the tape adapter over one of the FM transmitter jobs any day. I got one on eBay and it was more trouble than it was worth: burned through batteries and didn't impress me audio-wise and changing discs with the thing hanging off the portable was definitely causing a road hazard for those around me! In end I picked up an MDLP deck for a couple hundred quid and I'm a happy man. Tape adapters are pretty cheapo, but they've been around since the portable CD player days, so I wouldn't be too bothered about brand names; if it craps out on you it didn't cost more than a couple of quid anyway, right? I have a Recoton one, but I've had others in the past that I've lost or given away. Quality will probably never be better than FM radio, sorry to say, but unless you've got a luxury car that filters road noise well, I doubt it'll bother you too much.

Excellent! I guess the US isn't such an MD-backwater after all

Cool, all I wanted to know was that they were available to buy. What were they going for?