haha. I just wrote a similar question.... but I guess that the MD is the best choice if you want the recordings to sound ok (and cant afford a DAT...). some mp3playerthings could work, however then you must load it in to the computer after 50minutes of recording or something like that... with a MD, you can just change the disc. thats what I need so thats why I use MD for fieldrecordings. you will loose some soundquality when you record it to your computer though. I havent reallly noticed that loss myself, but so they say...