Hi, I've never posted before, but I have been an avid reader of this forum for ages. I've also been a user of mini discs since they became available to us here in New Zealand. I have bought heaps of them including ones for my 3 kids and the wife. I just wanted to say that although I do appreciate that Sony is now directing their attention to the pro recording market, I suspect that there still exists a large number of people like myself that use them primarily for listening to music recorder from their CD collections. Personally I find them brilliant to listen to, I really don't have the hearing of a true audiophile, but believe me I can tell the difference in quality in sound produced by average hardware and software and that of my mini discs. I've read a lot of people saying that for listening to downloaded CD's HD players are preferable, but I disagree with that. I have about 500 cd's and more cassettes and Vinyl than I care to mention, With a HD player I would spend months loading them onto a device, and then we are talking a top of the range ipod (or 2). When the thing is loaded the choice actually becomes too great - I have had a Creative Nomad, so I am talking from experience. For me using a mini disc and particularly the Hi-MD models has re-aquainted me with my music collection. I pick and choose what I want to download and then I can choose which discs I want to carry around with me. To me its all about personal choice and my choice is the mini disc! I can't wait until the RH1 is available - even if it is aimed at the pro market - I'm a professional lover of music
