Not to worry the mini disc will always have better quality of its playback of any music in the world. That chip music the birds in my backyard know it sucks with the I-Puds. Everyone is in a rush to download and upload or to record. I would rather sit back and drink a coke or cocktail and wait to hear what will have been recorded on my Hi-MD or Net MD than to have billions of peewee mp3s or what have you on a I-pud. I only need as much music I can listen to at any given time than having all those muffled sounds from a I-pud chip! I just listen to a transfer of Sgt Peppers off a master glass master in mono and was blown away what I could hear on my MD player, NO WAY would the I-pudder pick up on chairs sqeeking at abbey road during this recording! MD will always rule in this way, every person who has a I-pud as admitted that the playback quality blows away a pudder chip player. So keep on beating the download times, it will not improve on the quality, just the meanless numbers of tracks! PERIOD END OF STORY!