Considering upgrading - To Hi MD or Wav/Mp3 ?

[joeyniji]

i have an old standard minidisc recorder and i occasionally experiment with "field recording" or should i say bootlegging? im not an audiophile by any means but i know more than your average IPOD user. but for the last year ive been considering upgrading to what seems to be the ultimate MD! but the hefty price tag has keep me on the sidelines. well its getting to be christmastyme and after much contimplating im ready to fork out between $200-400 on an early christmas gift to myself.

but now that sony doesnt seem to want to support and promote their greatest achievement in portable recording, well im having second thoughts. plus i heard they arent even supporting the only software that supports the transfer of the recordings from the mD to the computer. and the new portable mp3/wav recorders are just so user friendly. you just pop the card in your computer and transfer no software is needed. so im hoping people here can sway me either way.

please help me if i should still support a dying breed or move into the future????

Thanks for reading,

Joey

[A440]

For recording with external mics, MD's mic preamps are still considered superior to flash recorders like Edirol or Zoom. I don't know about the second version of the M-Audio Microtrack. Battery life is also a question; some of those units have built-in rechargables, nothing you can pop out and replace when they run down.

Those other recorders are also bigger than MD units if stealth is a factor.

However, the inconvenience of SonicStage vs. drag-and-drop is increasingly annoying. And line-in recording, which is what I almost always do at concerts, bypasses the mic-in preamp.

SonicStage does work well with XP SP2 and supposedly will work with Vista, though some people have had problems. Although Sony has promised updates, personally I wouldn't expect it to be updated the next time Microsoft gets around to making a new operating system.

I still like minidisc for its small size and for track marking while recording, and other on-unit editing features. I keep wishing for the ultimate flash recorder, but I haven't seen it yet. That doesn't mean it's not out there somewhere.

You can do some serious concert recording with the MZ-NH700, which should be about $100 cheaper than the MZ-RH1 if you can find it, and it takes a AA battery, easily replaceable. (The RH1 uses a special Lithium-ion gumstick.) When recording, the NH700's main disadvantage vs. the MZ-RH1 is that you have to set it to Manual each time you record; the MZ-RH1 holds that setting. But if you already have old MDs, the RH1 is precious beause it is the only unit (although sometimes relabeled the MZ-M200) that will upload your old MD recordings.

[Richard]

* Moved to Find Your Minidisc section