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My new blog about minidisc

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superboy

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SuperboyAC's DC blog #5 (The State of MiniDisc and Sony)

Hi everyone, I occasionally write a blog for the donationcoder site on a volunteer basis. My newest blog is about the minidisc, and all the things I've learned about it over the years from owning it and this site here. You guys know much more about than me, so please read the blog and I'd appreciate any comments and/or corrections. I wrote it as an easy, fun read for people not too familiar with MD.

Thanks for all the help with information on this forum so far, you guys are great!

AC

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Three things that made (still make?) Minidisc cool:

1. You can get your music into the digital realm without the need for a bloody computer as a go-between (if you have a line-in). Sure USB might be faster, but sometimes I just hate going to the computer for everything. Analogue or Optical source straight into the Minidisc, hit RECORD. There you have it.

2. Removable media: You make the recording, pop out the disc, give it to someone else (provided of course they have a MD machine). If you are doing field recording for a radio station, etc. you don't have to leave your machine with them, or bring it to a bloody desktop computer to do a transfer. (you see how everything is leashed to a computer nowadays!). Try that with your iPod.

3. Now that Minidiscs are passé, people are selling their old units for dirt cheap. $100 will buy you two or three older minidisc portables to use as digital field recorders. Great sound, durable, and no great loss if they are stolen or damaged. I picked up an MZ-N505 with remote control for $4.99CAD at a Thrift store a few months ago - that's how much the discs used to cost here (oh, and there was a disc in the machine)!

Edited by Ral-Clan
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Ral-Clan, bravo! But all this in not that obvious to a new MD convert. Like myself and superboy.

3. In Japan only.

Well, anyone may be lucky.

I got mine for $4.99 in Canada. Yes, this was a lucky find, but many pawn shops & second hand electronics stores (i.e. Cash Converters) in Canada have minidisc walkmans for less than $40. Of course, there's always Ebay, where older NetMD and SP-MD walkmans sell for $20-$50. The MZ-NE410 NetMD walkman is always on Ebay in droves, selling for around US$25 *new* in plastic - it's a good "I don't care if it breaks" MD walkman for general music listening.

Edited by Ral-Clan
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  • 2 weeks later...

Good job, Superboy! Better than most of the "professional" views on the minidisc phenomenon. And you put the finger on the problem (unfortunetely, the problem is Sony itself, or at least Sony electronics/Sony Music schizophrenia).

Very good point about the addictiveness of the minidisc (the disc, if not the machines). I don't find the discs exactly as sexy as you do :) , but I agree they spell a fetish-like charm over everyone. They' re the bastard children of the 3.5' floppy disc and the CD and got an inborn charisma they parents don't have :) , but it's natural, they were born in the times when the music wasn't yet completely dematerialised and were meant to be the audiophile's ultimate dream. (The 1GB Hi-md still is. Something like a several bucks Microdrive disk, but not as damn fragile). And it's not fair they have no legitimate succesor (the ugly and ubreliable CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs are not the ones, nor those phone SIMM-like flash memory cards, nor the bulky harddisks)...

P.S. After reading your blog, I have now the strenght to confess: My name is Minidix and I'm a minidisc addict... :pleasantry:

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My name is Minidix and I'm a minidisc addict... :pleasantry:

Ditto, although my MDCF handle is BIGHMW.

I too, am a MiniDisc Freak (since 1998), and also a passionate Hi-MD enthusiast as well.

Just remember to use (and harness) the Power of The Source, for it is a human one, and also this battle cry that I have sworn by for almost 10 years....

ATRAC or DEATH!!!

Peace Out :victory: ,

Ray Jackson

MDCF/Audio-T-Board/AtracLife/Head-Fi user ID: BIGHMW

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I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the thing that sold MD to me was the mono option. Try listening to Rubber Soul in mp3 format, with the instruments coming out one speaker and the vocals coming out the other! With the mono option, everything is crushed together and it sounds much better. Actually there was one Double CD Greatest Hits that I immediately transferred to MD in mono because it improved the songs immensely, and I never put on the CD again!

MD FOREVER!!

Edited by Leandro
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  • 2 months later...

Nicely done , and the MZ1 pic , when you double klk blows up to original size , and is therefore my new desktop Pic for my Macbook Pro , I was an Owner of the MZ1 , ....I wish Sony would just at least Make a HiMD version of the MZ1 as a concluding statement of appreciation for the people who did stick with them , thru all of the changes the past 15 years . I know I have been there from the beginning .

The size and bilk of the MZ1 didnt bother me a bit ( or 16 bits for that matter!!) but if it were brought up to 24 bits ! Wow , what a machine that would be . It had everything .

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