What will happen to MD, "down the road"?

[kino170878]

^ Wow it only took you two and a half years to submit a post!

[Artstar]

It's gotten to the stage now where with the recording death of my 10 month old MZ-RH1 (most likely from a fall it encountered just last week whilst in a leather case - damn apprentices - now it's just a player) and my one failed recording on what was a dud disc with my NH1 just on a year ago, I've decided that it is now time to give up the HiMD and go to the flash side with the PCM-D50. My first MD unit was the MZ-R50 back in '98 which served me well for 6 years of solid recording. My MDS-JA30ES has remained a staple in my audio system since '98 and has had its optical block replaced twice from really heavy usage. My MDX-C8900 car head unit continues to serve me well to this day (also since '98) and I even have a spare optical block waiting in the wings for when it dies because quite frankly, nobody makes a car stereo like that beast coupled with the XDP-210EQ DSP unit.

So now with my MZ-RH1 having given up its recording ghost, while I'm working here in Beijing I've been caught up in quite the conundrum ... do I buy another MZ-RH1 if they can be found in Beijing, or do I get the PCM-D50 or do I get both since I've invested in close to 50 HiMD blanks?

What I have decided is that I'll get the PCM-D50 undoubtedly as I know it will be a great little workhorse and won't suffer from as much wear and tear as the RH1 due to the absence of a recording mechanism. However, as I still rely on MD blanks for my archiving of master recordings, I might then use my NH1 to dump those recordings to a HiMD as required. Since my RH1 has become a player, I at least then have a backup unit when my NH1 dies with which I can upload any master MD's back to the PC if so required.

Now that Sony have announced the death of Sonicstage and the MD/ATRAC, with the advent of their B100 series MP3 players, I think the choice has been made even clearer for me and it's a damn shame too because I may have reconsidered buying another RH1 had that not been the case.

Edited May 27, 2008 by Artstar

[Seikeden]

subdued response:

thanks sony.

thank you for building an excellent device, smaller, better manufactured and of sturdier construction than anyone else.

thanks for engineering something that should have been able to fulfill all my needs.

thank you sony for wrapping every useful feature of said device up in so much red tape i had to rely on other users to hack claimed functionality out of it.

MD is dead?

you killed it.

i want to play my music? CAN'T

want to record... yeah AS LONG AS YOU DON'T PLAN ON KEEPING IT!

putting my nz1 in the collection pile. maybe some idiot like jpteasy will buy it a few years from now.