mp3 vs minidisc

[liquidgeforce]

ok, ive been reading froums comparing minidiscs to mp3 players, ppl say that minidiscs r better cause they hold more music. the thing is though i was looking at buying an mp3 player that holds 20gb of music, its 150.00. i was looking to spend about that much....so what should i do? buiy a minidisc polayer for that much, wich i will need to buy more minidiscs for (with the mp3 player i wouldnt have to buy nething after its initial purchase) ior buy the mp3 player?? i have about 900 songs on my computer, and im looking to sopend about $150. thanx for the help, btw, can u tell me at least one advantage of buiying th minidisc player over the mp3 player??please?

[Bazirker]

Where are you buying an mp3 player that can hold 20 GB for $150? I have NEVER heard of a 20 GB mp3 player being sold for that price. I've heard of 20 GB iPod's being sold for as low as $300...

Here's some disadvantages of solid state mp3 players (such as the one you're looking at):

1. Poor battery life

2. MP3 frequently sounds like crap

3. The hard drives crash

4. (Usually) no recording capabilites

5. Usually heavy

6. In my experience, FRAGILE

Minidisc has none of those problems. Discs are cheap and durable, the quality is great, recording capabilites are outstanding, battery life is really good (usually around 30 hours playback on one AA battery, more or less life depending on conditions,) and minidisc recorders are so much sexier than mp3 players. They also tend to be really durable. The only downsides are recording; it requires slightly more time and effort to record a disc...but that's only some people's opinions. Personally, I enjoy taking the time to record a disc; it makes your music more personal and "custom fitted," if you will.

You can buy an MZ-N707 for around $150 or an MZ-N505 for $100...sometimes even less than that. The difference between the two is that the N505 does not have a car kit or remote and it can not record from a microphone. The N707 has a car kit and mic recording capabilities.

[JeffS]

Be Careful!!!!!!

A coworker of mine, almos bought a hd based player

a few days ago for WAY cheap. The problem was it was one of the

RIO players. Nothing against them personally, but the company just

went bankrupt, and there are many places liquidating stock at the moment. This if fine if you can survive with current drivers, and hack

what you will need in the future without support from the manufacturer.

That is not a prospect most people (even that techie-geeks) want to

handle.

((yes, I can say geek, because I am one, kind of like when comedians of

a certain race.... never mind, I don't want to start a flame war))

Seriously,

if it's a good deal, AND you know what you're getting into, go for it. it sounds great.

On the flipside. I've been an MD user for years, only recently did I discover (read purchase new hardware) the joys of netmd. DAMN this is great stuff. I was going to convert all my CDs into omg files, but have actually opted, to go mp3 instead. with the programs to wrap around simpleburner, and just straight imports, I've got the best of all worlds.

remember MD is a portable format, so load your discs up with as much music as you want to take with you. If you want Hi-Fi, go DAT. If you want to go mp3, go MD.

Good luck which ever player you buy.

-Jeff

[liquidgeforce]

thanx alot for all ur guys's help, but im still undecided, lol, only because my miond keeps going back to the fatct that i have to buy more minidiscs if i go with the minidi=sc player? and what if like minidiscs go the way of beta tapes and they stop selling discs? i would really like a minidisc player, but i dont want to have to buy alot of minidiscs, i know their rewritable...but, idk. if i weanted to keep buying discs, id keep my cd player and just bourn myslef cd's ya know what im sayin??

[Andy]

Minidisc has been around for 10 years now, and although it is definately a niche, it is becoming more popular now. Looking into my crystal ball, I'd say that MD will be around for *at least* another 5 years. Why 5 years? Because 5 years is the time I would estimate it would take before a harddisk based media player goes cactus. Personally, I can't see MD going anywhere, but for the purposes of this, I'd happily say that it will be around for longer than a harddrive will last for.

Discs will be availabe for a while even when (if) they stop selling players, so if suddenly MD dies, then you can just go out and stock up big - and in the process you will probably revive the MD economy bringing all the manufacturers back . With a HD player, you have it until it dies, then there is nothing you can do about it really.

[liquidgeforce]

but still, why wouldnt i just keep burning cd's and using a regular cd player? it holds the same amount of music as a md player, especially if i get one with mp3 capabilities........? i just dont wanna spend my money ion the wrong thing, ru happy with ur minidisc player??

[blkmage]

CDs are horribly fragile. A scratch can kill it. I can step on a CD and kill it. I can snap a CD in half easily. You can drop a CD and it could be dead.

CDs are also huge, as are the CD players.

[Guest Anonymous]

MD's are also a lot easier to edit, plus they are just so damn cool...

Andy, in reference to MD not going anywhere, I agree with you, but that doesn't mean I don't think it can't go anywhere. If Sony or a private developer was to release a NetMD program tomorrow that eliminates restrictions and has increased functionality, the MD format would become, in my opinion, about as perfect as a media format can realistically be.

I'm stuck at work over my spring break....dammit. So I decided to slack a little bit and get on the forums, hence why I'm not signed in...they are fussy about us using the internet here!

[BJ]

I have over 1000 CDs (a modest number, I'm finding out) and treat them all with kid gloves--and yet some of my favourite, most expensive discs get mysterious, crippling SCRATCHES in them! It's not FAIR! Now, I have tons of MDs as well, and I treat them all like crap--they rattle around in pockets, backpacks, my car, the floor, sofa cushions, etc. I've cracked the cases on a few of them, played catch across a room full of tables, dropped them in mud puddles...you get the idea. I have yet to have an MD fail on me. These things ROCK.

An MD won't disintigrate as quickly as flash memory or a HD-based player (Andy's right--I'd rather buy a series of $2 MDs than replace a $300 HD when it crashes).

What MDs have that CDs don't: editability. I listen to music constantly, and of course I'll get sick of songs from time to time. On MD, I just delete the old song and add a new one. We had MD in the house years before I bought a CD burner, and it took a while to explain to my girlfriend that she couldn't just replace a song on one of her CD mixes like she can on her MDs--she had to do the whole disc over. Her words: "Well, that's LAME!" :wink:

Everything else I want to say has been covered. Last thoughts: I do have an RCA Kazoo MP3 player, and I do enjoy it. But I hear more artifacts on that thing than I care to experience, no matter how I encode my MP3s. I use it enough to buy one with more memory, but when I was at the store, money in hand to buy it, I saw the MZ-N505 for the same amount and chose it instead. I'm thrilled with my decision. The restrictions Sony placed on Net MD are trifling and pretty easy to work around (though USB upload would be nice).

If MDs ever go the way of Beta, I'm buying as many blanks as I can find, and I'll use my machines until they turn to dust.

[JeffS]

I have to add yet another thing, to follow up to the comment about another 5 years for MD. While this may be the case, and HD players may die out, MD isn't targeted with the same feature set in mind. MD is more along the lines of a replacement for cassette. Yes, cassette tape is long since gone from the mainstream (please don't flame me for that statement). Yes, there are some people out there with great decks, and can do magic in the analog world, and they are very portable. MD brings all of this into the modern age. Analog and digital recording, the same level of editability (is that a word?) and more editing options. All this plus you never have to fast forward or rewind, you must skip to position.

If your goal is to have thousands of songs in one small portable device, go for an ipod/nomad/archos or equiv. If you're looking for something more versatile with as many features and more, go MD.

Ok, one more thing. If you want your buddy to hear something you've been listening to, you don't need to copy in realtime to his machine, or give up your machine for him/her to listen to a song. Just pop the MD out, and hand it over. simple as that. (assuming (s)he has MD of course).

-Jeff

ps. sorry for the continued long posts...

[Guest Anonymous]

go for it. if it is that cheap... go for it. maybe im late now. i own 4 recorders (portable) and they too have their problems... sound jumping sometimes... sudden breakdowns. md is not the ultimate format... lets hope something truly better comes along. if you just want to listen to music, get the hd player, it wont go wrong... the new ones too take about 20-30 hours of batt life... creative. so don:t just listen to md fanboys on an md site to tell you what to buy... go somewhere else for some enlightenment. it is like asking the spokesperson for amd if you should buy the intel p4 c or the amd k7 barton... hmmm. what is he going to say? haha... but i love md... great sound too. but, who cares. if you do most stuff with mp3 or wma or internet formats,,, md will sound worse anyway because it must reconvert to atrac. mp3 is better for a listener.

now, are you a recorder? if so, md is better but still dat or something might just be up your alley...

[Guest Anonymous]

right, if you are in usa... no one will have md so (exagerration... but it is so unpopular for some reason) if you want your friend to listen to the md... hmmm. analog to a cd burner... no, uploading from an mp3 player is better to your friends computer because everyone of you rich mothers in usa has computer or 2. cheers

[Guest Anonymous]

Who says you have you be rich to own a computer?

You can pretty much find Pentium II's in the garbage these days!

[Guest Anonymous]

The way I see it, Minidisc's advantage over MP3 is only in the small portables domain - NetMD recorders are slightly cheaper than flash-based MP3 players, and the media (minidiscs vs flash cards) is much cheaper. The quality is a setback, but when the benefits really suit you, so what. (=

HDD-MP3 and CD-MP3 are both better than MD in the sense that you have better quality and more storage - Though you sacrifice portability with CD-MP3 since you can't fit the player in your pocket; and you sacrifice recording with both HDD-MP3 and CD-MP3 because even the units that can record don't give you nearly as much quality as minidisc recorders do.

[clonmult]

MD is a fantastic medium - sony should get their collective back sides into gear and start promoting it as an all round storage medium.

Sony do the Mavica CD cameras - they take the 3"/8cm recordable CDs, about 180 meg a piece. Why haven't they decided on their own, in house, MD format? Its absolutely perfect for the job.

Smaller than the CD, considerably more robust, media cost is generally lower (and better availaility - have you see the price of re-writeable 3" CDs???), and power consumption is generally better.

Sony have some great products, and some potentially great products that have completely missed the boat.

[Guest Anonymous]

The only time I've ever seen 8cm CD-RW's, was early this summer, and the price was around $2.80 each.

Considering how MD is nicely shielded and holds roughly the same amount of data, yeah, I'd say 8cm CD-RW's could stand to be cheaper.

[mAjEsTiC]

Considering how MD is nicely shielded and holds roughly the same amount of data, yeah, I'd say 8cm CD-RW's could stand to be cheaper.

hmm very true NRen2k5...but i think these 8cm CD-RW's are seen more as a novelty item than that of practical use (coz this is how it's seen here in Aus)...not many shops stock up on them as compared with MD's, (which still is kind of over priced here but is more cheaper than those CD-RW's...) since MD's are starting to take off when sony started releasing cheaper units to the general public...

[Guest Anonymous]

I hate those blasted little cd-rw's. MD's are so much better since it's a lot harder to destroy one. I more or less hate the CD format in general just because the discs are so easy to destroy. There is always something to be said for a cheap media format, but geez. CD should be obsolete by now considering how DVD's are more or less the same thing except they hold a lot more data. (Still, I don't like DVD's, since they are just as easy to scratch as CD's.)

[Guest Anonymous]

Well, CD is obsolete.

However, it is still very widely used, because a) nobody wants to have to get new equipment to play the new formats and DVD-A and SACD are still in competition for the place of the next mainstream audio format and c) CD's sound quality is much more than just good enough for the huge majority of people and d) DVD-A and SACD aren't any smaller than CD and e) They're not more durable either.

[duancg]

One thing I like MD is that, I can have several MiniDiscs in my car and change them while driving. With $100 MP3 player, I would have to connect to PC in order to listen to some new songs. Well, I know iPod has 10~30G of hard disk and can hold a LOT of songs, but it is way over priced.

[Guest Anonymous]

Well what about an MP3/CD player like a Sony DE-### or an iRiver iMP-###?

A CD holds 3-4× as much music as a minidisc with comparable quality (or better, if your MD's are made from MP3's, because the CD would be holding the original MP3's rather than downgraded ATRAC copies that NetMD makes).

[duancg]

Yes, I do like the capacity of CD/MP3 player and the equal convenience to change disc instead of re-download music. But considering size and easy-to-handle factors, I chose MD over CD/MP3. It is a pity that MD players cannot store/play MP3s directly

[BerkY]

Well it is a matter of choice... Forget about what is better! Nren might think MP3s are better and majestic might think MDs are better but the whole thing really changes from person to person.

As i said it is really a matter of choice! If you care about size, uniqueness and the coolness factor then the MD is better. Also a 128kbit MP3 is not better in terms of quality when conpared to an ATRAC3 coded LP2 track. In fact the LP2 kicks its arse! However you can "only" fit 160 minutes of music. Which I think is more than enough. After all i only listen to my MD when I go out or when i use public transport and i do not spend more than 160 minutes on public transport. So why carry a 20gb hard disk with you when you wont even use the darn thing fully. Pointless and a waste of money...

So MDs are cool and they are small, light and unique... Thats what I care about. They are better than MP3s (comparing an LP2 track) in terms of quality and when i need more music i can just change the disc. After all carrying a disk wont be such a hassle when compared to carrying a hard disk, right ?

[Guest Anonymous]

I think what it all comes down to is that MiniDisc is an end-user-friendly format and MP3 is not. With MiniDisc, you have only the choice of a few standardized recording modes, and after choosing one the encoding process is basically out of your hands. The resulting quality may be great or not, depending on the conditions.

MP3, on the other hand, is very involved, and if you do everything right, you get great results.

[BJ]

I've never been the "do everything right" sort--that's why I love MD. :wink: It hit "record" and I get a recording. I throw my MDs in the footwell of my car and leave them there for a year, they still play just fine.

I enjoy technology that anticipates my stupidity and adjusts for it.

[Guest Anonymous]

the problem with the mp3/cd players, is one of the exact reasons i bought a minidisc player. Portablility. Unless you can make cd's smaller, there is no way to get the cd players smaller than they are now. also with the ipod, when they first came out, the batteries were not rechargable, and you couldnt replace it, becuase it used a special one. people found at and got pissed. after a while apple allowed people to spend 100 bucks to replace the battery. This is bullsh*t marketing, and seriously its like paying 500 bucks, and another 100 a week. minidisc is the way to go!

[Guest Anonymous]

Originally posted by mzn510

also with the ipod, when they first came out, the batteries were not rechargable, and you couldnt replace it, becuase it used a special one. people found at and got pissed. after a while apple allowed people to spend 100 bucks to replace the battery. This is bullsh*t marketing, and seriously its like paying 500 bucks, and another 100 a week. minidisc is the way to go!

The battery is rechargeable (could play for only 8 hours at a time, though).

It's just that it isn't of a good manufacturing quality, and some people reported it could no longer hold a charge after roughly a year of use. For awhile they were out of luck because there was no way to get a first-party replacement (and using a third-party battery would void any warranty). then Apple provided a battery replacement program which allowed users to buy a new battery for something like $100usd (3rd-party batteries sell for around $50). There are also now external battery packs for the newer-model iPods. Do your research. Still, it is a pretty crappy road to go down - you're right about that.

Originally posted by mzn510

the problem with the mp3/cd players, is one of the exact reasons i bought a minidisc player. Portablility. Unless you can make cd's smaller, there is no way to get the cd players smaller than they are now.

Yeah, fair enough. That's why I got an old R500 refurb. I still use my RioVolt SP250 for school, though. My bag has more than enough room to accomodate my MP3-CD's. And you have to admit, it's not the end of the world if you can't carry your favourite music in your pants pocket!