HD vs. minidisc recorders

[avil]

I want to buy a new machine that knows to playback and to record. I checked minidiscs and HD recorders (for example - Iriver), and I didn't find any reason why the minidisc is better.

The hd has a hard drive of 20 gb, uploading files is available, it can record a 48 khz wave file.

Can you please give me reasons why to buy a minidisc?

[strewth_bruce]

I've actually just decided to upgrade my personal stereo. I've been using MD for about 5 years, and whilst I've been pretty happy with the mileage I've got out of the format, I was pretty keen to upgrade to either a HDD or flash-memory based player. In the end, I bought an Hi-MD player - thought I'd outline my reasons, as they may help you arrive at decision.

My reasons were as follows. I wanted something with a reasonably long battery life - I do a couple of long haul flights from London to Australia each year, and listening to music's about the only way to stay sane on board. Having a player's battery go dead half-way through the flight aint an option. Also, I was keen to get something that was capable of running off AA batteries - you can buy them anywhere, carry a couple of spares, and I don't like taking rechargers with me on vacation. I'm not fussed about being able to store my entire collection on the player - 5 albums at a time on a disc is fine with me. And finally, quite a few of the HDD/flash memory players don't support gapless playback - it's a small thing, but hell if my CD player can play Abbey Road the way the Beatles meant it to sound, I expect my personal stereo to do likewise!

Things that put me off buying another MD player - Sony's insistence on Atrac as the only natively supported format, and the bad reputation that SonicStage has. Audio quality wasn't a deciding factor one way or the other - most of the time I listen to my music on trains (and planes), which aren't ideal acoustic environments.

I sat down and worked out the features I needed and wanted in a player, and then compared that against the various players out there. In the end, the Hi-MD players looked pretty good against my criteria, so I went with that. However, none of the factors that were important to me may apply to your situation. If one of the 20GB HDD players does everything you need, go for it!

[ekiekitabaang]

Can you please give me reasons why to buy a minidisc?

for example this:

http://www.iriver.com/community/suggestion...n=read&idx=3346

or you can seek google with the words: iriver and glitch.

If you find a portable HDD player/recorder that can reliably record 1 1/2 hours of uncompressed audio, I will find it most interesting and be very thankful of the info.

.. but I guess this is all about what for you are using your portable device mostly.. is it necessary to have quality recordings or is some recording functionality good enpough?

[bhangraman]

The Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 (which can be picked up used or old stock fairly cheaply) records up to 3 hours continuously on WAV and up to 10 hours continuously (battery permitting) on =<320K MP3 from optical, line or Mic, has on-the-fly recording level control for line input, as well as adjustable Mic gain. There's a (not anywhere near as attractive as MD remotes) optional remote for it which is still available online from Creative, and it adds FM radio and integrated voice-quality recording mic. You can take recordings off this thing in native WAV or MP3 format as fast as Firewire transfers will allow.

You can add a second battery, and provided you mark the battery you put in first you can hot-swap the second battery to give you a theoretical unlimited run time on batteries, the same as NH-14WM/AA capable Hi-MD models albeit with batteries at twice the cost of the NH-14WM. After 2 hours of recording, it was still showing a full charge. In fact, after 2 hours of WAV recording and 6 hours of playback, it's showing two-thirds charge.

Capacity? 20Gb was the standard capacity but mine's got an 80Gb disk which I retrofitted in under 5 minutes. The only storage limit seems to be the song capacity decided by the firmware, and currently it supports 16,000 tracks.

Sound quality is generally better than Hi-MD, and for more involved playback use (Connecting to a mixer, audiophile amped use, etc) it's helped by one of the strongest Line outputs of a portable of recent years. There's a basic (4-band: 100hz, 800hz, 3K, 12k) but fully working EQ as well as on-the-fly playlist creation.

So what's the catch? Take a look. I'll give you one guess which one's the NJB3 :laugh:

[bhangraman]

Avil, one of the reasons I didn't comment on the iHP-120 is that I didn't try recording multi-hour sessions to verify whether there really was a serious glitch. But in terms of user interface and in terms of serious recording features (level controls, level indicators, auto gain features etc), the iHP lags behind Hi-MD. The advantage it does have is a unit-built-in mic, and straightforward, driverless drag & drop of recorded files between player and PC in a native usable format (WAV & MP3). The NJB3 requires the client software to do this and Hi-MD will not do this, despite it's upload capability (which uploads in secured ATRAC format).

I wasn't intending to review it or anything, I just bought it as an iPod replacement because it had an optical output. In the end it didn't make the grade on many levels as a player compared to the iPod (although it is competitive with Hi-MD), but I didn't really give it a huge test as a recorder before I disposed of it. I'm sure other more experienced iRiver owners can comment more about it.

[avil]

In the end it didn't make the grade on many levels as a player compared to the iPod (although it is competitive with Hi-MD)...

What's so good in the IPod? is there a line input for it?

[bhangraman]

bhangraman wrote:

In the end it didn't make the grade on many levels as a player

[aeriyn]

What's so good in the IPod? is there a line input for it?

The iPod is not designed as a recorder. It is designed as a player. It doesn't have any inputs other than data.

[Ipaqman]

I own the Nomad Jukebox 3, the IHP-120, and the MZ-NH1. Here are comments based upon personal experience.

The Iriver IHP-120 is not a reliable recorder.

Problems:

1) No editing, not even delete

2) No record level for line-input

3) No record level meters

4) Line input clips with a standard line level signal (CD player)

5) Start of recording is delayed several seconds after pushing record

6) Mic pre-amp is somewhat noisy

7) Drive motor noise leaks into ext mic recordings

8) Wave samples are "dropped" every few minutes causing a small click

9) The MP3 recording codec is bad below 128kbps

10) Short battery life when recording

11) Easy to mix up ext mic and line-input settings messing up your recording (use the same input jack)

Problems with the NJB3:

1) No mic pre-amp (option to boost input with digital boost)

2) Large and heavy

3) Poor quality LCD remote control

4) Sometimes crashes during recording

5) Record level meters are barely useful

6) Limited editing (delete)

7) No AGC recording mode for convenience

The minidisc recorder is reliable and useful as a recorder

1) Mic and line-input jacks

2) Decent mic pre-amp

3) Audio editing functions include: delete, divide, combine, move, title

4) Long record battery life

5) Replaceable batteries

6) Very portable

7) Relatively clean noise free recordings

8) AGC record level for convenience

9) Manual record level control

10) Record level vu meters

11) Record pause

12) Invisible track marks

13) PCM (uncompressed) mode on Hi-MD units

Con:

1) No fast solution to uploading the recording to a PC

The recording functions on most HDAPs are an add-on feature and as such lack necessary accessory functions.

[sony_man]

the only feature that catches my eye is that nice 3-line back-lit remote! but also as a !!!!!!reminder!!!!! your lithium battery will...diiiiiiiiiee after a while and, its costly to replace in an ipod but i dont know about an iriver. i made that mistake with my ipod. actually i hate it altogether

(go MD'S!!)

[aeriyn]

the only feature that catches my eye is that nice 3-line back-lit remote!  but also as a !!!!!!reminder!!!!!  your lithium battery will...diiiiiiiiiee after a while and, its costly to replace in an ipod but i dont know about an iriver. i made that mistake with my ipod. actually i hate it altogether

Oi.

Any battery, be it Li-Ion, NiMH or whatever, will eventually die.

I consider replacing the battery in the NH1 to be somewhat expensive. $50 bucks for a replacement battery can sting a little.

[skyther]

I feel like abusing my 'special' powers. Hmm. What say ya, Cori?

[aeriyn]

I feel like abusing my 'special' powers. Hmm. What say ya, Cori?

*snicker*

[sony_man]

how much space do you really need? does it have to be 20 gigs?

[aeriyn]

how much space do you really need? does it have to be 20 gigs?

Well. With more space I could put a whole lot of music on in linear PCM and have no compression at all. xD Or I could use Apple Lossless and put even more on, and I doubt even the most golden of ears could tell AL from PCM.

I'm not bitching about MD (even std. MD) lack of space... I just really, really, REALLY love the way iPod sounds. That beefy headphone amp (50mW+50mW, 10x more powerful than most MD units) can power a really spiffy set of 'phones...

... no more transcoding, or slow 1x transfer speeds. No more dealing with SonicStage (yay)...

Slightly larger unit. About 1/4 the battery life of my DS8 (that irks me the most), but all in all, a fair tradeoff.

Now to get the money... >.>; $270US for iPod... and another $270US for Etymotic Research ER-4Ps... x.x

[Christopher]

It's 30mW. :happy:

Jeez, I can tell you and skyther have been talkin'. Whatever you end up doing, just don't leave us. :rasp:

[aeriyn]

It's 30mW. :happy:

30mW @ 32 ohms impedance. 50mW @ 16. :happy:

It'll be a long while before I get any new toys of any kind. I have a lot of things I need to spend money on, such as my POS car, which has all sorts of problems that need to be fixed (such as the leaking oil... $165US repair costs), and I have a great number of holes in my wardrobe that need to be filled. :grin:

I have a lot of clothes (doesn't every girl?) but only a few outfits can really be made out of them. Anything else just looks like I got dressed while drunk, or something.

[Kaotic]

Apple sure left a alot of stuffs (accessories) out as newer generation of Ipod comes out.

Now to get the money... >.>; $270US for iPod... and another $270US for Etymotic Research ER-4Ps... x.x

You might wanna tack on another $20 to $100US to the cost of Ipod, as current generation of Ipod leave so much out...like Carrying Case, Dock, Remote. :grin:

[aeriyn]

You might wanna tack on another $20 to $100US to the cost of Ipod, as current generation of Ipod leave so much out...like Carrying Case, Dock, Remote.  :grin:

I don't like the iPod remote. That's one thing MD has everyone beat on. There's no better remotes than the ones on MD units.

The dock I would definitely buy. Carrying case, who cares? The thing would always be in my purse.

[skyther]

AL = WAV (PCM). That's the whole point, it's lossless so it's supposed to be bit-for-bit identical when uncompressed.

[aeriyn]

AL = WAV (PCM). That's the whole point, it's lossless so it's supposed to be bit-for-bit identical when uncompressed.

How?

[jadeclaw]

Simple. You know, what Winzip does?

Compressing files and when the contents of a Zip-archive are decompressed, the result is identical to the original files.

With Apple-Lossless, it is the same, only the algorithm used is optimized towards soundfiles.

Remember, Lossless means that nothing get lost.

A link with a more thorough explanation:

http://mp3.radified.com/lossless.htm

[dex Otaku]

There are several lossless formats out there. Apple lossless is good but does not compress as well as a few others.

For archival purposes I use FLAC. Field recordings are often highly compressable so this means the difference between 80MB for a track and 10-20MB with no loss on a file that can be tagged and played in Winamp.

[AMPlitude]

the truth is that when you need to record, the hd just doesnt quite cut it. the reason being that most hd manufacs tend to lean toward beating the ipod in design and slickness while also staying in the same size ballpark. in the attempt to keep it lookin "fly", tend to negate the dry-battery case that is now so highly revered in the minidisc universe...

it is also true that the hd has a larger capacity, but with minidisc, i still prefer to be able to go through several minidiscs and have a portable medium without tugging a "adapter" around with that presentation of yours

hint: md looks much better, and remotes are better designed then almost any hd recorder's will be

[skyther]

^ No. The MC40EL (NH1/NH3D/NH900J/EH1) is inferior in almost every way compared to the iHP remote.

For recording, I think most people prefer to have controls on the main unit which aren't cluttered, and a large display with level meters. Remotes are troublesome enough as they are, let alone be used for recording.

[mrelwood]

the truth is that when you need to record, the hd just doesnt quite cut it. the reason being that most hd manufacs tend to lean toward beating the ipod in design

I so much wish this wouldn't be true. It is actually hard for me to explain to myself, that even though the technology is all there and ready, no-one is making a suitable recorder. (Why not?!) It really bugs me that lighter-sized portables can record from a line in (iAudio U2), but no-one is making it properly for a portable HD. It could be, and we could all be carrying a recorder that would beat a MD in every aspect, even size.

Just to make sure: Does anyone have any opinions on the Archos Gmini220? It actually seems like the best candidate for a MD killer.

-Aki.

[Michael1980]

Would be interesting to see iPod record. In the future perhaps.

[aeriyn]

Try not to dig up old threads please.

[NtN]

Just like to say that the battery supplied with Hi-MD units is a 900Mah one... around that anyway... and i've recently seen although limited edition 1750Mah ones which means twice the playback length.

Just another reason to buy a Hi-MD.... battery life on an ipod decreases the more you use it and it costs *too much* to replace it. You can easily replace your Hi-MD rechargeable battery for about £12 if you shop around on the internet. And you'll probably be getting better and much longer lasting one that you originally had.

Edited January 5, 2005 by NtN