Does anyone still use Minidisc...?

[Roop]

After being in our new gaff for three months, I finally got some shelves for my toy room and got amongst other things, my hifi set up. I have hooked up my MiniDisc player for the first time in about two years and forgot how good it actually sounds.

The Denon 20bit DAC in the MD player is a little more aggressive than the American Burr-Brown unit in my CD player, but it's still a cracking sound given there's some compression going on in there that is not lossless.

The player is a Denon DMD-1000 for anyone that's interested...

Anyone else still using MD...?

Roop

[japhilip]

Very occasionally.

You're right they do sound good. Same as when I put a CD on after listening to internet radio or MP3's for days on end.

[dhutch]

Yeah.

Not often anymore, but occataional.
- Uptill about 2months ago my dad played them in his car all the time, stuff recored of the radio mainly, on his daily comute into work.
- Hes recently got a new car (audi a4) and has yet to really resolve the issue of fitting the MD into the a4, or finding another work around.

However they are good, and its a shame they didnt really catch on. But now small HDD/Flash based mp3 plays are just so good there not match.
- A some point someone will really sort out incar mp3's as well, which would be nice!


Daniel

[Bomber Denton]

Yep before I bought the Alpine IDoc I had a Kenwood minidisc for years, brilliant for those continental trips.

Have now put it to one side to put in the glovebox of the Mexico. (Eight track in console)

[JulianHJ]

I stopped using MDs after buying a Sony CD/MP3 multi-changer. Still have an MD head unit, full size deck and portable, all boxed up and unused...

[clonmult]

Still go back to my NetMD player from time to time (MZ-N510)

Sound quality is way better than my (30gig) iPod video, battery life is absolutely stunning (50 hours off 1xAA!).

Haven't put any new stuff on there for ages though, will have to see if SimpleBurner works on Vista ....

[onomatopoeia]

Yes, me, although the head unit is not in any of my cars at the moment. That will change when I finish sorting out the mechanical jobs on the Imp so I can use it more.

I find them so much easier than trying to change CDs when driving.

[dhutch]

clonmult said:

Still go back to my NetMD player from time to time (MZ-N510)

Sound quality is way better than my (30gig) iPod video, battery life is absolutely stunning (50 hours off 1xAA!).

Haven't put any new stuff on there for ages though, will have to see if SimpleBurner works on Vista ....

The quality and battery life was fantastic wasnt it.
- Unfortunatly (in many ways) i had a pre MD-LD sharp portable player, which i had well before anyone else had even heard of MD or MP3.
- But my sister later got a .net sony player, so i could therireticaly use that to recored disks from the pc to play on mine. But the software was that shite it was almost easyier just to recored it all real time anyway, and i couldnt use simple burner because it would output LP disks.

Basicaly, again, sony took a good idea and screwed it up badly.

Daniel

[SkinnyBoy]

can you get MD burners for use in a spare slot in the computer?

I have a Gathers MD headunit in the car (its a MD/CD/Tape Combo unit) Never got into MD, is the quality better than CD's? Whats my incentive to use it?

[dhutch]

SkinnyBoy said:

can you get MD burners for use in a spare slot in the computer?

Yes, but there very rair, and feindishly expensive.
- Or atleast thats what i found.

However you can get singles or porrable units with USB interfact for fast transfer of music onto the disk. (although you cant extract music from a MD other than analogly.

SkinnyBoy said:

..Never got into MD, is the quality better than CD's? Whats my incentive to use it?

Firstly, the disks are smaller, and far more roubust. Making them great in the car, and very pocketable (both the disks and the player).
- Secondly with MD-LP you can get upto 320minutes onto a MD, as opposed to 80 on a CD (unless you go down the mp3 route). So with a very compact case, you can carry practacally your whole collection on only 5/10 disks. Or stick them in a ten disk autochanger (and the auto changers are very much smaller).
- Thirdly for a portable meduim, as already stated compaired to cd's the battery life or portable players is great. And they also dont skip nearly as much.

The only real down side with them over standard cd's is that computers, are all equipt with cd/dvd drives. Not md drives.
- Also, you can only actaully get about 128mb on a MD, the key is in the decording and the very rewritable and easy to read meduim of the disk.

You can also get 8-track MD recoreders, which very nearly took on in the recording industry.
- You'll still find a lot of theatres using MDs to record there soundtracks and effects noises.


Daniel

[Roop]

I do like the MD format, it's just a shame it never quite made it big. Sony needed to loosen up on its licencing way quicker to get the uptake of the format up to critical mass faster. By the time the long-play and USB connectable units came along, MP3 via low cost solid state devices had pretty much nailed MD.

MD was great when mobile - in car or on foot, you can chuck the discs around without fear of knackering them. My only issue is that Sony's transports are just not that robust. My DMD-1000 although beautifully made is very fussy about discs, as is my Aiwa MD-F5 portable...

[SJobson]

I realised I needed to replace my MD deck which was nicked in a burglary (er... about 8 years ago) before they cease to exist. Bought a Sony MD-JBS940 UK Edition on eBay, got an MD Walkman thrown in (which I won't ever use, but hey), along with the seller's entire collection of MDs. The sound is much better than the 1998 deck which was nicked, which is nice. I've actually copied quite a few CDs onto MD to listen to when my wife leaves them elsewhere in the house.

The other use I'm putting it to is copying my old cassettes onto a potentially longer-lasting format. Well, the disks will be long-lasting, not so sure about players in 20 years' time.

I'm also trying to find the best way at low/no cost to get my MDs into MP3 format. The issues have been done before many times on different hi-fi forums but I can't find concensus on what to get. I'm not that bothered about getting a NetMD device because I'll only end up with an ATRAC file on my PC; and they command very high prices on eBay. Plenty of good quality cheap USB soundcards which will do a bit-perfect output from the MD player (and in PCM, so decompressed), but most of the cheaper ones obey the SCMS bit. Anyone ever tried the M-Audio Transit, which would appear to do bit-perfect throughput and ignore SCMS flags?

[thepickle]

SJobson said:

Bought a Sony MD-JBS940 UK Edition on eBay

MDS-JB940 you mean? sorry to be a pedant I’ve got one of them, I remember when I got it Richer Sounds had the euro version at a cheaper price but I had to have the “UK Edition” one with the little red badge I bought it new around 1999/2000 I think it was. It was regarded as quite good at the time I think, without spending silly money anyway. If you don’t mind me asking, what did you pay for it on ebay? I’ve always liked MD as a format but now mp3 is just so easy I hardly use MD any more. I’ve got a couple of hundred albums and some radio stuff on MD and the player still sounds good now when I give it a blast every so often.

[Cuban]

Most of the European tour shows by the band I manage go direct from the desk to MD.

Always loved the format.

[SJobson]

thepickle said:

SJobson said:

Bought a Sony MD-JBS940 UK Edition on eBay

MDS-JB940 you mean?

Oops, yes - I have a bit of a passion for old cassette decks and had been looking at them on eBay, and got totally confused with the numbering as I typed, obviously...

I paid £120 including the Walkman as a buy-it-now because it was quite local to me. They regularly go for £100+, as do the 930s. The 980 seems highly prized for its NetMD capability and goes for £180+. Silver versions of all of these go for a few quid less.

Edited by SJobson on Thursday 13th December 22:46

[clonmult]

The later MD - HiMD had 1gig discs, as opposed to the 300 (?) or so of the old format. Also, reformatting an older MD disc in a newer HiMD player gives roughly 40% rise in capacity due to different encoding on the disc.

The PC MD drives never took off, and they were only ever used as data drives.

[dhutch]

clonmult said:

The PC MD drives never took off, and they were only ever used as data drives.

Yeah, thats what i found.
- The one place that was selling computer-based audio MD players where clearly using data drives, modifyed or otherwise.
- Infact they had a large add on there website advertising for second hand data drives offering £100/200 a pop for them.

Any matrix fans here? Follow the white rabit and all that.
- I beleave that disk was a mini disk, as far as you can see in the film anyway.

Edited by dhutch on Friday 14th December 11:37

[onomatopoeia]

thepickle said:

SJobson said:

Bought a Sony MD-JBS940 UK Edition on eBay

MDS-JB940 you mean? sorry to be a pedant I’ve got one of them, I remember when I got it Richer Sounds had the euro version at a cheaper price but I had to have the “UK Edition” one with the little red badge I bought it new around 1999/2000 I think it was. It was regarded as quite good at the time I think, without spending silly money anyway. If you don’t mind me asking, what did you pay for it on ebay? I’ve always liked MD as a format but now mp3 is just so easy I hardly use MD any more. I’ve got a couple of hundred albums and some radio stuff on MD and the player still sounds good now when I give it a blast every so often.

I have one too, no idea which edition though as I didn't realise there were different ones.h Since it came from Richer Sounds about six or seven years ago it sounds like it might be the euro version.

[clonmult]

dhutch said:

clonmult said:

The PC MD drives never took off, and they were only ever used as data drives.

Yeah, thats what i found.
- The one place that was selling computer-based audio MD players where clearly using data drives, modifyed or otherwise.
- Infact they had a large add on there website advertising for second hand data drives offering £100/200 a pop for them.

Any matrix fans here? Follow the white rabit and all that.
- I beleave that disk was a mini disk, as far as you can see in the film anyway.

Edited by dhutch on Friday 14th December 11:37

Should add that HiMD audio drives can also work as USB 2 data drives as well. The only way of getting music on and off them is still via SonicStage though

[telecat]

If I remember Minidisc used 48Khz 16 bit recording using ATRAC compression. Initially it was pretty awful producing the same sort of "Weedy" sound that MP3 does. The latest versions of ATRAC are very good and indeed are available for use on the Sony Walkman competitors to the iPod's as an alternative to MP3