MiniDisk Players
- Thread starter KillerMan
- Start date
Have you considered a portable MP3 player?
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- Sep 29, 1999
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I'll chime in with Ewok and say, have you considered a MP3 cd player like the TDK mojo? If you have a burner and software to convert wav.files to mp3 files, perhaps it may be the ultimate?
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"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.", King Lear, Act I, Scene 4.
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"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.", King Lear, Act I, Scene 4.
Nope, I haven't looked at portable mp3 Players....I am not too keen on the price tags on those NEO units though.... Since I seem to spend almost all my money on knives, there isn't much left.... what is out there in the 200-300 dollar range? I seem to remember reading a lot of negative reviews a while back about the portable mp3 players, hence my interest in MiniDisk players.
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"I am not, really."
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"I am not, really."
Mini-disc players are absolutely awesome. Super cool. mp-3? HAH! Check out minidisc.org. Has all the info you want. I have a Sharp 821 recorder and a Panasonic SJMJ70 player. The Sharp stays at home for recording, the Panasonic goes with me everywhere. Don't have a home or car unit, but will get them as soon as I get established back in the US. Much better and smaller than cds. I see people trying to struggle with their big-ass CD players on the subway and silently chuckle. I usually buy a cd then record it onto md before I even listen to it. I don't know of a single person who bought a player or recorder and didn't fall in love with the media. Check out Sony's newest - it is ridiculosly small. Sony and Sharp lead the pack for recorders. Panasonic comes in pretty close too. One of those three and you can't go wrong. If you have any questions, drop me a line. I can't promise answers, but I do promise enthusiasim about mds.
ZF
ZF
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- 545
Killerman,
I think there are pro and cons to both formats. For portable use I generally consider both minidisc and mps acceptable, at home *BOTH* are compromises, soundwise. I suggest you listen to both to hear what differences are apparent to you. I cannot guess what your problems with mp3 are because you did not detail them. I do realize that your post asked for a MD player and recorder but I would really feel remiss if I didn't make a pitch for a MP3 cd player.
Here are some pros/cons for each.
MD:
-media is relatively expensive
-media is still vulnerable to magnets
-uses ATRAC compression
-Minidisk have smaller players because the media is smaller
-mechanically, MD players are more complex and in a worse case scenario, more prone to break than a cd player.
-minidisk players are generally more $$$ than mp3 cd players
MP3 CD player
-media is cheap relative to minidisk (but you must have a cd burner to take advantage of this)
-media is not vulnerable to magnetic fields
-uses MP3 compression
-MP3 cd players are generally cheaper than mindisk players
-Its possible now to put between 100 to 200 songs or approximately 10 hours worth of music on a single disc. Perhaps worth the "struggle with big ass cd players"?
As for price how about $139 plus shipping?
http://www.us.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10277809&loc=
This price is well within your budget for a player but the recommendation must be tempered by whether or not you have a cd burner already and software that will convert wav.files to mp3.files. I imagine that you have access to both through friends. Just imagine, you could very well put your a whole cd collection of 200 on less than 20 cds. To organize them you could utilize ID3 tags to sort them by artist, album and genre. Anywhoo, good luck in your search...but I hope this gave you some food for thought.
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"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.", King Lear, Act I, Scene 4.
I think there are pro and cons to both formats. For portable use I generally consider both minidisc and mps acceptable, at home *BOTH* are compromises, soundwise. I suggest you listen to both to hear what differences are apparent to you. I cannot guess what your problems with mp3 are because you did not detail them. I do realize that your post asked for a MD player and recorder but I would really feel remiss if I didn't make a pitch for a MP3 cd player.
Here are some pros/cons for each.
MD:
-media is relatively expensive
-media is still vulnerable to magnets
-uses ATRAC compression
-Minidisk have smaller players because the media is smaller
-mechanically, MD players are more complex and in a worse case scenario, more prone to break than a cd player.
-minidisk players are generally more $$$ than mp3 cd players
MP3 CD player
-media is cheap relative to minidisk (but you must have a cd burner to take advantage of this)
-media is not vulnerable to magnetic fields
-uses MP3 compression
-MP3 cd players are generally cheaper than mindisk players
-Its possible now to put between 100 to 200 songs or approximately 10 hours worth of music on a single disc. Perhaps worth the "struggle with big ass cd players"?
As for price how about $139 plus shipping?
http://www.us.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10277809&loc=
This price is well within your budget for a player but the recommendation must be tempered by whether or not you have a cd burner already and software that will convert wav.files to mp3.files. I imagine that you have access to both through friends. Just imagine, you could very well put your a whole cd collection of 200 on less than 20 cds. To organize them you could utilize ID3 tags to sort them by artist, album and genre. Anywhoo, good luck in your search...but I hope this gave you some food for thought.
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"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.", King Lear, Act I, Scene 4.
Paranoid and ZF:
Thanks for the guidance thus far. I don't have a burner, but friends do. However, the MD format allows me to use it as a portable "note taking machine." As ya'll stated, there are pros and cons to each format. Guess this just means more research
Thanks!
KM
Thanks for the guidance thus far. I don't have a burner, but friends do. However, the MD format allows me to use it as a portable "note taking machine." As ya'll stated, there are pros and cons to each format. Guess this just means more research
Thanks!
KM
While I was at University [technically I've not Graduated yet] I recorded all my lectures onto MD and then played them back through "ViaVoice" [or like] Speach Recognition Software to help write up my notes prep for revision etc.
At first I had a Sharp, then I got a Sony, and now I want another Sony.
The microphone recording quality is amazing. Even with a "zoom" stereo directional mic, I got all the chatter, coughs, sniffs & farts. No background hiss or anything but crystal clear voices etc.
Most of the time, the Lecturers didn't even realise they were being recorded (although at the start of their Lectures I usually asked if they didn't mind). One even asked me why I had a headphone in one ear [for sound level etc] "You can record me on that tiny thing?! Where's the tape?"
Note - my Sony has auto volume level [gain?]control so that I usually just had to adjust the direction of the mic as the lecturer moved about rather then the record volume like on the old Sharp I had.
Personally, from my experience with MP3, classical music sounds dreadful, but on MD, for a portable device, it was good to very good.
I would suggest a Sony. I'm gonna get me a MD separate I can link to my PC. I was thinking about Sony's PC MD but I don't need it.
Some other advice:
Get yourself the best pair of headphones you can. I use the top of the line Sony in-ear ones.
Also, to record from an analogue source, get yourself a nice gold plated cable. Especially if you want to play the MD back through a HiFi...
In my opinion, MD & MP3 only really show the compression when played on a good HiFi. Listening to a high quality CD recording or DTS DVD beforehand can often show up the lack of "life", "heart" and "soul" that compression usually removes or destroys.
Al
At first I had a Sharp, then I got a Sony, and now I want another Sony.
The microphone recording quality is amazing. Even with a "zoom" stereo directional mic, I got all the chatter, coughs, sniffs & farts. No background hiss or anything but crystal clear voices etc.
Most of the time, the Lecturers didn't even realise they were being recorded (although at the start of their Lectures I usually asked if they didn't mind). One even asked me why I had a headphone in one ear [for sound level etc] "You can record me on that tiny thing?! Where's the tape?"
Note - my Sony has auto volume level [gain?]control so that I usually just had to adjust the direction of the mic as the lecturer moved about rather then the record volume like on the old Sharp I had.
Personally, from my experience with MP3, classical music sounds dreadful, but on MD, for a portable device, it was good to very good.
I would suggest a Sony. I'm gonna get me a MD separate I can link to my PC. I was thinking about Sony's PC MD but I don't need it.
Some other advice:
Get yourself the best pair of headphones you can. I use the top of the line Sony in-ear ones.
Also, to record from an analogue source, get yourself a nice gold plated cable. Especially if you want to play the MD back through a HiFi...
In my opinion, MD & MP3 only really show the compression when played on a good HiFi. Listening to a high quality CD recording or DTS DVD beforehand can often show up the lack of "life", "heart" and "soul" that compression usually removes or destroys.
Al
Paranoid raised a few points that I'm not to sure about, mainly that mini-discs are vulnerable to magnetic fields. It's not a tape, it's a mini cd and sould be no more vulnerable than a regular cd or one you burned at home. Also, I haven't checked prices on CD-RW's lately, but mds are in the sub-2 dollar category, depending on where you live and who you buy from. Sony's come out with the md-lp which boosts the time to 320 minutes from an 80 minute disc. As far as sound quality, I've been unimpressed with mp3. Downloaded some songs off napster, liked them so I bought the disc. The difference seemed like the difference between tape and cd. Most people have a hard time detecting the difference in sound quality between md and cd. And as far as 10 hours of music on one cd - sounds good, but it sounds pretty damn compressed and possibly pretty degraded too. Could be just talkin out my ass, though.
ZF
ZF
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Originally posted by Zhang Fei:
Paranoid raised a few points that I'm not to sure about, mainly that mini-discs are vulnerable to magnetic fields.
The laser reads but does not write, but the "read" is through a screen that is magnetically altered. Check your sources again. Better yet, send me a a MD and I'll use my bulk tape eraser and I'll show you it *is* vulnerable. To quote:
"Recordable MiniDiscs use a variation on conventional magneto- optical methods that Sony calls "Magnetic Field Modulation", in which data is recorded using a 4.5mW semiconductor laser together with a magnetic head. As the disc sweeps past the laser, a tiny area on the MD's magnetic recording layer is heated to its Curie temperature* while the field of the magnetic head in contact with the other side of the disc is switched back and forth to write a data pattern. When the area the head has magnetized moves away from the laser spot it cools below the Curie point to become ``cast'' in a string of N and S magnetized regions on the disc, spaced 60 millionths of a centimeter apart, and corresponding to the stream of bits being recorded. Playback is accomplished using the same laser at about 1/10th power, taking advantage of the Faraday effect, in which the polarization angle of reflected laser light is affected by whether it was reflected from an N or S magnetized region. The MD optics detect these polarization differences to reconstruct the recorded bit stream. (*The Curie temperature is the point at which a material can be magnetized by a very weak field. For the MD's recording layer which is a compound of Terbium, Iron, and Cobalt, this temperature is 180C)"
http://www.minidisc.org/part_MD_technology.html
It's not a tape, it's a mini cd and sould be no more vulnerable than a regular cd or one you burned at home. Also, I haven't checked prices on CD-RW's lately, but mds are in the sub-2 dollar category, depending on where you live and who you buy from.
I regulary buy CD-R's for 12 to 20 cents a piece. I pick up R/W's for anywhere from 75 cents to $1.15. Economies of scale may differ from where you live at the moment. I know that MD is tremendously popular in Japan and the appeal in the USA in gaining.
Sony's come out with the md-lp which boosts the time to 320 minutes from an 80 minute disc. As far as sound quality, I've been unimpressed with mp3. Downloaded some songs off napster, liked them so I bought the disc. The difference seemed like the difference between tape and cd. Most people have a hard time detecting the difference in sound quality between md and cd.
I can tell the difference but regarding compression, you know MD uses ATRAC compression which deletes music data whose frequencies range from below 20Hz and higher than 20kHz which a lot of people say is beyond the normal range of hearing for adults.
And as far as 10 hours of music on one cd - sounds good, but it sounds pretty damn compressed and possibly pretty degraded too.
Actually using variable bitrate at the lowest level of compression, I still am able to place 10 hours of music on a single 650 mb disc. Now if i use the highest degree of compression, then one can put far more than 10 hours of music on a single 650.
Could be just talkin out my ass, though.
No comment
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"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.", King Lear, Act I, Scene 4.
[This message has been edited by paranoid9999 (edited 05-29-2001).]
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Originally posted by Size15s:
Some other advice:
Get yourself the best pair of headphones you can. I use the top of the line Sony in-ear ones.
I prefer Grado SR-60's for about $70. Not cool looking in the conventional sense but easy to drive and produce far better sound than ANY sony earbud.
http://www.gradolabs.com/frameset_main.htm
If you must have earbuds try the Etymotics but then you'd be spending a lot of money.
http://www.etymotic.com/
Also, to record from an analogue source, get yourself a nice gold plated cable. Especially if you want to play the MD back through a HiFi...
For a analog signal, I prefer a cable that uses silver conductors instead of copper. Perhaps Kimber KCAG
http://www.kimber.com/kcag.htm
In my opinion, MD & MP3 only really show the compression when played on a good HiFi. Listening to a high quality CD recording or DTS DVD beforehand can often show up the lack of "life", "heart" and "soul" that compression usually removes or destroys.
Al
Yes, I agree, that's what my PSB Stratus Golds, Aragon 4004/18k and D2A with IPS is for
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"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.", King Lear, Act I, Scene 4.
[This message has been edited by paranoid9999 (edited 05-28-2001).]
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<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by KillerMan:
Paranoid and ZF:
Thanks for the guidance thus far. I don't have a burner, but friends do. However, the MD format allows me to use it as a portable "note taking machine." As ya'll stated, there are pros and cons to each format. Guess this just means more research
Thanks!
KM</font>
Hi Killerman,
Didn't mention that you wanted to record on the fly...so if that's important then MP3 is probably not for you. I've been a Hifi enthusiast for over 15 years, far longer than I've been a blade fan and so I wanted to share info like Mr. Zhang and Size 15's. I always separated the quality of portable gear and home gear...and car audio gear so I feel the need to explain that I don't expect home audio quality from portable stuff. There are ways to get the most out of your portable rig...check out www.headphone.com and www.headwize.com for more ideas and discussion forums. The discussion here is already at a very high quality but if you wanted to explore some more then please do.
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"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.", King Lear, Act I, Scene 4.
I'll check out thoughs other links. There's a cool pari from B&O. I don't know about the sound quality though. The reason I like the Sony ones is cos you can drive them hard and no one can tell you're playing at higher volumes.
I'm no expert in headphones though.
I've over 200 MDs - and I've never had a "magnetic" problem. So many loudspeakers are shielded now-a-days anyway, and other sources don't really get too close to my MDs.
I would suggest you also buy a MD cleaner disc. Use it. Especially if you're out and about a lot...
Your MD is going to be used maybe more than enjoyed, which is different again from an Audiophile approach to music.
Good Luck!
Al
I'm no expert in headphones though.
I've over 200 MDs - and I've never had a "magnetic" problem. So many loudspeakers are shielded now-a-days anyway, and other sources don't really get too close to my MDs.
I would suggest you also buy a MD cleaner disc. Use it. Especially if you're out and about a lot...
Your MD is going to be used maybe more than enjoyed, which is different again from an Audiophile approach to music.
Good Luck!
Al
Paranoid -
Yes, apparently I was mistaken about the magnetic part. Killerman - if you're constantly bombarded by magnetic tape erasers or magnetic fields that could erase or alter the md or somehow raise it to it's Curie temperature, then maybe it's not for you. In the likely event that none of this is going to happen to you or your md's, you will probably greatly enjoy the medium.
As for the rest ... ahh f*** it. Nevermind.
ZF
Yes, apparently I was mistaken about the magnetic part. Killerman - if you're constantly bombarded by magnetic tape erasers or magnetic fields that could erase or alter the md or somehow raise it to it's Curie temperature, then maybe it's not for you. In the likely event that none of this is going to happen to you or your md's, you will probably greatly enjoy the medium.
As for the rest ... ahh f*** it. Nevermind.
ZF
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Sounds like someone's feathers got ruffled here. If I stepped on your tail, take it to email and lets discuss it if you want. As far as I am concerned we were discussing mp3 cd players as a viable alternative to a MD player. Clearly you are enamored of your MD devices. Nothing wrong with that. As Killerman said, he's thinking about a device that will pull double duty as a lecture recorder. The start/stop flags on each track are likely to be useful to index copious lectures. Clearly, a MD device is superior choice for such an application.
BTW, as a licensed mental health professional I am constantly
[This message has been edited by paranoid9999 (edited 05-29-2001).]
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Quite true, I agree with both points. I would wager though that the side that is exposed to the sun would make a difference to how quickly the files are degraded. Also, the quality of the media...the sensitivity the ink of the media (16 x vs 2 x) may very well play a role in how fast the files degrade. Still, the exposure would have to be significant...not like film or photographic paper, at least close to an hour of concentrated exposure.
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"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.", King Lear, Act I, Scene 4.
Sorry about my dreadful speelings! I mean "pair". To be honest, I listen to far more "Classical" music at home. I have the relative luxury of living near to London and many other amazing live concert venues so I know what it can sound like for real. Infact, there are some pieces I will only listen to live. Anyway, back to MiniDisc...
The track marking is very valuable. I used to mark tracks and note them in my handwritten notes for the lecture.
I also got quite good at editing the MD recordings to remove all the worthless stuff. This is post-production on the bus home from Uni. When you record using MD, they suggest you use mains power, and keep the MD flat and move it as little as possible. Also, I'd stop recording after every now and then in a break to let the "TOC edit" thing or whatever do it's thing otherwise you risk loosing the whole lot if something goes wrong. This happened with my Sharp twice, and I lost an hour of Lecture each time...
If you can't use mains power, I suggest the Lithium AA batteries for it's external battery pack. They really boost the recording & editing time & IMHO, are well worth paying for.
This isn't really my priority right now as I'm really into Flashlights, but I hope my experience with MDs offers you some things atleast to think about.
On a personal note, MiniDiscs are so cool. Especially the colourful ones. These can also help organise your MD collection. Certain colours could be for different topics or music types etc.
Al
The track marking is very valuable. I used to mark tracks and note them in my handwritten notes for the lecture.
I also got quite good at editing the MD recordings to remove all the worthless stuff. This is post-production on the bus home from Uni. When you record using MD, they suggest you use mains power, and keep the MD flat and move it as little as possible. Also, I'd stop recording after every now and then in a break to let the "TOC edit" thing or whatever do it's thing otherwise you risk loosing the whole lot if something goes wrong. This happened with my Sharp twice, and I lost an hour of Lecture each time...
If you can't use mains power, I suggest the Lithium AA batteries for it's external battery pack. They really boost the recording & editing time & IMHO, are well worth paying for.
This isn't really my priority right now as I'm really into Flashlights, but I hope my experience with MDs offers you some things atleast to think about.
On a personal note, MiniDiscs are so cool. Especially the colourful ones. These can also help organise your MD collection. Certain colours could be for different topics or music types etc.
Al