For a while now, I’ve been looking for a new portable music device. I’ve been tired of the number of coasters I’d been ending up with after burning CDs.
I’d been considering a portable mp3 player, but the deal-killer for me was always the price for anything with an appreciable amount of onboard or expandable memory. And any of the high capacity mp# jukeboxes is really just a portable hard drive with software, so doesn’t provide the same advantages that “soft-media” mp3 players do.
Following the recommendation of SPOOFE and a couple other posters in a recent GQ thread, I looked into MiniDiscs. I had worked with them in radio, but had never really considered them as part of my home format. But after checking out the options, I bought a player last week. Actually, it’s a Sony MD Walkman player/recorder. It accepts optical and analog lines in, will record in the LP2 and LP4 formats, and has excellent skip protection.
The only disadvantage is having to record things in real time rather than zip them through a USB connection, but that is heavily outweighed by the advantages. The fidelity is excellent on the recordings I’ve made so far, and the portability and compactness will be a real boon when I go to Australia.
So far, I’ve recorded a bunch of stuff I had downloaded from eMusic.com, particulary some pop compilations. I recorded some of my vinyl collection onto discs. And I managed to fit the entire Beatles catalog (Please Please Me through Let It Be, plus the two Past Masters discs) onto two MiniDiscs.
I highly recommend the format for flexibility and quality. You don’t get the instant gratification of transferring mp3s, but you can let it record on its own while you sleep, then delete or record over the empty space from the recording running out.
Thanks for the tip. Sounds like just what I’m looking for (I have similar reservations about portable mp3 players). Depending on price, maybe I’ll pick one up this week.
Does the MD record in MP3 format? How much memory do you have on each MD? How much is the blank media? Is it rewritable?
For myself, I opted for a player instead of a recorder. It is the Rio Volt. It looks like a Walkman, only with a large display in front. You just burn MP3s or WMFs to the CDs. It supports something like 8 levels of directories for sorting your music. Of course, you can also play regular CDs in it. I like the idea of having an optical jack though, that sounds nice, especially with the new system we just got.
SouprChicken, I did get the digital link. You still have to record in real time, but it allows me to put all my downloads on discs.
Demo, the discs themselves, in standard play, hold the same amount as a CD-- 74 minutes or 80 minutes. But if you get a player/recorder that supports LP2 and LP4 modes, you can double or quadruple that, so you can fit up to 320 minutes on a single MiniDisc.
It supports all major formats: AIFF, WAV, WMF, mp3, RMX, etc. It doesn’t provide any kind of directory function, but you can move, delete and combine tracks very easily. Last night I recorded about 4.5 hours of jazz onto a disc in mp3 format. Pretty nifty.
I’ve been wondering about minidiscs as well, mostly because of the drawbacks MP3-players have - the ones you mentioned.
The LP4-stuff is new to me, and sounds really cool. Is there a lot of quality loss when you use that option?
Also, you say it supports all sorts of formats. Aren’t you really saying it records whatever you hook it up to? I mean, you hook it up to the PC (per USB port, if I’m reading it correctly), start playing your MP3’s (maybe make a playlist or something?), and the MD records it in real time? Is that how it works?
MD’s do NOT play mp3s. They play ATRAC compressed audio. However, a recorder can, of course, record any audio stream that you play into it. If this happens to be the output from a computer that’s playing MP3s, that’s fine, and it will record them. But this has to be done in real time, and isn’t just copying an mp3 file over. It’s actually playing the audio, and then re recording it.
That said, run, don’t walk, to the store and buy an MD player/recorder. These things are amazing.
I stand corrected–thanks for the clarification, Flymaster.
Coldie, I haven’t noticed any loss of dynamic range or fidelity when using the LP4 recording mode. Yesterday, I was listening to one of the two Beatles discs I mentioned, and the bass was as clear as a bell, while the treble was clean with no noticeable distortion or loss of fidelity.
Right now, I’m listening to Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, and the dynamics and range are about as clear as one could hope for. Jazz and classical recordings are always a good yardstick to use when measuring audio fidelity, and as far as I can tell, what I’m getting from the MiniDisc player is pretty damned good.
You’re correct in your assumption–you hook the player up to your USB port with the provided cable, create a playlist, and record in real time. I let mine record overnight; it will stop on its own if it goes more than a few seconds without getting any audio input.
Sounds cool, then. I was especially wondering, since an MP3 is usually a “cut-off” version to begin with, whether an LP4 MD recording of it would still work out.
OK, so I should be looking for a recorder with LP4 function, a decent amount of shock buffer, and a possibility to hook it up to the computer. Where does that leave me, in terms of the brands I should be looking for and the money I should expect to spend?
Oh, and another thing. Maybe I’m a complete idiot for asking, but if you let it record 4 straight hours of MP3 music, does it then recognise all the tracks, or is it just one big block of music? Can you shuffle it?
When I record mp3s from the comp I need to put in little 2 second blocks of silence after each song for my MD to realize a new track is starting… If I do that it divides them nicely… If not, I just get one big block of music.
My MD is almost 2 years old IIRC, so I guess todays models might be better at a whole lot of stuff… inlc. recording of single tracks instead of a big block of music.
Mine doesn’t have all that LP mumbojumbo either… It’s pretty basic… but still it has been a truely great buy for me! I love that damn thing… great for bringing to concerts if you’re into bootlegs… and small enough to always bring with you wherever you go.
Fave discs I listen to at the moment (as if it has anything to do with this thread):
1: Modest Mouse - Live from The Roskilde Festival, 2001 (recorded by yours truely)
2: Cake - Comfort Eagle
3: The Dismemberment Plan - Emergency & I
The model I bought is a Sony MZ-R500, which Sony lists at a suggested retail price of $179. I paid $149.99 US at a Target store, and I’m pretty sure it’s available through Amazon at the same price. There appears to be a price variation of between $129-$299 depending on what model you want.
It does recognize track starts/stops most of the time, unless there is no “banding” between the tracks (like the live jazz stuff I’m listening to). But it’s a trivial matter to insert a new track marker; while the track is playing, you just push a single button on the front of the player and it separates the track at that point. This is true for both mp3s and CDs–when I recorded the Beatles stuff, for example, it did not put a track marker between “Bungalow Bill” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” since there is no silence between them.
I just found a Sony MZR-700PC for NLG 579, some USD 224. The 500 is about USD 155, but it doesn’t come with a PC cable. Hmmm. Some more research needs to be done, but I really like the idea.
I once swore never to buy a Sony product again, but I suppose there’s little choice when it comes to MiniDiscs, right? I mean, I’ve seen Aiwa’s and JVCs as well, but isn’t Sony much better?
My MD is the JVC XM-R70… It’s outdated now, eg. it can’t be hooked up to your PC via USB, it doesn’t have LP and so on… But it has served me great! Battery life is excellent compared to Sony models from the same period, it’s very durable (for an MD anyways) it’s fairly small… anyways my point is it was a great alternative to the Sony MDs around at that time… Sony has however improved battery-life a whole lot in their newer models and I don’t think JVC has had any new models out… Sony would probably be your best bet for a MD today… (wich saddens me because I’m really not all that fond of them either)
If you have a soundcard, there’s really no need to get the USB cable. All it is is an external USB sound device. You can hook up the cables from your sound card to your MD and record just as easily. If, however, you want optical out, make SURE you get the OPTICAL version of the PCLink, not the analog one.
If there’s an ‘optical out’ on your soundcard it would be a real shame not to use it… Compared to analogue the sound is much better… I hate the fuzzy noise analogue copies usually generate… With the digtal/optical recording you don’t have to worry about that at all!
Optical out, is that one of those mini-plugs that click when you push them in their slot? Like the ones you connect a telephone cable to a modem with, e.g.?
Nope. The jack is more or less the same size as a standard headphone/mini plug. You hook up a fiber optical cable to it, and, when sound is playing and no recorder is hooked up to it, the other end of the cable will have visible light coming from it. If you have one, it’s probably clearly labeled on the sound card, but most cards don’t have one.
Nope… An optical cable is not a traditional wire cable, it’s a fiber cable… The “sound” is transferred digitally via red light blinks… You can actually see this if you plug your cable in the out-jack in the soundcard and then look at the other end of the cable…
