I’m wanting to get some kind of mobile music player. Not wanting to get a big bulky CD player. I don’t mind having to convert my CD’s into mp3’s so I figured I would go with an mp3 player. The affordable ones hardly have any memory capacity at all and those with built in hard drives are way too expensive. I think I may have found an alternative in a MiniDisc player. Anyone have one? How do they compare to mp3’s in functionality and ruggedness? Do MiniDisc players suffer from skipping like a CD player would because of moving parts? Inquiring minds want to know.
How much music do you need at one time? Honestly, if you’re only using it for around the house type stuff or walking or something an MP3 player with 128 of built in isn’t bad and you can buy another 128 mb of flash memory on overstock.com for 30 some bucks.
Is the amount of time it takes to transfer music important to you? If so, I’d say go with an mp3 player. Tranfer time for minidisks are realtime. In other words, two hours worth of music will take two hours to transfer.
At least, that was a main drawback for me when I was looking for a portable music solution about three or four years ago.
The problem with MD is media. Presumably you won’t be buying any new music in MD format so you’ll need to copy what you want to hear onto blank MDs. This can be a problem as they aren’t super-cheap and there is no super-fast copying. It will take the same length of a the CD to copy: 80min CD, 80min to copy. Not a problem for one or two songs, but I wouldn’t want to have to convert my collection that way. On the other hand, I can rip and encode a CD to MP3 in about 5 min on my computer and the time it takes to copy that to the player itself is insignificant.
Oh by the way, I bough this thing. I like to call it the poor-man’s iPod. Yeah it may be $200, but it changed my music listening life forever! Imagine going on a car trip or a plane ride or a walk and having all 300 of your albums easily accessable at your fingertips. No more scratches, no more lost CDs/empty cases, no more “Oh I didn’t bring that disc you want to listen to”.
Jeezus, listen to me. I sound like a freakin’ salesman.
“What’ll it take for you to buy this today?!?”
I would go with an mp3 player. It’s much more straightforward, and cheaper, than having to burn weenie disks all the time. Plus, you can enjoy them on your PC as well.
I have an mp3 player. It’s so versatile, mine came with an emailer, e-book reader, and comes with MSword, excel, powerpoint (emulators), address book, organizer, and has games! Talk about value! Get a palm! [sup]They’re not as expensive as they used to be[/sup]
I’ve just a question: Since when is a CD player ‘big and bulky’?
I guess I’m out of the loop, but it wasn’t too long ago when that was as small as you’d want to get. Can you get ‘CD-quality’ with an mp3 player, anyway?
toddles off, shaking cane
-
-
- That used to be true, but now all or almost-all Sony MD players have NetMD, which allows transferring music from computer to minidisc at 30X. Last time I checked a while ago, Macs were not supported however.
~
- That used to be true, but now all or almost-all Sony MD players have NetMD, which allows transferring music from computer to minidisc at 30X. Last time I checked a while ago, Macs were not supported however.
-
Pretty much…but not quite. Technically. We’ll call it ‘Near CD-quality’ just to be safe. If you rip an mp3 at 128 Kbps bitrate, at 44100 kHz, Stereo, you’ll have yersef a dern fine sound. You CAN rip at a higher bitrate if you like. Obviously, the higher, the better sound.
Tough one. I bought an MD player about 2 years ago for this very purpose, because MP3 players were still hideously expensive back then. It’s a nice little gadget all right: I even went as far to purchase a new sound card for my PC in order to have an optical out, for flawless recording to the MD. I’d hook up the MD-player to the optical out, create a playlist in Winamp about 5 hours long, and let it roll. The MD player has 4-times recording speed, so it can store about 5 hours on a disk.
I did that exactly 4 times, and I only use the player when traveling by plane. The MD format isn’t versatile enough, it’s something to copy on only: almost no music is released on MD, or it’s hard to come by. The sounds quality is great, but it’s just not a very practical machine.
I guess the newer ones with Net-MD work better this way, but still - feh.
I recently bought a new car stereo, which plays audio as well as data CD’s. Burn a CD with 750 MB’s worth of MP3’s, and off you go! Now that’s a nifty machine. Of course, it’s not a portable device, so in your case, I’d go with a dedicated MP3 player.
My boyfriend has a Mini-Disc player, I have a regular MP3 player. The good thing about the Mini-Disc player is that the discs are rewritable, so a box will last you forever. The transfer times aren’t too bad either, and the amount of music you have on hand seems infinite (if you burn a whole box of mini-discs). He likes it.
I just bought mine for the gym, so a 128 MB MP3 player is fine - it was cheaper anyway.
I bought a Nomad Jukebox from Creative for about $300 I think. Holds about 4000 songs at near CD quality and I can plug it into my home hi-fi, the car or listen to it through headphones. Also has a 14 hour battery life.
Terrific little gadget imho. I’ve set up several playlists of about 500 hundred songs and then I just let it randomly play them.
I use my MD-recorder mainly as a recording device - good choice if you ever need to record anything, interviews, dictate, foley, practicing the guitar, bootlegs etc.
It’s my second MD as the other one got stolen. When I bought the new one MP3-players were finally becoming a serious alternative for listening. But I had a significant collection of albums and mixes on MD that I wanted to keep and I needed the recording function. If that’s not important to you, the main advantage of MD over MP3 is:
Cheaper media. You’ll be able to change music easier - without having to erase and transfer new files every time. It lends itself more to building a collection.
But you do get a heavier, bulkier device (typically) with moving parts which means it can skip like a portable CD-player. In my opinion it sounds better, though, at 1X recording speed.
-
-
- I have found that I need to rip at least at 192Kb/sec before I get clean cymbals.
~
- I have found that I need to rip at least at 192Kb/sec before I get clean cymbals.
-