Minidisc or mp3 player?

J

Johnbmx26

New member
Hey,
Well, after 2 years my 3G ipod died.. Don't really wanna spend 50 bucks to replace the battery, I'd rather get another mp3 player. But I've heard mini discs are good especially for recording? I'm going to be recording drums and I'd rather not lug around my computer with me everytime I want to record.. is this a good idea? Besides being a recorder, how is it as a music player? The only thing that I'm scared of is bringing around all those little discs..
What would you guys recommend? If MP3 player.. what kind?

Thanks
John
 
Minidisc players/recorders have horrible converters than butcher the audio into a proprietary sony ATRAC(3) format that sounds inferior to mp3.
I would try and avoid the minidiscs, IMHO.
 
There's something new called Hi-MD, that records in "standard CD format",...

16-bit/44.1kHz/stereo. The disc capacity was also increased to accommodate this boost in resolution. The Hi-MD recorder is a data format that's directly compatible with PC's, and it has a handy USB feature, enabling you to shuttle data between the 'puter and Hi-MD unit.

That's based on technical info I read here:

http://www.minidisc.org

Hi-MD does not use ATRAC data reduction encoding, if that's any consolation to'ya. FWIW, I've been a (std) Minidisc user for several years, and I've never heard or had any problem with (std) ATRAC. It sounds good to me. With some of the extended-play versions of ATRAC, the sound is noticeably degraded on super-long-play mode, an ATRAC compression that's roughly equal to mp3 data encoding.
 
i use a mini disc for recording my gigs... usually just w/ a room mic.

the sound isn't anything i would brag about (certainly not on this board) and quality obviously varies depending on the room and mic location.

still, i have been very pleased w/ my mini-disc as a pocket sized digital recording device.

using it as a music player on the other hand?? your gonna miss that ipod. who wants to carry around a bunch of little cassettes?
 
It really depends. I love my MD player, but I love removeable media. The new units can store about 45 hours of music on a Hi-MD and have MP3 capabilities (I'm not 100% sure how THAT works, so it may not solve the sound quality problem a lot of people seem to have).

I listen to my MD player when I'm jogging, at the gym, on long bus rides -- places with enough background noise that the sound quality issue doesn't matter.

You'd think people only listen to their portable music devices in hermetically sealed chambers with $600 headphones.

The best thing about the Hi-MD units (I have an older one that doesn't use MP3) is that they're also 1 GB dongle drives. I put 20 hours of music on one, ride to work, plug the USB cable into my computer at work, and still have 500 megs of space to transfer files. It rocks.

Plus, they're rugged as hell. You can't drop an ipod. You can drop-kick a MD player across the room and it'll still work. Well, it will PROBABLY still work. All my MD units have stood up to a lot of abuse and keep on ticking.

Removeable media means more up-front time putting music on discs, but much less future time fiddling with the damn thing uploading and downloading songs.

And you can record to MD and upload it to your computer.

MD is more versatile, cheaper and tougher.
Ipods come in pastel colours.
 
I like removable media, too!

I grew up in the "cassette age", and in most ways I'm still there, so forgive me! I love removable media, and I see it as a positive feature to be sought after.

I love my (std) MD recorders, and I've not transitioned to Hi-MD yet, because I have precious little time to record, anyway, that I'm simply not ready yet. I've not exhausted the possibilities in the recorders I already have. I can see, perhaps I'll go Hi-MD in the future, as yet TBD, but I like Hi-MD as an innovative recording solution, that fits today's needs and standards better than (ATRAC encoded) MD.

I think,... with the 1Gb capacity of the Hi-MD disc, you'd get up to 45 hours of mp3 audio, which is what most people are after, anyway. That's after a quick analysis, and I've not run the numbers extensively, so forgive me if that's incorrect.

As (std) ATRAC encoded MD goes, I think it's more the idea of data reduced encoding that bothers people, more than something you'd hear as degraded sound.

As stated above, it's when you get into MD-LP, super-long-play encoding, that signal degradation becomes very apparent,... by all the examples I've ever heard.

That's MO, and as always, YMMV.;)
 
My experience is that MD is far better sound quality than mp3.... could be just me...certainly those MP3 'sticks' that sell for ridiculously low prices sound so aweful, I can;t listen to those for more than 10 minutes... The sound quality of my MD machine is far superiour, and I consider it to be very near CD quality...

just my to €0,02
 
MD over mp3........
I use my MD for recording live shows all the time. I am thinking of getting a Hi-MD next.
If you want to transfer MD to PC you have to do it realtime. With Hi-MD I think you can do with USB.
 
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