portable recorder, minidisk or iRiver?

  • Thread starter Thread starter anton
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anton

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Hey Everyone,

I cant seem to make up my mind for a small portable recording system. Should i get a MiniDisk player/recorder or an iRiver HD-120.

The iRiver is essentially a 20gig Hard drive with USB, optical/analog in and out, plus mic in. Apparently the optical in/out also double as 1/8" in/out plus a mic in. Cost is $320, an external mic is another $60. It will record directly to .wav or .mp3 format. I figure with 20gig i can get plenty of recording time in mp format. A big plus is the iRiver's ability to function as a portable hard drive, and also whatever i record i can just drag and drop to PC for cd burning.

The other option is Mini Disc. Cost of a unit on ebay is about $180, mic is another $60. The upside to this is its cheaper, plus i can just put in a new disc when i fill one up. Downside is transferring stuff to PC is a pain. You basically have to rerecord via the line in on your sound card and Cool Edit or something similar.

I would be using either unit to record classes at guitar camp, irish music sessions, as a musical scratch pad for my ideas, etc.




anton
 
Tough call. I know nothing of the iRiver HD-120, so I went over to their site. I think the minidisk has it over the HD-120 in size, though I couldn’t find the dimensions for the HD-120 on the site.

Sony is coming out with a new HD minidisk format that holds more than the current MD, and more importantly, transfers sound files as files. Depending on what you get, the price of the new HD-MD should be about (or less) than the iRiver HD-120. If size matters, the MiniDisk should win out. But go with the new ones, to avoid the transfer-to-computer problem.

(Also, you might ask this question on the forum at www.minidisc.org.)

Please let us know which way you decide, and how it works for you. I have a similar application, do most of my recording on a WalkMan D6 analog, even though I have a minidisc. My problem is the archive. I can make the recording. But moving the recordings to the computer in real time--I haven't done it yet, and it's not on my list of things to do, either…
 
You'd go for the upcoming hi-md.

The iHP-120 generates glitches in recordings from any source, so it wouldn't be a good recording machine. It aslo lacks manual volume-meters.
 
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