Well fun fact to me is I didn't know about since I subbed the fixt there's a scandroid minidisc thing so I had to look this up there ain't no mini disc players out there but now there it like the vinyl and cassette players out there. And scandroid is a dark synth artist
I remember back in 2003, heading off to college and wanting a portable music player. I picked the Sony MD over an iPod because of the ability to swap batteries... It was a great sidekick and I still have that little guy to this day.
The ability to swap batteries is one reason why more walkmans etc still exist today compared with mp3 players. My old WM-EX525 has a sticker claiming up to 35 hours of playback on one AA battery. When you consider the amount of moving parts compared to MP3 players thats incredible.....
Dude, non-replaceable batteries is just about the most anti-consumer idea of the last 20 years. Luckily, it seems that alternatives are gaining momentum, with right to repair pushes and so on. And I'm all for it!
Not strange at all, friend :) it's what's been driving the vinyl record and cassette tape revivals. Loads of people like the experience of physical media. You're NOT alone! :)
This is the exact reason i got into collecting vinyl records while i still listen to most of my music on TH-cam or Spotify i love physical owning the music i love to listen to
That's not strange, in fact with streaming and paid download sites getting increasingly consumer-hostile lately, now's a really good time to get back into physical formats if possible, especially with CDs being DRM-free by their design, thus allowing you to rip to FLAC or any other codec at your leisure as long as your equipment supports a given codec, be it FLAC or otherwise.
I love MiniDisc and even loved it in the 90s. Had a car deck too. :) Great buffering, but my favorite feature was the editing of track stops and removal of tracks on the fly. One thing I always used MD for then was for live concerts. You'd edit the start of the track to be at the beginning of the first instrument playing or voice heard... then when you shuffle the songs, it's like a custom concert every time. It was just that seamless when you'd shuffle.
I found my Minidisc player yesterday, I had mine over 22 years ago, it still works perfect and was amazed at how good the Audio was, i remember loving it back then but it had been a while, it sounds so good. Wish they would have keep making them. Sound so much better then what my phone produces.
These people usually make worse. The society still figure how to save the crap. I personally have prepared some notes about how to play the crap, without using any related M.O recorders and related M.O disks.
Dcc was reasonably successful in Holland and Germany.And definitely a few people around interested in dcc Philips never seems to get the recognition it deserves for inventing 2 of the most significant Audio formats of the 20th century.
I don't understand why Philips didn't opt for two mp1 tracks at 448 instead of 384, they could shorten the max tape size from ~105 to 74. 896kbps would be better than 768. Still, the sound was superior to MiniDisc.
In the UK I only ever seen a DCC player once. And that was in a Cash Converters a few months ago. No idea if it worked or not. Minidisc I saw a few times during the 90s and 00s, but never owned one though.
I had a first-generation DCC Deck and a Player. While the format was good, I think one of the major factors that worked against DCC was the portable player. Although the portable player was portable, in the sense that you could carry it with you from place to place, it was too large to fit in your pocket and due to the weight you had to carry it in your hand. Added to that was the short battery life. However, the main issue with the player was it had a proprietary battery pack that when fully charged gave your about 90 minutes of playback time, and IIRC took about that long to charge the battery pack. Those factors caused me to give up on DCC.
MiniDiscs remind me of a day when I listened to music pretty much CD quality on the go. Now my portable music player (phone) plays music at a much lower standard and my phone listens to me.
@@audioarkitekts I got another portable minidisc recorder so I can listen to CD quality music without any of the invasive tracking and spying phones do these days
Mike, don't use SonicStage. It converts sound in LP2 mode (132kbps) even if you set recording to SP. Use Web Minidisc or Platinum MD, both SW made in 2020. They do recording in real SP 292 kbps. Sound quality is then comparable with AAC 320 and much better than youtube's AAC 128 kbps.. Anyway, I like Minidisc decks. True HiFi with very good DAC.
Mini Disc is brilliant I have more than 300 recorded MDs starting from 1998 and I just played a anMD recorded in 1999 to test out a midrange Sony MD JB 330 Deck I recently bought on eBay UK for £99 & it played perfectly with a great sound , I also just bought a higher end Sony JBD 930 UK tuned edition & for £279 with the remote instructions fully boxed in mint condition & I played a few MDs & they sound like I just recorded them absolutely brilliant, I love MDs I think the Medea format is brilliant & also for portability cheers and peace ✌️
Work as a rock dj with almost 2000 discs. I still have all the original cds I bought and copied..!! It was and is still an incredible format. All my players are mostly exx bbc. Bought when they "abandoned" the format from a guy who clears radio stations. Ahead of its time...!! Martyn.
The magneto-optical drive technology were the precursor of the MiniDisc. It was both a magnetic and optical hybrid medium, a fusion between cassette tapes and compact discs.
If it wasn't for vinyl and CDs being the main part of my music collection, I would go for MDs - they're quite expensive, especially a working equipment. Very elegant media.
It really depends on what you call expensive. I've bought about 40 or so perfectly working MiniDisc recorders mostly for no more than £50 and I have 2 MiniDisc decks too, one that set me back £65 and the other that was free with a load of discs that I bought. Both the decks are the MDS-JE330 and don't support MDLP but they are both in perfect working order, with their remotes. I don't think I'll need to buy any more discs for a while because I have about 200 used ones and 150 still shrink wrapped. My rule of thumb for buying discs was used ones £1 a time and new ones £2 a time. The price has gone up a bit since I bought them but there are still bargains out there to be had.
Used to work summer jobs back in school at a Sony parts distributor in Canada back in the late 90's. Japanese tourists/students would drop by and in broken English ask for parts for their MD players. They would prefer to talk to me because I was their age. They didn't want to give up their MD players. If there is a small part that looks like 5 Cents to make and sells for $25, they'll buy it.
I do believe that for many it will make a comeback. When all media is only digital, there are people like myself that will want to have access to physical media. Whether we backup our media or want to have a piece of retro history. Physical media will be a big deal when everything goes 100% digital.
Minidisc was doomed by being too far ahead of its time. Even though ATRAC is a lossy format, it is far superior to MP3 or other lossy codecs, at least in its later versions. The hardware ( most of it, anyway) was a technological marvel, and build quality of most units is something that will never be matched again. I still have 3 portables (2 recorders and a play only), plus two decks - one of them a pro model. I have, and will continue to maintain and service them.
It could have been the next generation of physical media had they waited and made it sound as good as CDs. I discovered so much amazing information while researching for this video!
@@audioarkitekts It was as good as CD, for most genres of music. Unless you had a VERY good system for playback (like better than 90% have, IMO) one could not tell the difference.
@@audioarkitekts I disagree. While I think uncompressed audio is a factor for audiophiles, I can't tell the difference between MP3, ATRAC, or WAV files. I would argue that most people can't and even many that say they can are probably just religious about it and really can't. Plus most listening environments aren't perfect. Like being in the car or subway or walking the streets or just out at the beach with friends, doing housework, or whatever. I think for the vast majority of people and environments, the MD audio is perfect. It would have been the perfect format for the 90s. What I think killed it in the US was really just the high price and the fact that CDs were finally affordable and widespread (with an ample selection of music) at the time and so they were just starting to take off with the masses around the time the MD was introduced. So it wasn't a great time to introduce yet another new format. Had they launched maybe five years sooner and had time for the prices to drop and selection to increase, I think it might have made a much bigger dent. Or alternatively had the MP3 and CD-R not become a thing by the late 90s/early 00s then I think the MD would have reached it's potential around then. Great video though :)
@@roxics I agree with your point on the quality. I have never seen anyone pass the double blind test of cd vs md. If it was such a difference, why has no one ever stepped forward to show in such a test how he/she could tell what is what? No such video or report exists. MD "failed" commercially because of a multitude of factors. 1) Price 2) MD had to fight the first stages of a huge battle that eventually was won by mp3, namely the music industry fighting tooth and nail to prevent consumers making cd quality copies of music. This opposition slowed down the roll out of MD tremendously (think of retailers not carrying the product because it would harm their cd sales). Eventually, after years of legislation (SCMS for MD) and lawsuits (remember Metallica?), the music industry had to 'surrender' which opened the doors for mass adoption of 3) CD-R and MP3. Sony's understandable obsession for perfect sound quality on MD, eventually turned out hardly relevant, as the market chose inferior sound quality in the form of mp3 (in comparison to CD quality, and IMO similarly compared to MD quality) and often below par copies of CD's on CD-R.
This is the most versatile physical media format. Apart from the analogue sound if you value that, whatever the cassette tapes could do, minidiscs can also do. In addition, you can edit, rearrange, title songs and it is the best for mixtapes, with CD text. It’s almost as good quality as CDs and better than Spotify or most streaming and the mp3 files we are used to. Each disc in a case is almost a quarter of the size of a CD in a case, so it does matter with larger collections. The best feature is the LP2. It’s still good quality, but as many albums are around 50 minutes long, even a 74 minute disc can store three classic albums copied from a CD, it’s a great physical backup and ideal for avoiding streaming, computers and scratching your CDs. Just like we used to record music or programmes from the radio, streaming services can be still recorded onto Md and later split, titled and rearranged. It’s also good for rarities, concerts and other special recordings as they have the loveliness of physical media, but with the backup of modern technology. NetMD devices can be expensive, though. I recommend settling with MDLP as a desktop and getting a NetMD portable.
I loved the mini disc, I even had a cd/md player for my Jetta back in college. I dropped the format once I switched to Mac and bought the 2nd Gen iPod. I’m actually looking at getting back into mini disc for some nostalgic fun.
I lived in Japan 96-99, have over 200 MD's! love them! Used a Kenwood portable CD player with optical out to record on my Pioneer MD player/recorder. The best.
Loved minidisc as I was regularly making compilation tapes and was happy to record in real time. I then found a digital music player and discovered the ability to rip CDs quicker and I ended up giving my MD recorder to my dad so he could record his favourite radio shows.
Yeah, I remember going to JR music NYC and spending over 900. On the JA-3 ES ,how primitive it sounded in reproduction, it didn't sound as good compared to my cdp'-87es 5 disc changer. The 20-bit scheme didn't cut, it and the disc would get stuck in the ejection mechanism, which piss me off,so I destroyed the machine and never brought another. I still have about 60 disc leftovers later on. I brought the W 2000es machine, which I still use today.
IMO nothing beats my Sony PS-X555ES, turntable. Being able to score that piece of tech was a dream for me.. sorry you had problems with the minidiscs, I admired Sony's innovation but along with the DAT's UMD, there was to much experimental tech that was wayyy to expensive to the average consumer, let alone a new thing to learn and transfer your media to. Thank God for the PlayStation
I still have my Panasonic mini portable MD player and a CD/cassette/MD/radio unit. I used these two a lot in the early to mid 2000s. I’d record from CD to MD on the portable stereo and then listen to the mix MDs on the mini Walkman-type player. Two things that were handy, you could edit the recordings so if two songs were together as one track, you could split them into two separate tracks, and you could also change the amount of play time to 80 minutes, 160 minutes, or 320 minutes. The 320-minute setting was obviously inferior sound quality, but 160 minutes was still not too bad. So you could copy two CDs onto one MD and the sound was not too bad. I have about 30-40 mixed MDs still, too.
at the time it WAS the best way for portable Music, no doubt!!! being someone who used DIGITAL DATA DISC's for a Home Studio this was an Amazing and simple fast way to mix songs and or rough mixes!!! as far as making a great mix ;Tape; this wasthe best for early 2000's for sure... One thing you cannot deny is the fact the you could and can not break this kind of Disc if you tried!!! and mine was top line and only cost about 90 to 100$$$ in around 2000...
On my old-school home theater , I have a Sony minidisc player recorder in place of the dual cassette deck. It's a 1999 model MDS-J510, so it only record's in short play, short play @ 256 bits per second so that's just fine. Anything I need LP2 or LP4 I use my mz-s1 Type R.
I think that MDSP was at 292 kbps, and HIMD SP was at 256, but the reformatted disc also allowed a little less than twice as much music to be recorded. That said, the final iteration of MDSP sometimes has a more "musical" sound to the somewhat clinical (at times) presentation of HIMDSP. I understand that Sony used to try different ways of using the ATRAC lossy technology and have expert listeners actually use their ears to compare and contrast the various attempts at MDSP, but used algorithms for HI-MD, losing that human touch.
I'm a dj who wanna record my mixes, but the dj software won't let you record the mixes when using music from a streaming service (copyright). MD´s let me record in realtime with (almost) cd quality.
Streaming litteraly destroyed music and made it fast-food and it's time for people to rediscover the true value of music. I have been a huge MD-Nerd in the 00s and I always missed the format when my last Player died in like 2004/5. On my forthcoming album I will release a small batch of MD-Versions for sure. That said: I hope Sony will at some point release new MD players or something similar. Or at least free the license so that someone could create a Kickstarter. Knowing Sony though I am not holding my breath :(
I love the idea and I bought 16 portable recorders and two desktop ones in the last couple of months. I have one to our young son, so he could record his own music without using a computer.
I found my fathers Sony Walkman MiniDisc recorder with digital bass, hooked it up to my sound system, and holly shit the quality is just amazing , cumbias all day !!
@@audioarkitekts I never thought it was the lack of CD quality that did for MiniDisc. The prohibitive cost of the equipment was a major factor. The second real issue was the RIAA really didn't like the fact that CDs could be copied and had major court cases to prevent it going to market.
The USA which is a big market for tech did not realy glorify this at the time meanwhile asia and europe liked it,i liked it and went back to it in late 2023 till now
Why does no one think of DAT when looking at DCC vs MD. When you think about that you remember that sony basically already made DCC but better in 1987, it was smaller, seeked faster, and was already in the market. Can say MD is still alive, mainly because you can't buy a new laser or new md deck anymore. This still upsets me as there are plenty of players that work fine but the lasers are dead.
DAT used a far, far more complex tape transport than DCC. (DAT is essentially a micro VCR, with a spinning helical-scan head and everything!) Though it never happened, it would have been possible to shrink DCC players to the tiny size of high end analog cassette Walkman models. That is categorically impossible with DAT, since the head assembly and tape loading mechanism limit the minimum thickness. Anyhow, MD was designed to be better than DAT while being significantly cheaper (which it did ultimately accomplish). But above all, the music industry fought _HARD_ to keep DAT down. They grudgingly accepted MD and DCC because the lossy compression meant that analog copies would get worse and worse from generation to generation. (DAT is uncompressed, so generational loss from analog copies is very, very small. DAT, MD, and DCC all use the same copy protection on their digital ports.)
Still have my OEM (factory optioned) MD head-unit in my 2003 MX-5, a Sony Recording Deck in my component Hi-Fi system, and my Sony portable NetMD recorder player. (Australia).
I have rediscovered my like new Sharp 721 minidisc player-recorder. I have been listening to recordings I did off of my recording studio demo disks and other fun stuff. I love it and it is really like new including the remote and battery adapter.
I had a Japanese penpal back in the 1990s that sent me a minidisc that was a mix of J-pop/J-rock songs. I was absolutely enamored with the technology! And yes, buying CDs from Japan was extremely expensive. A full album was $30-$40. (I’m not sure how much that would be these days with inflation.) Most people only bought singles, including me. They were half the price and usually came with a few other songs and various remixes. The only Japanese album I ever bought (technically my parents made the purchase 😅) was Hikaru Utada’s (宇多田 ヒカル) first album. I also loved Ayumi Hamasaki (浜崎歩) and had quite a few of her singles along with Morning Musume (モーニング娘). Singles were usually anywhere between $10-$20. I still don’t know why music CDs in Japan were so expensive. Hence, why I was ecstatic when my friend sent the minidisc full of music that would otherwise have been incredibly costly for me to acquire. I sadly lost it when moving to my first apartment. 😢
I got a Sony MDS-JE330 for free thrown in with a load of new blank MiniDiscs that I bought off of eBay. It was, and is, in perfect working order, complete with the remote control. Only down side is it doesn't support MDLP but, I tend to record most of my discs in SP mode anyway.
If you are looking for a decent deck, your best option is an Onkyo MD-105TX. These were primarily sold as adjuncts to excellent micro systems popular in Japan. Don’t confuse this with the MD-105FX (a hi-md device) or the MD-105X (non MDLP model). I would stay away from ANY hi-md device, the hi-md media is impossible to get, and crazy expensive. I’d also stay away from any non-mdlp device, as the LP2 mode is pretty good. Regular MD80 discs are still widely available for $2-3 a piece. The MD-105TX are plentiful on eBay, for good prices from Japan.
Thanks for this video. Have you made the one on the new software that does the transfer to and from computer please share the link at your convenience Thank you
I started buying MiniDiscs about 4 years ago and have accumulated about 40 from the very first MZ-1 to my HiMD MZ-RH910. A lot of my machines are even still with the original packaging and accessories but, I have noticed that, the prices started to shoot up about a year ago. I paid, on average, £50 a machine although the HiMD models pushed that average up. I suppose now is the time to start selling a few, but I do like them and go through phases of using different ones. I know it's not the most advanced or the smallest machine that I own but, I keep returning to the MZ-R35 as it has the best sound, the best amplification, has a full metal body and the battery life is more than 12 hours.
My first trip is already HI-MD, as being claimed as a small DAT recorder when in need, it is likely ten years ago. I used to use RH1, I ended with MZ-NH900 after RH1 is beyond repair. I am looking something in NETMD after figuring how to get around with UEFI.
The more rare they get, the more expensive they will be. I would say right now would be a good time to buy ones that are still in the box, because in 10 more years they will likely go bulls for sure!
@@audioarkitekts uhmm the problem with the rare ones, is the reparability ... I have a few of them, but I think the tougher ones are MZ-N505/N510 those ones are cheap (still because prices are rising ... ) they are using an AA battery and there are sounding quite nicely, there are many spare parts in case will be needed... and you have LP and NetMD :)
@@audioarkitekts I recently got an MZ-E20, marketed as the MZ-E40 in the States, because it has a different look to it from all my other players. It runs on two AA batteries, the rechargeable 2800 mAh ones do a really good job, and to my absolute delight, is one of the best sounding MiniDisc players that I now own. It doesn't have MDLP but that is a small price to pay when it sounds as good as it does.
Yes, I still use and love the format. It's getting more difficult to find working recorders/players but MDs that I recorded about 30 years ago are still playing perfectly. Try that with tape. Of course the sound quality isn't quite like CD but it's a lot better than cassette or vinyl. And for my purposes that's fine. I think MD is seriously under-rated and I'd love to see it revived.
I love MD. I got one in 2002, I think. I could go running with it, I think that was one of the main reasons. I also recorded live DJ sessions on the radio. There was one DJ that would play remixes that were really hard to get, back then. I think I still have MDs with some remixes of songs that I might be the only person still having a record of.
I just wish Sony had the foresight to release minidisc as a removable storage media for PC's in the early 90's. 130MB would have been awesome in 1993 and would have easily become a defacto standard. Pity it took almost 10 years for them to figure that out with Hi-MD and by that time flash storage was well on its way.
Ummm… they did: MD Data, released in July 1993, held 140MB. But it was a market flop, in part because it was slooooow. MD’s raw data rate is 1x CD-ROM speed (~150KB/sec). Competing removable disk formats, most notably Iomega Zip (1994), were significantly faster (1.4MB/sec) and cheaper. And they kept at it for a while: in 1997 they sorta released MD Data2 at 650MB. (“Sorta” in that it was only used as the internal drive of one camcorder model, not as a discrete drive.) But damn, MD would have been awesome in terms of reliability and pocketability. The 2” MD is just such a nice size.
5:23 I'ma stop you right there. If it were so easy to get music onto one of these things MD may have gained more market share, instead you had to fight the SonicStage troll.
Sony and Apple have a knack for proprietizing most of their gear, which is incredibly frustrating because not everyone wants to use their software and their components/peripherals. So I totally understand where you are coming from. Now, the way I was able to do it, it worked. However, I know there are tons of nightmare stories out there.
Got the classic MZ-R37, the advanced MZ-G750 with MDLP and AM/FM, the MZ-B100 featuring speakers and mic. One thing superior with the R37 is the dedicated audio output jack. Also have a top of the line SONY deck, and used to have the car head unit.
I was the only one in my school and later in university who had an MD player back in 2000-2003, I absolutely loved the thing. And as a student I worked in record store, and had access to copy whatever music I wanted. Now it is about collecting pre-recorded discs, I have a collection of about 100 pre-recorded MD's (rock, alternative rock, music i like) but I am not interested in likes of Madona, Sade, Britney Spears and other pop/adult pop discs. In past 5 years I had pretty much every Sony portable MD player (now I have about 15 left) and i still have my very first one MZ-R37 that i bought in 2000 (heavily and proudly worn - squeezed out every last bit of it). MD to me is me being 17-20 years old, to me it is more than just an old tech....also the memories MD brings to me.
I'm one of those people who still use and love the MiniDisc format. Very convenient, especially for recording of radio (yes, that still exists) or internetstreams. I like to record livesets with it. And it's magical edit functions make it a breeze to cut out commercials or DJ quack. The deleted stuff then can be used to record again seamlessly as it if were at the end of the disc. Philips made one of it's biggest blunders ever by holding on to the then 30-year-old cassette format for the DCC. Don't get me wrong, I love cassettes as much as MiniDisc, but by the early nineties even a child could understand the magneto-optical disc like the CD with it's instant track playing was the way to go - not the slow and sluggish cassette. Apparently only the boffins and leadership at Philips could not understand that. What they did get right though was the sound quality: the first generation of DCC sounded better than the first generation of MD. Imagine if Sony and Philips had continued to team up like they did for CD and had created a combined MD format with the specs and technology as Sony saw fit, but with the superior PASC audio compression of DCC and Philips. That would have immediately become a worldwide standard and would eventually completely have replaced cassettes. It would over time have improved further with higher capacity disks, better audio compression (PASC 2.0 etc) and made it's way into the world of PC's too. It would still be a much used audio standard today used for internetstreaming and digital broadcast as well. But alas, that was never to be.
Great video and a good introduction to the joys of MD..... I have a portable player/recorder and use it to make a copy of all new vinyl I buy, at the same time I copy the vinyl to cassette and reel to reel (sad I know) The size of the MD is greta for travelling and I can have a collection of various bands or a disc of just one band in a good quality.... Although my goto is still a walkman from 2002...
May I ask what MD deck you record to, the codec you use, and how you feel the result compares to cassette? I don't know anything about reel to reel, but I assume that sounds like near perfect reproduction? Do you use ferric or chrome or metal cassettes? I am a big user of HI-MD, owning the Onkyo Intec 275 with an imported MD-133 (Hi-MD) deck, and feel that my results of recording vinyl to that format are very good. I am curious about the cassette revival, though, and wondered if a magnetic medium could do better than a digital, assuming quality components at all stages of the recording.
@@audioarkitekts Ive been looking at this lately just as another format. In the early 90's I worked for Technicolor in video duplication and already knew it was possible to run just Audio. But you need a decent tape and a high end player/recorder... Might look around to see what I can do.. Would have to be a Uk player as US ones audio encoder is not as good (and they were NTSC not PAL).....
The MD players made such a hit with the fact of the players being the audio recorders & were portable. So, a simple input/output connection was/is required. No computer needed & when finished recording, the music/audio was ready to play!
I listened to a high quality recording (Spotify through a DAC onto an Onkyo Hi-MD deck at 256 KBPS) on my Hi-MD Walkman, the MZ-NH1, and onto reference headphones. The sound quality was astounding, revealed much, and was much easier on the ear than listening from my Xperia phone through Sony WF1000XM4. In terms of portable sound, I have not yet found anything close to the quality that my 25 year old minidisc player / recorder produces. Yeah, it's not audiophile, but it is good. If you want "music on the go" quality that nevertheless presents a good sound stage and separation, 64kbps on ATRAC 3+ on a 1GB disc is acceptable, and gives you about 30-40 albums per disc, or, say, 50-60 symphonies or concertos if that is your bag. This means that with 40 1GB discs (as I have) you can easily have everything you might possibly want of your music collection available to you at this resolution, with a few special albums saved for close listening at a higher resolution of sound. ATRAC 64kbps was said to be equivalent to MP3 at 128 kbps, and before you are physically sick with the thought of listening at that quality, the amp in the device and the dac were of very high quality (at least on the flagship models), really compensating a lot.
They never marketed them to the first adopters.....MOBILE DJ's. we loved it got rid of all our 45'd and lps with 1 good hit, and it was track accessible.....saved us a lot of work carrying heavy stuff........
hi you are very right about the decks i am a tec i am finding there's alot of sold as parts and some of my old MD units ate not working never bin them as long as the drive is ok keep it as spare parts i had a MD when they came out £7 for a disc only the big music shops were selling them je501 edit buttons under a panel right pain i know it was coming of all the time like the sony c9 betamax
MD is still to this date a lot better than MP3 in terms of quality. You can literaly record WAVE on the MD and the sound quality is next to none! i still own mine after 20+ plus years and it still works plus all the MD.s still work. Outstanding material!
SONY MDZ S1. Minidisc is the perfect recording format, even in type R LP2 recording, which allows you to put 160 minutes on one disc, it sounds as good CD, you just have to record in analog. Digital mp3... not so much. I use a Aiwa xrs 3 stereo, running auxiliary through that and the Q chip the xrs 3 is equipped with in to my Sony Type R MZ-S1. This enhances the sound for recording. Ive even recorded type R LP4 and it sounds good. It's the perfect format, you can get a high MD which allows you to put 1000 songs on one disc in high-quality sound. Even uncompressed you can fit over 10 hours worth of music. What happened was all the licensing for music industry screwed it up for Hi-fi recording at home.
Could you tell me how long you can record with lp4 on 1 disc. I have 3 discs right now, and i'm trying to record as much music as I can on each one of them 😅
It is difficult to say. It is believed the being is very likely relic more than others as some key softwares such as ATRAC SP experimental encode is already made by society based on published papers.
I think that one of Minidisc's biggest advantages is that it was designed for portable use. While other formats were able to be used as a portable format, they weren't designed for it thus the problems (skipping, size [both media and player], and battery life). Another advantage was that the recordings on Minidisc were semi-permanent. Unless you specifically take action to change them they were just as permanent as CD. Playing them didn't degrade them, and you couldn't accidentally erase them it.
I've been wanting to get into MiniDisc for a year now .... but I am stuck on which player to get .... I really want a Hi MD model, but I know most of them use an OLED display which is known to go bust eventually. So in your opinion, what's the most reliable Hi MD player out there? I don't really care much about the cost as much as I care about it lasting a long time. It would suck to buy a model with an OLED display and then it just dies and I have no recourse / replacement parts for it.
I *really* miss MiniDisc. I had a Sony recorder player my grandparents bought it for Christmas, and I fell in love with it. I used this walkman so much is ended up falling apart after some 3-4 years of daily abuse. We really need Sony to bite the bullet and make some new MD players :). I had a hifi system that I could record my CD's onto MD with, so cool. MiniDisc aside, I miss dedicated media players full stop. If Apple were to announce a new iPod model or revive the classic style player I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Digital streaming is cool, until you don't have internet access. Sure you can store them on your phone, but I quite like to 'disconnect' and go without my phone and not have that temptation for social media etc.
Does anyone know of quick way to get media off your minidiscs onto a hard drive? I have dozens of blank discs that I recorded my original music onto back in the aughts. I still have a working player but I know how to get music off there by using analog means.
You can use a MD player with digital output (which is most models) and use a PC sound interface with digital input. It’s still a pain in the ass to do, and unfortunately there’s no way to speed it up. It’s certainly not worth the effort for songs you can procure elsewhere. But for your original recordings, a digital transfer is the way to go. Many portable MD players have a combination analog and optical digital 3.5mm line out jack (mini-TOSLink). Most (maybe all) of the home decks have a full-size optical TOSLink output, and some high-end decks have a coaxial digital output as well.
I *_really_* wish that the MiniDisc made a bigger impact, i mean when it comes to collecting music on physical media the MiniDisc that accepts uncompressed is the best of all world in my opinion. I mean just imagine the cool art you can put on the cases (Dunno if "case" is the right term, but you know what i mean)
What killed it cost and more cost due to copy Protection. I never really knew about them but knew about them only seen them in a rare occasion where somebody would want like a library I think I saw a magician who had a bunch of different things and that's one of the two times I remember them. Meanwhile I'm running around wishing I had a cassette recorder in the 90s only able to afford a cassette player.
MD still feels like a format from an alternative future.
Like a cyberpunk alternative to the CD lol
I'm in that future dude, don't worry lol xx
Well fun fact to me is I didn't know about since I subbed the fixt there's a scandroid minidisc thing so I had to look this up there ain't no mini disc players out there but now there it like the vinyl and cassette players out there.
And scandroid is a dark synth artist
@@audioarkitektsyes!!!!!
I remember back in 2003, heading off to college and wanting a portable music player. I picked the Sony MD over an iPod because of the ability to swap batteries... It was a great sidekick and I still have that little guy to this day.
The ability to swap batteries is one reason why more walkmans etc still exist today compared with mp3 players. My old WM-EX525 has a sticker claiming up to 35 hours of playback on one AA battery. When you consider the amount of moving parts compared to MP3 players thats incredible.....
Dude, non-replaceable batteries is just about the most anti-consumer idea of the last 20 years. Luckily, it seems that alternatives are gaining momentum, with right to repair pushes and so on. And I'm all for it!
Same.
It may seem strange, but I like the feeling of grabbing the media. Feel like it's something that exists!
Not strange at all, friend :) it's what's been driving the vinyl record and cassette tape revivals. Loads of people like the experience of physical media. You're NOT alone! :)
You also like the feeling when grabbing yourself?
This is the exact reason i got into collecting vinyl records while i still listen to most of my music on TH-cam or Spotify i love physical owning the music i love to listen to
Its Compeletly Normal not strange in any way , i prefer physical media like cassettes ,Cd's over stream wireless
That's not strange, in fact with streaming and paid download sites getting increasingly consumer-hostile lately, now's a really good time to get back into physical formats if possible, especially with CDs being DRM-free by their design, thus allowing you to rip to FLAC or any other codec at your leisure as long as your equipment supports a given codec, be it FLAC or otherwise.
I'd LOVE to see Mini-Discs to make a comeback even more than CD.
It is likely not possible as the society still yet figure how to make a new recorder.
They never will.
why? CD is more efficient
Very unlikely. One thing CDs and CD players are still been made, MD is not been made.
Much rather MD than the weird cassette-comeback that is somehow happening
I love MiniDisc and even loved it in the 90s. Had a car deck too. :) Great buffering, but my favorite feature was the editing of track stops and removal of tracks on the fly.
One thing I always used MD for then was for live concerts. You'd edit the start of the track to be at the beginning of the first instrument playing or voice heard... then when you shuffle the songs, it's like a custom concert every time. It was just that seamless when you'd shuffle.
Oh yes, great for editing on the unit by itself. 👍
I found my Minidisc player yesterday, I had mine over 22 years ago, it still works perfect and was amazed at how good the Audio was, i remember loving it back then but it had been a while, it sounds so good. Wish they would have keep making them. Sound so much better then what my phone produces.
These people usually make worse. The society still figure how to save the crap. I personally have prepared some notes about how to play the crap, without using any related M.O recorders and related M.O disks.
Dcc was reasonably successful in Holland and Germany.And definitely a few people around interested in dcc
Philips never seems to get the recognition it deserves for inventing 2 of the most significant Audio formats of the 20th century.
I don't understand why Philips didn't opt for two mp1 tracks at 448 instead of 384, they could shorten the max tape size from ~105 to 74. 896kbps would be better than 768. Still, the sound was superior to MiniDisc.
@@igorpoco2420Only the very first generation of MiniDisc recorders had inferior sound to DCC. Later versions matched, and then exceeded it.
In the UK I only ever seen a DCC player once. And that was in a Cash Converters a few months ago. No idea if it worked or not. Minidisc I saw a few times during the 90s and 00s, but never owned one though.
I had a first-generation DCC Deck and a Player. While the format was good, I think one of the major factors that worked against DCC was the portable player. Although the portable player was portable, in the sense that you could carry it with you from place to place, it was too large to fit in your pocket and due to the weight you had to carry it in your hand. Added to that was the short battery life. However, the main issue with the player was it had a proprietary battery pack that when fully charged gave your about 90 minutes of playback time, and IIRC took about that long to charge the battery pack. Those factors caused me to give up on DCC.
MiniDiscs remind me of a day when I listened to music pretty much CD quality on the go. Now my portable music player (phone) plays music at a much lower standard and my phone listens to me.
Try Qobuz with a DAC dongle it might surprise you. But I totally get it, you can't beat some of the amazing inventions of the past.
@@audioarkitekts I got another portable minidisc recorder so I can listen to CD quality music without any of the invasive tracking and spying phones do these days
Mike, don't use SonicStage. It converts sound in LP2 mode (132kbps) even if you set recording to SP. Use Web Minidisc or Platinum MD, both SW made in 2020. They do recording in real SP 292 kbps. Sound quality is then comparable with AAC 320 and much better than youtube's AAC 128 kbps.. Anyway, I like Minidisc decks. True HiFi with very good DAC.
Where can I get that software from?
It's an online software, Google it. @@aaronfitzgerald9109
Mini Disc is brilliant I have more than 300 recorded MDs starting from 1998 and I just played a anMD recorded in 1999 to test out a midrange Sony MD JB 330 Deck I recently bought on eBay UK for £99 & it played perfectly with a great sound , I also just bought a higher end Sony JBD 930 UK tuned edition & for £279 with the remote instructions fully boxed in mint condition & I played a few MDs & they sound like I just recorded them absolutely brilliant, I love MDs I think the Medea format is brilliant & also for portability cheers and peace ✌️
It's a fun format!
Work as a rock dj with almost 2000 discs. I still have all the original cds I bought and copied..!! It was and is still an incredible format. All my players are mostly exx bbc. Bought when they "abandoned" the format from a guy who clears radio stations. Ahead of its time...!! Martyn.
Thats me. Still using Mini Discs to this day. You simply can’t beat the sound quality
The magneto-optical drive technology were the precursor of the MiniDisc. It was both a magnetic and optical hybrid medium, a fusion between cassette tapes and compact discs.
The MiniDisc the ancestor of the PSP's UMD i love those physical media
If it wasn't for vinyl and CDs being the main part of my music collection, I would go for MDs - they're quite expensive, especially a working equipment.
Very elegant media.
It really depends on what you call expensive. I've bought about 40 or so perfectly working MiniDisc recorders mostly for no more than £50 and I have 2 MiniDisc decks too, one that set me back £65 and the other that was free with a load of discs that I bought. Both the decks are the MDS-JE330 and don't support MDLP but they are both in perfect working order, with their remotes. I don't think I'll need to buy any more discs for a while because I have about 200 used ones and 150 still shrink wrapped. My rule of thumb for buying discs was used ones £1 a time and new ones £2 a time. The price has gone up a bit since I bought them but there are still bargains out there to be had.
I still use MD and I still enjoy it!
The best retro format of all by far and this is coming from a guy who still uses all (cassettes -vinyl -Cds- md)
Still using. Still loving.
Used to work summer jobs back in school at a Sony parts distributor in Canada back in the late 90's. Japanese tourists/students would drop by and in broken English ask for parts for their MD players. They would prefer to talk to me because I was their age. They didn't want to give up their MD players. If there is a small part that looks like 5 Cents to make and sells for $25, they'll buy it.
Found my old mini disk player, I’m surprised how good the sound quality is still!
Its not bad at all!
In 2022 in the UK there were 18,000 MDs sold. I imagine in America this was probably 80,000.
Educated industrial data percentage estimation in conjunction with physical 2022 music consumption markets
With Britain and America's sales combined, you could put a MiniDisc sold on every seat in the Camp Nou (Barcelona)
The best format
MiniDisc
I do believe that for many it will make a comeback. When all media is only digital, there are people like myself that will want to have access to physical media. Whether we backup our media or want to have a piece of retro history. Physical media will be a big deal when everything goes 100% digital.
I got a single MD from japan and I love it.
From the long unique case to the cute and tiny disk that just feels appropriate for a single
Minidisc was doomed by being too far ahead of its time. Even though ATRAC is a lossy format, it is far superior to MP3 or other lossy codecs, at least in its later versions. The hardware ( most of it, anyway) was a technological marvel, and build quality of most units is something that will never be matched again. I still have 3 portables (2 recorders and a play only), plus two decks - one of them a pro model. I have, and will continue to maintain and service them.
It could have been the next generation of physical media had they waited and made it sound as good as CDs. I discovered so much amazing information while researching for this video!
@@audioarkitekts It was as good as CD, for most genres of music. Unless you had a VERY good system for playback (like better than 90% have, IMO) one could not tell the difference.
@@audioarkitekts I disagree. While I think uncompressed audio is a factor for audiophiles, I can't tell the difference between MP3, ATRAC, or WAV files. I would argue that most people can't and even many that say they can are probably just religious about it and really can't. Plus most listening environments aren't perfect. Like being in the car or subway or walking the streets or just out at the beach with friends, doing housework, or whatever. I think for the vast majority of people and environments, the MD audio is perfect. It would have been the perfect format for the 90s. What I think killed it in the US was really just the high price and the fact that CDs were finally affordable and widespread (with an ample selection of music) at the time and so they were just starting to take off with the masses around the time the MD was introduced. So it wasn't a great time to introduce yet another new format. Had they launched maybe five years sooner and had time for the prices to drop and selection to increase, I think it might have made a much bigger dent. Or alternatively had the MP3 and CD-R not become a thing by the late 90s/early 00s then I think the MD would have reached it's potential around then.
Great video though :)
@@roxics I agree with your point on the quality. I have never seen anyone pass the double blind test of cd vs md. If it was such a difference, why has no one ever stepped forward to show in such a test how he/she could tell what is what? No such video or report exists. MD "failed" commercially because of a multitude of factors. 1) Price 2) MD had to fight the first stages of a huge battle that eventually was won by mp3, namely the music industry fighting tooth and nail to prevent consumers making cd quality copies of music. This opposition slowed down the roll out of MD tremendously (think of retailers not carrying the product because it would harm their cd sales). Eventually, after years of legislation (SCMS for MD) and lawsuits (remember Metallica?), the music industry had to 'surrender' which opened the doors for mass adoption of 3) CD-R and MP3. Sony's understandable obsession for perfect sound quality on MD, eventually turned out hardly relevant, as the market chose inferior sound quality in the form of mp3 (in comparison to CD quality, and IMO similarly compared to MD quality) and often below par copies of CD's on CD-R.
@@audioarkitekts I can not tell a difference
I still have mine that I bought back in 1999. Still works.
👍🏻😎 I still have and use my Sony MD-R37 recorder/player.
I remember seeing a minidisc promotional kiosk in best buy when I was little . And there was one person in my school that had a binder of minidisc
Those were the good ole days.
This is the most versatile physical media format. Apart from the analogue sound if you value that, whatever the cassette tapes could do, minidiscs can also do. In addition, you can edit, rearrange, title songs and it is the best for mixtapes, with CD text.
It’s almost as good quality as CDs and better than Spotify or most streaming and the mp3 files we are used to.
Each disc in a case is almost a quarter of the size of a CD in a case, so it does matter with larger collections.
The best feature is the LP2. It’s still good quality, but as many albums are around 50 minutes long, even a 74 minute disc can store three classic albums copied from a CD, it’s a great physical backup and ideal for avoiding streaming, computers and scratching your CDs.
Just like we used to record music or programmes from the radio, streaming services can be still recorded onto Md and later split, titled and rearranged.
It’s also good for rarities, concerts and other special recordings as they have the loveliness of physical media, but with the backup of modern technology.
NetMD devices can be expensive, though. I recommend settling with MDLP as a desktop and getting a NetMD portable.
A cd you cant scratch, im all for it :)
Ich liebe das Format und die Player! 😍👏
Danke
I loved the mini disc, I even had a cd/md player for my Jetta back in college. I dropped the format once I switched to Mac and bought the 2nd Gen iPod.
I’m actually looking at getting back into mini disc for some nostalgic fun.
I lived in Japan 96-99, have over 200 MD's! love them! Used a Kenwood portable CD player with optical out to record on my Pioneer MD player/recorder. The best.
Loved minidisc as I was regularly making compilation tapes and was happy to record in real time. I then found a digital music player and discovered the ability to rip CDs quicker and I ended up giving my MD recorder to my dad so he could record his favourite radio shows.
I'm listening to MD right now.
Nice!
Yeah, I remember going to JR music NYC and spending over 900. On the JA-3 ES ,how primitive it sounded in reproduction, it didn't sound as good compared to my cdp'-87es 5 disc changer. The 20-bit scheme didn't cut, it and the disc would get stuck in the ejection mechanism, which piss me off,so I destroyed the machine and never brought another. I still have about 60 disc leftovers later on. I brought the W 2000es machine, which I still use today.
IMO nothing beats my Sony PS-X555ES, turntable. Being able to score that piece of tech was a dream for me..
sorry you had problems with the minidiscs, I admired Sony's innovation but along with the DAT's UMD, there was to much experimental tech that was wayyy to expensive to the average consumer, let alone a new thing to learn and transfer your media to. Thank God for the PlayStation
I still have my Panasonic mini portable MD player and a CD/cassette/MD/radio unit. I used these two a lot in the early to mid 2000s. I’d record from CD to MD on the portable stereo and then listen to the mix MDs on the mini Walkman-type player.
Two things that were handy, you could edit the recordings so if two songs were together as one track, you could split them into two separate tracks, and you could also change the amount of play time to 80 minutes, 160 minutes, or 320 minutes. The 320-minute setting was obviously inferior sound quality, but 160 minutes was still not too bad. So you could copy two CDs onto one MD and the sound was not too bad.
I have about 30-40 mixed MDs still, too.
Good content, great delivery
Thank you 🙏
at the time it WAS the best way for portable Music, no doubt!!! being someone who used DIGITAL DATA DISC's for a Home Studio this was an Amazing and simple fast way to mix songs and or rough mixes!!! as far as making a great mix ;Tape; this wasthe best for early 2000's for sure... One thing you cannot deny is the fact the you could and can not break this kind of Disc if you tried!!! and mine was top line and only cost about 90 to 100$$$ in around 2000...
The discs themselves just go on and on and on. Really dependable.
On my old-school home theater , I have a Sony minidisc player recorder in place of the dual cassette deck. It's a 1999 model MDS-J510, so it only record's in short play, short play @ 256 bits per second so that's just fine. Anything I need LP2 or LP4 I use my mz-s1 Type R.
I think that MDSP was at 292 kbps, and HIMD SP was at 256, but the reformatted disc also allowed a little less than twice as much music to be recorded. That said, the final iteration of MDSP sometimes has a more "musical" sound to the somewhat clinical (at times) presentation of HIMDSP. I understand that Sony used to try different ways of using the ATRAC lossy technology and have expert listeners actually use their ears to compare and contrast the various attempts at MDSP, but used algorithms for HI-MD, losing that human touch.
Bought a Sony mini disc player recorder when I was in the navy in 1997 at circuit city I was blown away by it
I love my mini Disc players and the disc. But the horrific prices for new and empty mini disc are hillarious.
I love Minidisc format. I have a minidisc deck an a portable unit.
I'm a dj who wanna record my mixes, but the dj software won't let you record the mixes when using music from a streaming service (copyright). MD´s let me record in realtime with (almost) cd quality.
you can get a solid state tascam portable recorder which records onto Micro SD and can record lossless
Streaming litteraly destroyed music and made it fast-food and it's time for people to rediscover the true value of music. I have been a huge MD-Nerd in the 00s and I always missed the format when my last Player died in like 2004/5. On my forthcoming album I will release a small batch of MD-Versions for sure. That said: I hope Sony will at some point release new MD players or something similar. Or at least free the license so that someone could create a Kickstarter. Knowing Sony though I am not holding my breath :(
I love the idea and I bought 16 portable recorders and two desktop ones in the last couple of months. I have one to our young son, so he could record his own music without using a computer.
I found my fathers Sony Walkman MiniDisc recorder with digital bass, hooked it up to my sound system, and holly shit the quality is just amazing , cumbias all day !!
Coolest format!
Thinking the colors, size, disc inside a cartridge.
Michael Jackson’s Dangerous art on mini disc just look awesome
I bought one & used it a lot and recorded lots of music. I still have the discs but my player broke. I did like it.
It's was an interesting format. Had it provided CD quality from the start, it could have gone a lot further I believe.
@@audioarkitekts I never thought it was the lack of CD quality that did for MiniDisc. The prohibitive cost of the equipment was a major factor. The second real issue was the RIAA really didn't like the fact that CDs could be copied and had major court cases to prevent it going to market.
The USA which is a big market for tech did not realy glorify this at the time meanwhile asia and europe liked it,i liked it and went back to it in late 2023 till now
Why does no one think of DAT when looking at DCC vs MD. When you think about that you remember that sony basically already made DCC but better in 1987, it was smaller, seeked faster, and was already in the market.
Can say MD is still alive, mainly because you can't buy a new laser or new md deck anymore. This still upsets me as there are plenty of players that work fine but the lasers are dead.
DAT used a far, far more complex tape transport than DCC. (DAT is essentially a micro VCR, with a spinning helical-scan head and everything!) Though it never happened, it would have been possible to shrink DCC players to the tiny size of high end analog cassette Walkman models. That is categorically impossible with DAT, since the head assembly and tape loading mechanism limit the minimum thickness.
Anyhow, MD was designed to be better than DAT while being significantly cheaper (which it did ultimately accomplish). But above all, the music industry fought _HARD_ to keep DAT down. They grudgingly accepted MD and DCC because the lossy compression meant that analog copies would get worse and worse from generation to generation. (DAT is uncompressed, so generational loss from analog copies is very, very small. DAT, MD, and DCC all use the same copy protection on their digital ports.)
I had multiple minidisc players/recorders as well as a minidisc deck that I hooked into my stereo to create minidiscs from my CD collection.
Still have my OEM (factory optioned) MD head-unit in my 2003 MX-5, a Sony Recording Deck in my component Hi-Fi system, and my Sony portable NetMD recorder player. (Australia).
I have rediscovered my like new Sharp 721 minidisc player-recorder. I have been listening to recordings I did off of my recording studio demo disks and other fun stuff. I love it and it is really like new including the remote and battery adapter.
yea, this is what it was great for at the time!!! even now, if you use Pro-Tools ect, what do you mix it to to have a quick listen!!!
I had that exact model. What an awful little thing. Those Sharp MD recorders were just so unreliable compared to Sony models.
I had a Japanese penpal back in the 1990s that sent me a minidisc that was a mix of J-pop/J-rock songs. I was absolutely enamored with the technology! And yes, buying CDs from Japan was extremely expensive. A full album was $30-$40. (I’m not sure how much that would be these days with inflation.) Most people only bought singles, including me. They were half the price and usually came with a few other songs and various remixes. The only Japanese album I ever bought (technically my parents made the purchase 😅) was Hikaru Utada’s (宇多田 ヒカル) first album. I also loved Ayumi Hamasaki (浜崎歩) and had quite a few of her singles along with Morning Musume (モーニング娘). Singles were usually anywhere between $10-$20. I still don’t know why music CDs in Japan were so expensive. Hence, why I was ecstatic when my friend sent the minidisc full of music that would otherwise have been incredibly costly for me to acquire. I sadly lost it when moving to my first apartment. 😢
Minidisc forever!
I have a handful of MDs that I need a good deck for. Need to get one imported probably.
They are out there. Check ebay and Mercari!
@@audioarkitekts Thanks Mike! I'll definitely check them.
I got a Sony MDS-JE330 for free thrown in with a load of new blank MiniDiscs that I bought off of eBay. It was, and is, in perfect working order, complete with the remote control. Only down side is it doesn't support MDLP but, I tend to record most of my discs in SP mode anyway.
@@ianz9916 that's great Ian
If you are looking for a decent deck, your best option is an Onkyo MD-105TX. These were primarily sold as adjuncts to excellent micro systems popular in Japan. Don’t confuse this with the MD-105FX (a hi-md device) or the MD-105X (non MDLP model). I would stay away from ANY hi-md device, the hi-md media is impossible to get, and crazy expensive. I’d also stay away from any non-mdlp device, as the LP2 mode is pretty good. Regular MD80 discs are still widely available for $2-3 a piece. The MD-105TX are plentiful on eBay, for good prices from Japan.
I love my mini discs and would love to be able to buy a brand new deck as well as a spare portable player.
Cool history. Always fascinated by MD so I bought a Nakamichi MD player for my 96 Landcruiser. I miss burning music.
Thanks for this video. Have you made the one on the new software that does the transfer to and from computer please share the link at your convenience
Thank you
I started buying MiniDiscs about 4 years ago and have accumulated about 40 from the very first MZ-1 to my HiMD MZ-RH910. A lot of my machines are even still with the original packaging and accessories but, I have noticed that, the prices started to shoot up about a year ago. I paid, on average, £50 a machine although the HiMD models pushed that average up. I suppose now is the time to start selling a few, but I do like them and go through phases of using different ones. I know it's not the most advanced or the smallest machine that I own but, I keep returning to the MZ-R35 as it has the best sound, the best amplification, has a full metal body and the battery life is more than 12 hours.
My first trip is already HI-MD, as being claimed as a small DAT recorder when in need, it is likely ten years ago. I used to use RH1, I ended with MZ-NH900 after RH1 is beyond repair. I am looking something in NETMD after figuring how to get around with UEFI.
The more rare they get, the more expensive they will be. I would say right now would be a good time to buy ones that are still in the box, because in 10 more years they will likely go bulls for sure!
@@audioarkitekts I thought I'd finished buying and then I bought another two this week, one boxed, one not.
@@audioarkitekts uhmm the problem with the rare ones, is the reparability ... I have a few of them, but I think the tougher ones are MZ-N505/N510 those ones are cheap (still because prices are rising ... ) they are using an AA battery and there are sounding quite nicely, there are many spare parts in case will be needed... and you have LP and NetMD :)
@@audioarkitekts I recently got an MZ-E20, marketed as the MZ-E40 in the States, because it has a different look to it from all my other players. It runs on two AA batteries, the rechargeable 2800 mAh ones do a really good job, and to my absolute delight, is one of the best sounding MiniDisc players that I now own. It doesn't have MDLP but that is a small price to pay when it sounds as good as it does.
Yes, I still use and love the format. It's getting more difficult to find working recorders/players but MDs that I recorded about 30 years ago are still playing perfectly. Try that with tape. Of course the sound quality isn't quite like CD but it's a lot better than cassette or vinyl. And for my purposes that's fine. I think MD is seriously under-rated and I'd love to see it revived.
I love MD. I got one in 2002, I think. I could go running with it, I think that was one of the main reasons. I also recorded live DJ sessions on the radio. There was one DJ that would play remixes that were really hard to get, back then. I think I still have MDs with some remixes of songs that I might be the only person still having a record of.
I still got and used them. HiFi sound quality in atrac 3. Toslink optical communication since the early 90's
I just wish Sony had the foresight to release minidisc as a removable storage media for PC's in the early 90's. 130MB would have been awesome in 1993 and would have easily become a defacto standard. Pity it took almost 10 years for them to figure that out with Hi-MD and by that time flash storage was well on its way.
Ummm… they did: MD Data, released in July 1993, held 140MB. But it was a market flop, in part because it was slooooow. MD’s raw data rate is 1x CD-ROM speed (~150KB/sec). Competing removable disk formats, most notably Iomega Zip (1994), were significantly faster (1.4MB/sec) and cheaper.
And they kept at it for a while: in 1997 they sorta released MD Data2 at 650MB. (“Sorta” in that it was only used as the internal drive of one camcorder model, not as a discrete drive.)
But damn, MD would have been awesome in terms of reliability and pocketability. The 2” MD is just such a nice size.
5:23 I'ma stop you right there. If it were so easy to get music onto one of these things MD may have gained more market share, instead you had to fight the SonicStage troll.
Sony and Apple have a knack for proprietizing most of their gear, which is incredibly frustrating because not everyone wants to use their software and their components/peripherals. So I totally understand where you are coming from. Now, the way I was able to do it, it worked. However, I know there are tons of nightmare stories out there.
Have you tried the Web MiniDisc? I can't post a link, YT keeps deleting my comments.
Got the classic MZ-R37, the advanced MZ-G750 with MDLP and AM/FM, the MZ-B100 featuring speakers and mic. One thing superior with the R37 is the dedicated audio output jack.
Also have a top of the line SONY deck, and used to have the car head unit.
MDs are still so futuristic. Looking at stuff like cyberpunk media, MDs still fit and its awesome
I was the only one in my school and later in university who had an MD player back in 2000-2003, I absolutely loved the thing. And as a student I worked in record store, and had access to copy whatever music I wanted. Now it is about collecting pre-recorded discs, I have a collection of about 100 pre-recorded MD's (rock, alternative rock, music i like) but I am not interested in likes of Madona, Sade, Britney Spears and other pop/adult pop discs. In past 5 years I had pretty much every Sony portable MD player (now I have about 15 left) and i still have my very first one MZ-R37 that i bought in 2000 (heavily and proudly worn - squeezed out every last bit of it). MD to me is me being 17-20 years old, to me it is more than just an old tech....also the memories MD brings to me.
I'm one of those people who still use and love the MiniDisc format. Very convenient, especially for recording of radio (yes, that still exists) or internetstreams. I like to record livesets with it. And it's magical edit functions make it a breeze to cut out commercials or DJ quack. The deleted stuff then can be used to record again seamlessly as it if were at the end of the disc.
Philips made one of it's biggest blunders ever by holding on to the then 30-year-old cassette format for the DCC. Don't get me wrong, I love cassettes as much as MiniDisc, but by the early nineties even a child could understand the magneto-optical disc like the CD with it's instant track playing was the way to go - not the slow and sluggish cassette. Apparently only the boffins and leadership at Philips could not understand that. What they did get right though was the sound quality: the first generation of DCC sounded better than the first generation of MD.
Imagine if Sony and Philips had continued to team up like they did for CD and had created a combined MD format with the specs and technology as Sony saw fit, but with the superior PASC audio compression of DCC and Philips. That would have immediately become a worldwide standard and would eventually completely have replaced cassettes. It would over time have improved further with higher capacity disks, better audio compression (PASC 2.0 etc) and made it's way into the world of PC's too. It would still be a much used audio standard today used for internetstreaming and digital broadcast as well. But alas, that was never to be.
My favourite formats MD and MO
ATRAC was a good format. I honestly couldn't hear a difference and it saved a lot of space.
That's awesome! I am glad then that you can still find the tech to enjoy.
I don't know about ATRAC, but I can tell a huge difference between TH-cam AAC and CD. I can't trust the sound quality of ATRAC.
@@judenihal Yeah there's a massive difference between AAC and CD
I love minidisc all different colors
Great video and a good introduction to the joys of MD.....
I have a portable player/recorder and use it to make a copy of all new vinyl I buy, at the same time I copy the vinyl to cassette and reel to reel (sad I know) The size of the MD is greta for travelling and I can have a collection of various bands or a disc of just one band in a good quality.... Although my goto is still a walkman from 2002...
That's a great use case. You should try vinyl to VHS on a HiFi stereo vcr
May I ask what MD deck you record to, the codec you use, and how you feel the result compares to cassette? I don't know anything about reel to reel, but I assume that sounds like near perfect reproduction? Do you use ferric or chrome or metal cassettes? I am a big user of HI-MD, owning the Onkyo Intec 275 with an imported MD-133 (Hi-MD) deck, and feel that my results of recording vinyl to that format are very good. I am curious about the cassette revival, though, and wondered if a magnetic medium could do better than a digital, assuming quality components at all stages of the recording.
@@audioarkitekts Ive been looking at this lately just as another format. In the early 90's I worked for Technicolor in video duplication and already knew it was possible to run just Audio. But you need a decent tape and a high end player/recorder... Might look around to see what I can do.. Would have to be a Uk player as US ones audio encoder is not as good (and they were NTSC not PAL).....
Please talk about DAT audio!
The MD players made such a hit with the fact of the players being the audio recorders & were portable. So, a simple input/output connection was/is required. No computer needed & when finished recording, the music/audio was ready to play!
I listened to a high quality recording (Spotify through a DAC onto an Onkyo Hi-MD deck at 256 KBPS) on my Hi-MD Walkman, the MZ-NH1, and onto reference headphones. The sound quality was astounding, revealed much, and was much easier on the ear than listening from my Xperia phone through Sony WF1000XM4. In terms of portable sound, I have not yet found anything close to the quality that my 25 year old minidisc player / recorder produces. Yeah, it's not audiophile, but it is good.
If you want "music on the go" quality that nevertheless presents a good sound stage and separation, 64kbps on ATRAC 3+ on a 1GB disc is acceptable, and gives you about 30-40 albums per disc, or, say, 50-60 symphonies or concertos if that is your bag. This means that with 40 1GB discs (as I have) you can easily have everything you might possibly want of your music collection available to you at this resolution, with a few special albums saved for close listening at a higher resolution of sound. ATRAC 64kbps was said to be equivalent to MP3 at 128 kbps, and before you are physically sick with the thought of listening at that quality, the amp in the device and the dac were of very high quality (at least on the flagship models), really compensating a lot.
Relic of the past. A 200 dollar portable audio recorder can record WAV audio which is far better than the compression MiniDisc uses
They never marketed them to the first adopters.....MOBILE DJ's. we loved it got rid of all our 45'd and lps with 1 good hit, and it was track accessible.....saved us a lot of work carrying heavy stuff........
The vinyls are here!
The cassette tapes are coming back, some artists are releasing new albums in cassette tapes.
hi you are very right about the decks i am a tec i am finding there's alot of sold as parts and some of my old MD units ate not working never bin them
as long as the drive is ok keep it as spare parts
i had a MD when they came out £7 for a disc only the big music shops were selling them je501 edit buttons under a panel right pain i know it was coming of all the time
like the sony c9 betamax
MD is still to this date a lot better than MP3 in terms of quality. You can literaly record WAVE on the MD and the sound quality is next to none! i still own mine after 20+ plus years and it still works plus all the MD.s still work. Outstanding material!
I like this guy. This is a good video.
Thank you Craig I like you too! 👍
I love my MD player/recorder.
SONY MDZ S1.
Minidisc is the perfect recording format, even in type R LP2 recording, which allows you to put 160 minutes on one disc, it sounds as good CD, you just have to record in analog. Digital mp3... not so much. I use a Aiwa xrs 3 stereo, running auxiliary through that and the Q chip the xrs 3 is equipped with in to my Sony Type R MZ-S1. This enhances the sound for recording. Ive even recorded type R LP4 and it sounds good. It's the perfect format, you can get a high MD which allows you to put 1000 songs on one disc in high-quality sound. Even uncompressed you can fit over 10 hours worth of music. What happened was all the licensing for music industry screwed it up for Hi-fi recording at home.
Could you tell me how long you can record with lp4 on 1 disc. I have 3 discs right now, and i'm trying to record as much music as I can on each one of them 😅
The compress technology start with digital audio develop for broadcasting
It is difficult to say. It is believed the being is very likely relic more than others as some key softwares such as ATRAC SP experimental encode is already made by society based on published papers.
I think thie MiniDisc will always be a fun novelty but not used as a relevant or high quality means to listen to music.
@@audioarkitekts It looks like the question is about men , not that.
I think that one of Minidisc's biggest advantages is that it was designed for portable use. While other formats were able to be used as a portable format, they weren't designed for it thus the problems (skipping, size [both media and player], and battery life). Another advantage was that the recordings on Minidisc were semi-permanent. Unless you specifically take action to change them they were just as permanent as CD. Playing them didn't degrade them, and you couldn't accidentally erase them it.
I've been wanting to get into MiniDisc for a year now .... but I am stuck on which player to get .... I really want a Hi MD model, but I know most of them use an OLED display which is known to go bust eventually. So in your opinion, what's the most reliable Hi MD player out there? I don't really care much about the cost as much as I care about it lasting a long time. It would suck to buy a model with an OLED display and then it just dies and I have no recourse / replacement parts for it.
I still use mini disk these days and DVDs as well
Where can I buy new indie music online?
Bandcamp is good
Thanks Michael@@audioarkitekts
I *really* miss MiniDisc. I had a Sony recorder player my grandparents bought it for Christmas, and I fell in love with it. I used this walkman so much is ended up falling apart after some 3-4 years of daily abuse. We really need Sony to bite the bullet and make some new MD players :). I had a hifi system that I could record my CD's onto MD with, so cool.
MiniDisc aside, I miss dedicated media players full stop. If Apple were to announce a new iPod model or revive the classic style player I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Digital streaming is cool, until you don't have internet access. Sure you can store them on your phone, but I quite like to 'disconnect' and go without my phone and not have that temptation for social media etc.
Does anyone know of quick way to get media off your minidiscs onto a hard drive? I have dozens of blank discs that I recorded my original music onto back in the aughts. I still have a working player but I know how to get music off there by using analog means.
You can use a MD player with digital output (which is most models) and use a PC sound interface with digital input. It’s still a pain in the ass to do, and unfortunately there’s no way to speed it up.
It’s certainly not worth the effort for songs you can procure elsewhere. But for your original recordings, a digital transfer is the way to go.
Many portable MD players have a combination analog and optical digital 3.5mm line out jack (mini-TOSLink). Most (maybe all) of the home decks have a full-size optical TOSLink output, and some high-end decks have a coaxial digital output as well.
I have heaps on Minidisc players, it's seems futuristic but retro at the same time
I *_really_* wish that the MiniDisc made a bigger impact, i mean when it comes to collecting music on physical media the MiniDisc that accepts uncompressed is the best of all world in my opinion. I mean just imagine the cool art you can put on the cases (Dunno if "case" is the right term, but you know what i mean)
What killed it cost and more cost due to copy Protection. I never really knew about them but knew about them only seen them in a rare occasion where somebody would want like a library I think I saw a magician who had a bunch of different things and that's one of the two times I remember them. Meanwhile I'm running around wishing I had a cassette recorder in the 90s only able to afford a cassette player.
I got the MZ-1 almost the month it came out in the US. I regret selling all my MD stuff...
Today we use web minidisc and platinum MD !
Nice!
I want one! but can't come at the used price of them
Had a couple of those players, the Sony low end ones and it was great for copying from my computer, but the software was glitchy.