Discmen Vs Minidisc Players.

Ronan909: i have one and all

joethestoreman: cos thr great

Ronan909: my brother and me have one that my dad got

Ronan909: and i tried using it

Ronan909: fucking pissed me off

joethestoreman: haha

joethestoreman: why?

Ronan909: (a)shitty sound

joethestoreman: i dont get that

Ronan909: (b)i dont have the time or the energy to copy every new cd on to md

joethestoreman: but im rub with sound quality judging - i thought tapes were good

Ronan909: (c)the way the headphones that it came with were was INFURIATING joethestoreman: b) is a good point

Ronan909: SMASH STUFF INFURIATING

joethestoreman: haha - change them

joethestoreman: godsake

Ronan909: you cant

Ronan909: they have a magic hole

Ronan909: that only they fit

joethestoreman: what?!

Ronan909: hehe

joethestoreman: did you buy this from Oxfam?

Ronan909: no it's sony

Ronan909: shit it might have a second adaptor

Ronan909: i never tried it with my new headphones

Ronan909: but i just really disliked it

joethestoreman: mines is sony and it has universal hole... i would think so... you crazy ass

Ronan909: actually

joethestoreman: irrational

Ronan909: it's a real irrational hatred

Ronan909: yes

joethestoreman: as is my love

Ronan909: im just thinking, i fucking despise the size of the thing too

Ronan909: it's so small

Ronan909: and fiddly

joethestoreman: well not really., i just love the size

Ronan909: all those stupid little buttons

joethestoreman: portable, PORTABLE

Ronan909: discman=portable

joethestoreman: you are k-mad

Ronan909: i'm doing a thread

Ronan909: i can feel the anger for a good rant about mds

joethestoreman: yeh in thesame way that a portaloo is portable

joethestoreman: discman = brickman

The point is IRRATIONAL HATRED FOR MDS is where its at. I can't stand the shape of them, the way the buttons are silver, the way people put the names of the tracks in them, the way the batteries load in, the way the volume is pathetically low on most of them.

Discmen are bigger and therefore look way fucking cooler. Currently I'm looking at mine which i bought today, 80 euros, and it's all blue and silver, clearly very tasteful unlike MDs which ressemble a packet of metal cream crackers.

BUH-bye!

ps nothing says PLEASE ROB ME I AM STUPID like a nice big discman bulging out yer jacket. If yr even lucky enough to fit it in that is.

HA HA HA HA

The answer to all this: iPod.

There is no such thing as a Sony MD walkman that you can't use normal headphones with, though the ones they come with are appalling.

surely 5hrs on a MD is enough. (6 MDs together abt the size of yr fist---> 30 albums approx) Now as for the effort involved in recording 'em...

I'm not yet ready to go into I-pod mp3 spaceworld yet. Although there is Net MD too. I like to have something in my hand, and MDs are so lovably dinky, especially some of the japanese import ones. And I maintain nothing gives you the freedom of a portable MD recorder. Can't tape a converation on an i-pod.

Yeah, it's an effort thing. Once you've made those six minidscs, you can bored of them firly quickly, and you have to make new ones of your other CDs, and you can never record over old ones you never listen to cos you spent ages putting in titles. NetMD solves most of this, but I can't be bothered getting a new one.

And my D-EJ955 is a thing of beauty, oh yes. It has no corners. And lighter than my old MZ-R50. However, yes, changing discs is a pain and cannot be done on the move or one-handedly. Which is a drawback, but eh.

Funnily enough, the very first MD portable on the market (Sony MZ-1, late 1992) had an optical output. But none since, I don't think.

Maybe Sony/Sharp imagined it wouldn't get much use seeing as material played back from MD is likely to be a digital copy, and SCMS prevents you from making a digital copy of a digital copy. But nice to transfer field recordings/vinyl dubs in the digital domain, yes. And the decks let you do it.

I wuv my Sharp 702 - also nearly 4 years old. It's been dropped a dozen times or more (on one occasion the output stage died for a week, only to magically come back to life), doesn't like recording with the AC adaptor plugged in, gets all stroppy with certain blanks - but it's never let me down when I've really needed it.

I know in this age of super-quick DAE, broadband downloads and iPods the MiniDisc seems a bit quaint, but I'm happy to live in a permanent 1998. I've been cycling through the same six blanks for the last three years for CD/FM recordings... 20GB of MP3s is very nice, but why carry around more music than you're likely to get through that day? A coupla LPs and a R3 prog does me fine.

Or with a dog leash in your hand, which always fumbles me up when I try to do it. Why do squirrels always have to race by when I've got a CD in the same hand as the leash? I'd swear the Seattle squirrel population is bent on destroying as many of my CDs as possible. These days I just rely on the repeat all button until I've reached my destination.

ally c is OTM, but. a musical hat? hurrah!!

I like MDs, but I miss the reassurance of knowing that you've got 45 minutes on one side and 45 minutes on the other side. I also hate the fact that you can't write down the contents on/in the case like you could with tapes.

They had a nice non-portable MD deck in Dixon's for 50 quid, but I didn't think I'd be able to fit it in my satchel.

Vicky just got the netMD for a ridiculous bargain and that is superb.

Der, you don't need to write the tracklisting in old-fashioned pen - it's all kept digital-like on the disc.

Bah, you wouldn't even have that LP4 mode if it wasn't for us early- adopters... grumble, grumble, kids today, etc. (1998 hardly = early, but y'know).

Without long-play, it's simply a superior (than cassette) Walkman and massively cheaper/more flexible (than DAT) field-recorder. Can you make recordings through the mic socket at LP2/4? And for all this bashing of MP3, surely MP3 at any rate over 96k is better than LP4?

This NetMD thing of which the youth speak - tracks downloaded are 'owned' by the PC, right? Some kind of strange protection issues dependent on the software used? SP-mode quality not available? Most queer.

I'm sure it's lovely and everything (I'd like one) - a very clever attempt to keep the solid-staters at bay, but ultimately DOOMED. Which is a shame.

Mike, from what I can see the netMD thing basically converts any mp3s you have on your pooter into wav files and just piuts them on the md as standard sound files. Of course I could be grasping the wrong end of a big stick.

The ones bundled with Sony and Panasonic's NetMDs (OpenMG Jukebox and BeatJam) convert anything imported into the package into ATRAC3 format (LP2/4, not SP), and 'lend' the files to MD, so that they can't be deleted/edited once on the disc. SimpleBurner (which comes with Sony units in the US) doesn't impose these restrictions, and tracks downloaded at speed from a PC behave just like other MD tracks once on the disc.

There's no way to go the other way at the mo' - MD to PC - either.

Alan: I'll take yr word for LP4 being as good, if not better, than 128k MP3. I've only heard the long-play modes through portables/supplied headphones. Another reason I'm bitter about these exciting developments is that the number of people I know with MD recorders has probably tripled in the last 18 months - but they're all dicking about in LPx mode so no good for comp-swapping.

I sold a barely 6 month old SP minidisc walkman, and paid extra to have the very first Long Play model imported from Japan as soon as it came out (which wasn't *that* expensive, and does still have the sticker on it explaining how great LP mode is in cool Japanese lettering). I think my theory was that that the old one would be worthless after LP ones came out here, and I got nearly full price for it selling it earlier.

My CD player (a Sony Digital Relay) plays back MP3 cds too (it also records them, which is really all I bought it for), and it's nice but you have to navigate through the tracks 1 at a time - there's no folders or groups or anything - so jumping to track 94 takes ages.

Me = one of those dicking around on LPx. However, since I bought a MD deck in a fit of unpardonable extravagance, I can not only type in the titles using a keyboard (yay! luxury) but also copy MD's digitally, including from LPx to (massive thanks to the pioneers) SP. And then copy all the titles across using the Disc Stamp facility on the Sharp portable. So Mike, if you wanted any MD's copying in an acceptable format, I would be happy to assist.

Yep. I got a Panasonic SL-MP50 recently (this one). I'm really pleased with it. Dead easy to find the track you want: handles folders like a charm. I wanted one that recorded mp3s too, but apart from the Sony Digital Relay, which has the drawbacks Graham mentions and some others (the battery!), I don't there's anything yet - not at a reasonable price anyway. Other than that the Panasonic does everything I want. You're supposed to get 35 hours playback on two AA batteries, but 28-30 is more realistic, especially if you're playing mp3s: while I'm still on the first set of batteries, there's only sufficient power now to 'find' ordinary CDs. As to cost, well I paid rather more than the $140 mentioned in the above link. But I guess if you shop around you could find one for about that price in UK. There's also a few Sony models retailing for £100 upwards (depending on what 'extras' you want) that I saw when I was shopping for my player.

I think it would be good if this thread now morphed into a discussion of old cassette tapes. TDK AD-90s with the blue/white striped inlay, eh? Those ones you could get in Boots with peeling brown paper on the shell - a step back from the wax cylinder.