]> MiniDiscs, and the Purchasing Thereof Sean E. Russell 1998024 In mid-December of 1997, I ordered my first MiniDisc player/recorder, in response to a purely irrational desire to once again "get ahead of the pack". Oh, of course I found a "need" for recordable audio media for the occasion, but that's beside the point. This artical describes what I bought, where I bought it, what I went through to get it, what it cost me, and my opinion of the technology now that I've owned it for a while.
The first stop on my quest was Yahoo. I did a general search for Minidiscs, and eventually came up with &mdcenter;. This is a great site for anything having to do with MiniDiscs, and provides a constant reference for me. The only thing I don't like about it is that most of the MSRPs are in Yen. This is to be expected, since few of the products are sold in the US, but still. In any case, there are several reviews and product statistics, and the site is chock full of information useful for selecting your product.

There are several kinds of MiniDisc products, from cameras to portable audio players. I wasn't too certain which route I wanted to go, although at that time I was interested in audio equipment. My two main options were to purchase a console unit plus a portable player, or a portable recorder. With a console unit I could record MDs and play them at home, and with the portable player I could take my MDs with me. With the portable recorder, I could do the same, but with less convenience. I eventually settled on the portable recorder because

  • It was cheaper than any console+player option I looked at, and
  • My girlfriend needed to be able to record interviews on the leg.
    • The model I settled for was the Sharp MD-MS200, which was the most highly reviewed and affordable unit in its class.
    I didn't at first find on online vendor who sold MiniDisc hardware in the states, online being my prefered method of purchasing. As a side note, I'd really like to start seeing these price benefits from purchasing online. There is no reason why online purchases should cost as much as your local merchant, and for that matter I'd rather support the local merchant. Eventually, I made my way down to the local Good Guys, who do carry MiniDisc products, and I nearly bought from them, too. At the last moment, I discovered ⊃, who runs &co; . What a godsend! ⊃ is by far the best deal I've found as a MiniDisc supplier.
    The Good Guys were selling a Sharp MD-MS100, which was released by Sharp in 1995, for $315.00. ⊃ was offering the Sharp MD-MS200, released by Sharp in 1997, for $299.00, shipped. There wasn't any contest, really.

    I decided to order the MS200 and 10 MiniDiscs, for a total of around $350.00, including shipping insurance, which ⊃ insists on having. ⊃ takes checks, money orders, or direct transferes into his account. I sent him an email or two making sure the price and model were correct, and verifying the total sum. After poking around on the net and not finding any disparaging references to ⊃, I went ahead and transfered the full amount into his account. There was a little delay because I had forgotten to tell him the address to ship the product to, but about a week later, I had the MD. Considering that this all took place a couple of weeks before Christmas, I was very pleased with the turn around time. I found ⊃ to be efficient, if terse, and found purchasing hardware from him to be a satisfying experience. Not only would I recommend ⊃ as a MiniDisc supplier to others, but I myself plan on purchasing additional MD technology, and will be buying it from him.

    The MS200 is a pleasure to use. It is small, compact, and reasonably straightforward to use. I've mentioned that one of the uses our MS200 gets put to is as a recorder for interviews my girlfriend, Monika, conducts. Monika has very little interest in technology for technology's sake, and it speaks well for the MS200 that she was able to use it without problem three days after I gave her a brief rundown on operating the unit. Monika is a bit smarter than your average bear, so your mileage with other technoindifferents may vary.

    I love MiniDiscs. The sound quality is excellent, the disks are compact and convenient, and recording and editing disks comes as second nature to this compu-boy. You can program disks like you would program a normal CD player, and arrange the tracks in whatever order you choose. Indeed, you can delete tracks and write over them as you would on a data disk, without worrying whether the data you are recording will fit into the spot. I don't like the way the text is entered into the MS200; I would have much preferred a port to which I could connect an adapter for a keyboard. For a better review of the MS200, check out the information on &review; (scroll down to the MD-MS200 for links to several reviews and comparisons).

    MD recording technology is getting to the point where it is speculated that the quality of recordings may surpass that of CDs. I don't know enough of the technical details to be able to argue this point, but consider this: CDs store 16 bit audio, and the human ear can hear at least 24 bits. MiniDisc audio compression stores 20 bits of information. That storage is lossy (and there's the rub), but it just may be that 20 bits of lossy turns out to be better quality than 16 bits of lossless. If you are really interested in this issue, doing a web search for "ATRAC" and "MiniDisc" will yield more information than I can provide.

    In any case, MDs are not being touted as a replacement for CDs. Pre-recorded MDs are difficult to find. As far as I'm concerned, this is a non-issue, since my primary use for MDs is to record CDs I own. I make mixes of songs I like, and at any given point in time, I listen to a very small percentage of all of my CDs, usually ones I've purchased recently. I buy CDs, record them onto MD, listen to them until I'm tired of them, and then record over them with new CDs.

    If I had to do it again, I'd still buy the MS200, and I'd still buy from ⊃. If I didn't have a need for a portability, I would have purchased a console unit and one of the smaller MD players... there are some that are barely larger than the MDs themselves.

    Buy MiniDisc technology. You'll thank me for it. The disks can be gotten for less than $4.00 per, and you'll be pleased with the quality. I wouldn't bet my life on the bet that MDs will be ubiquitous in the future, but I think there is a good possibilty of it. MD is common in Asia and is becomming common in Western Europe, and I think it is only a matter of time before the US catches up.