Are MDs really dead?

[dave2010]

Of course Minidiscs are pretty much dead these days, but I found this article, amongst others - http://www.avforums.com/forums/hi-fi-systems-separates/968523-cheap-dac-50-100-have-you-ever-considered-using-minidisc-deck-dac.html

I was also trying to migrate some Minidiscs for a friend to his computer, and I discovered that I could do this using my Hi-MD device in about 5 minutes per Minidisc. I also discovered that I could not do this using Net MD devices, but they can be used for other purposes such as labelling the discs, which makes the uploading much simpler.

Having got this far, I thought I'd try the SQ through a few of these, to see if they could be used as cheap DACs. Somewhere I have a couple of MZ-N1s, but somewhere is the operative word. I gave up, and bid on an MZ-505 and an MZ-707 which have been duly delivered.

I've not so far managed to run any of these without a disc in, but what the heck. I simply put in a disc and let it record anyway. Then I linked the units to my iMac using an optical cable, put the headphones on and sat back.

I have now tried the 505 and the 707, and also my Hi-MD MZ-RH1. The results are really encouraging. I think the 707 is better than the 505. The MZ-RH1 sounds a bit brasher, but heck - there's loads of detail. I can run the MZ-RH1 with a disc paused in Record mode.

I made one silly mistake - or at least I think it was a mistake. I tried to feed the output of these units into my amp. Until recently I was used to integrated amps, but feeding the headphone output into my Bantam Gold just does not work at all. I could revert back to another amp, but I'm not sure I want to do that right now. For feeding into a power amp, a pre-amp is needed.

I might try to buy a Minidisc deck - which should overcome the need for a preamp, though clearly there are differences between models. Looking at the specs for some of those some clearly have high quality DAC/ADCs, while others are probably merely OK.

I find it sad that Sony never made a Hi-MD deck, leaving that to Onkyo, which made just two for sale in the Japanese market. Looking at the specs of some of the regular decks though, I wonder if in fact Sony decided that there wasn't really any point, as perhaps with such a device they felt that the overall SQ was really already high. I know that ATRAC got a lot of flak, but that could have been as much due to the hardware on the cheaper recorders as to the compression algorithms. However, I can hear the difference between the Hi-MD and the others that I have, so perhaps the difference is due to ATRAC, though I'm not sure that an ATRAC processing stage is currently in the link between the computer and the headphones.

Never mind - all I can say at present is that feeding the optical output to my Hi-MD unit and then listening on headphones is currently really making my feet tap. I can hear so much more detail, and it is even pleasant to listen to.

I don't need to use MDs, but if I buy a new DAC I'd like it to be at least as good as the ones in some of these units.

The feed is mostly from ALAC sources ripped into iTunes. The only danger is that the sound is so enticing that I might end up deafening myself.

[sq225917]

The loss of Atrac as a consumer compressed format was a sad day, I loved my Hi-md player and it was a decent dac/adc as well.

[synsei]

I think the MD deck I own was the cheapest in Sony's range (MDS-JE480) but it still manages to give a decent account for itself via Belkin IC's straight into the DR5. Its a shame it only sports an optical input though... :rolleyes:

[jandl100]

Yup, the later Atrac versions worked quite well.

I've got hundreds of live concerts recorded off of DAB radio onto MD discs. :)

[dave2010]

I think the MD deck I own was the cheapest in Sony's range (MDS-JE480) but it still manages to give a decent account for itself via Belkin IC's straight into the DR5. Its a shame it only sports an optical input though... :rolleyes:There are/were some other models, and some of the mid to high end models have optical outputs, and apparently very decent DAC/ADCs. Modest ones go for relatively small amounts on eBay (say £50), but the better ones tend to be much more expensive. Yesterday a CD-MD deck - the MXD-D3 model went for over £100 - actually £112. Straight MD decks such as the JB940 tend to go for maybe just under £100, though there are Buy it Now offers at around £150-£160. Perhaps the best model is the JB980, but that tends to have Buy it Now at close to £300 including carriage, and probably quite high prices even in the auctions.

The pages at Minidisc.org are very useful if you want to check out whether any unit is entry level or high range, and whether units have optical outputs or not. See http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MDS-JB980.html - and you can move from that page to look at other models, and other types of unit - e.g portables.

The better DACs have SNRs and dynamic range over 100dB. The later ones were 24 bit. A few units had ATRAC Type-S - though I don't know if Type-S units really performed much better quality wise than Type-R.

Units such as the 555ES deck use a 24 bit 128 times oversampling sigma-delta DAC with SNR and DNR figures around 108dB - http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MDS-JA555ES.html

On technical spec that model might have been the best ever.

For recording from radio sources (even via the net) MDs may do a pretty good job even now. I've still to decide whether they are acceptable for high quality sources. I think the Hi-MD units can do well, but the regular units with the ATRAC compression may not be good enough for really good recordings. I'm still figuring that out - but certainly the optical feed out from my iMac is capable of good results with some of these units.

[synsei]

Thanks for the info Dave. I think it is such a shame that the format died because I reckon it had so much more to give. I have a lot of great music on MD, most of which I recorded many years ago and much of it is either hard or impossible to source now. A fair few are live recordings of local bands, now defunct, and these are irreplaceable. Even though many of my recordings are on MD's that are well over ten years old (some are even older) they still play as if they were recorded yesterday with clarity and sparkle.

MD's main strength is in the flexibility with which it handles recordings and I've yet to find a better implemented system. One day I shall get around to archiving all this material on CDR's or HDD's, but until then I shall continue to enjoy the nostalgia and pure pleasure I get every time I place one in the Sony and press play... ;)

[dave2010]

MD recorders served a wide market. Many of the users simply wanted portable music, or to record from CDs or tapes, or even the radio. When they were moderately popular they were relatively cheap, and people didn't mind recording (transferring recordings) in real time. The mass market for people who wish to transfer recordings (rip them off!) to other devices, or have sound on the go, has moved on to other devices - iPods, MP3, you name it. MD is pretty much dead for most of them - end of story.

A few users made their own "live" recordings, using microphones and mixers etc. MD recorders were a viable alternative to DAT or other forms of digital recorders.

Now, at the fairly cheap end some users are using microphone/recorders such as the Zooms - http://www.amazon.com/Zoom-Handy-Portable-Digital-Recorder/dp/B001QWBM62

Sony and Edirol also have recorder units - example from Edirol - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Edirol-R-05-EDIROL/dp/B003FGN0I0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328438330&sr=8-1

I saw a Sony solid state recorder with mics being used a few years ago in the US to record a concert in Newport, RI. Apparently the guy shipped them in from Japan, and got them for around $500 vs considerably more if bought in the US. I don't know what model that was, or if they're easily available here. It seemed pretty good. I'm not sure if these were the people producing the recordings, though the techniques these use seem similar - http://www.newportclassic.com/

The home recording market is pretty small and niche these days - it always was pretty small. Ideally I suppose one would want a device with SPDIF in/out, flash card memory storage, USB for fast data transfer, and maybe even support for pro microphones.

There probably is kit like that out there in the professional market place, but what is available for "normal" guys who simply want to try recording to anything other than a tape/disc/MD and then want to copy the results (rapidly) to a computer for editing etc.?

I fear that MD recorders, either vanilla or Hi-MD may be the cheapest option, even now for some users. If ATRAC compression is acceptable - which it may be for speech and some music, then some portable MD recorders are obtainable pretty cheaply from eBay. The Hi-MD ones are still much more expensive, and apparently the Sony NZ-RH1 - one of which I have - really is very good for field work for some people, because of its low noise. This is apparently more interesting to bird watchers than musicians though!

One thing to watch with the Hi-MD ones is that the only one I know for sure will do uploads back up to a PC at high speed is the NZ-RH1. Some of the other models rather infuriatingly, do not! Don't buy a cheap Hi-MD unit unless you're sure you know what you're doing, or don't want fast uploads.

Another thing to watch is whether any of the units have optical output. Many do not, even the NZ-RH1. Most of the units with optical (or digital - coaxial) output are Minidisc decks, and the cheapest frequently available right now s/h is the JE510. Other models still for a lot more on eBay. Using a MD to go the optical output route pretty much limits you to using an ATRAC based device/recording. Some of these might still be worthwhile - e.g the JB930,JB940 and JB980 because of the apparently high quality of the DAC/ADCs used.

There does not seem to be any way to get audio out via digital optical links from a Hi-MD unit. There were only ever two Hi-MD decks, both from Onkyo, and looking at the specs of these, neither has SPDIF out. See - http://www.minidisc.org/himd_table.html and http://www.sharoma.com/minidisc/reviews.htm#onkyo Very occasionally these are available - and would probably cost over £500. They are 100 Volt units for Japan. They should not be run on 110V supplies (and definitely not 220-240V!).

Comments?

[philsparks]

seeing this thread made me nostalgic for Minidisk. I'd really love one of those proper chunky MD decks rather than a portable. But to be honest, it's only in the same way that'd I'd love a proper reel-to-reel sitting on top of my HiFi.!! I doubt I'd ever use either of them.

Sony totally messed up with minidisc. If you go back to the early 90s, the only portable data medium was the 3.5"floppy disc - a grand total of 1.4MB per disk.

The original minidiscs were introduced in 1992 had a huge capacity of around 135MB, and were smaller and more robust than floppys.

If Sony had made the minidisk an open standard, every PC even now would probably still have a minidisk slot. The minidisc would have become the defacto standard for portable digital data and music for the decade. CDRs wouldn't have taken off to the same extent (introduced in the late 90s, they were bigger and but more delicate, and initially blanks were more expensive). Even iPods, (not released until the very end of the 90s) would have had a higher mountain to climb.

As ever Sony created a closed environment and lost out.

Phil

(had a proper Walkman Pro (WMD6C) the a lovely, tiny, cute Sharp minidisc, then a less cute but dead cheap 1GB sony one, then finally succumbed and got an iPod)

[synsei]

seeing this thread made me nostalgic for Minidisk. I'd really love one of those proper chunky MD decks rather than a portable. But to be honest, it's only in the same way that'd I'd love a proper reel-to-reel sitting on top of my HiFi.!! I doubt I'd ever use either of them.

Sony totally messed up with minidisc. If you go back to the early 90s, the only portable data medium was the 3.5"floppy disc - a grand total of 1.4MB per disk.

The original minidiscs were introduced in 1992 had a huge capacity of around 135MB, and were smaller and more robust than floppys.

If Sony had made the minidisk an open standard, every PC even now would probably still have a minidisk slot. The minidisc would have become the defacto standard for portable digital data and music for the decade. CDRs wouldn't have taken off to the same extent (introduced in the late 90s, they were bigger and but more delicate, and initially blanks were more expensive). Even iPods, (not released until the very end of the 90s) would have had a higher mountain to climb.

As ever Sony created a closed environment and lost out.

Phil

(had a proper Walkman Pro (WMD6C) the a lovely, tiny, cute Sharp minidisc, then a less cute but dead cheap 1GB sony one, then finally succumbed and got an iPod)

Sony have a long history of doing this Phil, you'd think they'd learn from their mistakes. Think Betamax, DAT, MD etc. The thing is, whilst none of these formats were wildly accepted in their prospective domestic markets, the professionals adopted them all because the formats were technically superior to anything else available at the time :rolleyes:

[WOStantonCS100]

I really loved my Sony MDS-JE510. Non-linear editing without a computer was pure genius and I got pretty quick at spinning that little jog dial around to name tracks. To me, it was the perfect replacement for cassette in size, convenience and functionality. Sadly, compared to my 3-head cassette decks with Dolby S or dbx Type II, MD was getting smoked, badly, in terms of sonics. I had high hopes for HiMD (at least, 16/44.1 resolution); but, by the time it came out... ...well, you know...

[synsei]

I've got the JE-510's 'lil' bro Biff, the JE-480 and it sounds pretty good in my system, shame it lacks digital out though :(

[The Grand Wazoo]

It's funny how predictions for future technologies actually turn out in the end.
I was reading an old magazine the other day - HFN/RR April 1989 and I came across a piece in the News section at the front about expectations for a thing that was being called 'Erasable CD'.

QUOTE:
"....Referring to the possibility of an erasable disc, Mr Griffiths (General Manager of the Decca Recording Centre) estimated a disc cost of £100 for 30 minutes recording time on an optical medium that could be used many times...."

Look how that turned out!

[WOStantonCS100]

I've got the JE-510's 'lil' bro Biff, the JE-480 and it sounds pretty good in my system, shame it lacks digital out though :(

I always wondered why the Toslink outs started to disappear. A HiMD deck feeding and upsampling DAC; that would have been very cool, indeed.

[WOStantonCS100]

It's funny how predictions for future technologies actually turn out in the end.
I was reading an old magazine the other day - HFN/RR April 1989 and I came across a piece in the News section at the front about expectations for a thing that was being called 'Erasable CD'.

QUOTE:
"....Referring to the possibility of an erasable disc, Mr Griffiths (General Manager of the Decca Recording Centre) estimated a disc cost of £100 for 30 minutes recording time on an optical medium that could be used many times...."

Look how that turned out!


Yeah, I remember looking at my dad like he was crazy in the late 70's and early 80's when he said someday there would be "laser records". Blame it on my youth. What he didn't know is that LP's would still be alive and well in 2012!

[dave2010]

I really loved my Sony MDS-JE510. Non-linear editing without a computer was pure genius and I got pretty quick at spinning that little jog dial around to name tracks. To me, it was the perfect replacement for cassette in size, convenience and functionality. Sadly, compared to my 3-head cassette decks with Dolby S or dbx Type II, MD was getting smoked, badly, in terms of sonics. I had high hopes for HiMD (at least, 16/44.1 resolution); but, by the time it came out... ...well, you know...Interesting that you compare MD with cassette, and unfavourably. I have a Sony cassette recorder which gives outstanding results. It completely outclasses Walkmans (Walkmen?), boomboxes, and regular cassette decks.

I had thought that the top end MD decks might do as well, e.g the JB940 or the JB980. Sounds as though it doesn't, or at least not at the JE510 level. The JB980s are still holding high prices on eBay, but is that justified?

Re Sony blowing its foot/feet off - I'm not sure that it did. Some, perhaps most, businesses are about making money. If a firm loses part of its customer base it's not the end of the world if it can balance that with strong performance for others. Surely it did better with MD than Philips did with DCC. DAT never took off as a consumer medium/product, though i think emphasis shifted to professional markets.

Ideally a firm shouldn't annoy its customers, but if it only annoys a moderately small proportion, or gives mild irritation to many, heck, that's business. Did I mention Microsoft, which largely I loathe!

[synsei]

Interesting that you compare MD with cassette, and unfavourably. I have a Sony cassette recorder which gives outstanding results. It completely outclasses Walkmans (Walkmen?), boomboxes, and regular cassette decks.

I had thought that the top end MD decks might do as well, e.g the JB940 or the JB980. Sounds as though it doesn't, or at least not at the JE510 level. The JB980s are still holding high prices on eBay, but is that justified?

Re Sony blowing its foot/feet off - I'm not sure that it did. Some, perhaps most, businesses are about making money. If a firm loses part of its customer base it's not the end of the world if it can balance that with strong performance for others. Surely it did better with MD than Philips did with DCC. DAT never took off as a consumer medium/product, though i think emphasis shifted to professional markets.

Ideally a firm shouldn't annoy its customers, but if it only annoys a moderately small proportion, or gives mild irritation to many, heck, that's business. Did I mention Microsoft, which largely I loathe!

Lately I've been warming to Microsoft and Bill Gates in particular :eyebrows: Highly placed Microsoft execs have been hinting that XP could go open source at some point in the future and Bill Gates has been busy telling anyone who'll listen (mainly syndicated news channels) that rich people should be taxed more :stalks: Who'da thought Bill would get all shmulzy on us... :lol:

[Rare Bird]

I'd have thought originally selling CD's to the general public in a plastic case like MD's would have been a good idea instead of providing a jewel case, the CD's would have been well safe guard againt any damage. I don't mean packaging i mean as a whole, inserted into a machine in cartridge fashion like DVD-RAM.

[dave2010]

Nope. I still dislike Big Bill and the wretched firm which he set up and ran.

Maybe I would actually enjoy talking to him. Another person I might actually get on with is George W. Bush, though I disliked most of what he did. Doesn't mean that I don't think these guys have done some really bad things.

Right now though HP has risen to the top of my list - for the second time in a few years. My new HP printer (model B110a) keeps turning off. The last HP printer I installed a few years ago had a very similar problem, until eventually HP fixed the rubbish software, after which that one has worked fine since. They don't seem to learn from their mistakes though, and put the old faults back into new products.

Worse, today I tried to follow some of their advice to fix the problem. None of the suggestions worked, and aaaaaggggggghhhhh!!!!!! - the suggestion to reset the printers on my iMac has now wiped out all the other printers, some of which, not by HP were actually working OK :doh:

I expect days of anguish to follow while I try to get any of this stuff working again.

Miffed!

[synsei]

I'm sorry Dave but it is somewhat comforting for me to discover that our Mac using brethren have such days too... :eyebrows:

Coat at the ready... :door: :D

[dave2010]

I'm sorry Dave but it is somewhat comforting for me to discover that our Mac using brethren have such days too... :eyebrows:

Coat at the ready... :door: :DYep, we do, but not nearly so often!

The last time I tried to install and "fix" an HP printer I was running it wirelessly from a PC. I tried and tried and tried to get it to work, as did many others. Then, one day, I logged on and a message came down about an HP software update. To my surprise and delight the printer worked after that.

Would that MS could actually fix some of the well known problems with their software. Some have been around for at least 12 or more years.

The difficulty with Macs is that mostly they just work, so you have to either do "real" work, or find some other excuse not to. With PCs and MS software that's never a problem!