MiniDiscs: The Future Is Now!

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

So there I am about two weeks ago at my local Goodwill just browsing the electronics section when lo and behold what should I see but a MiniDisc player sitting on the shelf boxed in NEW (Opened, but all the cables were sealed and there was literally no wear on the unit.) condition for $20. Now those who know me will tell you that I love my old school (Vynil, Laserdisc) and quirky (DAT, SDAT, Metal Tape) formats but I've been wanting a MiniDisc player all my life since I was about nine years old. Long story short, a quick sprint to register and $20 later and I was finally the proud owner of a MiniDisc home deck.

Then in just the regular course of trading PM's with Lost_Within I found out that he had a nice portable MD player he hadn't used in years and was simply wanting to go to a good home. So now I'm also the proud owner of a portable MD player as well!

Anyhow, now I need some help from you guys here on RacketBoy, do any of you guys own or have previously had any any MD decks or portables and what are some good tips for handling, storage etc... that I should know?

Keep in mind that I am actively buying blanks, used blanks/recordables, full retail albums and I would just about kill to get a portable Hi-MD player (Uses 1GB MD's instead of the regular 345MB-350MB MD's) to have a lot of music on the go.

Here's a link to more info on MD's courtesy of Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc

EDIT!: I almost forgot to mention, BestBuy is currently has all of their MD 5 Packs on clearance for $3 a pop! Anybody mind seeing if their local store has any if they live nearby one? Unfortunately the site makes no mention of the format so the only way to know is by hunting them down inside of the stores themselves.

The MD's in question look like this when on the shelf:

MiniDisc 5-Pack.jpg (34.89 KiB) Viewed 1469 times

I found the only one pack out of all the BestBuy's in my area, but they were in the burnable media/camcorder media section.

[emwearz]

I had a Sony MD portable before I got a iPd, let me tell you this, while the discs look great and secure, dont leave loose ones in backpacks (I had it when I was in high school) i messed up a number of MD's from them just being knocked around in my bag.

[elvis]

I got myself a portable Sony MD player when I was in holidays in Japan back in late '99. The player was about 1/2 the cost it was back home, and the disks about 1/10th the price.

Brilliant stuff. Comes with an optical input/output on the device (on a portable!). I got a couple of Japanese albums while I was over there too (Towa Tei, First Century Modern on MD).

I rarely use it, but still love it.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

I had a Sony MD portable before I got a iPd, let me tell you this, while the discs look great and secure, dont leave loose ones in backpacks (I had it when I was in high school) i messed up a number of MD's from them just being knocked around in my bag.

Don't worry this is all going to get it's own MD binder or some sort of bag/box designed to store MD's and a player on the go as I am planning to use the heck out of it.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

I got myself a portable Sony MD player when I was in holidays in Japan back in late '99. The player was about 1/2 the cost it was back home, and the disks about 1/10th the price.

Brilliant stuff. Comes with an optical input/output on the device (on a portable!). I got a couple of Japanese albums while I was over there too (Towa Tei, First Century Modern on MD).

I rarely use it, but still love it.

This is exactly why I love the format, it was compact, durable and could either hold 80 minutes of CD quality audio or 350MB of Atracs or MP3's. If the marketing would have been better and the prices cheaper then it could have been massive in the US.

[Octopod]

You should get a CED player.

[xxstatic]

I have two of the portable players (Sony), they have been sitting on my shelf ever since the iPod revolution began lol.
They work great, sound great, and run off of AA's, and are just as reliable as my iPods if not more so, I have about 6 MDs but I'd be interested in picking up a few more on the cheap.

[BigTinz]

You should get a CED player.

HA!





I prefer my music and films on large, fragile, obsolete platters.

LD and Vinyl 4 life.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

I have two of the portable players (Sony), they have been sitting on my shelf ever since the iPod revolution began lol.
They work great, sound great, and run off of AA's, and are just as reliable as my iPods if not more so, I have about 6 MDs but I'd be interested in picking up a few more on the cheap.

If you're ever interested in getting rid of them for cheap then drop me a line, I'm currently MD crazy and am trying to find blanks or used recordable MD's like crazy.

[wakeup]

Wasn't MiniDisc finally popular and affordable in late 1990s/early 2000s? I remember people were deciding MD or MP3. If that was the matchup, there really is no question to go MP3, with their small player size and lack of discs to carry. If they were more affordable or popular in the cassette era, then no question there would have been a MD preferred media period of time. I remember seeing Minidisc players and they just looked so cool though, even today, minidiscs are cooler than regular CDs haha

Btw, just wondering, do Minidisc players skip like old CD players when say, running?I actually never had a CD player that didn't skip. But those things were just too big for convenience.