Site Last Edited Jan 19 th,  2009

Visitors to this web site...

 Welcome to the Home of the NEW Minidisc Collector Web Site

Dedicated to educating the public and keeping MiniDisc Technology ALIVE...

Site design and editing by Paul DeMara

(YES, I have kept this site very simple so you can load it fast and even look at it on a mobile phone to show your friends)

Welcome from Delta B.C. Canada

Delta is a suburb of Vancouver Canada -

Home of the 2010 Winter Olympics

My website URL's...

http://www.minidisccollector.com

other URL's that will bring you here...

http://www.oldminidisc.com

http://www.usedminidisc.com

http://www.minidisctrader.com

http://preownedminidisc.com

INTRODUCTION AND EDITORIAL...

by yours truly... Paul DeMara - Jan 7th, 2008

Why create another Minidisc site for a supposedly dead technology?

Read On... My 2 cents worth on Quality and Sound...

INTRODUCTION..

YES I KNOW IT'S AN IPOD / MP3 WORLD and yes I admit I have 2 of them, (4 gig nano and 80 gig classic) but hey some of the time it takes me 10+ mins to find what I want to listen to on my 12,000+ song IPOD and if I drop my hard drive based 80 gig IPOD I am pretty sure it's GAME OVER for the poor little hard drive in there.

NOT GOOD WHILE DRIVING...

I LOVE MiniDisc's because you just put them in and hit play and you are "GOOD TO GO". I also very much enjoy just grabbing a few disc's and heading out in my car with them. Definitely works well for those of us with the "keep it simple" mindset.

Technology Advantages of MiniDisc. (Speed, Price, Quality - Pick any 2)

A little known feature of MiniDisc's is that copies from from LP's SACD or DVD-A to MiniDisc can SOUND BETTER than the original CD of that same material. There are technical reason's for this, which I will post when I get more of my site setup. (hint, it has to do with the 20 bit engine used for the ATRAC3plus compression and that CD's only use a 16 bit format). Even though MiniDisc technology compresses the sound using psycho acoustic (lossy) compression MiniDisc's have the potential to give you a much warmer sound than a CD and defiantly better sound than  CD's compressed to 128 / 192 / 256 Kbs MP3's.

Read this article from a German Stereo Magazine to better understand this effect. (Again I will post a full technical explanation when I get time)

Extract from Article..

The 20 bit technique can of course only fully be utilized if the music to be recorded is also 20 bits in resolution. For digital copies, this would require the master tapes, which the usual Hi-Fi fan is not likely to have access to. But it is reasonable to believe that regular 16 bit CD copies also get a gain from the improved internal calculation accuracy.

http://www.minidisc.org/ja50es_review.html

NOTE: SACD and DVD-A as well as LP's have the additional resolution to feed a MiniDisc recorder with a better signal than a CD. (These technologies didn't exist when this article was written) The 16 bit 44,100 Hz sample rate for CD's is the biggest reason CD's don't sound warm. Raising the sampling rate to 20 bits gives you over 1 million levels vs. 16 bit with it's 65,535 levels. 16 bits is just not enough to give you the levels needed to produce that warm smooth sound that you get from a SACD or DVD-A or LP. With a high quality source, copies to MiniDisc from these sources can yield better sound than the CD version of this same music even though the sound is compressed.

So why keep using MiniDisc's when IPOD's and Flash Memory Players look like the future...

Simply put QUALITY SOUND but only if you copy from a better source than a CD. e.g. LP's / SACD / DVD-Audio disc's. If you copy a CD to MiniDisc it won't sound any better than the CD.

It can't, as you are losing something from going from CD to Minidisc. The thing is, that small amount of loss is not a problem when you go from SACD / DVD-Audio or LP's because even though you loose a tiny bit you don't loose it all and it still sounds better than a CD of the same material.

Don't believe me..  try it for your self. Get a SACD or DVD-Audio disk and record it to a MiniDisc and listen to the MiniDisc copy and the original CD. Bet you will like the sound of the Minidisc copy of the SACD / DVD-Audio / LP better. Amazing that the MiniDisc copy can sound warmer and smoother than the original CD. (Remember you need latest generation high quality MiniDisc equipment for this to work)

Depending on the MiniDisc equipment etc., you should notice that the MiniDisc copy sounds warmer and smoother then the original CD.

Why does this happen? Well simply put better source = better copy.

Think of it this way. If you copy a VHS movie to a DVD the copy will not be any better than the original VHS movie. Basically not very good at all.

If however, you copy a HD DVD to a regular DVD it would look amazing and beat the daylights our of the VHS to DVD copy.

So if you copy your favorite LPs / SACD's or DVD-Audio disc's to MiniDisc and use the high ATRAC3+ bit rate settings or the original SP setting, and you have decent quality equipment with the latest generation of ATRAC coder, chances are your copy will sound smoother and warmer than the CD of the same material. There is another situation where you see this and it's called DTS. DTS also uses compression but in many cases the sound tracks for movies sound smoother than the the CD version. Again, the DTS codec uses a 20 bit engine.

Who cares you say. MP3's are convenient and pretty much no cost if you download from the net. (not suggesting you should, but people do.) Well they certainly are. But think about this. VHS was convenient too but we sure moved over to DVD mega fast, why...

Quality picture and sound that's why.

Personally, I think that at some point down the road the IPOD generation is going to notice that MP3's don't quite sound the same as a live concert or a really good vinyl / SACD / or DVD-Audio recording. Maybe they won't care, maybe they will.

I have a hunch they will if they are shown the difference. Problem is no one is showing them then difference so we are not likely to see a change in the IPOD trend.

The biggest challenge is EDUCATION... NO one knows what it can sound like, so they don't miss it...

Probably too late to do anything about it now as it would take millions of marketing dollars for SONY and others to re-educate the public about GOOD SOUND. SACD and DVD-A have been around for a while and really haven't taken off. Every one wants high def TV but no one seems to get the quality sound thing. Funny, I guess people only care about what they can see.

Well I guess I can dream that the public will wake up and smell the coffee, but as an audiophile who loves the sound of warm smooth music, I will continue to be a big fan of MiniDisc technology because of how convenient it is and how good it sounds.

Yes quality audio matters most to me...

Given the choice between 12000+ songs on one device or quality sound I will take the quality sound and the extra room it takes to bring a few MiniDisc's with me in my car plus if I drop my MiniDisc player chances are it will take a lick'n and keep on tick'n as the old Timex commercial used to say.

NEXT UP - MY TOP 10 Reasons why I prefer MiniDisc technology...

Here's why I still use MiniDisc's... (Paul D's TOP 10 reason's for using MiniDisc's)

Drum Roll...

    1. HIGH QUALITY SOUND, Copies from SACD / DVD-A and  VINYL ALBUMS simply sound BETTER to me than the original CD even using ATRAC3plus compression. (will post a full technical explanation as to why CD's aren't as warm sounding as a MiniDisc's copied from SACD / DVD-Audio / LP's soon.)

    2. CONVENIENCE - grab a few disc's and go. (yes I know you can load ALL your music on an IPOD,) but what I have noticed is that it would take you a LIFETIME to listen to all 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 or 40,000 songs you have on your IPOD and the more songs you put on it the less likely you are to do anything but use your pre-made play list... And if you loose your IPOD... well, see my next point...

    3. ARCHIVING - With a hard drive or flash based device you have all your songs in one place. (well most likely 2 places if you have them on your computer hard drive). With MiniDisc's you have all your music on separate disc's and so if you loose one or two disc's, you haven't lost ALL your music. By the way ALL hard drives fail after a period of time so if you think having a backup of your music on your PC is going to save you, IT WON'T. This is a scary thing because I notice that most of my friends DON'T backup their files on a regular basis. They call me to rescue them from the abyss of "no file found" on their hard drive. Every single one of my friends who has asked for help, has said, please recover my music files and pictures. Sometimes I can, but many times I can't. I myself use a 1 terabyte RAID-1 array for the main files and then have a 1 terabyte external drive array that is physically disconnected from my main file server PC unless being used to backup the main files. Why 3 mirrored copies, because I have a lot of digital files that I DON'T want to loose. Cost me a fair bit of money to set this up but I have a good strategy that I know will keep my files alive. By the way, my next step is to backup all my really important files to 1 gig HI-MD MiniDisc's because they have a MUCH LONGER life expectancy than any hard drive or CD / DVD ROM. But I degres...

TRIVIA OF THE DAY... Did you know that the US military uses the same basic magneto-optical technology in MiniDisc's for the data recorders on their fighter jets. Why. because it WORKS and it's VERY reliable.

    4. FULLY EDITABLE DISK's - this is probably the least understood feature of MiniDisc technology, but you can add, delete, move, cut, join, and re-label MiniDisc's up to 1,000,000 million times. NICE...

    5. SHARE DISC'S WITH YOUR FRIENDS - Make a disc, and share it with your friends. With the new SONY MZ-NH1 player you can even copy music to and from your PC allowing you to make MiniDisc copies. (Sony should have fixed this years ago but finally did with the new MZ-NH1 which you can still buy new online for a little over $330.00) Better late than never...

    6. PROTECTIVE SHELL - All MiniDisc's are protected by a plastic shell which stops dust, fingerprints and scratches from hurting your precious music and data. This again is a huge benefit and helps account for the long life expectancy of Minidisc media.

    7. Hi-MD TECHNOLOGY - Hi-MD technology is the next step for MiniDisc's and brings the usable storage space up to 1 gigabyte allowing you to record more music on one disc as well as using the disc as a storage medium for ANY type of files. This makes using MiniDisc's practical for storing ALL your precious data on low cost media that is well protected with it's plastic shell case.

    8. NATIVE MP3 PLAYBACK - With the latest generation of HI-MD players from Sony you can now playback regular MP3 files. I am not a big fan of MP3 files due to quality issues but the world has spoken and Sony listened and added support for native MP3 Playback on the newest HI-MD portable units. (Sony should have added support for AAC (Itunes files) and WMA - windows media files if they really wanted to make a compatible device) Having native MP3 support does allow you to quickly copy those MP3's onto a 1 gig MiniDisc. Very nice. Again, I am NOT a fan of MP3's due to quality issues but at least you are good to go for MP3's with latest generation of HI-MD decks from SONY. The Sony MZ-DH10P will even show you the Album art. NICE... (I own one of these and absolutely LOVE it)

http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-DH10P.html

    9. 16 bit 44,100 PCM RECORDING CAPABILITY - Sony has added support for CD Audio quality recording and playback on the latest HI-MD recorders. This gives you that capability to have 1.4 hours of uncompressed PCM CD quality recording on your little HI-MD MiniDisc unit. Again ATRAC3+ at high bit rates can yield even better sound in my opinion because it uses a 20 bit engine even though it compresses the sound. Good thing is you have a choice of now being able to record with CD quality and not having to convert it if you want to make a regular CD.

    10. LOW COST STORAGE - Minidisc players and recorders are very inexpensive these days. You can buy a good quality portable recorder / player on EBAY for well under $100.00. (HI-MD models with cost you  $200 to $300) Many of the top end Sony units are made from Magnesium alloy and are built tough unlike the plastic stuff that is being thrown at the market place with flash based players. Most of the Sony gear is built to take it for the long run and unlike IPOD's, ALL MiniDisc units have easy access replaceable batteries which are dirt cheap on EBAY. NICE. When your IPOD battery dies in 2 years and you find out it's going to cost you 75.00 to 100.00 because it's a non serviceable part don't say I didn't warn you.

My oldest MiniDisc deck is from 1993 (MZ1) and it still works perfectly with it's new batteries installed. In fact it looks like the day it was made. The MZ1 was made to last unlike a lot of the cheap consumer electronics of today.

So that's the top 10 but there are a lot more.

MINIDISC COLLECTION...

For all the above reasons and more, I am personally collecting SONY Minidisc equipment because I think it's the best there is out there for convenience and quality portable music playback.

IPOD / ITUNES COUNTER POINT...

My final point is about the the success of the IPOD and the APPLE  ITUNES STORE which when paired together have become the most successful portable music device and download store of all time. Good for you APPLE.

By the way, looking into my crystal ball,  I see a class action lawsuit brewing one day when people figure out that APPLE is making IPOD's with NON replaceable batteries and that all those DRM protected song's the public bought on ITUNES will ONLY play on an IPOD. Apple's goal is to sell you a new IPOD, 2 years from now... weather you like it or not... 

That's what business is about, but I think some folks are going to get mighty upset when the realize they have been led down the garden path.  The choice should be to buy a new IPOD because you want new features, not because the non replaceable internal battery has died. (to be fair you can replace the internal battery but you have break open your IPOD to do it...not really user friendly from a company that touts itself as user friendly....)

SAY WHAT- NO REPLACEABLE BATTERY... guess they forgot to mention that to you when you bought your nice shinny new IPOD. I know the sales person didn't mention it to me when I bought mine.... LOL...

But seriously MiniDisc technology is in it's sunset years. There are people like me who believe it is still very viable and hence will keep it alive for years to come. MP3's and downloadable music are the future because of cost and connivance,  As well, there are lots of great players out there if you don't mind sacrificing a bit of audio quality. Nothing I can say or do on this web site or in person will change that trend.

Not that you can't download music and put it on your Minidisc player. It's just not as quick as a hard drive based unit, but then I can drop my MiniDisc player and not have the hard drive blow up and loose all my music. Food for thought... Guess why Apple wants you to buy a Nano with it's flash memory. Lot's of IPOD mini's and classic IPOD's went bye bye the first time people dropped them. Guess what, the old IPOD mini and the IPOD classic have a HARD drive mounted in it. They are not meant to be dropped and at best have a life expectancy of maybe 3-5 years due to battery issues and hard drive failure issues...

Next time you are at your favorite electronics store look for a hard drive in a box and read the package. If possible, open the package and notice how much foam is used to ensure the drive doesn't get damaged.

Again, I personally don't want to jump to a lower quality MP3 / AAC sound even though it's a bit more convenient,  so I will continue to support and use MiniDisc's for some time to come. If I want to change my battery I can. I really love that feature and hence, always have a battery at home, charged and ready to go. If I drop my MiniDisc player, likely the worst that will happen is that I will have put a big dent in the side of the player.

When I want to listen to an album I bring it with me and press play. No fuss no muss and no 10 minutes scrolling though 12,000+ songs to find the one I want. Yes I don't have my whole music collection with me, but then I couldn't listen to it all anyway.

At home I listen to MiniDisc's io one of my 2 Sony ES decks which feed into a pulse width modulation digital amp and reference paradigm speakers. Truly amazing warm and smooth sound.

That would be my 2 cents worth for today on Minidisc technology..

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Cheers,

Paul DeMara.

pdemara@dccnet.com

www.minidisccollector.com

MORE MINIDISC STUFF...

Some of my all time favorite Minidisc players

My Newest Pride and Joy the Sony "MZ-DH10P" (arrived Christmas Eve 2007.. NICE!!!!)

My new unit is in MINT Condition....

Wow this is the most AMAZING MiniDisc player ever made.

Only MiniDisc player that displays Album art and has a color LCD display...

OOOOO AHHHHH

And the bonus is that it's a 1.3 Mega Pixal auto focus with real macro capability  VERY COOL...

Even plays back unconverted MP3 files (you know my thoughts on this) and has a nice little charging stand.

It's also made to last as it's all made out of metal and has an easy access Li-ion battery.

As well it uses a "pulse width modulation digital amp" for exception sound quality.

TRULY THE MOST AMAZING MINIDISC UNIT EVER BUILT...

(below is an actual picture of my MZ-DH10P on my desk)

YES I am a bit time amateur photographer too.

(and oh ya, I am a little in love with it.. even has a jog song navigation dial and center button just like an IPOD)

Will post some pictures from it when I get a few mins. VERY good quality camera.

Hey it's a Sony, would you expect anything less.