Minidisc Appreciation thread

[Cricketbat70]

Didn't Sony shoot themselves in the foot by making the licensing too expensive so virtually no one adopted it?

That wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Cricketbat70]

That doesn't seem crazy. I reckon you could be spot on.
I read that ATRAC was suposed to be less detrimental than mp3.
Who's to say the effect must necessarily be negative? - it might be affecting in a way that people prefer.

When I was first on the forums years ago I started a thread about my ATRAC based Sony PMP compared to the MP3 based Sony PMP . Because my ATRAC was only 1gb capacity I put everything on in 48kb my MP3 was 16gb so I put stuff on in 128kb OK both very compressed formats but I said even at such a high compression rate ATRAC sounded better than MP3. As you can probably guess I was told I was wrong in the forums "it's not about volume" was one reply. I didn't respond but I thought where in my post did I mention volume?

 

[Cricketbat70]

Hi, new to the forum,just picked up five md players from a mates attic for free....

now, i know that solid state is smaller, more capacity, cheaper......

but i care not, because for DECADES, i wanted a Sony MZ-R35.. now i DO...

and i agree with the posts on here, RECORDED ONTO md, THE QUALITY STILL knocks spots off Spotify, Tidal etc...

(oh, to the user who asked "How do Spotify play they music they dont own..... its like radio.. they license and pay for airplay..... fairly simple)

I always regretted not buying a minidisc recorder back in the day. After a recommendation from a bloke I follow on Instagram "I love minidisc"- who has been using the format since its launch and bought hundreds of boxes of minidiscs and still records a minidisc a day - I bought a Tascam MD350 a couple of months ago from eBay, I love it. The only problem now, the prices some sellers charge on eBay for used discs.

 

[davidf]

Seem to recall there were quite few MiniDisc players/recorders from other manufacturers on the market - Kenwood, Yamaha, Technics, Panasonic, Sharp (portable), Denon, Pioneer, Teac, Aiwa, and a few others I will have forgotten about. Most of them were about the same price as Sony’s, although not all of them had entry level players.

 

[Dom]

Don't Minidisk compress the audio, don't they use propriety compression algorithm ( ATRAC ) format to store the music? Isn't an inferior storage medium to CD.

 

[Messiah]

I used to have a portable MiniDisc player (Sony). I cannot remember the model or too much about it but what I do remember is the software to add tracks to it was so bad I just could not be doing with the hassle and got rid of it.

However, a few years ago I did get a Sony MDS-JE510:

 

[Deleted member 201267]

Don't Minidisk compress the audio, don't they use propriety compression algorithm ( ATRAC ) format to store the music? Isn't an inferior storage medium to CD.

My Sony 930 Minidisc deck sounded, subjectively, slightly better than the Sony 930 CD player when both playing into the matching Sony 930 amp.

 

[Dom]

My Sony 930 Minidisc deck sounded, subjectively, slightly better than the Sony 930 CD player when both playing into the matching Sony 930 amp.

They can sound better than CD and they are robust, I can't argue with that. Enjoy

 

[davidf]

Don't Minidisk compress the audio, don't they use propriety compression algorithm ( ATRAC ) format to store the music? Isn't an inferior storage medium to CD.

Discards about 90% of the signal.

 

[matthewpianist]

I used MiniDisc to record student performances for GCSE Music years ago, and found it to be very helpful in compiling the recordings for submission to the exam board. Recording straight to computer is much better these days, but MD was very useful at the time.

 

[daveh75]

"What is the bit rate of the Minidisc's ATRAC audio after compression?

For a stereo signal it's 292162.5 bits/sec. ATRAC compresses 512 incoming 16 bit samples (1024 bytes) into one ATRAC ``sound group'' (212 bytes) giving an audio compression ratio of 4.83:1. Here is the math:
44100 samples/sec (incoming single channel rate)
/ 512 samples/soundgroup (giving 86.133 soundgroups/sec/channel)
* 2 channels (giving 172.266 stereo soundgroups/sec)
* 212 bytes/soundgroup (giving 36.5K stereo bytes/sec)
* 8 bits/byte (giving stereo bits/sec)
= 292162.5 bits/sec."

"How does ATRAC compare with MPEG compression? At what bitrate would an MPEG file be equivalent to a song compressed with ATRAC?

ATRAC is 292kbit/sec, giving ``CD like'' audio fidelity. MPEG Layer 1 (i.e. PASC) gives transparent CD fidelity audio at 384kbit/sec, Layer 2 (i.e. Musicam) and Layer 3 give ``CD like'' fidelity at 224kbit/sec and 128kbit/s respectively"

Minidisc FAQ: Audio Topics

In other words, under blind/abx conditions it would be unlikely you'd "hear" a difference between MD and CD 😉

 

[davidf]

In other words, under blind/abx conditions it would be unlikely you'd "hear" a difference between MD and CD 😉

I’ll take that challenge.