mp3 player vs Net MD

[blade2]

hey, thanks for all the replies! for just now, im just going to get a standard Minidisc player since i dont have the money to get a Net MD, if i had bothered to get a job then maybe id have enough money! does anyone have any comments on recording mp3's using a normal MD recorder?

 

[thorin]

Check

here and here

What model(s) are you looking at?

Thorin

 

[blade2]

thanks for those linkies Thorin. ive already ordered, should be coming a few days from today, maybe tomorrow if im lucky! its a Sharp; usually im a Sony man, in fact i always have been, but the cheapest Sony i could find was £115 whereas this one is £99 AND, very important, it has a rechargeable battery - its the... MT170S. ive tried looking for reviews of it on the Net but must of these MD sites are American and doesnt seem to have any reviews of it??

ive read reviews of the difference in sound quality between LP2 and LP4 but are there really any discernable differences to the normal ear??

 

[kendogg]

I wanna get my hands on an ipod sooooo friggin bad...

Only concerns I have as of now is price and shock resistance.

Does anyone know how well the ipod works while exercising? jogging.. etc.

 

[thorin]

Well at first I was doing everything in LP2 (which is ~160kbps) and it sounded ok on the headphones I was using so I thought I'd give LP4 a try. Again on the headphones it sounded ok, however when I started using the LP4 disc in my car (as I mentioned above ... with the soundfeeder) I noticed drop out in the top and bottom end frequencies. Also from what I've read LP4 is really meant for Voice recording (ie: books on tape .... or um well MD, lectures @ school etc....). So I guess you'll have to listen on a couple of different devices and see what you think but basically LP2 should sound exactly the same as most of your mp3 collection.

There's some info on the Sharp you're getting here (which you've probably seen), and also over here (which although it doesn't list your model does highly rate 6 other Sharp units).

Thorin

 

[Adrian Tung]

LP4 is generally bad for music, but it is great for times when you just want 5+ hours of music for a long journey.

Too bad you're not getting a unit with microphone input - Sharp models are great for recording purposes. Get a good T-microphone and you can make really great recordings. I've heard of people sneaking MDs into concerts to get very good recorded quality pieces, and sites such as The Sound Professionals sell "stealth" microphones for such purposes. >evil grin<


atwl

 

[RoninRXN]

If you have a minidisc question, I'd be the guy to ask. I've been using it since it's conception.

For one thing, I believe it's the best format available. You can't beat the media costs...and if you are recording off a actual CD...SP and LP2 modes are better quality than anything you'll get from a MP3.

That and they just look funky. lol. Check out www.t-station.net for the blank gallery and check out the cool designs.

They're also smaller than most MP3 players and have LCD remotes (which you'll seldom see on any MP3 player).

All in all...minidisc 0wnz j00.

 

[nmcglennon]

I got a Sony NetMD MZ-N505 (silver) for Christmas and its awesome. I do alot of mountain biking, and the thing never skips... even when I run off a 2 foot dropoff. I keep most of my music in either LP2 or LP4 quality depending on how much music I want on the disc. The battery (one AA) will last a really long time listening to music, and even longer depending on what you are doing. The MD price is cheap as dirt too. It is true however that the openMG program sucks, so I use Simple Burner with Nero's ImageDrive. MiniDiscs can also be burned in MD burners too, so you dont have to have the player to burn things. Amother cool feature, that most other players cannot do is the ability to record. To some people this may not be a big deal, but I use it alot to record class lectures and such in college. This helps out tremendously!! I have had 4 mp3 players so far, and let me tell you, this is the best I have had so far.

I used to have the Sony Network Walkman, and that thing was really cool for its size (size of a pack of gum!!), however its functionality was hampered my its Memory Stick cost. Only getting 128 MB of data for $100 is not a good deal, especially since I just dished out $250 for the player itself. Since there were no moving parts, the thing could not skip. The battery is a rechargable Sony battery, and came with a charger. Another downside is that it uses the OpenMG program which is buggy and over-complicated. This was a cool player, but it was too expensive to have many Memory Sticks full of songs. If sony really wants to push this they need to lowwer their cost of memory sticks. As a nice bonus however, the Memory Sticks can be used with all Sony products, VAIO, CLIE, Digital Cameras, etc... I just dont know if you'd ever use it.

I also had a Diamond RIO player too. This player offered only 64 MB of data, and switching media required a new 'backing device' that was bug, clunky, and couldnt be changed by itself. I didn't like this at all, but the price was cheap.

I also had an Iomega HipZip mp3 player. This was better then the RIO since it used small metal 'mini-zip' discs that could be changed quickly. The media was sort of expensive, and Iomega discontinued it, so I abandoned the player.

The last player I had (before my new one) was an Apple Ipod. This player was really good, but mine had some problems with the small harddrive, so I sold it to someone, and they got it fixed. I just didnt want to deal with it.

 

[PCMarine]

Those new Creative Zen's look nice (Much better than the iPod IMHO)

I would highly recommend any iRiver MP3 player (Check out their MP3 Players). They are cheap, and built with great quality. Not to mention I think all of their players have FM tuners.

 

[blade2]

i forgot all about this thread!!!!

ok i got a minidisc, Sharp 170. good minidisc, good price for £100, bog standard though! being bog standard (but it has a rechargeable flatpack battery aswell as earphones obviously) meant that it was without an inline remote control which ive been used to using before my tape player(s) broke. So i looked around on the net and found the same version of my minidisc basically (180) which for an extra £20 came with remote, aa case, carrying case and optical cable. Great deal i though until i realised that the website was talking fibs and the 180 doesnt come with a remote.
Then i noticed that the original website from which i bought the website had my minidisc player on Sale price for £20 which made me mad :disgust:
So i decided to return the Sharp (still to send it actually, Empiredirect.co.uk messed me around on the phones, not good service, was told that i havent bought anything from them, hopefully this return wont end up like the mobo i tried to return, £130 lost in post ).

Anyway i found the Panasonic SJ-MR220 at a good price (£130, £30 off at Curry's in anyone in UK is interested). Comes with a remote (sadly not the revised remote that is nicer with a backlit/LCD, my guess is you guys in the US get that only), AA case, rechargeable battery, earphones and a nice furry carrying bag. Features are a touchpad control thing which is very good requiring the lightest of touches and entering Track names takes a 1/4 of the time than with the Sharp MD due to the sliding pad that allows me to zip through characters. 2 lind LCD display on unit.
82hrs of LP4 playback with rechargeable and AA running together.It was also the lighest, thinnest MD as of July 2001 but i doubt now in 03 it still is (MD guru verify possibly please?).

anyway im very impressed with the quality compared to the Sharp, it does look and feel smaller/lighter. Has a much higher quality look and build to it. Its sound is impressive and i noticed that its recording level is higher (I.E the same sound signal from my Mobo's onboard sound (going to get an independant soundcard eventually) is recorded louder on the Panasonic than the Sharp, if you have a MD yo should know what im on about).

Cons: so far i havent picked any up apart from once finished editing the tracknames, the Panasonic takes longer to write the trackname data etc than compared to the Sharp

Anyway can anyone tell me if it really is worthwhile getting a decent paid of headphones/earphones compared to the ones that come with the MD, if there is a noticeable difference in sound quality and which type are better, in-earphones or clip on headphones???

edit: here's a link to my MD if you are interested

 

[FishTankX]

Generally speaking MD recorders are only 'The thinnest' by 1MM or so every year. They're not going to get that much thinner because of the circuit boards and the magnetic writing head.

As for that machine, it's a very nice machine. It's not NetMD, but it's good nonetheless. My friend has one.

 

[Joecheng]

I have had teh Sony MZ-N1 for almost a year now, its been awesome as far as quality and ease of use. The only con i can think of is the check in and out with Openmg, but considering LP4 capability on the MZ-N1 or MZ-N10 that just came out on minidico.com . . . you cannot beat the capacity of an MD as far as price goes.

 

[Adrian Tung]

Anyway can anyone tell me if it really is worthwhile getting a decent paid of headphones/earphones compared to the ones that come with the MD, if there is a noticeable difference in sound quality and which type are better, in-earphones or clip on headphones???

You will definitely hear an improvement over the stock headphones if you get a good one.

IMHO, I'd stay away from clip-on-the-ear headphones. To me, they get uncomfortable after some time. As for in-ears, I'd suggest either the Sony MDR-E888SP or MDR-EX70. You can check them out at either Minidisco or Planet MiniDisc.

Congrats on your purchase, BTW.


atwl

 

[thorin]

Anyone who has a NetMD should check this out ( M3U2SB ):

No more check-in/check-out easily automate Simple Burner with your MP3 collection and bypass CDDB for track naming>

http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/paolose/ ( straight download URL is: http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/paolose/M3U2SB_105.zip )

If you don't have Nero (CD Burning Software w/ Image Drive) you can use Daemon Tools, which can be found here:
http://www.d-tools.de/main.htm

-----Text From the Site-----
Now, we can start directly from mp3 files and bypass the playlist creation of Winamp.

How to:

1 - Select the Tab 'Add MP3 Files'
2 - Drag in the central Box the MP3 files (or M3U playlists). We can move a
MP3 file UP-DOWN in the playlist with the two red buttons (the arrows),
remove from the playlist (little button with the left blue arrow) and clear
all the list (little button with the trash bin).
3 - Press the Button 'Launch Nero' to launch Nero Burning Rom with the files
that we have in the playlist (Wait..).
4 - Burn the image file to the Image Recorder
5 - Close Nero and launch the Nero ImageDrive (or Daemon Tools)
6 - Mount the Image that you have created (4)
7 - Return to M3U2SBurner, the Tab 'Update Simple Burner' would have to be
automatically selected and the tracks visualized.
8 - Choice a Title for the CD (CD Title), set the Simple Burner Path (or
press the Browse... button to find the path).
9 - Press the button 'Launch Simple Burner'
10 - Record the files to NETMD

Thorin