Minidisc

Alan,

I think that Minidisc was more successful in Japan.  The trouble with MD was the file compression. Early versions of ATRAC were not so nice. Recordable CD did without the need for file compression, so as that technology matured, audiophiles preferred it, and as for everyone else who valued MD's portability, the arrival of the MP3 player (and iPod) probably did the rest to kill MD off.

Thanks for the reply Richard, I was just curious as to why MD was unsuccessful.

IIRC the singular problem and great disappointment was the anti-piracy feature where you couldn't readily record things and transfer elsewhere you could only copy to hard disk if you had originally copied from the hard disk to the minidisk. (At least on consumer portable minidisk recorders)

And now with millions of tracks available on streaming services with a click on your ipad, the superb recording and editing facilities that were MDs raison detre  are now redundant.

I recently saw large packs of unopened blank Minidiscs going for 10p a disc in a charity shop.

Times they have a changed.

I've always been fond of the minidisc format and still use mine frequently. I have the JB940 "UK Special Edition" in the rack, a Sony CMT-100MD mini in the bedroom, a couple of MZ-G750 portables, and a couple of hundred discs. I originally got into them to record my vinyl so I could listen on the move and I would also record concerts off the radio etc. Of course, the ipod/mp3 killed the format but that's no reason to throw away decent kit.

I have a Sony full size MD player in a bedroom system with NAIT5.

Hi DBS-AL, I think MP3 killed ATRAC, it just couldn't compete for sound quality per byte and was easier to do.. I was an ATRAC user in the 90s and dropped it pretty quickly when MP3 encoders came along in the late 90s. I still have some virgin mini disks in one of my storage cupboards waiting to be used...

I have 3 MD players. They were great until the iPod was introduced. So MD was killed by cheap CD writers and MP3 players.  That said.... I have my full sized Sony in my bedroom and have toyed with the idea of hooking it up to my main system.

I bought the very expensive top of the line portable primarily to record my violin practice sessions. I have 100+ MDs tracking my progress over several years. I'd quite enjoy letting my daughter listen to them. ��

Thanks for the replies chaps, interesting to read your comments on why MD was unsuccessful.

I just read the last of the players were sold in 2013. I would have thought they'd have gone many years before that, more like 15-20 years ago.