Review rated by 12 Ciao members on average: very helpful
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I bought myself a minidiscrecorder two summers ago and have been using it ever since. It is a Sony, portable recorder, which, for £180 I think is the best buy I have ever had.
If the price seems steep to you, don't worry, because now prices have gone down, and you can buy a minidisc recorder for about £90-£110. They normally come with an adaptor, headphones, a carry case, and an optical cord and a hand full of minidsics.
As I had a recorder and did not have a hi-fi of any kind, I bought some Sony speakers to go with it. These cost £40 and are really good value. They produce a very clean, crisp sound and are surprisingly loud for their size.
The basics of minidiscing:
Firstly, you never, ever buy pre-recorded minidsics, they are non recordable, only hold 12 tracks (or how many are on the album) and are very expensive - normally about £2 - £3 more expensive than newly released CD's
Secondly, before you buy a mindisc you will want friends with lots of CD's that you like.
Thirdly, you should buy minidiscs in packs of ten or fifteen for £10 -£15 respectively. Never buy minidiscs separately as they are just the same as the ones in the packages and are normally 75p more expensive.
Fourthly, to record a minidisc you will want access to a fairly new Hi-Fi, most new Hi-Fi's have an Optical Line out socket. The Optical cord records with a quality that is better than that of the CD it is called digital recording (something about the sound wave distortions), and records better than an analog cord (analogs have red and white cables one end and just one on the other) the single end goes into your minidisc and the other two into the back of the Hi-Fi. The best ting about the optical cord is that, whilst it records the CD onto the minidisc it makes the tracks on the disc for you i.e. it records only information, so you can synchronize the recording so that it records perfectly at the start and creates the tracks. Also with the optical cord, if you leave it recording on a CD where there is a secret track, it won’t record the nothingness before the last track and will have the secret track as the last one on the minidisc, as if it was the 13th track on the album.
This doesn't happen with the analog recording, as it records whatever is audible at the time of recording, and not the digital information of the CD.
Once you have recorded a CD you can then name the tracks on the minidisc and shuffle them around into the order that you want. You can also edit the tracks. If you want to you can cut off parts to songs or erase the songs completely, and if you get fed up with the album you can erase it completely and have a blank minidisc again.
The only disadvantage I can think of is that someone can come along and flick the protected switch on the bottom of the minidisc and then erase the whole thing, but that has never happened to me.
Also you can listen to your music when you're out walking or jogging or whatever because minidiscs have a massive shock protection system, which is a lot better than portable CD players. Minidiscs are also small and light, so a lot easier to carry. And you don't have to worry about the health of the individual minidiscs as they can't be damaged from scratching, dust or falls (unless the fall is out of the 78th storey of a block of flats).
Great review - thanks for explaining the optical recording bit. Everyone has ben saying "small / brilliant" etc but no one has really outlined how it works. Need to work out how I can download from my PC!
Again thanks!
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19.07.2006 17:39
Good review (-: .............................Darko
29.11.2001 10:57
Great review - thanks for explaining the optical recording bit. Everyone has ben saying "small / brilliant" etc but no one has really outlined how it works. Need to work out how I can download from my PC! Again thanks!
01.10.2001 13:41
Genius Review!! Keep up the good work! See Ya!! Craig!! };o)