PORTABLE MP3 PLAYERS : There's always other issues brought up in this discussion as well...Cost: The Rio costs considerably less than any MD recorder, however youmentioned 2 higher cost models so it's less of an issue. However blankMD's are MUCH cheaper than extra flash RAM cards.Size: MP3 players are generally smaller than MD recorders but not bymuch. In the future it may be more of an issue though since MD is aboutas small as it can get while MP3 being relatively new has much room forimprovement.Skipping: MP3 will never skip, period. MD does have the possibility ofskipping, but it still isn't much of an issue. You can't compare MD toCD at all in terms of skipping. Since MD was developed as a portableformat it was designed to withstand lots of motion. In the 3 months ofowning my Sharp MD-MT821 MD recorder I have yet to hear it skip. Oldermodels were supposedly more prone to skipping than the newer ones.Versatility: MD clearly wins by allowing you to record from any analogor digital source. MD also has an option for mono recording (good forvoice recording) that doubles the space on the disc. You can get 148minutes of mono audio on one 74 minute MD. MP3 players generally onlydownload their songs from computers (some new models have a built in micfor live recording, but the quality usually isn't great). PORTABLE MP3 PLAYERS : Future: MP3 and solid state audio are said to be "the future of audio"And this is pretty much true. However huge advancements must take placebefore it can compete with MD feature wise, and cost wise (Flash RAM isexpensive!!) But I think it's safe to say that MD will be more practicalthan MP3 players for at least another 5 years or so.I'm sure there's other issues i'm forgetting, but this covers most ofthe major ones. Some people love minidisc, others love MP3. It justdepends on what's important to you. If I could make one more suggestionthough... I noticed you're considering the Sony MZ-R55 Minidiscrecorder. The R55 has earned a pretty bad reputation among minidiscusers on the internet. It was rushed to the market by Sony to be thesmallest MD recorder in the world. It's no longer the smallest, anddefinitely not the best. It offers only 4 hours playback, and 3 hoursrecording time from it's rechargable battery and has lots of strangeproblems on some units that seem to appaear after a month or 2. (batterywon't charge, discs get erased for apparently no reason, unit won't turnoff, etc.) Personally I would reccomend the Sharp MD-MT821. It has abattery life of 11.5 hours for playback and 8 hours for recording, it'sonly slightly larger than the R55, and the sound quality is basicallythe same on both units. Sharp also has a new unit coming out (MD-MT831)which is even smaller than the R55 and has a lot of new features too.However as of now it's only available in Japan, and probably won't getreleased in the US until early next year. Sony is supposed to have a newmodel coming out soon too, but I haven't seen any info on it yet.Hopefully they'll do better with this one than they did with the R55.Panasonic, Aiwa, JVC, and Kenwood also have some good models available.The older Sony models have received a lot of good feedback too. PORTABLE MP3 PLAYERS : I've been reading about all these various MP3 players, and I'm wonderingwhat people think is the best overall portable MP3 player.* Rio PMP500 - USB interface, 64MB RAM + SmartMedia slot* Lyra - CompactFlash Type 2 slot (128MB Flash, 340MB Microdrive)* Nomad - FM radio & dictaphone (whoo-hoo!)If my next purchase isn't a 64MB SmartMedia card, it will probably be a Lyraand a MicroDrive. (BTW: The 340MB MicroDrive is US$499)Overall Rio wins (support, interface, polish, style), but on raw storage forthe size of the unit (ignoring even cost) the Lyra wins hands down.Why not just use a mini disc player and plug into into your output/speakerport and record that way..can't see why it wouldn't work??... the sound would still be fairly goodquality...in theoryAtleast that's what I'm gonna do when I get together enough $money$Ooo, goody. An MP3 v's MiniDisc debate, we haven't had one for so long. PORTABLE MP3 PLAYERS : [Dons asbestos jacket while finds previous posts on the subject...]* To record music to a MiniDisc, it takes the amount of time the music runsfor. Thus, to record 70mins of MP3s to a Minidisc, it would take you70mins. Your player would have to play the music, skip free, for the entireduration.* Uploading 90mins of MP3s to my Rio takes about 10-15 minutes. (I think.It's certainly less than 90 mins.) When the USB Rio comes out, it will onlytake a couple of minutes.* MP3s are compressed using a lossy routine. So are MiniDiscs. Byrecording an MP3 onto a MiniDisc, you are decompressing and re-compressing.You lose too much quality.* While MiniDiscs can be used independant of a computer for all normalaspects, just like audio tapes, once you add MP3s into the mix you're tyingit to a computer just as much as an MP3 player, except that it's much harderto maintain a MiniDisc library on your PC.In summary, MDs are great if you never want anything to do with MP3s.Mixing MDs and MP3s results in a lot of duplicated work and even some lossin quality. Anyone that's specifically (or even primarily) buying aMiniDisc player to play MP3s is headed in the wrong direction. PORTABLE MP3 PLAYERS : Have a look at for some info aboutthe range of portable MP3 devices on the horizon, including aCD-discman-type thing that can play MP3 CDs.well the reason i'd use one is that it is much cheaper in the long run, just buy a load of blank md's at £2 ish for 80min's each. how much would it cost for a compactflash cart for the same amount of time/space (assuming mp3's are encoded at 256kbps)?The best overall MP3 Player is a minidisc recorder. Other thanthe fact that the recording has to be in real time, instead ofvia file transfer from the CPU to the portable MP3 player, a minidiscbeats a portable MP3 player in every other criteria. For example hereare a few differences:Capacity:MP3 player: Capacity is currently 64mbs (Nomad and Rio 500), to use moreyou need to buy a memory card at about $30-100 each,currently the cards have at most 32 extra mbs of memory. The memory ofyou average MP3 player (64mbs) is enough to hold at most 13 5 minutesongs, every time you are tired of these songs, you have to erase themall and re-record again (or use your 32mbs memory card).
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