Not quite an egg / not quite a box ? ?

[Lasonic TRC-920]

What do you guys make of these?


KENWOOD MDX-F3

Radio / Cassette / CD / Mini Disc Player

I saw allot of mini disc egg's in Japan, never owned any mini disc players....Anyone familiar with these?

 

[monchito]

not bad not bad a take to the beach box

 

[Jboogie2384]

Had a home version MD player and I had one in my car. It really bugged me out that it didn't catch on. They record like a cassette with the quality of a CD. You could name tracks and even put them in any order on the disk. Wish they caught on because I spent $600 on the car receiver version of it. Oh well I guess.

 

[redbenjoe]

WHY ??

do you think they did not catch on

 

[MasterBlaster84]

WHY ??

do you think they did not catch on

Proprietary encoding (ATRAC) would be one good reason, on most MiniDisc machines you didn't even have the option for other formats. At least Apple gave the ipod the ability to play MP3's, Sony should have done the same .

 

[Gluecifer]

I was a big fan of the MD format too. Was definitely the next-incarnation of cassettes. Used to love making mix MDs, and the portables were sooo tiny. And they all recorded. Really lovely tech. Sharp's MT-77 was the pinnacle of the portables to my experience. But all the Sony models rocked damned hard.

Always wanted to emularte BREDGEO's MD mod in a blaster, it's a format that works exceptionally well portably.

Don't know about that Kenwood though. Not of a fan of the frozen-spooge looking panels.



Rock On.

 

[Boom Shaka Laka]

A Kenwood MD unit a lot like it just sold (BIN) on eBay. I like these boxes a lot... brought a couple home from my trips to Japan. Not as boomy as the Big Guys, and most don't take batteries, but good looking units with lots of controls and decent sound. Nice for nightstands. Long live the Mini Disc!

Kenwood MDX-02

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

I did see some MD radios in Japan too and they looked like portables, but did not take batteries......?WTF?

I remember when the MD came out, it seemed really cool, the walkmans were tiny, but then just a few years later MP3s came out and that was the end of them.

 

[bill]

Md did catch on in a big way in japan. I think that the technology also evolved to include more options for formats along the way. Md was pretty amazing .I dont see any reason to not use it if you have the deck in your car already. You can still get disks for them and the net md players make fairly fast work of coming up with a playlist.

 

[monchito]

Had a home version MD player and I had one in my car. It really bugged me out that it didn't catch on. They record like a cassette with the quality of a CD. You could name tracks and even put them in any order on the disk. Wish they caught on because I spent $600 on the car receiver version of it. Oh well I guess.

i still have md ,,i have a home cd and md recorder from sony and the hi md walkman

 

[shane higgins]

Anyone have any mini disc players for sale

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

they're all over yahoo.jp

 

[JustCruisin]

When I first got my Sharp GF-9000 back in 2004, I bought a SONY Minidisc player @ Radio Shack and hooked it up through a cassette tape adapter... They also had MP3 players on the shelf, but I choose the MD.. I liked it! Velcro'd it to the top of my box and took my tunes everywhere! (sorry no pics)

I agree with Gluecifer, those cloth grilles on the Kenwood are weird!

 

[Reli]

Um, THAT is a Kenwood? Wow, how the mighty have fallen....

 

[tshorba]

Proprietary encoding (ATRAC) would be one good reason, on most MiniDisc machines you didn't even have the option for other formats. At least Apple gave the ipod the ability to play MP3's, Sony should have done the same .

I have to disagree here, the problem was the interfaces (itunes vs sonic stage) & fixed storage vs removable media. Mini disc started to really suffer when the 20/30gig classic iPods came out because nobody wanted to purchase multiple discs anymore, even know it was a better more flexible format. The cost of new recordable media types are high for the first couple of years due to having a royalty fee attached, when High-MD was released it was around $25AUD per disc compared to a spindle of CD-R for the same price, this turned some average consumers away.

Sonic stage the check in check out on Net-MD players caused some issues. The recordists out there know that you should have been able to transfer any of your own recordings back through the PC but sonic stage didn't allow this. I recorded a number of live gigs and had no real way to export them without doing a real time transfer to another device. Sonic stage was also full of DRM crap
The user interface and indexing of sonic stage was not as good or intuitive as itunes.

Sony being Sony and selling the technology then releasing new players with updated version over their competitors (Net MD & LP as examples) Sony also suffers on new formats because consumers are scared that if it doesn't work out for Sony they will totally abandon it and leave them end buyer high and dry

Lack of prerecorded material in some markets. In Oz we didn't have access to prerecorded discs and this did have a small impact, not much but some.

Fashion, iPod was the must have fashion accessory at the time (think beats now) and as such all other players suffered sales losses.

There was some areas of the market that the MD really took off in, think of journalists and live music fans, no other device (except cassette in all forms) offered what MD could in these areas.

This is what I noted when MD stopped selling, at the time I was in sales at one of Australia's biggest AVIT retailers

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

Sony also suffers on new formats because consumers are scared that if it doesn't work out for Sony they will totally abandon it and leave them end buyer high and dry

It's sad to say, but this is one of the reasons I didn't walk down this path. I wanted to see if it would stick and since Sony were the only game in town, I shied away. If Sony came out with it, followed by others, I would have jumped on it, but in the first year....only a few Sony devices were using it.

I did end up with a small MD recorder, player that I recorded sounds that ended up on my bands 2008 release "Path Of Totality" and the sound quality is un matched, but again, you can't digitally transfer the media from device to computer. The only way, as tshorba said it to plug a line out of the headphone a play it real time into another recorder, in this case I recorded onto my computer. But your still going digital to analog to digital. Total Crap

Here is a question, MP3's are a compressed version of the song and in my opinion SUCK, what was Sony's compression like? Better, Worse?

 

[ClaretBadger]

WHY ??

do you think they did not catch on

Proprietary encoding (ATRAC) would be one good reason, on most MiniDisc machines you didn't even have the option for other formats. At least Apple gave the ipod the ability to play MP3's, Sony should have done the same .

WRONG WRONG WRONG - in so much the later machines addressed this (Hi MD)

Later machines could play mp3's and better than that record PCM lossless files
also you could drag and drop on them - using them as data disks

one negative about them - no OPTICAL out - only optical in
other than that - the TOTL recorders are great practical field recorders

Minidisc is a classic Sony mis marketing example

I totally neglected them at the time
now I love it

Check the prices of used RH1's to see i'm not alone in my love

In Japan and Europe this format was big

 

[MasterBlaster84]

Sonic stage the check in check out on Net-MD players caused some issues. The recordists out there know that you should have been able to transfer any of your own recordings back through the PC but sonic stage didn't allow this. I recorded a number of live gigs and had no real way to export them without doing a real time transfer to another device. Sonic stage was also full of DRM crap
The user interface and indexing of sonic stage was not as good or intuitive as itunes.

Disagree? Actually you just validated my point, the sonic stage was the proprietary software making the proprietary files that you couldn't share on with any other device except Mini-Disc's.

I don't hate them though, I have some players and mess around with them now and then.

 

[Sazeus]

On another note, did Kenwood have any sweet old school boxes? I don't think I've come across any as yet but feel like they should have.

 

[Master Z]

EGG.