Everything

None that I can find

George submits his review TWICE, and complains that other owners of the MD format think he is full of beans.

What am I going to record old, no-longer-available vinyl records onto? How am I going to take pop music discs which may have only two or three cuts that I'm interested in and combine them into a program that I want to listen to with some regularity? Cassette? Open reel tape? More, how am I going to make faithful copies of them in the future?

The answer to this is MiniDisc or, possibly, CD-RW. I got my MiniDisc decks before CDRW was out and was worth beans. I see no need to "upgrade" to cheap electronics on CDRW.

George has been smoking too much of those cigarettes with no writing on them. It's true, ATRAC has compression in it. But if you have proper electronics which do a good job, it fails to matter. Music is not white noise and CAN be compressed by a factor of 5, 10 or more. Sony's MD format compresses only by 5.

I think MD is here to stay. It's small, portable, and by now, Teac, Sharp, Panasonic, Technics, JVC, pretty much everyone has come on board.

This is a great format. I don't like that it is compressed; on the other hand, there is NO audible difference between original and source, and no THD or IM.

It's all good. But don't take our word for it. Take your favorite source material down, listen to an MD deck on your dealer's best system, and see if you can hear any difference.

Similar Products Used:

Teac 500MDH

OK I am the one who wrote the review below and have been flamed constantly. First of all READ THE REVIEW. I am not trashing Sony, I am trashing the media. It is bad and those who are defending are not even thinking about the BS they are sending me. Such as.

“I get better sound from the mini disk then I do the CD even when I do a analog recording”
Nice trick and totally imposable.

“It has less compression then a CD” Ya and the Pope is Jewish, Read the Specs.

And one of the best “are you f-ing crazy? You obviously dont know s*** about audio equipment .the sony mds-ja555es minidisc is the best ever made.period” This is from someone who missed the point and must be listing to Bose speakers and a Kenwood receiver. By the way a note to this moron. I do know the equipment as well as anyone who truly knows what they are talking about.

I have had minidicsc for a year now and I never use it. The media format is bad and the sound is poor. I don't believe what I am reading here it seems that people are defending the defenseless. I see in the minidisc area that it an obsession more than a quality product. The format is fine for my son’s MD walkman but not much more then that. While the unit is built well as other’s are it’s the format as many people have pointed out.

Best of all MD-Players

none
weight 15 kg

People who hat MD should stay out of here. This is definitely the best MD system that can be purchased.

Perfect sound
Perfect build quality
many features

none

The best cd player costs > 10.000 US$
The best loudspeakers cost > 100.000 US$
The best minidisc desk costs only 800 US$

Build quality, audio quality

SCMS

I recall using my teac unit at one place I was working and the manager asked if it was any good. So we took a very high quality CD recording, dubbed it over on analog cables on the spot, and then A-Bed them. The ATRAC-III format is SO GOOD that neither he nor I could find an audible difference. Also amazing is that ATRAC-III is good enough that it captures analog sounds with virtually complete fidelity.

The JA555ES itself is built like a tank. I leave mine on all the time, and there are no failures, stutters, it's all good.

Planet Minidisc turned me on to using coaxial instead of optical interconnects between the decks, and the way the Sony is set up, you can choose ON THE DECK if you want to use digital input or analog input sources. They also turned me on to CO3 decoders which will take digital streams and allow one to make a MASTER out of any source. SCMS is such that any digital coming out of any current CD or recorder is marked as "last possible copy." My CO3's defeat this entirely, while leaving Sony proof against suits by the record companies.

It's really sweet. I've transferred most of my treasured analog (phono and old tape) recordings over to Minidisc and can now make as many backup copies as I like, including digital-to-digital remixes and programs out of whatever I have on Minidisc.

I have two of these things, and they're a complete recording studio setup if you just hook a mixing board to the analog inputs.

Similar Products Used:

Teac Minidisc player/recorder, not as high quality or costly.

None. It is a Sony and for a bad product is built well.

It's a Minidusk

This was my biggest mistake in my system. Minidsik has poor sound quality and really degraded the quality of my system. I get better recordings using my VCR. Until people realize that it's not the new toys that count but the quality the audio industry will continue to suffer and the customer will be left in the cold with products like Minidisks

Similar Products Used:

8 Track

This MiniDisk player rocks. Is the heaviest MDplayer out there and it has all the features, accept the MD longplay feature wich allows you to pump up to 320 min. to a 80 min. MD. But this doesn't bother me because you can probably imagine that if ATRAC-R compresses the sound, ATRAC-3 compresses the sound even more.....I would NOT EVER use the MDLP function.

The VC filter is also a cool feature, filter 3 is best of all of them I think.

Like all the ES products of sony, the interlinks delivered with it are so LOW-END, they should NOT be inside the box at all! People buying ES products can afford a better quality cable and will always buy one.

Manual is good, far better than those of the 530 and 930.

In combination with the CDP-XA555ES and a high quality coax cable or optical link you get the best copies of your cds onto your mds. (notice the period)

Peter

Similar Products Used:

MDS-JE530, MDS-JA930 (QS)

Sound quality, top quality built, good value

None

This is the best MD player out there. In England it was the product of the year, and it is the best MD player ever been built. It is built like a tank and it is as heavy as many receivers out there. Hook up to my other ES equipment ( 9000ES and big NHts and high end cables, the sound is just amazing. I compared my recordings with original source, and I could not, could not believe it, detect and difference whatsoever. I recommend this Sony gear without any reservations.

Similar Products Used:

Not too many out there that compares