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[Deleted member 22576]

Damn right it was. Quality was ass puked out of the back of a webcam but it was incredible at the time. Just dug 'er up to snap some pictures for this very thread.


Thing was just pure sex, sleek and contoured unlike many of the other designs at the time. Though I will say, I did love the boxy, industrial look of the players even as they thinned down and drew minimalist inspiration in their design.



And the ease of use to shooting photos was fantastic. Just pull down on this grey tab on the front, and it would boot into photo mode. Usually a 5 second wait but was fast enough. Always left a good buffer of empty space on all my MDs I used with it just in case. Done with photos? Snap the front back up and it would reboot to your music, and if I remember right it would pick up right where you left off. Sound quality was extremely high for a portable player too, wish this thing still worked so I could give my modern headphones a spin with it.

Minidiscs were cut down before their prime damnit.

:Q_____________________


Holy Crap you activate the camera by sliding down a physical lens cover? @_@
THATS THE MOST ROMANTIC THING I'VE EVER HEARD. I'm giggling with excitement. The self-shot mirror just seals the deal.

 

[Betta Lines]

This is the one I still have... somewhere, can't beat to part with it! Also have an AIWA mini stereo system that has a minidisk deck that I bought extra for it.

Ah let us reminisce a while. Did you use that ridiculous double AA attachment? Ruined the looks but kinda essential if you wanted more than a couple of hours of playback...

The build quality... the clickyness of the buttons... that remote with the twisty bit and backlight! Was some futuristic shit. And that sound quality. Unbelievable.

 

[whitehawk]

This was the one I had. Same colour and everything. I believe I used it from christmas 2000 to 2005.

 

[Dynamite Ringo Matsuri]

The glorious MZ-R55. Still have it somewhere but lost the AC adapter.

Damn that's a nice unit. I loved the MD format 8 years ago. At the time MP3 players still sucked (too big and terrible battery life) so to have a tiny MD player that had 45 hours of CD quality playback time was amazing. I had three units, the Sharp DR-7'Auvi (one of the best piece of electronics I ever owned), a Kenwood PMC-33 and the top of the line Sony RH1 HI MD recording unit. I was always bummed that Sharp never manufactured a HIMD unit


BTW did any of you guys ever post at minidiscTstation? (now known as AudioTstation)

 

[industrian]

I had a Minidisc player in 2003-2004. Then I jumped to a Zen Touch 20GB MP3 player and never looked back.

Sony really tried locking the world down into their own personal formats, didn't they?
With better software they just might have managed it too...

It's one of the reasons why they lost the portable music player market. Whilst everyone was just copying their existing mp3 collection to their iPods and stuff, Sony were like "nuh uh, you gotta use ATRAC!!! We don't make money from mp3s!"

 

[Betta Lines]

Damn that's a nice unit. I loved the MD format 8 years ago. At the time MP3 players still sucked (too big and terrible battery life) so to have a tiny MD player that had 45 hours of CD quality playback time was amazing. I had three units, the Sharp DR-7'Auvi (one of the best piece of electronics I ever owned), a Kenwood PMC-33 and the top of the line Sony RH1 HI MD recording unit. I was always bummed that Sharp never manufactured a HIMD unit

Yeah was a beautiful device but one of the early models so no MDLP or HIMD for me. I think I generally had one or two albums on each disc. The eject mechanism was cool though so I didn't mind.

And holy shit I remember that site! Don't think I posted there but I remember staring at tech for hours on my crappy dial up connection.

 

[grap3fruitman]

They certainly were magical before MP3 players got high capacity and cheap.

That looks an awful lot like the clickwheel on the iPods... Sony should sue!

 

[DrFunk]

This is the one I had through college/grad school:

I can't find her...but I found my old discs and manuals:

 

[Dynamite Ringo Matsuri]

This is just an *amazing* piece of technology.

Love it, this guy is sooooooooo serious.

Yeah the RH1 is a really neat unit. I remember wiggin out over the OLED display. I got pretty lucky buying one off of a T Boarder back when the iPod had begun ascertaining dominance in the PMP sector. I remarked over the relative ease of Grace Note auto detecting and titling your tracknames for you lol

Yeah was a beautiful device but one of the early models so no MDLP or HIMD for me. I think I generally had one or two albums on each disc. The eject mechanism was cool though so I didn't mind.

And holy shit I remember that site! Don't think I posted there but I remember staring at tech for hours on my crappy dial up connection.

Yeah, LP2 let me squeeze 3/4 albums on one disc, then when HIMD debuted, I got about 10 albums on HISP mode. Good times lol

And yeah, I had dial up access at the time too. I had a Japanese exchange student in my film history class who had a Sharp DR-7 and I thought it was the most amazing thing, I would find myself buying my own not long after
How time flies...