What Ever Happened To Mini Disc?

[soundboy]

I don’t remember seeing those in the States. But it was a quarter century ago, so forgive me if my memory isn’t 100%, lol

US Sony Music was probably the biggest suuplier of pre-recorded MDs.....Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Mary Chapin Carpenter, etc. I still buy pre-recorded MDs nowadays off of ebay.....Little River Band, Genesis, The Romantics, etc.

Pre-recorded MDs were also sold at Tower Records.

 

[Lavane]

I remember the odd shaped discs as well. Remember the rectangular, oblong and other shapes? Usually they came with sales crap or other things prerecorded on them. Do they still use DAT, I think it was DAT, for movies on planes? I remember tapes still being used around 2004.

 

[newzealand]

i still use mini disc ,i use tape to ,i see it as a very good recorder

 

[Theophilus Punoval]

I used to buy blanks for $2.50 +/- each in the late 90s and early 00s. By looking around you could find them in a 5 pack, sometimes including a storage box, for $10. Like most things there were different prices from different places. Typically stores like Circuit City - remember them? - and other retail outlets were more expensive than Minidisco but offered convenience (if by "convenient" you mean a trip to the mall). This was before Amazon Prime.

Like many things in the consumer electronics field, prices these days are wildly varied and often insane. You see madmen asking boo coo money for decks and blanks on the website that dare not speak its name but see garage sale decks for $10 and blanks for under a buck.

 

[KentTeffeteller]

The original marketing campaign by Sony blew a golden opportunity. Sony was marketing the MD originally as a pre-recorded minature playback device first and foremost (likely Sony Music had a hand in that). The Second marketing campaign "Make It With MD" stressed recording, this should have been the launch campaign for MD, and also stressing it's ability to replace the cassette should have been emphasized, it's ruggedness and convenience also should have been a major topic as well as using it in automobiles. Broadcasters in the era, discovered MD early on, and used it for utility recording and playback, and wound up being the largest USA market for MiniDiscs.

 

[benricci]

I wonder if MiniDisc’s fate would have been any different if Sony pushed it through its Columbia House mail-order division. Back in the 90’s and early 2000’s a large percentage of record sales were through these clubs.

 

[swechsler]

I wonder if MiniDisc’s fate would have been any different if Sony pushed it through its Columbia House mail-order division. Back in the 90’s and early 2000’s a large percentage of record sales were through these clubs.

Might be worth comparing the US vs. European market when the format was alive, and seeing what was different.

 

[dwaller131]

I adopted the Minidisc in the late 90s, which I think was Sony's second marketing push (they were introduced in the early 90s but not very aggressively, I guess). I had to make a choice between the famous Sony "MD Bundle" (which was usually a JE320 or JE330 and a portable, along with 3 discs) or a CD recorder. I opted for the MD and glad I did. I've NEVER had an MD go wonky during recording, but hot dang my CD recorded makes a LOT of bad discs. Plus the MD sound is just fine to my ears.

I'm still using my MD stuff today; in fact I made sure to get a car receiver that had an AUX in so I could use my little Sony Psyc portable with it. And some very generous folks here at AK sold me plenty of blanks some years back so I have no fear of running out (yet).

 

[Stino]

I used to buy blanks for $2.50 +/- each in the late 90s and early 00s. By looking around you could find them in a 5 pack, sometimes including a storage box, for $10. Like most things there were different prices from different places. Typically stores like Circuit City - remember them? - and other retail outlets were more expensive than Minidisco but offered convenience (if by "convenient" you mean a trip to the mall). This was before Amazon Prime.

Like many things in the consumer electronics field, prices these days are wildly varied and often insane. You see madmen asking boo coo money for decks and blanks on the website that dare not speak its name but see garage sale decks for $10 and blanks for under a buck.

Crazy how things are in different countries... In only saw them in packs of 5 or 10, with our without a storage box... It's funny how I was starting too look at 2nd hand players/recorders since this thread started. Until I realized and started wondering why to invest in e.g. a still for 500 € going ES-player, if these days you can find second hand CD's for 1 or 2 €. OK, if they are more expensive and one want to take copies of CD's, you could get your money out of it again. On the other hand, you not only have to buy the MD's again as well, but first of all, you have to find blank MD's...And if you find them, I just looked, it's about 25 € for 5! I think price wise, it's easier just to burn CD's to a computer hard drive, save them as a lossless file and put them on your phone, no? Or am I missing something?

Looking this up, I saw an MDS-E10 and an MDS-E12 player (pro-gear). Any one experience with these, or with MD pro-gear in general? How is it soundquality wise compared to home decks?

 

[SFC Gomez]

When I was stationed in Germany in the early 2000's, I was able to get me a Pioneer minidisc recorder MJ-D508 for $100 from a guy that never got to use it. So, since then, I've sporadically used them, until now that I have rediscovered them. They sound much better than MP3's and CD's and almost equal to records. They even appeared in The Matrix!

 

[dewdude]

The problem with MD is that by the time CD-R's came out...you could almost get a CD-R drive for the cost of an MD setup. I would know because in 1998 I chose to buy an MD setup over a CD-R drive. I chose it because of the recordable nature. By 1998 pre-recorded MD's were mostly gone; I do remember Best Buy had them on clearance and I picked up Fiona Apple's Tidal for like...a whopping $2. The problem with those is they usually used a pretty old version of ATRAC encoding; which meant that by 1998....your a portable player could produce a "better" quality recording.

The other issue is by 2000....things were changing. CD-R drives started to drop in price; I know the first one I bought in 1999 cost me around $350...and I used it for both data-backup and to burn a CD-RW that my one player could read since it had SPDIF output. I clearly remember by 2002 I had an MP3 CD player that I picked up for about $60 at Walmart; that was kind of the nail in MD's coffin for me. I remember in 2002 I also picked up a brand new 40x burner for about $99. It was also about this time that cd burners started becoming a standard issue with desktop PCs. Now you didn't need to buy one because your new PC had one.

That's largely what lead to the death of MD. By the time people would have wanted it...they had other technologies they were more familiar with become standard issue.

 

[swechsler]

They sound much better than MP3's and CD's and almost equal to records.

MP3, maybe, but CD? CDs are uncompressed, MDs have compression.

 

[Lavane]

Better marketing could have helped for sure. When I switched from cassette to CD I would have gone for an in dash MD player if they were the same price as a std. CD player. Even multi disc changers would have been cool since they would take up less space. Did Sony make them? I don't know. I never saw any in any car stereo shop. Better marketing for car stereos may have helped. No lugging around a huge 100 disc book, etc.

 

[KentTeffeteller]

Better marketing could have helped for sure. When I switched from cassette to CD I would have gone for an in dash MD player if they were the same price as a std. CD player. Even multi disc changers would have been cool since they would take up less space. Did Sony make them? I don't know. I never saw any in any car stereo shop. Better marketing for car stereos may have helped. No lugging around a huge 100 disc book, etc.

Sony made a 4 MD automobile changer, mounted easily in gloveboxes. There were in-dash AM/FM/MD car Stereo units, I used to have a Sony in dash AM/FM MiniDisc unit in the day. Loved MD for car use a lot, durable and reliable.

 

[Lavane]

Sony made a 4 MD automobile changer, mounted easily in gloveboxes. There were in-dash AM/FM/MD car Stereo units, I used to have a Sony in dash AM/FM MiniDisc unit in the day. Loved MD for car use a lot, durable and reliable.

Too bad they didn't do a better job at marketing. We had 4 car audio shops here and I never saw a single MD deck. Maybe they were there, but not once did a salesman ever say anything about them. Not a single banner, poster or counter display. Even today they make more sense than the CD to me.

 

[KentTeffeteller]

Agree, MD was the perfect mobile disc format for cars.

 

[Falstaff]

I have a portable and about twenty discs. Been looking for a component player in the thrifts to add to my system for a few years but they just don't come up that often. I would even take a parts/repair one. Gotta keep on looking I guess. I am sure it will happen eventually.

 

[Stino]

Better marketing could have helped for sure. When I switched from cassette to CD I would have gone for an in dash MD player if they were the same price as a std. CD player. Even multi disc changers would have been cool since they would take up less space. Did Sony make them? I don't know. I never saw any in any car stereo shop. Better marketing for car stereos may have helped. No lugging around a huge 100 disc book, etc.

I think it was JVC that had a mini stereo set with a 3 disc changer for MD. My cousin had one.

 

[SterlingOne]

I remember the odd shaped discs as well. Remember the rectangular, oblong and other shapes? Usually they came with sales crap or other things prerecorded on them. Do they still use DAT, I think it was DAT, for movies on planes? I remember tapes still being used around 2004.

I don't know who the "they" are that you are referring to; but, I use DAT still today, mostly a means to easily copy internet music. I used to use DAT for achieving and distributing radio commercials which my Ad Agency produced. This was back in the mid 1990's. By 2000 DAT became obsolete when the economy of producing commercials in MP3 and distributing them by email was just too great to not take advantage of it.

 

[Lavane]

I don't know who the "they" are that you are referring to; but, I use DAT still today, mostly a means to easily copy internet music. I used to use DAT for achieving and distributing radio commercials which my Ad Agency produced. This was back in the mid 1990's. By 2000 DAT became obsolete when the economy of producing commercials in MP3 and distributing them by email was just too great to not take advantage of it.View attachment 1825095

I don't know who the "they" are that you are referring to; but, I use DAT still today, mostly a means to easily copy internet music. I used to use DAT for achieving and distributing radio commercials which my Ad Agency produced. This was back in the mid 1990's. By 2000 DAT became obsolete when the economy of producing commercials in MP3 and distributing them by email was just too great to not take advantage of it.View attachment 1825095

"They" being the discs themselves. For a short time oblong, square, six sided, etc discs were used for promo stuff, etc. It didn't last long due to some of the shapes becoming unstable in some drives and exploding. The oblong being the worst.