The Joy of MiniDiscs
Written: Jul 12 '01 (Updated Jul 12 '01)
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Pros: Sleek, light, amazing battery life, quality sound reproduction, ultraportable.
Cons: A few gremlins away from a usability nightmare when recording.
The Bottom Line: Not a breeze to record, but it's a joy to use. If your taste in music stays fairly static, and portability is a must, you've found your match.
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| theladyophelia's Full Review: Sony Walkman MZ-R37SP Personal MiniDisc Player |
I’ll admit it; I’m attached to my music. It holds sway over my moods-and on those early-morning jaunts across campus to a class I’m not thrilled about, a good swig of music is just as effective as the classic American morning dose of caffeine.
A few years ago, my bookbag was still a slave to my passion for traveling music. My Discman, along with its soft carrying case, spare batteries, and a selection of CD’s, easily added several pounds to my bag and efficiently took up about half of my sizeable bag. Not only that, but in order to just skip one song on my player, I’d have to open the bag, open the carrying case, and dig around for the appropriate button. Certainly not what I’d call convenience.
Something had to change. My brother had acquired a MiniDisc player sometime in 1998, and he seemed to be enjoying it. I had originally scoffed at him, since I thought the technology was silly. Soon, I found myself gladly eating my words. In December of 1999, I acquired the Sony MZ-R37.
A Substitute for MP3 Players…if you’re patient.
It was the answer to my prayers. From Day 1, the unit proved to be durable and versatile. I carefully arranged a playlist of MP3’s in Winamp, and fed an analog cable from my sound card into my player/recorder. 74 minutes later, I had my first custom MiniDisc.
Of course, this particular approach has numerous drawbacks. First off, it’s slow…but then, as some of my fellow reviewers have noted, there’s no way around that with most MiniDisc players. More importantly, if you forget to disable the other sounds on your computer, you’re going to have some interesting artifacts in your mix. (I have a few classical MiniDisc mixes punctuated with the AIM Buddy List sounds…sigh.) The volume and equalizing properties are likewise controlled by Winamp, and I’d recommend listening in on the first few minutes of recording to make sure it sounds right. But it does the job, and it allows me the versatility of custom mixes without the limitation of an MP3 player’s miniscule RAM allotment.
(One other tip – the player can only tell the difference between tracks if they’re separated by at least 2 seconds of silence. This may result in your disc being recorded as one long track…a nuisance. If you’re recording from Winamp, make a quick 3-second empty WAV file and stick it between each track to ensure a correct recording.)
Portable Dream
The unit itself is the definition of portable. It’s small (though not the smallest on the market), extremely lightweight, and it’s got incredible battery life. Whereas my old CD player could last 4-5 hours on 4 AA batteries, this player can play for up to 15 hours on one pair of non-rechargeable batteries! Recording battery life is notably shorter, so I’d recommend using the AC adapter whenever you’re recording. The unit also comes with a pair of lithium-ion batteries, which are rechargeable, but provide less battery life than their alkaline counterparts.
The unit, a spare pair of batteries, headphones, a carrying case, and 6 additional minidisks all combined still weighs less than a pound, in my crude estimation. If I need ultra-portability, I toss the case and just stow the unit itself in my purse – the metal body is durable and can weather a beating. There are lock switches on the body and the remote to prevent accidental button presses. I’ve dropped, shaken, and stepped on the unit and it still works flawlessly. (However, my brother has managed to kill 2 other minidisc players, so they’re not invincible.) It’s plenty of fun to set the thing to play and then shake it about as much as you want – never skips! The unit is also capable of acting as a very versatile portable voice recorder with the addition of a microphone.
The remote is useful, but I’d have to say it’s one of the shoddier parts of the product. In general, I love not having to dig in my bag for the player in order to navigate my discs. However, while the main body of the player is durable, the remote is quite the opposite. My remote has become quite cranky, and the rewind and play buttons really don’t respond without a great deal of coaxing. I’d recommend finding another remote if you really, really use it often – there are some backlit and LCD remotes that are compatible with this device that you can obtain from Sony with a bit o’ work.
Operating the Unit
This player isn’t exactly what you’d call a marvel of usability engineering. Many of the buttons are tiny, and do different things based on the duration of the button presses. There are many advanced functions – naming tracks, naming disks, moving and deleting tracks on the fly, etc. – but good luck remembering how to execute them without your manual. I’m lucky enough to have a full-size minidisc deck at home, which I borrow from my father when I want to optically record entire CD’s. When I’m doing the MP3-to-audio trick mentioned above, and tracks aren’t separated properly, it’s a pain to go back and separate the tracks manually.
The possibility of error is fairly high. I once forgot to lock the controls on my remote, and ended up inadvertently erasing half of one of my discs. Be careful when deleting individual tracks that you don’t delete the whole disc at the same time.
Sound Quality
As far as my (not very discerning) ears can tell, the sound quality on this unit is excellent, provided you recorded your disc at a sufficient volume level. Optically recorded discs are prefect reproductions of CD sound, and the recordings from my PC are just as good as you’d get on most MP3 players (with the slightest addition of white noise in the worst cases).
Daily Use
While it may seem that recording is a royal pain, the fact is that very little of my time spent with this unit has been actual recording. I make the song lists in advance, or record a CD in its entirety – when it all comes down to it, there’s very little wrestling with the device. I’ve gotten hundreds upon hundreds of hours of use out of this little unit, and it’s still one of my favorite pieces of technology almost 2 years after purchasing it. It’s a testament to the unit that it is still available in chains like Best Buy so long after its initial release. I give this unit my highest recommendation – it’s an indispensable part of my geek cache.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 200
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Epinions.com ID:
theladyophelia
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Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 6 members
About Me:
Computer Scientist, Interaction Designer, Actress, Artist and Former Teenage Muppet
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