Sony MZ-N505 Net MD Walkman Player/Recorder

specifically, the versatility of this medium allows mini-discs to be re-recorded over a million times without any degredation in quality of playback. so you don't accumulate cd-r's that have over stayed their welcome. just tranfer your customizable playlist. transfer time from a pc is instantaneous. mic-recording capabilty. additionally, the sound quality is awesome - the audio format for mini-disc, atrac, blows away mp3 & wma formats

there is a learning curve if you don't have prior experience in recording mini-discs either from a pc or audio component. overcome the trial-and-error period and you'll realize what a great value this little machine is :)

Minidisc players surpass portable CD and MP3 players in several aspects:

It records! This MD unit and most others are capable of recording. You can't do that with a portable CD player or most portable MP3 players. You can record live or dub other sources, anytime, anywhere, with pristine quality, different sources on one MD if you want to. You can edit the sequence and content of what you record right on the MD recorder. You can record up to 5 hours of lecture or whatever on one disc. You can record, re-record, append to, resequence, or erase minidisc media up to a MILLION times, right on the MD unit. You do not first have to encode your music with a computer. You do not even need to have a computer to enjoy MD.

Sound quality. Minidisc players have better digital-to-analog conversion and better headphone outputs than ANY portable CD player or MP3 player, bar none. Using ATRAC Type-R, you get dynamic range and frequency response at least as good as that of CD audio, but with the warm, smooth, humanistic qualities of good vinyl. It's actually a GOOD thing that MD transcodes other digital formats to ATRAC. ATRAC sounds better than MP3, unless you use LP4, the super-long-play ATRAC codec. ATRAC is better than MP3 at the same bitrate because it is more mature and was designed from the start to store high quality audio, not to be a low-bitrate Internet download format, for which MP3 is optimized. It is true that MP3 at 256 Kbps, at least using the LAME encoder, is generally regarded as indistinguishable from CD audio quality. ATRAC Type-R uses a higher average bit rate than that - 292 Kbps! It is, in a word, overkill. You cannot get better sound quality in a portable device. Just remember to throw away the included headphones and get some that sound decent. The included ones are junk, as one might expect from the headphones that come with a $140 MD recorder. If it came with better ones, they'd have to charge more. The N505 has the same DAC and same headphone output as the top-of-the-line model, the N1, so get some good headphones and you won't have a complaint about the sound.

Stability. While solid-state players don't, even the best CD players can skip. Minidisc was designed from the ground up not to skip. You'd destroy the MD unit before you could get it to skip. It's that good. The current line of Sony MD players all have the same anti-skip protection, including the N505. It works amazingly well.

Durability. MD players are smaller, lighter, and more durable than CD players. MD blanks are smaller, lighter, and more durable than CD blanks. They store just as much music as an MD, twice as much in LP2 mode, four times as much in LP4 mode (though I don't recommend LP4 for critical listening). Even though it's at the bottom of the line, the N505 feels solid.

Bottom line: if you can hardly bear to leave your computer because you love your MP3 collection, fine, buy an iPod and carry your collection around with you. But if you love MUSIC and own some CDs or some vinyl, or you'd like to be able to record on the go, don't hesitate to get an MD player. The MZ-N505 is a great unit to get started with Minidisc. If you need a microphone input, get the N707 or the N1 instead. I am thrilled with my N505 and do not regret choosing it or the MD format in the least.

Don't have to use OpenMG and get messed up in their copyright protection stuff...I use RealOne and its straight forward...

Only downside is the time required for ATRAC conversion. It requires some patience.

A winner from Sony. Worth every $.