GTDave

Has anyone ever seen a Mini Disc OEM sound system? They show it in the manual but I was wondering if they ever came on an RX8?

HiFlite999

iTrader: (2)

Dunno, but you can buy them: http://www.mazdaparts.org/marxmiplwitr.html

paimon.soror

iTrader: (15)

who the heck still uses/ever used minidisk

GTDave

Millions of people who value quality music rather than MP3. Almost half the radio stations in North America and me. I think that about covers it. Way better than CDs. Easier to handle in a car. Smaller almost as good a sound as CDs and they don't get scratched. They don't need covers or cases and you can one hand them into a player. You can record on them from high quality home decks and reuse any you come to dislike. You can do any type of editing after the fact and once a CD is finalized thats what you are stuck with.

Had more manufacturers supported the Mini Disc CDs would never have made a go of it. Have you ever owned a Mini Disc set up?

paimon.soror

iTrader: (15)

Nope I never really had the pleasure. I remember when they were first coming to the mainstream consumer market, but it seemed like Sony was the only one to get on board with it, unfortunately soon-thereafter poof went the market for them once mp3 players and such became popular.

nycgps

iTrader: (1)

I used to have MD (mini-Disc) back then when I was in High school. had 2 different players actually, it sound way better than garbage MP3.

reason why it died down cuz people have no standard. MP3 sounds like **** that's also the reason why I never have mp3 collection like all my friends. but people will go whatever they can have the easiest access to. even it's a piece of ****. they just want to go the easy way.

do I have iPods ? no I don't. I don't even have music in my phone. if I want a song I buy the CD. I mean I can afford that 20 bux when I spend more than that on drinks in a month. people are just pathetic. people said it's not worth it to buy a worth CD for just 1-2 tracks, that just pure bullshit. they probably waste more money on useless **** on daily basics than that 20 something bux. talk about failed.

as for the original question, answer is yes and no.

yes is because it is available, but not in the US, you can easily source it on yahoo japan.

no is because it was never an option for the US market.

8up

I had a portable MD player for a long time and loved it. It's a shame it never caught on as much as the whole mp3/iPod era. I saw an article back in like 03/04 that said something about how Sony had the "iPod killer" with MD. Too bad

xexok

How much better can MD sound than ALAC or FLAC files played through any type of mp3 player?

nycgps

iTrader: (1)

MD is as close as you can get to CD quality music that's 1/2 the size of CD + it's protected inside a box. Not even DVD has the kind of protection MD has (hard shell)

It failed cuz ... again people have no standard, in the other words : CHEAP.

I still have some unopened MD ... found it.

monchie

I never knew they made one like this. I guess i'm old school.

xexok

I'm sure you know, but with flac and alac they are both lossless formats so that should be the best quality, right? If I am wrong about that please tell me so.

I agree MD has the advantage in suvivablity compared to a CD. Although I have lots of cd's that look like someone took sandpaper to them and they play just fine.

Chad D.

iTrader: (19)

I used to record my live events and my records with my portable MD player. I miss that thing. Sound quality is great + very portable/easy to handle. Too bad Sony was such a proprietor hog.

Aseras

It didn't die because people were cheap it died because of sony not opening it up to anyone else. It was a proprietary format that was too cumbersome and had way way way too much DRM.

paimon.soror

iTrader: (15)

Yup, and Toshiba clearly didn't learn from Sony's mistake when they developed HD-DVDs

GTDave

Other manufacturers did produce MD machines. Denon, Onkyo, Yamaha and Sharp for sure.

Grace_Excel

iTrader: (5)

When I lived in Japan six years ago, MD was as synonymous as CD. It was "standard" in all double din (CD/MD) players. Ipods and IPhones were having a hard time competing in the Japanese market since SONY is a household name. I still have a Kenwood and Carozzera CD/MD player for a car in storage, couldn't pick up US radio stations though.

T-von

You are correct about flac and alac! I've owned the md format since the mid 90's and to this day, it's still my prefered way to listen to my music. If you used the optical digital cable to record from your cd, you would get damn near cd quality. I bought my 1st mp3 player about 3 yrs ago. It was a sony nwz-s738f with the built in noise cancellation. The built in sound processing really did improve on the mp3 guality but it's still no match for true cd qualuty sound. mp3 do make it easier to get music. I have nearly every song the I ever wanted. Being an audiophily, I just can't stand the sound quality of the stripped down mp3 tracks. So now my goal is to buy cds of all my music and "exact audio copy" them into my portable hard drive and then load them into my future ipod in flac.

Has any of the audiophiliy's here heard of the web page "hdtracks"? All I can say is WOW!
That's the place to download studio quality sound audio files. They just don't have a great selection of my specific music (lots of old stuff). Plus they force you to have download a whole album. I wish they had individual song downloading and a library the size of itunes. I would gladly pay top dollar for that kind of sound quality.

xexok

I'm glad I cant tell the difference in sound between 320kbps cd rips and flac or a burned cd(not lossless files) and a regular cd. It would probably drive me nuts.

GTDave

Lucky you lol.

Jim Smith

I know this is a seriously old thread, but it showed up as I was searching for the OEM Mini Disc player for the RX-8.

I had a 2004 RX-8 and I installed an OEM player which I ordered from Rosenthal Mazda...it was Mazda dealer who also did online sales but anyone here I am sure would have come across them. They had everything and at great prices, but it looks like prioritymazda.com is where the Manager ended up and I saw the MD player on there for about $454.

It was a great player to have for a few reasons. The versatility of the discs was only limited by storage space. I edited music right on the player, recorded from anything I wanted to in high quality, and the discs were very durable. I have a few ammo cans full of discs, an old MD player and now I am thinking about getting another RX-8 to play with and I would definitely want the MD player. Many people don't know about them so they are a conversation piece. I have a SONY portable now but when I lived in Japan, I had a crazy Panasonic that had editing built in, it was awesome, and I had an AIWA one that lasted until I left it on top of my car a year ago. I drove off and then heard it fall off and smash!

You can see the MD slot in the bottom half of the entertainment panel, it added a little more character to the face as well not to mention the sound quality.

Probably writing to myself.

wannawankel

MD player/recorders are very popular among musicians for recording sets, recitals, and practice events. Several flutists, violinst, etc. I know use them quite regularly (they're in their 40s). Not sure if you can purchase units any more. PCMag wrote an article sying good-bye in 2013: RIP MiniDisc, 1992-2013 | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

djgiron

I still think i have my sony minidisc player, I used it in Iraq. Which that format would have taken better for the reasons you mention above, but the ipod pretty much killed that and most other formats (SACD etc).