Minidisc/CD deck

[liquid]

You'll have to excuse my ignorance on the topic of car audio... I've never really been into it... I'm more of a speed freak.

The thing is, I have a sony mini-disc player, and use it almost everywhere, so the only place I really use CD's anymore is in my car. So I'm thinking of replacing the deck with a mini-disc deck. My question is, are there any decks that allow for both CD's and Mini-disc's. Also, I looked on the net and I found a whole bunch of MP3 decks, how does that compare? Do you download songs from your comp to your deck or what?

Thanks.

[Chris]

I just read a post on the Vortex about some guy's new boost guage in his 337 and the topic shifted to his Sony MDX 7700 head unit which apparently plays both CD's and MD's.

Here's the link to the thread:

vortex thread

The headunit looks like this



Someone did mention something about him getting it in Japan, so I'm not sure about the availability of it here. I tried doing a search for it on Yahoo, but it came back with no results.

I also remember seeing a thread he posted after he had the deck installed. He posted a bunch of pics where it was lit up. To my recollection it can light up blue or red.

I tried searching for that post, but I think it was from too long ago and it isn't there anymore.

Hope this helps.

C.

[Kor]

I think you can get a minidisc changer for your trunk that is compatible with any aftermarket deck supporting an external CD-changer. I am definitely sure Sony has one, but I think you can get ones from Pioneer, Alpine, etc.

[seanfournier]

mini disc technology is pretty crapy. use more perceptual encoding then a real CD. stick with CD's... you'll get better sound.

[Kor]

I've done a bit of MD research in the past, and am kind of a "budget audiophile" so here are my 2 cents on Minidisc quality.

MD will sound as good as MP3. In fact, it will sound better than the quality of MP3 encoding you will find on the file-sharing networks. If you're the kind of person that thinks a 128Kbit or even 164/192 Kbit MP3 sounds fine, I think you'll be ok with MD. The bitrate of the standard MD is 292 kb/s in full stereo. For the vast majority of people the sound quality is identical with CDs.

If you rip your own MP3 audio then of course you can crank up the bitrate (320Kbps+) and make it sound "better" than a MD. No compressed format will sound as good as CD or non-lossy compression... but at that high of a bitrate only very rare people can tell the diffrence! If you search Google for audiophile comparisons of CD/MD you will see that even they often can barely tell the diffrence (but they can definitely hear the difference with an MP3).

If you burn your own CDs from MP3s then these will only sound as good as the original MP3s. If you are downloading from Kazaa and burning the MP3s to a CD, a Minidisc will sound better.

The misconception of poor MD quality came from the original encoding that Sony used when MD came out in the 80's. It has since been much improved!

If you want some hard info on MD quality, check out these URLs:

http://www.minidisc.org/near_cd.html

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minidisc

http://www.minidisc.org/format_comparison.html

[seanfournier]

well said

I could record a telephone conversation at 192kbps.

I guess the old expression is the correct one... "garbage in = garbage out". meaning, it totally depends on what you start out with. good info @ those sites

[Kor]

Yeah, you're right about encoding a poor quality source at a high bitrate... so a disadvangate of Minidisc would I guess be that it requires more expensive/rare equipment to make a nice recording... where as anyone can just copy a CD these days!

I stopped using my own minidisc recorder just cause it was a hassle to make the discs... I can burn a CD in about 2 minutes, it takes me 30 to make a good minidisc.

[Khyron]

I use the sony mini disk player in the car when going on highway trips.

If a song gets annoying on a minidisk, you just replace it with another song, rather than buring a whole new cd.

Believe it or not, I bought a tape adapter just as a temp thing but it turns out the damn thing sounds just great. I had to try 3 diff brands before I found one that worked right tho. And 1 AA battery lasted to Van and back + some other trips.

Shrug.

Khyron