Solid, re-recordable, reasonably affordable
Written: Mar 18 '03 (Updated Mar 18 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Reliable media, sufficient length, convenient case
Cons: Comes in assortment of colors (who wants purple and teal discs?), price
The Bottom Line: Sony makes high quality products, and the discs are a rather necessary part of the whole minidisc recorder ensemble.
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| jwiebe's Full Review: SONY MDW80 MiniDisc Blank Media (5 Pack) |
It seems a bit contrived to be writing a review about a seemingly inconsequential part of the minidisc music experience -- the physical media themselves. However, I am impressed enough with Sony's product that I'll share a bit of my experience with you.
The total package
Although it may seem insignificant at first, one of the most attractive features of Sony's 5-pack of minidiscs is that they come in a fairly sturdy plastic case. This allows me to keep the discs clean and free from dust, and are good for grouping similar genres of music. Also, the product comes with a complete set of labels (In fact, there were six (6) labels in the package, which allowed me to label the blank disc which game with the minidisc recorder itself). General advice: minidiscs are cheap enough that, if they don't come with labels, don't buy them, as buying the labels individually is a real pain.
The disc
If you are not familiar with minidiscs, the dimensions are approx. 7 x 7.5 cm with a thickness of about 0.5 cm. Depending on recording quality, the discs in the sony package hold from 80 mins (stereo recording mode) to 320 mins (LP4 mode). Please see my review on the Sony NetMD MZ-N707 for further details about recording levels. The LP4 mode is usually sufficient for recording a collection of music (for instance, I have almost all of the Radiohead studio albums on a single disc). A seemingly inconsequential, but important, aspect of the discs is that there is an arrow indicating 'insert this end'. If you are new to minidiscs, look for this arrow. It took a few minutes of fumbling around, trying to jam the disc in the wrong way before I noticed it. Discs are extremely re-recordable -- the packaging info claims that they are reliable for up to 1 million recordings. I have no plans to test this claim.
The only real problem I have with the discs themselves is that there is no choice over color -- packs have 5 discs which are: red, blue, purple, teal/green and black. As you can see, this is really splitting hairs.
The price
The epinions.com estimated price is $10. I would suggest that this is a bit low. I purchased mine from Future Shop for approx. CDN$ 20 + tax, which worked out to almost $23 (approx. $16 US, depending on the exchange rate). Still, at under CDN$ 5 per disc, this is quite reasonable considering how much can be recorded and how often you can re-record (the drawback being in the inconvenience of recording using Sony's OpenMG Jukebox software -- again, see the review of the MZ-N707).
At the store where I purchased this product, discs were also sold in a pack of 10, but nothing higher. For heavy users, larger quantities might be appreciated (note that 5 is more than sufficient for me for the time being. It depends on how much music you wish to record, and if you don't mind frequently recording over music on a disc).
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jwiebe
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Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Reviews written: 51
Trusted by: 48 members
About Me:
The man with the plan.
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