Pros: tiny, lightweight, affordable, excellent quality, long battery life, MDLP(!)
Cons: doesn't come in purple. headphones are pretty basic.
The Bottom Line: The ideal sound unit for taking your CD and MP3s on the road with you. Tiny, affordable and provides professional-quality sound. I adore it!
amyquilts's Full Review: Sony Walkman MZ-R70 Personal MiniDisc Player
Background: My husband bought a MiniDisc recorder a year ago for some high-end recording. He works in post-production sound and has high standards, see.
Because of this, I hadn't considered MiniDisc to be a consumer-friendly technology. But it IS. It's amazing. It's the new cassette and Europe is way ahead of us in that regard. Hopefully North America will figure it out soon.
See, I have tons of CDs and MP3s that I'd like to listen to on the way to work. But I hate those big CD walkmans. And MP3 players don't hold much music -- or if they do, they cost BIG bucks.
With a MiniDisc recorder/player, I can record all my music onto tiny MiniDiscs and take them with me.
So, that takes me to this specific unit.
The R700DPC is an MDLP-compatible unit. This means you can record twice or even 4x as much sound on a MiniDisc. Since I use 74-minute discs, that gives me either 74, 148 or 296 minutes of sound per disc.
When it comes to the standard play and 2x play modes, there is very little noticeable difference in sound quality. Personally, I couldn't tell the difference. My husband was able to, but said it was negligible. That's pretty amazing. The 4x play mode, however, is really only for spoken-word recordings (like books on tape).
As for the actual process of getting your music from your computer to MiniDisc, it's unbelievably easy. I have a Mac, and the PC Link unit (included only with the DPC model) works perfectly with my existing software. Nothing new was required. My understanding is that it would be just as easy with PC.
Once the unit is connected to your computer (just a few cables, all included with the unit), just pop in a fresh MiniDisc, slide the record button to the right and press play on your computer's music utility. I use iTunes to create my own playlists and they transfer perfectly to the MiniDisc. Just remember to create a 1-second blank sound and pop it between each track to ensure the tracks get numbered correctly.
Anyway, all of this is in the manual. I made my first recording the same night the unit came in the mail and was listening the next day.
I paid $249 US at J&R (online) and that price includes the PC Link unit and cables. The PC Link unit, priced separately in CDN dollars, is $149! I swapped out the headphones for a different pair, since they didn't suit me.
The only difference I can see, besides design differences, between the R700DPC and the R900DPC is that the 900 has an LCD remote. The non-LCD remote that came with my R700 suits me just fine, however. Not worth an extra $100 to upgrade for me.
So overall, I say dub your cassettes (and then trash them!) and start making your own music. Spread the word -- MiniDisc is the best format yet!
40-second shock resistant memory and high quality recording with digital automatic gain control Dual headphone jack allows use of remote control while...More at Amazon Marketplace
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