Sharp MD-DR7/MD-DR480 Personal MiniDisc Player

Pros: Perfect recording from mike or line inputs. Battery life is excellent.
Cons: LCD main screen has no backlight, controls are TINY and hard to read.

I needed a quality minidisc recorder with a powered mike input as an adjunct to more conventional pro recording equipment. I wanted to adjust recording levels on the fly without burrowing down thru menus. The Sharp has given flawless performance. The manual is fair to good. It came from Outward Sound with a charging cradle, battery piggyback, two sets of headphones, analog and optic cables.

Now if only the main LCD screen was backlit... this device is not easy for the sight-challenged but I suspect this is true of most minidiscs.

Any shortcomings are made up for in the excellent results. I haven't seen a glitch, drop-out, etc.

As a backup device when laying down tracks in my project studio or for field recording it's been perfect.