As many of you know, Minidisc was a new format developed by Sony and launched between 1992-1993. The MZ-1 was its first attempt to produce a portable Md, its musical arguments were not strong as much as its oposite Philips DCC (dcc130) but in the other hand it has a lot of interesting capabilities as recording, album editing and naming, MZ1 also has a very well finished surface, in&out plugs optical, electrical and total direct access to tracks, Below can see some pictures taken a few months ago and also one of the very firsts Japanese Minidisc brochures Hope you enjoy
Beautiful. I think the minidisc format was very special, i'm surprised in a way that it didnt take off more however the internet and mp3 spelt the end for it prematurely. I still remember agonising over which one to buy in Currys back in early 2000's (2004 or 2005 maybe?) and in the end just going for the most expensive one, MZN-910. I was so excited walking home and that little aluminium square was worth every penny as soon as i took it out of the box. I still have it to. The MZ-1 is a nice looking unit but i think it used a proprietary battery? Still a class looking unit.
Ok cool thank you. It's a lovely looking unit and typical Sony quality. They do love their proprietary connections/batteries/software though!!!
I love MD; the perfect combination of miniaturization, sound quality, and something you can touch and feel and see it moving (not like MP3). In the last few years I digitized my vinyl collection via MD -> CDR (yes, I should have kept the vinyl). But anyway, the MZ1 is very special as Sony's first market product, also with this and one or two that followed they incorporated digital optical output, and after that it was never seen again. Anyone know why? Best regards Nick
Hi DutchNick I agree with you, Minidisc format was very interesting format, but the mp3 kill them and cds, cassettes etc, anyway the minidisc superb quality was far from the poor quality of the mp3s... Regarding the digital output, I suppose that in the later models was only found in top level models, mz rh1 etc, maybe marketing reasons to push the customers to pay for better products
Hi Mankamaz, The MZ-RH1 is said to be "Most perfectly realized Minidisc instrument to date" (not my words, see http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-M200+RH1.html) but Sony made it without optical digital output. Maybe their dedication to Copyright control stopped them.... but all their decks have digital optical output. Maybe they ran out of space (it is beautifully small) Best regards Nick
Hi Nick, You are right Mz rh1 doesn't have digital output, below can see some pictures that I took a few minutes Rgds
I liked the idea of mini discs but the format completely passed me by when it came out. I remember my brother who's a gadget freak getting one though. I have a Sony one in a drawer somewhere that I picked up at a charity shop...that's as far as I got with this format lol. That's a nice looking unit though
Whoa, what a feature-packed portable! Had MD's come out 5 years earlier (say, 1987 or so), I think the CD would have suffered the same short-lived existence the MD had.
Nice pieces and pics, Manuel. I had a Sharp portable MD for many years and it gave me lots of good moments
I confess to skipping passed the MD only before after watching my vinyl/ tape collection take a back seat to my expanding CD collection, I didn't want to embrace yet another format too early. That, coupled with the fact I just bought a new Technics SL-Xp5 kept my portable CD fetish in fashion. It's too bad though, these things look awesome!
Just on the 'digital out' aspect, it looks like the MZ-1 was Sony's only portable with that feature. My primary use of MD was digitizing my vinyl collection. In hindsight I'm not quite sure why I bothered but it was a great project. The advantage of MD over trying to write directly to CDR via a hifi CD recorder, or creating a sound file on the computer, is that with MD you can set the track markers accurately. Anyway, thought I'd just make the comment.
I bought one of these when they first came out from the Sony Centre in York. I loved it. For whatever reason it stopped working while I was in South Africa and I had it repaired on my return to the UK in 1997. The cost of repair was a bit high and I was offered some cash from someone to pay for the repair and to take it off my hands. It was one of the mistakes in my life I still regret today, but at the time I was dirt poor. Does anyone still have the original disc that the unit came with? It was a compilation of a lot of artists signed to Sony record labels. I remember it had Michael Jackson's Black or White on it but not a lot else. I would be interested in the full track listing if anyone knows what it was?
