Much better options are available. Unless you just have to have MiniDisc or like abuse from faceless multi-national corporations, I would look into getting a solid state recorder instead. Ironically, the Sony recorder in that category is probably among the best. It's a shame their corporate management treats their customers like criminals to protect their music division.

Sound
MiniDisc compresses the sound when it records, so it's closer to mp3 quality. For this price you can get a recorder that uses solid state technology and records at 24/96 in uncompressed format.

Ease of Use
Despite having success with the older generation of MiniDisc recorders, I swore off MiniDisc altogether after running into Digital Rights Management problems with some of the later models. Picture this. I was at a friend's house working on a deadline. My sister had a recording of her singing public domain songs, that she made with her brand new MiniDisc recorder. I tried to use the software to load the MiniDisc recording into the computer digitally. The software prevented me from doing this, on the theory that since the recorded tracks didn't have a special copy protection flag set, they must be pirated music. I then had to run the 1/4" headphone out into my friend's terrible SoundBlaster 1/4" line input with its 60dB S/N ratio in order to complete the transfer of the songs to CD, losing tons of quality in the process. Sony generally… read more makes fine products, but their corporate management doesn't really trust the people who buy their products since Sony runs both a technology company and a music company. If you do want to buy this device, make sure and do your research and make sure that it is free from this severe limitation.

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