Another new sony!

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As seen about a month ago on Bloomberg business news channel, Sony is to go through yet another reorganization, and this time it could mean Sony is on the verge of disappearing or so as its been known for ages.

That new reorganization would focus Sony (more or exclusively?) on Sony Music (producing, recording and selling) and Sony Movies, with the same steps, which are more on the soft side of the business instead of hardware... They have been more involved recently in the Broadcast/production, Educational, etc. type of gear.

My point here isn't so much about the low-cost hi-fi stuff they made, but more about the numerous technologies they invented, patented and/or brought to market, and the Pro gear. The list would be a long one.

I've been chewing on this for a while trying to figure out what this implies regarding new audio hardware technology developments for example... Since they were at the forefront of many audio technology developments that are now somewhat "obsolete".

Their audio (hi-fi and Pro) hardware catalog has been shrinking constantly for years. On the Pro side they use to have some nice items (e.g. microphones, mixers, recorders), more so than on the hi-fi side. A lot of those are gone already, some left though. With the restructuring I guess what's left may become history...

Not really worried about their consumer stuff as others will fill the gap. Its already more or less happened with TVs.

I think Sony's history is filled with missed opportunities (e.g. Betamax vs VHS, Digital Audio Tape entangled in copyright/serial copying issues, Mini-Disk recording, etc.). I remember some years ago Sony mentioning it WOULD NOT abandon the Mini-Disk recording format, good for me I have two of those, still they did let it go when faced with the evidence: the appeal of the Mp3 just being too strong (simple, low-cost, free music on rogue sites). I still think the Mini Disk is thechnologically superior, like a number of their inventions, but its more expensive and complicated... Two strikes at bat market wise.

I find it real sad to see hardware/technology Sony going down the drain slowly but surely, to the point of becoming some sort of a skeleton. Unfortunately, they missed the boat on a number of occasions re timing to market and technology related issues like copy, cost and complexity, even if these were better.

Now, who will develop the hardware technologies of the future? There aren't that many out there with the corporate, scientists and lab capabilities that Sony had. Maybe they'll licence or sell some of their patents to others to make some money. Major hardware technology developments (e.g. from analog to digital) might go slower for a while, specially considering the focus everywhere is more on software with the Internet wave.

Richard

[SEAWOLF97]

I think Sony's history is filled with missed opportunities (e.g. Betamax vs VHS, Digital Audio Tape entangled in copyright/serial copying issues, Mini-Disk recording, etc.). I remember some years ago Sony mentioning it WOULD NOT abandon the Mini-Disk recording format, good for me I have two of those, still they did let it go when faced with the evidence: the appeal of the Mp3 just being too strong (simple, low-cost, free music on rogue sites). I still think the Mini Disk is thechnologically superior, like a number of their inventions, but its more expensive and complicated...
Richard

Hi Richard... I enjoyed your post on Sony , their hardware side was always something that I kept an eye on .....

Had a large Super Beta library and agree that it was a better format than VHS. Am also a big fan (still am) of minidisk (MD). I have 4 or 5 decks in the house and every system has an active deck on it. Sony became my standard in MD decks as I felt that the other manufacturers just didn't have their hearts in it. Once you got into the "ES" series or "9xx"'s then then were fine machines.

When I sold my second pair of 250ti's, the demo was with a MD, dubbed from CD of the soundtrack of the movie "V for Vendetta" . The buyer asked if I was playing a SACD ?

Am very committed to MD, in fact on our last trip to Asia I carried a mdlp player (52 hours playing time on 1 AA battery) and had most of the Beatles catalog on 1 disk , the complete Doors on another and 320 minutes of The Stones on one too. Love the format and it's editing capabilities. When I get a loaner CD, it gets immediately put to MD. I also pickup up LP records for my son's selling account. IF it's something that I like, that gets recorded to MD before I pass the LP on to him.

couple of years back, I found a MD treasure on CL. Bought 110 bricks of 5's per . All SONY premium Gold and 80 minutes ... unopened 5 cases/20 per, another 50 loose=550

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Hi Seawolf,

Thanks for your input. I'm glad to see there's another "crazy" guy like me who went for the Mini Disk technology I also enjoy. But didn't enjoy writing about another "audio casualty" for sure.

RE "4 or 5 decks in the house" Well certainly beats my 2 units (one in rack, one portable).

WOW, your MD treasure IS something! My 20 or so MDs look pretty thin VS your stockpile!! But that's ok, these are re-writable... Plus If I ever run out of MDs now I know where to "beg, borrow or steal", or purchase from! Maybe a local electronics surplus store has some, don't really know, I should check.

My "treasure" lies more in the portable recorder I purchased July 2000 and still going. All made of brushed Aluminum, real nice precision manufacturing in Japan (not China). But a purchase price that came with it: $398. + tx and that was 18+ years ago... Unfortunately, it doesn't run on a single AA battery. I'll post pics.

Had to change the li-ion battery in my portable unit some years ago. Before giving me the battery price the guy at the original parts counter said "I'm ashamed to tell you the price of it". No wonder, $93. something plus tax! which ended-up being over $100. with tx for a battery only... Had to be ordered, not in stock.

I know after a while Sony started making less costly home and portable MD devices working on regular batteries to try to boost product acceptance, sales and save the technology. But it was too late, the damage was done, also with too many formats on the market at the same time (e.g. CD, DAT, DCC, MD, etc.).

The lifetime warranty seen on MD packaging, as well as the disks being made in Japan, I guess we can kiss this goodbye since Sony probably stopped making these too? At $7. a piece here for Mini Disk these weren't cheap, one reason against that recording format I suppose...

See Sony document attached (reference at bottom of last page) in case you want to know a little more about MD's music compression. It shows compression is about to 1/5 the size, and if my memory is correct, I think the MP3 compression is about to 1/10 the size? So the latter would be more compressed.

BTW Tascam still has an MD Recorder listing in Aug. 2018 CDN price list, but quite expensive here, model MD-CD 1 MK III, Combo Mini Disk Recorder/CD player, $1159. CAD and if one wants the Balanced in/out option (LA-MC1) then add another $219. So for the time being I'll stick with the Sony MD in my rack. Regards,

Richard


White Paper- Minidisc[1].pdf

[SEAWOLF97]

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Hi Seawolf,

WOW, your MD treasure IS something! My 20 or so MDs look pretty thin VS your stockpile!! But that's ok, these are re-writable...

I have read that Sony will not guarantee the re-write ability beyond 100,000 cycles.

The lifetime warranty seen on MD packaging, as well as the disks being made in Japan, I guess we can kiss this goodbye since Sony probably stopped making these too? At $7. a piece here for Mini Disk these weren't cheap, one reason against that recording format I suppose...

Last time I checked, you can still get new disks on eBay.

See Sony document attached (reference at bottom of last page) in case you want to know a little more about MD's music compression. It shows compression is about to 1/5 the size, and if my memory is correct, I think the MP3 compression is about to 1/10 the size? So the latter would be more compressed.. Regards,

MDLP (mini disk long play) is the most compressed, but still quite usable on a portable (320 minutes on an 80).. the final ATRAC compression was I believe v4.5 on the mdlp decks. I use standard mode (80 minute) when duping and it sounds great I have read that in some cases a CD duped to MD CAN sound better than the original as many MD decks have better DAC's than the sending CD players.

http://www.minidisc.org/index.php

Richard

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Attachment 82971Attachment 82972Attachment 82973Attachment 82974

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Hi Seawolf,

I forgot, I CAN power the MD portable recorder with regular batteries. There's a battery pack that comes with it, it holds 3 X AA alcalines which make the unit larger and heavier so I rarely use it. That pack attaches to the back of the unit (picture where you see DC IN 6V). Pack is screwed in the hole at the middle of back panel and the smaller of two DC in connectors inputs the battery juice. The other larger DC in is for the AC adaptor.

The recorder can also be powered by the AC adaptor in case batteries are dead or as a safety supply of power during recordings. Have you seen the size of this wall wart VS recorder size? This is crazy and heavy. The recorder also comes with a wired remote that can be used or not, and nice small headphones that can be folded. Regards,

Richard

[SEAWOLF97]

Hi Seawolf,

I forgot, I CAN power the MD portable recorder with regular batteries. There's a battery pack that comes with it, it holds 3 X AA alcalines which make the unit larger and heavier so I rarely use it. That pack attaches to the back of the unit (picture where you see DC IN 6V). Pack is screwed in the hole at the middle of back panel and the smaller of two DC in connectors inputs the battery juice. The other larger DC in is for the AC adaptor.

The recorder can also be powered by the AC adaptor in case batteries are dead or as a safety supply of power during recordings. Have you seen the size of this wall wart VS recorder size? This is crazy and heavy. The recorder also comes with a wired remote that can be used or not, and nice small headphones that can be folded. Regards,

Richard

My portables have inline LCD remotes that the headphones then plug into , well thought out and work as intended. My decks (I avoided the consumer 320's and went with 920's) have tons of features (even pitch control and basic DSP) , but the most used for me is the ability to plug in a PC keyboard to do titleing and editing. (as i'm sure you know ...deleting, rearranging tracks, combining ..etc)
Somewhere I've also got a JVC deck where the remote opens up to a hidden keyboard.

some of my portables have usb input and my old windows xp box can still send tunes for recording to them.

Search your local CL . many people just dump their whole MD setups and you can usually acquire many disks that way.

Buying that lot of 550 MD80's (sealed) cost me 250, but I sold a couple of the boxes for more than I'd paid, so the remainder became free.

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There seems to be a bug with the attachements in post # 6. Here's another try. Richard