Why should I buy a MiniDisc recorder/player?
Why indeed? This is a deep and important question about the wisdom of participating in the consumerism of our modern age, and whether cultivating a life of voluntary simplicity would not ultimately bring greater happiness. However, if you are only asking whether you should not buy some other gadget instead, read on. Sony intended the format as a replacement for the Compact Cassette. It provides a relatively low cost solution to making high quality recordings, and compared to Recordable CDs, it is smaller, cheaper, re-writable and allows non-linear editing. Compared to all forms of tape, it provides random access, meaning that you can quickly select songs with the touch of a button. Although the format has been slow to catch on in the US, MiniDisc continues to thrive in Japan. Sales in the US were hurt by high prices and a format war with Philips Digital Compact Cassette (DCC). DCC has since been taken out of production (both Philips and Matsushita (DCC’s Japanese backer) have now begun
