The MiniDisc recorder we got our hands on was Sharp's MD-MS702 portable, released in early January. The first thing you notice about the MD-MS702 is how cool it looks. Only slightly larger than a MiniDisc (at 3 7/16" x 1 3/16" x 3 7/32"), this baby is all high-tech silver and black with buttons, LBLs ("Little Blinking Lights"), and digital read-outs. It certainly *looks* like the future of personal audio equipment.

One of the MD-MS702's high-end features is a digital watch-style remote control with an illuminated LCD display. It attaches between the recorder and the headphones and gives you all of the controls and read-outs available on the unit itself. This is really handy if you're walking or jogging and have the unit in your pocket and want to access the controls. Oddly enough, there's no belt clip on the recorder.

MiniDisc technology offers undeniable compactness and convenience. The MD-MS702's small size and light weight (under 8 ounces) means that it's equally at home in your pocket or plugged into your home stereo. And because it's digital, an MD's content can be navigated quickly, tracks can be re-arranged, deleted, etc. The MD-MS702 has a 100-character titler that lets you label each track. Commercial MiniDisc releases identify each track as they're played. The MD-MS702 (and most other MD machines) also offers other typical CD-type features such as auto-search, random play, repeat and cueing.

Journalist friends of mine rave about the convenience of using a MiniDisc player as an interviewing tool. If your MD recorder has a mono/long-play mode (the MD-MS702 does), you can get up to 148 minutes of spoken audio (as opposed to the normal 74 minutes) on a disc. Then you can go through the interview (or lecture, speech, soap box rant, etc.) and mark the parts you want to keep, move them to the front of the disc and record over the rest.

The big controvery over MiniDisc machines is the audio quality. While MD is often sold as "CD-quality," it's not. Not quite. The MD-MS702 uses ATRAC 5.0 (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coupling) compression software. That's right, compression. Lossy compression. So, is the loss noticeable? Depends on your ears. Some people swear they can't hear a bit of difference between an MD and a CD. Others claim it's very noticeable. I was surprised to discover I'm somewhat in the latter camp (and I'm no audiophile). My just-shy-of-hi-fi audio could have been due to listening with the crapazoid headphones that came with the machine (four hundred bucks and they give you drug store quality phones!). Things did seem to improve a little with my Grado SR60s. I didn't try hooking the unit up to our home stereo. The "near-CD quality" would certainly not be a deal breaker for me, but there *appeared* to a discernable difference (though MD software compression is supposed to mainly lose only those sounds that the human air can't hear anyway).

Other features of the MD-MS702 include a non-skip memory chip for shock-resistance, a rechargable lithium-ion battery (for five hours of playback, four hours of record), and a triple-mode X-bass.

So what does it all mean, Mr. Natural? Is the MiniDisc here to stay? Should you choose an MD player/recorder over a good tape recorder, a portable CD player or a CD-R? It really depends on what you want out of your device. If portability, recording, and navigating/arranging recordings is important, the MD-MS702 is a good way to go, especially if you're not going to choke on the price. If you're interested in only pre-recorded music, go elsewhere. There's still scant little available in MD format.

The loss in sound quality might be an issue for some, but hey, even if it's not CD quality, it's certainly better than tape. I'll probably wait a while for the price of machines like the MD-MS702 to drop a hundred bucks or so, but after that, I just might pony up. The time saved in capturing and arranging interviews would pay for itself in no time. Actually, I might wait until the third generation arrives in early '99 (which promises even better quality) and buy a second generation machine then.

- Gareth Branwyn [7/8/98]