That beauty up there, that shiny Magnesium first Hi-MD model was my second Minidisc. Think I still have it in Madrid somewhere…. because I still have some hope for that format that never was… and never will. Maybe it will get trendy in 2030 and we’ll see a Minidisc revival like with vinyl records, or maybe there will be an “impossible project” by some ex-Sony employees to bring it back to life.
As for today we’ll just say bye. Honored to have met you Minidisc … and all your flavors since I first saw you back in 1997, your net Minidiscs, your HD minidiscs which claimed up to 1GB of capacity… and the ordinary MDs of course. You lost the war against the iPod and the mp3verse long ago, and now your creator will give room for something better (ok ok, let’s not criticize the SonicStage & the ATRAC loseless format, they were a lost bid anyway, and a horrible one).
MiniDisc Walkmans will be available until store inventories are depleted,” Japanese newspaper The Nikkei reported. “Sony will continue to make the MiniDiscs themselves, as well as stereos that can play back the audio discs. It will also keep producing CD Walkmans.”
Seems like 22 million devices have been sold up to last March can’t really compare with today’s figures for any popular mp3 player … or smartphones (who’ve kindly replaced traditional mp3s too), and September has been fixed as the key date to discontinue the format. Would really love to see Sony’s product roadmap calendar.
Some of you might not even recognize this technology… but no-one will argue that the sound quality was the best out there… see you later Mr MD.
(wow just realised the minidisc.org forum is still around….)
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