Sony Portable Mini-Disc Player/Recorder (MZR500PC)
My preferred music mix device. One of my favorite toys.
The first thing you need to know about this player is that it is not able to do any digital recording. Analog recording only! That's by no means the end of the world, but if you are serious about using a minidisc player a lot, you might want to pony up the extra funds and go digital. On the other hand, analog recording means you don't have to fool around with any dubious computer software, so its not all bad. <br />Minidisc players are great for several reasons. The player is microscopically small (and just plain cute!). Minidiscs are removable (like a cassette or a CD), so you can fill up dozens and dozens of discs with different recordings. (This is why I use minidisc and not MP3. I need to have no less than 12 hours of music on my person at any time. With a portable MP3 player, this is just not practical. With a minidisc player, its a walk in the park.) Minidisc players handle the shuffle feature far better than CD players ever will - there's never any pause or noise between tracks. Recording is ridiculously easy; all that is required is a headphone jack. You can hook your minidisc player into any stereo, walkmen, amp, casio keyboard, television set, or whatever and record music in real-time (i.e., if the song is three minutes long, it takes three minutes to record it). This is great for recording on the go - like say you're at your friend's house and you hear a new song you just love, you can plug your minidisc player in and record it right then and there. Hooking up to computers is also quite easy, but recording from your friend's computer isn't a seamless or quick process (this device is pretty monogamous when it comes to computers). Minidiscs can be recorded over again and again, and you don't have to record or erase everything at once. You can record and delete tracks one-at-a-time. This is not like your CD Burner; it works more like a really advanced cassette deck. On the downside, minidisc players have moving parts, and therefore may skip if bumped or jostled (whereas an MP3 player you can throw in a washing machine without it skipping).<br />My first and foremost complaint about this specific unit is that it doesn't get very loud. I don't know whether this is a side-effect of the recording process, or is a limitation of its output. What I do know is that if you walk through a high-traffic neighborhood, or board a bus, you may have to strain to hear the music even with the volume turned all the way up. Quite a problem, but one I've more or less adapted to. To be fair, a lot of this has to do with the recording quality I select. You can record in Stereo, Mono, LP2, or LP4. At LP4 you can cram nearly FIVE HOURS of music on one little disc. Very cool! I most often record in LP4. But I compromise my sound quality by doing so. If you record in Stereo, or even at LP2 (you still get 74 or 148 minutes of  music, respectively), your sound quality improves substantially. Another way to combat the quiet volume is to set the \\"RecVol\\" manually, rather than automatically (ALWAYS do this!). HOWEVER, you'll still struggle with the weak volume, though it won't be nearly as bad. <br />As far as other features go, labeling tracks must be done by hand, and is no more difficult than storing numbers in your cell phone. Manual track editing isn't tough at all. Moving tracks (you can change a song's position in the mix) is super-easy. And everything is done on the player itself, so you can tool around with your music on the go.<br />The final issue is whether or not a minidisc player is worth the money. Of course, that all depends on what you want to do with it. Is it good for a work-out? Absolutely not. Is it a good replacement for a CD player? Not if most of your music is on CD. (Remember, a minidisc isn't really an improvement on CD. Although the player and disc is smaller, the sound quality is inferior.) Is it useful for recording your garage band? I think so. Is it useful for home electronic recordings? Absolutely. Is it a good way tostore MP3s? Sure! Could you use it to record environmental sounds, or even to record interview conversation? With a good microphone (which is not included), you certainly could. Myself, I find it most useful for recording tracks from my swollen vinyl collection, so that I can listen to my records away from home. And for that purpose, there's no better personal audio device than a minidisc player. I kinda bought this on a whim (basically I wanted a new toy), and I've been really very happy with it. But if I didn't have so many albums on vinyl, I'm not so sure how much I'd use this device.