A group of German programmers has figured out the MiniDisc communication protocols, and they've written software that allows certain units to communicate with computers without the SonicStage software layer.  The nuts-and-bolts are here, and a streamlined installation for Ubuntu is available here.

I doubt there's ever been a piece of music that's had as much of an effect on my life as Revolver.  Never mind that it was recorded half a decade before I was born.  In fact, I wouldn't hear it until the early 1980's, when the survivors of the "psychedelic culture" supposedly inspired by this record had gone on to become corporate raiders and investment bankers.

According to some sources, the Beatles were somewhat influential on musical trends and cultural movements in the late 1960's.  I wasn't around for that, and I couldn't have cared less.  What attracted me to them was the sheer talent they had, and the quality of their output, which has never been matched.

Like just about everyone else, I've heard their early output all my life.  It's hardwired into our cultural DNA.  I wasn't as familiar with their middle-period input until a friend gave me a copy of Revolver.  It was the old Capitol mono mix, and I'd end up literally wearing it out as I pored over every minute detail month after month.  To this day, I know every note and nuance of the record.

With this record, the Beatles had gone from catchy pop band to true artists and innovators.  We take many of the studio techniques they used for granted today, but on Revolver, they were revolutionary.  More to the point, they were judiciously used to complement a suite of nearly perfect songs.

Then 1987 came, and I got to hear the record in stereo when their catalog was issued on Compact Disc.  To say the least, I was disappointed.  I imagine that the CD masters were what George Martin thought people expected, but I found them to be harsh, brittle and completely sterile.

We'd be stuck with those for another twenty years.

Well, it's been a good fifteen years.Sony has officially cut off support for SonicStage. It's been over a year since the introduction of their flagship (and evidently, last) unit, the MZ-RH1. They've also abandoned the ATRAC format in their newer flash units.

Over the last year, most brick-and-mortar retailers have stopped carrying blank media for the format, and companies like TDK and Maxell have stopped making them altogether.

Lower the flags to half-mast, gang: this really is it.

Here's the obscure but lovely Sony MZ-E630. This is an older MDLP (ie. legacy) MiniDisc player. For some reason, it's not listed in the MDCF equipment browser, but it does in fact exist. Just like Bigfoot.

These are 2005 Special Edition MiniDiscs from TDK:

Here they are with my trusty DR7:

They're a slight variation on the HO series. The bottom two discs are the standard TDK "Fine" series. They're good workhorse discs as they're somewhat inexpensive, and I can write directly on the colored surface. The TDK's are my first choice for field recording since they're the most durable and least error-prone brand I've come across.

The one on the top right is an old HiSpace disc. Pretty as they are, the …

The わ series are TDK's flagship minidisc blanks for 2006. The word "sublime" comes to mind…

(Bottom two rows. From top left, L-R: 2003 HO series yellow, 2004 XS-iV 80, 2002 Bit Club, XS-iV "Ministry of Sound" Series, わ in various colors.)

They're only available in Japan, and at the moment, it appears that none of the usual importers plan on carrying them. I got my set from a friend at T-Board who lives there. Let me know if you need a set, and I …

On to the torture test: the local shooting range. I've found that this is the absolute worst acoustic environment I've ever run across. The average gunshot is ~155db at ten feet. You've got a situation where the ambient sound level goes from 10db to 155db and back in less than a second, and since you're in a concrete building, there are echoes and splashes everywhere.

I set up with an AT9841 single-point and started recording. The automatic level control obviously struggled with the dynamic changes, but still did much better than expected. I made a second recording by attenutating to a …

I've been a fan of MiniDisc for awhile. My primary recording unit is my DR7, bought back in 2003, and as is typical, it still serves me fine to this day.

I had a Nomad Jukebox 3 that worked well as a recorder, but it didn't have the onboard editing features of MiniDisc, and let's face it, plastic HDD-based players just don't stand up to abuse. Aluminum and magnesium MiniDiscs do, and it's not uncommon to see people using 10-year-old units at shows.

The only real hassle with MD has been the issue of how to get the recordings onto a …

Not many folks noticed Sony's announcement earlier this year that they'd be phasing out the Minidisc format. In fact, most people were unaware that it was even still alive in the 21st century.

As it turns out, Sony was still churning out models in the new Hi-Md format, and they continue to do so.

In the era of high-capacity mp3 players, Minidisc seems something of a throwback. Originally designed as a replacement for CDs, the format was soundly rejected by a public already feeling burned by the forced obsolesence of vinyl. It gained a second life (and …

Sound waves are delicate and fragile things. They need a medium simply to exist at all, and any variations or interference in the ether can change their whole character.

Ever since 33.3 LPs started coming out in stereo, we've had an obsession with recording accurate sound. You can spend anywhere from a few hundred to a couple of million dollars setting up just the right acoustic space, you can position the baffles and mics just so, isolate and eliminate residual hum…you name it, just to get the exact right sound on tape (or these days, disk).

Some folks are just …

This is the second-generation Hi-MD playback unit. Notice the similarities to last year's MZ-E630 MDLP player. This unit has the HD amp as well as a connexion for an external battery pack. The internal battery is still the old NiMH one they've been using for the last few generations, but I'm not complaining as it's interchangeable with all the old ones I have floating around.

As you can see, it's only slightly larger than the discs themselves, but it's still a bit thicker than the EH1.

…

A bit back I posted that Rio had gone belly-up. All assets had been sold to Sigmatel, and hope for anything developed by their team looked lost.

Looks like I jumped the gun.

Turns out, Sigmatel has kept Rio's development team, along with everything they'd been working on when Rio closed up shop. According to a thread on Riovolution, the whole STMP3600 reference design that was planned for the Chroma is still alive and well, and will likely be used as the foundation for other players soon. That includes the best features of the Karma (gapless …