Here's one from the vaults. These are the HiSpace iMac blank minidiscs, produced between 2000 and 2001. With the exception of TDK, they were the only company making interesting blank media at that point. I have no idea what relation these have to the Apple computer of the same name, which was introduced two years earlier.

As of 2003, the HiSpace brand has ceased to exist, though parent company MPO still operates out of France.

They made a series of custom discs for Minidisco (who sadly sell very few minidisc-related products now) with a neat cartoon robot motif, and I'm still searching for a set of their Tribal series discs.

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 …

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.

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Sony is finally phasing out the DAT medium (Babelfish translation and community reaction). To be honest, I thought this happened years ago. There are no plans to cease production on the blank tapes themselves, but recording/playback equipment will no longer be made.

Why is this important? Well, it goes a long way towards showing that "obsolete" formats still have some life left as long as a) there's a dedicated user-base, and b) blank media are still available. Take Minidisc, for example: the format was written off as a failure outside of Japan back around 1998, …

Here's the 2005 flagship playback unit. The NH1 is the recorder, and the NH3D (which is very rare) is the downloader. Still waiting for word on the next-gen units, which should have full mp3 compatibility as well as uploading capacity.

The new Hi-MD units do support uncompressed PCM, as well as the new 256 and 352kb/s bitrates. The Hi-MD amp sounds clean and clear, though I can't distinguish any difference between the Class D amps they were using in the last series.

With Sony's newer EX90 headphones. These are getting warmer as …

TDK still make the most gorgeous discs out there. These are the 2002 Special Edition Bit Club series: