Bernard Wheeler's Weblog

Last year I bought my third Sony MiniDisk player, a MZ-NH700. A third? Well the first was a straight MD-LP (4 CDs on a single disk) Walkman, which led me to get a non-portable one to attach to my Bose setup at home (my wife didn't want “big black speakers messing up the decor” and since the Bose has small, white, ceiling-mountable speakers, it was an easy decision...).

The third came about because although my first MD Walkman had a PC connection, transfers were done in real-time. So putting 5 hours of music onto a disk would take 5 hours. Which was highly frustrating, because various bits of software (Real, the Sony SonicStage stuff, etc.) could rip CDs onto my PC a lot faster. So the PC connection wasn't really that useful in the end (since I haven't ventured into the iTunes^TM world yet and only listen to stuff I have on CD or vinyl).

The new MD is a lot smarter. For a start, it can cope with Sony's 1GB disks and secondly it actually has a useful USB connection and transfers are basically like putting stuff onto a flash drive (and the PC sees the 1GB disk as an additional drive if you want to transfer data/pictures and not just use it as a music device). And since the 1GB disks are now available through Amazon at 5 pounds a time, it's not an expensive option either.

Sony claim that you can put 45 CDs onto a single disk. Well, to test this out – and what the music quality is like at that level of compression, I've actually put 48 CDs and 2 CD singles on a disk. Admittedly, the disk lengths range from 33 minutes (Getz/Gilberto) to just under 1 hour 15 minutes (Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II - 24 Preludes And Fugues, Disc 2), but that's still an impressive amount of music to fit on 5 pounds-worth of small, pretty rugged, portable media.

And the music quality? I listen using Sony's MDR-EX71 headphones and on the compression/sample rate to get that amount of music on the disk (48kbps ATRAC3plus) it's quite frankly astounding – bearing in mind that I'm getting towards the age when my hearing's not what it was and I'm not pretending to have 'professional reviewer quality audio' abilities, but I defy anyone to have a serious complaint about the sound that comes out of this portable device.

Another thing that really appeals – and steered me away from the iPod/MP3 player route is the battery life (60+ hours) and the fact that the player I (deliberately) chose takes standard 'AA' size batteries. So I don't have to cart around a charging cradle, power adapter, etc. when I'm travelling – I just take one spare battery and know that wherever I am in the world I'll be able to get some more in the nearest drugstore or supermarket.

So if you're in the “iPod or another approach” situation, I can highly recommend the Sony NetMD technology - even at the highest compression/lowest sample rates.

So what have I put on that disk (and I have others to fill too...)? Well I shan't list the full 50, but here's a selection of titles I can highly recommend:

• apart from the Getz/Gilberto, there's also Jazz Samba and Jazz Samba Encore, both Getz collaborations in the same vein

• Miles Davis' absolutely classic Kind of Blue and Birth of the Cool

• both of the books (4 CDs) of Bach's ground-breaking Well Tempered Clavier – originally written to prove that the newly invented piano could handle tunes in any key – its main innovation at the time over the tuning of keyboard instruments used until that point (and the first piece in the first book is possibly the most beautiful piece of music ever written). The recordings I have are performed by Jeno Jando

• Ludovico Einaudi's Le Onde – very soothing

• Lemonjelly's lemonjelly.ky and Lost Horizons – both obviously recent favourites in the BBC's factual programming section, as they feature repeatedly as backing music

• Massive Attack's 100^th Window – sadly overlooked in awards, but nevertheless superb

• the 'usual' fare of Keane's Hopes and Tears, and Coldplay's Parachutes and A Rush of Blood to the Head – 'usual' not meaning ordinary

• Zero7's When It Falls, and also their compilation for the AnotherLateNight series (there's also Fila Brazillia's similar offering on the disk)

• Radiohead's The Bends – I think their best work

• Muse's Absolution – just wonderful

That's it for now, although I may return to music topics at a later date, just to report on what I'm listening to as the days pass.