In 2015 where streamed music becomes the norm and CDs fade into oblivion, it's good to take a look back into the not so distant past at the default format used by music lovers around the world - the cassette.

Earlier this February, Sony stopped producing MiniDisc players.

Yet another incredibly sad moment, I must say. MDs were a part and parcel of my life in the late 1990s to the early 2000s.

I never made it a point to transition the music device from my humble but reliable cassette player, Sony Walkman WM-FX511, to the CD player. Somehow, CD players felt rather large. No matter how good manufacturers made them, the size of these music devices were always limited by the size of the storage media, the Compact Disc. Sony and Panasonic made some really slim and elegant players but somehow, big was still the word that came to mind.

Instead, jumping directly to the MiniDisc format seemed to be ideal. It seemed to hold quite some potential for the future. As incredulous as this comment may seem in 2013, you have to understand how things functioned in 1998.

MD portables actually being portable
In 1998, Sony and Sharp were the dominant players in portable recorders. Sony had released the Sony MZ-R55, the first genuine disc sized recorder. All their previous releases were rectangular blocks so a square-sized, MD-shaped contraption represented quite a welcome change. Sharp was just a little earlier in coming up with MD-sized units such as the MD-MS701 in 1997 and looked set to continue the trend with their MS721/722 models released in '98. All this pointed to increasingly MiniDisc-sized recorders and players. The smaller they get, the more attractive they get. Sounds the same for every tech device for that matter (TVs excluded).

Affordability
MD portables were getting increasingly more affordable. If recollection serves well, Sony's MZ-R50 / R30 models were in the region of SGD500 - 600+. The new portables from Sony and Sharp were hitting the upper 400/lower 500 levels. As with all technology, once increasingly established, prices drop due to ease of manufacturing, increasing parts availability, consumer acceptance, etc.

Digital Love
At this point in time, what could allow digital playback for a recording enthusiast? I'm the kind to actually listen to radio and actually record music from there with a trusty cassette deck. CDs certainly couldn't perform this function. There were Digital Audio Tape (DAT) and Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) formats but DAT was not very consumer-ish and DCC didn't really represent a threat to MiniDiscs. Somehow, the association for DCC was with Philips only and MD seemed to be taking off with Sony, Sharp, Panasonic all joining the fray. So MDs for digital recording/playback? Why not?

MP3 begins
MP3s were only just starting out and MP3 players were very 'underground' should I say? People were just starting to figure out how to download Cher's Believe ie. where to get the the music, how to download the music, how to listen to the music. Not many were thinking of what portable device could play MP3s. Furthermore, memory prices were crazy. One of the first players, the Diamond Rio PMP300, was just introduced with 32MB of storage. That was insane. With this capacity, realistically we were looking at 3 or 4 songs max? That said, MP3s and their players were really not a viable option in 1998.

So with this, why not jump on the MD bandwagon? It was quite a straightforward decision. This was the beginning of wonderful memories with using MiniDiscs, at least until an equally attractive and compact proposition in the form of the iPod mini popped out in 2004. However, for five to six long years, the MiniDisc was a wonderful format for recording.

After taking yet another one year break, what's new in personal audio? Guess what - the outlook is very much the same as in 2008. There are yet even more convergent devices than ever before. It is almost unthinkable to not own a music phone these days. While mid-range and higher-end cell phone models include this function, we notice that even many budget models include music playback.

One major difference is the emergence of touchscreen phones that were close to non-existent prior to the iPhone's launch. Two years after its June 2007 launch, we see many such models like the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music and the Samsung OMNIA make their presence felt. It's a great time to be a consumer as manufacturers continually try to outmuscle one another to increase their market share.


With so many different products in the market sporting increasingly similar features, it is almost imperative to differentiate one product from another. We do feel there is one aspect that is bound to sway consumers more than other features.

d. Design

Yes. Design is of utmost importance. When all other factors are generally the same, design is probably the single most important factor that can make or break a product. Let's talk about music players first. I don't have to bring out white papers or statistics to prove this. Let's look at the iPod as an example. Apple's industrial design team generally focuses on simple and streamlined hardware designs as can be seen from the Macintosh Classic and PowerBooks. The iPod is no different.
In 2001, MP3 players were not very prevalent. There was the Diamond Rio 500 and Creative NOMAD Jukebox. Both ideas were great. The Rio's small form factor was a great selling point and the NOMAD's 6GB hard drive could store lots of songs. The problem was that there was no middle ground for both products. The Rio had a meagre 64MB flash capacity with little space for songs and the NOMAD had a bulky form factor that required 4 AA batteries to power up. The original 2001 iPod managed to bring the best of both worlds together by coming up with a 5GB capacity in a relatively small form factor.

While you may say, hey isn't the Sony Walkman NW-HD3 even more gorgeous than the iPod? Well, I can't disagree with that but note my comment 'when all other factors are generally the same'. For music players, factors are simply not the same. If Sony's SonicStage software supported the MP3 format natively and did away with the needless conversion to its proprietary ATRAC3, who knows what might have happened?
Let's look beyond music players and let's have a look at netbooks. The manufacturer that gave birth to netbooks is ASUS and it has come up with many different product iterations of Eee PCs. Lenovo has come up with a single model so far and has not had a netbook refresh since its IdeaPad s10. Again, we can attribute the reason to product design.

The Eee PC 901 and 1000 series have a somewhat bulky form factor relative to their screen sizes (1.1kg for 9-inch screen and 1.45kg for 10-inch screen).

By contrast the IdeaPad s10 comes in a svelte 1.2kg for a 10-inch screen.
To prove the point, as of this post, ASUS has just released the Eee PC 1008HA (about 2 weeks back) with a much improved design. It still has a 10-inch screen but with a much lighter 1.1kg weight.

That said, if any manufacturers are listening, please please plonk more dough into your industrial design teams. They could make that much of a difference to your product's success.

Well, here I am back after a one year hiatus. I must say the music scene has changed quite a bit. Fewer and fewer people are buying dedicated MP3 players and more are getting convergent devices like the (almost) mainstream iPhone and Sony Ericsson Walkman phones. It seems convergence is here to stay and that's definitely a good thing isn't it? After all, weren't you lugging around a phone, an MP3 player and a camera not too long ago? Right now, we see many products where all these features are integrated into one. The future certainly looks bright especially if we can expect battery life of consumer products to take some leaps and bounds forward.

Speaking of which, we were previously talking about how to gauge audio players now weren't we? We've already covered a. Audio Quality and b. User Interface. So now, let's get back to the topic, shall we?


c. Battery Life
What's the most annoying thing that could possibly happen to you with your state-of-the-art music player? Have you experienced having James Blunt crying out how beautiful you are only to be cut off suddenly? Does this happen especially when you've only just left your house? I've got news - you're not alone. Now it certainly cheeses me off to find that the power is cut because I had forgotten to charge the device the night before. It could either make or break your day.

The problem is not so much 'when do you charge the unit?'. A more appropriate question is: how do you minimize this battery dying occurence? The answer is simple - Get a player with a decent battery life.

Battery Life of Selected Players

	Supports	Year of Release	Battery Life (MP3)
iPod nano (v3)	MP3/Photo/ Video	2007	Up to 24h
iPod nano (v2)	MP3/Photo	2006	Up to 24h
iPod nano (v1)	MP3/Photo	2005 (Sep)	Up to 14h
iPod mini (v2)	MP3	2005 (Feb)	Up to 18h
iPod mini (v1)	MP3	2004	Up to 8h

Before looking in to what these figures mean, it is important to note that the Apple iPod mini was discontinued and replaced with the iPod nano. In a sense, the table shows the history of Apple's mid-range MP3 players.

Now, this table illustrates two things -
1. If you note the formats the player supports from 2004 to present, we see that MP3s were supported in the original version but now, we see photo and video support. In a nutshell, it is obvious that convergence is already here and that an increasing number of manufacturers will have to embrace this in order to survive the fast-paced consumer technology market.

2. Now what's our main topic of discussion? You're spot on - Battery life! Now in 2004, the iPod mini could only play for a meagre 8 hours. This was actually quite mediocre even for its era when compared with Sony Minidisc players that could easily hit a 30+ hours rating. Apple probably listened to the consumers and came up with their second iteration which boasted 18 hours. This was a very welcome increase in juice but then you will ask - how come the nano, 1st version scored a poorer rating of 14 hours than its predecessor, the mini?

To understand this, one would have to understand the storage mechanism behind the mini and the nano. The music in the mini was stored in a microdrive which had moving parts. These moving parts, while robust, were nevertheless prone to failure. The nano used flash memory. While not a new technology, flash memory was expensive and high capacities of 4GB were still quite premium for its time. The good thing was that flash memory doesn't involve moving parts and hence music skipping could be prevented.

Anyway, the nano was improved and hit an impressive high of 24 hours of battery life with its 2nd version.

Now, what do we see in the future?
Convergent devices are becoming more widespread but the battery life isn't keeping up. While clearly there have been significant increases, this isn't enough when you use devices for multiple purposes. If cellphones are to be doubled up as handsets and video players, users should expect a higher battery life but instead the battery life remains the same. If convergence is to take off, power is something that needs serious consideration.

b. User Interface (UI)

How does one define the user interface of a product? This can be divided into hardware and software aspects. Let's take a closer look at each:

Software:
- This deals with how easy it is to navigate within the phone via the default user interface. Some manufacturers do a fantastic job while some just don't really put the effort in. Some devices don't even have a software UI - a case in point is the iPod shuffle.

Hardware:
- This deals with how well laid out are the buttons. Are the USB ports ideally placed? Is anything hindering usability eg. a button blocking access to another button?


MP3 vs MD:
Taking a swift comparison between MP3 and MD players, there's no question that the iPod alone gives weight to the fact that MP3 players have a better hardware/software interface.

iPod - clicking each menu will branch to a sub-menu and this relationship actually shown as the sub-menu is scrolls to the left within a split second, thus replacing the original menu. In most other MP3 players, similar clicking patterns will bring up a sub-menu but the relationship is not obvious due to the immediate change to the screen display. Songs are categorized neatly into albums/favorite playlists making searching very easy.

For the hardware, you have 5 clickable buttons and a click wheel. It's really as simple as it can get.


MD player - follows the same "immediate change" system where clicking a menu jumps to the next menu with an immediate visual change in the LED display. However, Sony's latest MD effort - the MZ-RH1 and recent MP3 players include a visual implication to the menu to sub-menu relationship. See this video that MDcenter.nl has posted to have a closer look at how the user jumps from "Menu - REC Settings - REC Mode - Hi-SP". One limitation is the number of lines of information displayed. Having more lines of display is far better for obvious reason. See the pictures below to understand the potential ease of use with multiple lines of display.


Song categorization is basic - the early generation of MD players simply had a single tracklist for each disc. Only during the MDLP phase,the Group structure (similar to Playlist) emerged where each Group supports one tracklist.

Hardware-wise, no MD player has been able to better the iPod in terms of user intuitiveness. However , considering the vast amount of customization it allows eg. dividing, recording tracks, Sony learnt and progressively got better with its joystick buttons as you can see on the MZ-N10.

Now it's time for a list of the players I've ever owned/tried (and when I mean 'tried', it's not just fiddling with it at a shop or show. It's actually bringing it home for a few days). I guess I'll have to seperate them by type 'cos there's simply too many to list down in one shot. I'll skip CD players 'cos I never really bothered to use them. I jumped straight from using my prized Walkman - the WM-FX50, straight to MD technology. I haven't regretted the decision at all :)

The talk of the town these days is of course MP3 players, but this is slowly veering towards MP3 phones. Its most prominent form are Sony Ericsson's line of Walkman phones. Watch out - convergence is here to stay!


MP3 Players

1. Sony Ericsson W800i
2. iPod nano (2nd gen)
3. Microsoft Zune
   
4. Creative Zen V Plus
   
5. iPod (5th gen)
6. Sony NW-S705F
   
7. Creative Zen Vision:M
   
8. Transcend T.sonic 620
9. Creative Zen Microphoto
   
10. Creative MuVo V200
    
11. iPod mini (2nd gen)
12. Creative Zen Micro
    
13. MPIO FL300
    
14. Sony NW-E70
    
15. Creative MuVo² FM
16. D Cube NMP-612T
    
17. Elson EM-250H
    

MD Players

1. Sony MZ-NH1
2. Sharp MD-MT877
3. Sony MZ-E90
   
4. Sharp MD-SR50
   
5. Sharp MD-MT831
6. Sharp MD-MS721
   

To showcase the qualities of the audio players, I'll break them down into
a. Audio Quality
b. User Interface
c. Battery Life
d. Design
e. Other Features

I'll talk more about point a. first. We'll look at b. to e. in some later posts.


a. Audio Quality
Assuming that the earphones are the same for all the players, then the only item that is variable is the format. For the MP3 players, let's take the default audio format to be .mp3 128 kbps and for MD players, the default is ATRAC3 SP mode.

It is certainly possible to compare the Sony MZ-NH1 to several of the MP3 players due to its MP3 playback ability and the Sony MP3 players to the MD players due to their ATRAC3 support. Unfortunately, I no longer have the Sony MD/MP3 players in my possession so we shall limit the comparison to .mp3 for MP3 players and ATRAC3 SP for MD players.

If you are wondering how ATRAC3 and .mp3 square up, we'll leave that to a later date where we will compare the formats. Right now, we will focus solely on the players.

MP3 players do not disappoint in the audio department. Apple iPods and Creative Zen players are solid units with good all-rounded sound. iPods have one major issue - the lack of an equalizer and this lack of customization is a minus point. The Dance EQ setting tends to distort the audio too. The 5-band equalizer in Creative Zens are appreciated. Similar to iPod's Dance EQ setting, Creative players have a Bass Boost setting which should be disactivated at all costs. Most of the other MP3 players did fine though the Sony Ericsson W800i does have an obvious background hiss when the earphones are plugged to the ears.

MD players are pretty powerful in terms of audio, especially if you were to choose a Sharp.

The initial Sharp units have 3 levels of bass settings (excluding default) - the 3rd level is rock solid for dance music as the bass reverberates strongly in the eardrum. This changed with the MD-DR480 where we saw 5 levels of treble setting included and more importantly, a 1-bit digital amplifier supported with a 4-pole earphone plug/jack. While this unit was supposedly one of the best MD units in terms of sound quality, unfortunately I did not get my hands on this unit to have a go.

Sonys tend not to have bass that isn't so strong but are good in terms of overall performance in the frequency spectrum. The older Sonys have 2 bass levels (excluding default) while the later models like the MZ-NH1 impress with a 6-band equalizer and 'Virtual Surround'.