Sorry to revive and old thread, but I just picked up a new MZ-N710 MD player (with NetMD, as all the new players from Sony have it).
Had a friend visiting us here a few months back. He had a 20GB iPod (new version) with the Bose NC headset. Have to say, the sound was quite flat, despite playing around with the rather limited EQ.
Spent the next few months research MD format. Bottom line: the ATRAC format, even at LP2, is miles ahead of .mp3. I don't want to carry around my entire CD collection on a hard drive. My new MD player has an excellent EQ, anti-shock protection, and is quite a bit smaller than an iPod (important for traveling). Try dropping an iPod from your seat and see if it works. They all use Fujitsu HDD from what I've heard, and as soon as it fails, you're done.
I carry three minidiscs with me (and when combined with the player, still takes up less room than most HDD-based mp3 players). Each disc has about 2.5 hours of music on it. I can regularly erase and re-shuffle the contents to make a perfect mix.
Check out:
http://www.minidisct.com/md_is_better_than_mp3.html
Also, from
http://www.minidisct.com/md_vs_all.html
MD Player's advantage over MP3 Player
1. MP3 has to be edited by computer. Very few solid state MP3 portables can execute real time recording. MD, on the other hand, can record from any source (digital/analog) through just an optic fiber, coax line, or microphone.
2. MP3's sound quality is far more inferior than MD. MP3 was develop to compress data at the ratio 1:10 ratio. MD's ATRAC technology, on the other hand, was developed for professional music industry and compress sound data in 1:5 ratio by eliminating noises and inaudible frequencies, preserving the dept of sounds. MiniDisc can actually sound better than a CD. MP3 cannot.
3. The various existing MD equipments, along with the removable colorful discs and labels, be can be easily individualized to show different personal styles. MP3s uses non-removable media, hard to be personalized.
4. MiniDisc equipments' accessories are easily and inexpensively obtained audio accessories whereas MP3 players require expensive computer accessories (such as RAM) for best performance.
Sorry for the long post. I should also add, now that all this has been said, that I'm considering getting my wife an iPod for her birthday in a few months!
David