Francisco José Sánchez wrote:
> For all who are bent on comparisons . . .
>
> FWIW, I've owned 2 Sony MZ-R50s. I bought the first one at a Best Buy in
> Chicago in the summer of 1998 (without the help of the ignorant sales
> staff). I saw it, I'd been wanting a MiniDisc player/recorder for a long
> time to record lectures at med school (the 74min discs recording in mono
> are great for this), it looked cool, so I bought it, not realizing what a
> great unit it would be.
Yes, you get 148 minutes!
> Unfortunately, it was stolen by some lowlife
> earlier this summer (at school, no less).
Hee, hee. That reminds me of my days at dental college. In of of my life I
never saw a place were more things were stolen then there. Dental students are
notorious for stealing each others equipment and supplies! Makes me feel a
little better that it is not limited to dental physicians, but seems to be
endemic to the entire medical profession.
> The thing is built like a TANK, as the first one was dropped a couple of
> times
> while biking (no skips, only minor cosmetic damage).
As them made the newer models (all of the companies) the major "improvement"
was size and some bells and whistles like a back lit LCD and remote. But the
durability is not as good. I have a Denon 70 (Sharp MS200 clone). It's
smaller then a cassette walkman, but not as tiny as the new units. But I have
dropped it several times and it still works just fine.
The Japanese are very big on miniaturization. You could use the dumb racist
line abut them being small (I'm not Japanese and I'm only 5'6" so I even if I
was dumb enough to stereotype people, height is one thing I would stay away
from). But there are some Japanese people that have VERY big, just like there
are big in small people in most races.
I think that aside from things that I may not be aware of, space is at a
premium in Japan. Many people, even though they have very good paying jobs
still live in would would be considered by American standards a small apartment
or if they are luck a small house.
So people living in Japan (actually, although most people living in Japan are
Japanese, I think that it would apply to anyone permanently living in Japan)
think high quality, small size.
It seems to me that the basic history of Japanese manufacturing used to be,
"you give us the plans and we will make it better, smaller and less
expensive". Many of the really high tech developments are not strictly
Japanese, even if we tend to associate an item with Japan.
The Japanese are great improvers not necessarily great innovators. Don't get
me wrong. I'm not saying that there aren't many concepts that were strictly
Japanese from start to finish. But most have their roots in other countries.
The compact cassette, in spite of Sony's association with it and the popularity
of their term "Walkman" was developed by Phillips of the Netherlands (I think
they just call themselves Phillips now).
I'm not sure of the roots of Magneto Optical recording, but I'll bet it
originated outside of Japan. Video tape is not a Japanese invention. But in
each case they did manage to make it better and smaller. It used to be less
expensive too. But lately if you have looked at the price of Japanese cars,
you realize that less expensive isn't always a Japanese qualification for
improvement.
Just my 3 cents
Have a great day,
Larry
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