I bought my minidisc player in 2000 for £120. I remember it being a toss-up between MD and a 128 MByte MP3 player,both of which cost roughly the same money. In the end I opted for the Aiwa AMF-75 portable minidisc player simply because minidiscs were quite cheap. In retrospect I have no regrets about turning down the MP3 player. As most on here will testify, the sound quality of minidisc is second to none and I found it invaluable for recording & digitising my record collection. There was even a 'mono' mode for recording my collection of old 45's. In later years when I moved onto mp3 players I noticed a big drop in sound quality. I think that the minidisc simply had a better amplifier with a more dynamic range which worked well with the ATRAC compression system. I still have my MD player and quite a few minidiscs but moved with the times and last year bought a Tascam DR-2D digital recorder for archiving my record collection. However, if I ever want to listen to my music on the way to work, and hear it the way it's supposed to sound, I always pack my minidisc player. Happy days.
Dave