I remember my portable Sharp Mini Disc recorder. There was a workaround (involving removing the battery at some point) to trick the device to allow you to copy in digital bypassing DRM. I never tried it as I didn't have an optical cable and my sound card didn't have a TOSHLINK output back then. I always recorded in analog mode (from line in or mic). I didn't notice any difference in audio quality. It would be nice to have a data mini Disc drive connected on my PC to rip the mini Disc into files or record music from PC on Mini Disc digitally, but these things were not available here in Greece and even if they were, their cost wasn't worth it. Since the analog copy doesn't have any perceivable difference from the original, I just remained old school and used analog audio cables. At some point I wanted to digitize some vinyl records, so I can listen to them, in my car's CD player. I couldn't move the PC to the LP player or vice versa, so I recorded the LPs on Mini Disc and then digitized the recording. Paying attention to the recording level both from LP to Mini Disc and then from Mini Disc to the PC I had the maximum dynamic range without distorting the audio. I even scanned the LP cover and printed it for the CD cover! If I wanted to eliminate the occasional clicks or pops, Cool Edit Pro or Adobe Audition did a good job sampling the noise and then removing it.