I have a friend who owns the R37 model from Sony, and he just thinks it's the best thing he's ever bought. He, like yourself, is a professional musician.

Another friend of mine, in Boston, just picked up one of the other models, the R70 model, and believes strongly that it's the way of the future.

I'm going to be getting one as soon as I can. Probably the R700 model, which replaces the R70.

Rick, one thing to note. Sony doesn't market many of their mini-disc recorders because they don't want to support them. Right now, in Canada, only the R37 and R70 seems to be available. Prices are higher than I think they should be.

Assuming no Canadian Sony reps are here, it's much cheaper to buy in the states. For instance, the R70, which was what I had been planning on buying is $499 in Canada. In the states, it WAS 249. Currently, they seem to be having a great sale on them at between 179 and 199 in the states. This is because they are discontinuing that model in favour of the R700.