I couldn't find a mini disc recorder with a digital output, this feature seemed only to be available on music centres for use in the home....
I bought a Sony MZ-R37 recorder (costing £UK190) which I use with a sony stereo mic ECM-MS907 (which cost £UK90).
I've used it to record a number of pus sessions now and the results have been outstanding.
Transferring the output from the minidisc to CD via analogue connection to the soundcard does seem to be a bit daft, but it seems to cause no discernible loss of quality (unless , I guess, you're very picky.....)