I wonder if the analog side of it was also designed superbly. More modern players happened to succeed not because the creators worked harder, or designed bette

I wonder if the analog side of it was also designed superbly. More modern players happened to succeed not because the creators worked harder, or designed better, but purely by stupid luck of riding the Moore's law curve. But the analog side of things was not subject to Moore's law, and since modern players are cheap, there is no budget for a careful analog design. Hence I would expect older products like MiniDisc to have excellent performance there. All this without having used one, just some fun armchair speculation.