Transferring audio from MiniDisc to CD , some considerations

Now, this is not a guide , a tutorial where you'll discover secrets of sound engineering, just  some observation i learnt when i had to transfer some recordings i did with a MD recorder to CD, so this is pretty much for beginners and there may be sure better ways to do it, anyway, first of all a big thanks to my friend Gabriele B. who is much more expert than me in dealing with sound.
Some observation are more about the source , i mean, i use MiniDisc mostly for taping live shows hence the focus, on this topic we may argue why choose MD and not DAT, well there may be pros and cons and what right now got me to prefer MD is cost and size, professionals will most likely use DAT, so maybe i, well one day...

Firstly, no matter how many tricks and software you can use after, quality of the input material is determinant, so some things to take care before are :

1) equipment : sound obvious but the best equipment you have the more chance you have to get a good result, and don't forget that a good mic is much important than a good MD recorder, I use a Sharp MT-15 with a Sony ECM DS70P stereo T mic, pretty much entry level. Sometimes i use also some Beyerdynamic mic, of much higher quality.
Obviously budget has its role in determining it, so you may start with something cheap and progress when you feel you need more.

2) level of recording : you'd like to have a live recording sound as loud and clear as possible but when you record, the level must not exceed 0 db, better if stays in the range of -3db 0 db, check on the meter to see you're not beyond, the consequence is clipping of the waves and a distorted sound. Now if a faint recording may get new energy from compression,normalizing and other stuff, it's very tough to remove digital clipping ,I saw some declipping plugin for Soundforge but when the damage is done, it's done...

Now let's say that you've your good MD done and want to pass it onto CD for better listening in different environment... there are two chances :

1) a fully digital transfer (this means that your MD must have a digital/optical out and your PC sound card must have a digital/optical IN), this should let you get the best result of course but it's expensive because, afaik no portable MD have digital OUT, so you'd get a MD deck and althought some soundcard have digital in, it's not common to have optical IN (that'd be better). Sound Blaster Live! Platinum is one of the maybe most popular but I've been told it's not so good for some noise that can gather, so maybe you'd get more from a pro audio card (and spend more bucks of course). I'm currently using a Terratec EWX 24/96 soundcard with digital (optical) in and out and noticed a significant improvement : it's pretty simple, when you connect your minidisc try record some seconds of pure silence on the pc, if you'll do via a digital link, looking at the wave file you'll see just a flat zero wave, if you'll do with an analog transfer you'll see clearly the shape of some noise you're bringin'in.

2) using an analog transfer although sounds almost a contradiction (recorded digitally and "losing" quality after that) this is what most people can do: using the normal line out of the MD pluggin into the line in of the sound card, I know professionals are already grinning well, let's see what we can do with that anyway. In the past i did my transfer that way with Sound Blaster AWE 64 card and the result was not horrible anyway.

When you're ready to move to the computer domain, more steps are awaiting for you... here we go.