Minidisc

Depends on what you count on as failure. Minidisc was a consumer failure, but in certain places it was embraced.

Local radio was one. Beforehand we were lugging around Marantz cassette recorders which were big, heavy and the audio was only ever as good as the cassette you put into it (I picked up a load of metal tapes from Tandy cheap which gave excellent quality). Units were also often poorly maintained and nobody ever thought of buying their own.

Then Minidisc came along. Instead of this huge heavy beast, we had this small unit that you could hold in your hand (or larger if you went for one of the "pro" models). Indeed the high end consumer units from the likes of Sony offered the features we needed, were desirable consumer goods and were also affordable. So many of us shelled out the 150 or so notes and bought our own.

My own recorder, purchased from the local Sony centre, travelled thousands of miles, recording in helicopters, planes, even a glider. The only time it ever missed a beat in the field was during a winch launch in a glider which to be fair I was fully expecting.

The quality was excellent as well and the media was very reliable (other than idiot journos ejecting discs before the TOC had written). The ATRAC codec was generally fine for speech although not without it's faults but it was so far ahead of what we had before you could forgive it.

These days it's all digital audio recorders using SD cards but minidisc was where it all started. Still have both of my units as I don't have the heart to get rid of them. My original silver Sony which sadly no longer reliably records (due to thousands of hours of use I suspect) and a newer Sony Net MD unit in striking metallic blue that I purchased just shortly before I left the industry.

Consumer failure? Yes, but I loved earning a living with them!