(FORTUNE Magazine) – Digital music players that fit in your shirt pocket have gotten a lot of ink lately, but they're not exactly flying off the shelves. There's a good reason: Though you can download music from the Internet for free, the players don't store very much of it--and buying enough memory to hold a single additional hour can set you back $50 to $100. This makes building an album collection a rich man's hobby.

But if you're willing to give up a little glitz to save a lot of time and money, Sharp Electronics and a San Mateo, Calif., startup called Voquette offer a package of hardware and software that makes it cheap and easy to record PC-based or Web-based audio and take it on the road. The secret is an underrated gadget that has been around for almost a decade--the minidisk recorder. It stores up to 74 minutes of audio with near-CD quality on pintsize, erasable compact disks that cost less than $3 each.

The $250 Internet Minidisc bundle that I tested includes Sharp's MD-MT15 recorder and Voquette's NetLink Adapter. The NetLink is a small black box with cables that transfer audio from your computer to the minidisk. Hooking them up takes about two minutes--you don't need any other hardware. Then you install Voquette's Media Manager program on the PC, pop in a minidisk, and go to work.

Voquette has developed clever software that lets you put together virtually any combination of audio sources, including MP3 music files and RealAudio Internet radio broadcasts. It can also take virtually any text file, turn it into speech (in the male or female voice of your choice), and record it with the rest of your collection. In the near future--probably sometime this year--you'll be able to transfer your e-mail to a minidisk and "play" it on the way to work.

You assemble your album onscreen simply by dragging icons representing different audio clips into a recording basket. The audio itself doesn't have to be stored on your computer's hard drive: You can drag a Web link from a browser window, and the Media Manager will automatically download the file or tune in to the Web broadcast when it's time to record. After you've made your selections, you can hit the record button on the minidisk player and build the album. You can schedule the job to run later if you don't want to tie up your PC.

The system works surprisingly well. I had to tinker with the recording level on the minidisk and the volume on my PC before I got the results I wanted, but once that was done, the system did an excellent job of reproducing music from MP3 files. The quality from RealAudio Webcasts was lower, particularly over a dial-up connection, but still on par with an AM radio.

The MD-MT15 recorder is at the low end of Sharp's line (it sells a la carte for $200) but produces excellent sound. It offers the usual minidisk features, including the ability to combine or splice tracks, add titles, and rearrange the order of play. You manage all this with an LCD screen and an array of buttons whose purpose is immediately apparent to any 15-year-old but which may take adults a while to figure out. You can also use the device to build custom minidisks with cuts from standard music CDs and other audio sources. The MD-MT15's main limitation is a skimpy, ten-second memory buffer, which means it's more likely to skip if you take it jogging than more expensive models with 20- to 40-second buffers. If you're not a jogger, it may be all you need.

Voquette's NetLink Adapter, which sells for $70 as a stand-alone product, can transfer high-quality audio to a variety of minidisks, tape recorders, and digital audio players. A demo version of its Media Manager software is available on its Website, which is definitely worth a visit.

For information on Sharp products, surf to www.sharpelectronics.com or call 800-236-4277. For Voquette, call 650-356-3700 or go to www.-voquette.com.