Sony walkman - format/bitrates?

[Narcosynthesis]

Hello,
I have been happily using my Sony HD1 for about four years now, until recently when it has started playing up, so time for a new player...

Looking online I can see two options I like, either sourcing a secondhand HD5 (the updated version of what I have, which has been discontinued for a fair while now) to get a similarly sized unit that I can use all my current music on directly (namely 256kbs atrac3+ format from sonicstage), or go for the option of buying a new player at the expense of having to rerecord all my music.

Looking at a new player it seems a fairly good bet to go for the Sony A808/818, only that at 8gb it is less than half the size of my HD1, so to get anywhere near as much music on it I would need to rerecord it at half the quality (so 128kbs in whichever format) or face losing half my music (which I would really rather not)
With that option I also get the choice of format - I would quite like to stick to sonicstage as it works well for me, so I can either rerecord in atrac again just at a lower bitrate, or go for mp3 or something else.

Any opinions or ideas on the different options? I know the new sony players have been getting pretty rave reviews, so it is mostly down to quality/space issues if I went for that option.

Also, Sony mention the 30 hour battery life as being with 132kbs atrac format music, how would switching to mp3 or similar affect this?

If it makes any difference, this will be used with a pair of sennheiser px200's running from the output jack, which has been more than capable with my HD1 so far.

I realise I have asked a few questions here, so any help would be greatly appreciated, and I do apologise if any of this has been covered before, I couldn't seem to find anything similar looking through past threads.

[Sparky191]

I thought there were new Sony HD players on the way. Can't remember where I read it though.

[soozieq]

Originally Posted by Sparky191

I thought there were new Sony HD players on the way. Can't remember where I read it though.

Really? There's nothing about it at Atraclife. The only 'news' so far is a new NWZ-A82x series which will come in 4, 8 and 16GB capacities.

Narcosynthesis - If you wait for the 16GB model, you can keep your bitrate as it is now. There's some kind of confidentiality clause which means the information about the new series can't be made public until around Feb 26th.

But it might be worth waiting for if you don't need a replacement immediately.
From what I've 'read' - it looks like the new models are similar to the 81x series, but with bluetooth. I don't know any more than that yet.

[Sparky191]

Like I said I can't remember. You could probably find a NW-A3000 or NW-HD5 still lingering in stores if you look around.

[Narcosynthesis]

Originally Posted by Sparky191

Like I said I can't remember. You could probably find a NW-A3000 or NW-HD5 still lingering in stores if you look around.

I wasn't a fan of the A3000, and have had no luck finding the HD5 new anywhere...

I am tempted to hang on for a bit and see if there is a newer 16gb model announced,mine is still working at the moment, just not particularly well (which I can live with)

Any other opinions on the origonal questions?

[panda]

what did you not like about the a3000? i recently got an a1200 and think very highly of it. the sound quality is quite good, i'd rate it just below the rio karma. it's definately the best looking player to boot, especially like the OLED screen. i also use 256k atrac3 with senn px100. the only gripe i have is that it's slow changing tracks but that's not really a big issue at all. unless you're using it for work where you have it on all day, i really don't see the point of large capacity portables. i only listen to singles on the go.

anyways, i'm sure you can find an hd-5 on ebay sooner or later.