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Feedback about new Sony DAPs

post #1 of 10
11/16/05 at 12:38am
Thread Starter 
Fellow Head-Fi-ers
I have been a life long Sony fan and am looking for advice regarding their new Walkman players (or WALKMAN players, seems sony wants them all caps!)
I saw on the Sony site that it has all sorts of bells and whistles and am wondering if they are worth it?
i.e. Favorite Shuffle (100 most played songs)
time warp shuffle (shuffles all from certain year)
etc
I see that it has the fancy OLED screen, all nice but I'm wondering if it will be as durable as my old Discman I am retiring after 6 years of going strong (decided that SMALL + portable may be the wave of the future )
TIA for any advice. I know Sony has been getting bad rap for their rootkit stuff and bah sony cds! I still am attracted to their players.
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post #2 of 10
11/16/05 at 3:59am
i think you will find a lot of info at www.atraclife.com (forum for atrac devices)
this thread is a good place to start.

compared to mp3 players, i would say cd players are more durable. but as long as you take care of it, it should be fine. i am always worried about that kind of thing with hdd players, so i prefer flash players.
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post #3 of 10
11/16/05 at 4:04am
The newer gumstick shaped walkman players sound great. The only downside is slow transfer via usb 1.1 speed
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post #4 of 10
11/16/05 at 4:53am
I would make a list of what you are looking for in a DAP and go from there. If things like gapless are important to you, Sony is one of the few manufacturers who makes gapless players (with ATRAC only). Sony also always gets high marks sonically for its players, but they are not very neutral. Sony seems to color the sound but in a pleasing way.

The achilles heel to most Sony players in most people's eyes is the software. SonicStage 3.3 is actually decent (finally), but the Connect software which ships with the A1000/1200/3000 is not getting good words over at ATRAClife.

Format of your music may or may not be important to you. Sony natively supports MP3 and ATRAC compression, and soon, WMA in the A line (no word on WMA support for older players).

I have a Vaio Pocket and like it, but it has a few flaws I'm starting to be annoyed by which don't seem to plague other Sony players.

If you get a HDD based player, since the HDD has moving parts, it may fail at some point. That is essentially its biggest weakness.

Figure out how much space you'll need in addition to your requirements, and you'll make the best decision for you.
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post #5 of 10
11/16/05 at 2:26pm
There is a small program called mp3 file manager that lets you skip sonicstage and work with drag and drop onto the player instead. Once again, still slow 1.1 speeds.
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post #6 of 10
11/16/05 at 3:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gshan
There is a small program called mp3 file manager that lets you skip sonicstage and work with drag and drop onto the player instead. Once again, still slow 1.1 speeds.
usb 1.1 speeds? What is Sony thinking?
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post #7 of 10
11/16/05 at 3:22pm
On another forum I frequent, members state the new Connect software is worser than SS The thing asks for a live internet connection, apparently, so I guess Sony can monitor users. Not to mention its system hogging, one user posted a screenie, and mem usage goes into 6 figs
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post #8 of 10
11/17/05 at 3:48am
Thread Starter 

Some very good advice here. So am I reading correctly that both teh new walkmen are still USB 1 transfer speeds? NW-A3000 + NW-A1000?
I think I am on the side of the fence that must like the Sony sound if I have stuck with them this long.
I will check the file manager out. Call me what you will but the copy writing of the Sony page sold me, seems to me some features I have yet to see in the other players.
http://products.sony.co.uk/walkman_hd.asp
If I do install the sw I will watch my memory, thanks for the tip!
Once again, you guys rock. I'm off to shop.
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post #9 of 10
11/17/05 at 4:48am
I am not sure where all this about USB1.1 come from. All I can tell you is that my Sony HD5 is USB2.0 without a shadow of a doubt.
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post #10 of 10
11/17/05 at 5:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by wombastic

Some very good advice here. So am I reading correctly that both teh new walkmen are still USB 1 transfer speeds? NW-A3000 + NW-A1000?
I think I am on the side of the fence that must like the Sony sound if I have stuck with them this long.
I will check the file manager out. Call me what you will but the copy writing of the Sony page sold me, seems to me some features I have yet to see in the other players.
http://products.sony.co.uk/walkman_hd.asp
If I do install the sw I will watch my memory, thanks for the tip!
Once again, you guys rock. I'm off to shop.
Sorry, I was speaking of 1.1 speeds on the flash players. I'm sure the hd players are 1,000x faster
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