Pretty sure punnisher is right about the noise-cancelling. If you look at the side-view of the player, theres a switch to turn NC on/off. all of sony's NC earphones have in-line pods with switches/mics. It'd be pointless to have a switch on the player if the feature is dependant on using sony earphones. I do wonder how they prevent the player from picking up noises in your pocket/bag/whatever and spewing them out in your ear though :P
As for powering noise-cancelling earphones, if I correctly understand how they work, they aren't any harder to drive than other headphones. Rather, the batteries most earphones of this type require are used to power the mic and whatever chip calculates and produces the interference signal that cancels out ambient noises, sort of like having an amp between your source and your headphones (though, obviously, serving a different function). I might be wrong about this though.
Anyway, player looks nice, but summer/late spring release is a bummer

I do like the buttons and headphone jack on the same face, seems like it would make using it in your pocket easier. I'm dubious about the marbled look, but it doesn't matter that much to me. No slot for an expansion card is kinda lame too, but that's Sony for you. 32gb is more than enough space for my needs at the moment