Sony D-EJ01

What's wrong with the gumsticks? They sit nicely in the player and hold a very good charge... the alternative is to use the external AA battery pack, which is not as convenient. On a side note, I've noticed that the E-J01's external battery pack works a little differently than Sony's earlier players: if you use the player for a while with the external pack and drained gumsticks, the external AA's will recharge the gumsticks!

The 777 easily bests the E-j01 when listening from the headphone jack. The latter emits a low, but noticeable hiss with low-impedence phones. The 777 is just dead quiet in comparison. As for the power output of the headphone jack, from what I understand the E-j01 was modified at some time after release so that the output was adjusted from 15mW to 4.5mW. I think mine is an early one, because the headphone jack is pretty loud.

As for the line out, I could not really tell much difference. The E-j01 does, however, have an optical out, which is excellent with an outboard DAC (in my case, a CAL gamma). It sounds very sweet indeed.

Does the Sony D-EJ01 have a line out that's separate from the optical out or is it the same jack?

It's one jack- optical and standard, Dan.

The manual that came with my 01 said 15mW, but included was and errata saying that the headphone amp was much lower (5mW i think). It's possible that it was a misprint, or perhaps a design change.
ON the whole, I like the thing, the output from the lineout is good. The only problem I've had is that I have had some issues with certain discs making strange noises. I have never tracked it down, I don't know whether the discs that were noisy were warped or what the problem was. I also have a 925 (all metal, traditional clamshell design) that I have ended up using more.

yep, the D-ej01 definately has the best line out i've heard from a portable, actually as good as many low-end home decks...

The headphone jack sucks, however... It does plays very loud, as loud as my old 15mW sony and noticably louder than my 10mW sharp MD or my friends R-900 with 5mW output... However, this doesn't indicate how much power it has-the D-ej01 runs on 3V, which is much more than an MD and therefore has a higher voltage output... Unfortunately, the dynamics are very compressed, and there is an annoying hiss for low-impedance headphones like the e888....

So even if the headphone jack is as powerful as older modles (mine lists it as 15mW, no other corrections in the box), it still isn't in the same league... I think we should stop judging headphone outs by their power, as they say absolutely nothing about sound quality. I'd much rather have a clean, dynamic 3mW amp than the amp on the d-ej01.

The gumstick batteries are about $20US in asia, and $50US in north america... They are way too expensive, but i don't see why you don't like them. They go inside the player and recharge inside, you never know its in there.... taking them out doesn't save any space. I don't like using the external battery case, too clumbersome, as i like keeping the discman in my pocket rather than using the bulky case...

yeah, i agree, one person says somthing, then it gets spread around by several people who repeat the same thing as if its a fact, when most things in audio are subjective...

when you say somthing, please state if its your own experience, or if your just repeating what someone else has said...

The Sony NH14WM gumstick batteries are $25.95 here:

http://www.minidisco.com/miniorderacc.html

Most minidiscs ask for 4.5V when you plug in AC power (with adapter of course) but your external battery case probably only holds 2 AAs, no? 2 * 1.5V = 3V. My D-E554 holds 2 AAs inside the player but also asks for 4.5V DC when you plug in AC power too.

Expensive... but you got them with the player right?? You can just use them until they die and forget about buying replacements... or if you think you need the money more than the batteries... whatever :shrug:

So you'd rather go and spend immediate money getting Duracell after Duracell when you could easily charge those proprietary batteries at LEAST 100 times?

Hmm...different strokes for different folks I guess. The four gumsticks I bought as spares for my MZ-E900 *AND* MZ-R900 will probably outlive both player and recorder...and I haven't even opened a spare pack yet after owning them both for a year.

Sorry but I just don't see your logic with the gumsticks. Especially not when not using it comes at the expense of making the player harder to carry around with extra bulk of AAs, and players easily getting over 20hrs on gumsticks. I haven't touched AA battery packs for neither CDP or MDP for a good four years now. Sure I didn't like gumsticks at first mainly because of availability, but now that Sony's made them pratically dirt cheap at $20-25 a pop (Sharp is a totally different story I'll admit at $50 a pop), there's no reason not to go with gumsticks. If you live in Asia gumsticks are pratically available next to bubble gum, and in the U.S. there are lots of sources where you can readily buy them, such as Minidisco and Planet Minidisc. Even if they aren't recharged in the most ideal way, they're just so cheap it's still a no brainer. I'd rather pay $25 for a gumstick and end up with a battery that'll stick around longer + a slimmer, easier to carry player than $25 for 5 packs of 4 Duracells and have to lug around battery packs.

I don't see why everybody complains so much about proprietary batteries. The BP-DM20 nimh battery for my Sony D-E446CK is about 4 years old and has gotten used several hours a day for most of its life and it still lasts about 5 or 6 hours out of the 9 hours it lasted when it was new.

I bought new GP 1600mah batteries cause I'm hoping they will last longer, but I haven't been able to afford the charger for them and I figure my discmans faster charge rate will make them wear out faster (this didn't happen with the proprietary batteries though).

So when you factor in the cost of buying a separate charger and new batteries and then the inconvenience of having to remove the batteries everytime to charge them, and the extra wear on the battery contacts in the cd player every time you take out the batteries, why would you bother with all of this just because you "don't like" proprietary batteries? Especially when they came free with the cd player.

I dunno why so many people seem to dislike the gumsticks. Theyre great! (like corn flakes) Just plug the ac adaptor into the cd player every couple days before you go to sleep, wake up, and have a charge thatll last you a looong time. Best of all its free! Thats one of the only things I liked about my dej915, the batterys. That and the convient size (would fit in the pocket of any pants I have). This Aiwa thing sounds nice and is tough as nails, but it sucks down batterys almost as much as I suck down trees! Atleast a 4 pack of duracell ultras gone in a week . I think it can recharge batteries in itself tho, so next time im not feeling lazy im gonna pick up a couple nimhs.

typical tea-sip, doesn't know a good thing when he sees it.