Sony NW-HD3 (full review) - Page 10

Emmanuel, do you have a UK model?

My point was trying to correct some misinformation thrown around here. So, what's your point in bringing about a matter about another product which has nothing to do with what I quoted and what I replied?

Mine doesn't need connecting to the mains during transfer - I live in the UK & have a Japanese NW-HD3 - I have used it only with the USB connector rather than messing about with plug adapters. I've moved about 12 Gig of music over to the NW-HD3 so far.

Perhaps it requires you to connect to the mains if the unit's battery level is low (to protect against battery failure mid-transfer). But this is unlikely as my unit definitely charges over USB.

It does tell you to connect the mains adapter, but it still transfers, even with that message on the screen.

Does anyone know what sort of lead I would need if I want to connect the line-out to an amp? I'd like to be able to use the mp3 player through my hi-fi. Is it the same connection/lead as Sony MD players?

Should have edited above post, just realised - sorry.

mp3 transer time and supported bitrates

Questions those of you that actually own a NW-HD3 or a NW-HD1/2 with the mp3 upgrade.

Currently I'm planning to buy a NW-HD1 since Sony will release the MP3 upgrade to it and I can get it for a price that is much lower than the HD3. I just want to know a couple things before I buy it.

How high of a bitrate can mp3s be supported and does it support VBR bitrates?

I know it has some DRM copy protection wrapper. About how long does it take to fill the whole thing up with native MP3? There seems to be a discrepency here from different posters.

Do you HAVE to use sonicstage to transfer your mp3s? I was under the impression that you have to, but looking on to Sony's website, the E99 (a flash based Sony player that supports MP3 Natively) can "play your MP3's too, just drag and drop your files using an MP3 File Manager." I was wondering if such an option exists for the NW-HDx.

Can you change the battery yourself if it dies with simple procedures? Not like the IPOD where you have to go through a whole slew of screws and delicate parts?

Can you use it as a portable Hard Drive?

I recently bought the NW-HD3 UK model, and im very impressed. the build is good and i havnt (so far) had any problems with sonic stage, in response to:

1. I use MP3 with my mixed albums, and there is no gap whatsoever. It is a dance album aswell, so the gap would be noticible. The move onto the next track is instant

2. Im very impressed with the build of the player. It looks stylish, better than the ipod in my opinion, and all the buttons are in te right places to be easy to navigate. I use sony MDR-G52 headphones. They are only about £20 and do the job. The sound is also very good on the player and there are bass, treble, and other settings to use

3. I havnt had any problems, except 1 track not registering as MP3, but it automatically converted to atrac so thats ok. Took me 2 hours to transfer 7 GB of material on my crap 4 year old PC (650Mhz, 256 RAM)

4. Im impressed with hte UI (who needs a touch wheel?) and the tracks load um straight away, no delay. The buttons feel right, and having a seperate volume buton is good, with the ipod volume changing could only happen in 'now playing' mode

It can also be used as an extternal HD which is good, and you dont need to use the sonicstage software, it is plug and play, and you can transfer data to it using windows explorer. Obviously you cant view it on the machine, but it will be there when you nxt connect it up.

all in all i find it is a very good machine.

As far as I can tell the wrapper adds very little to the file size, so the MP3 capacity would be very slightly less than transfering the unmodified files.

As far as I can tell, you have to use SonicStage to manage the music on your NW-HD3.

It's very well screwed together, so I think the battery change would have to be performed at a Service Centre.


Yes. The NW-HD3 mounts as a hard drive and you can drag & drop files to it.

Also, regarding BG hissing, there is none at all in my experience

i beileve its possible. In the user manual, it shows how to properly dispose of the unit by removing the case. I imagine therefore this method could be used to replace the battery. Obviously its better to send it to a service centre, but i think you should be able, with enough skill etc to do it yourself

Actually I wanted to know how much time it takes to transfer music. Previously I had a NetMD and the main reasons I switched to an mp3 player was ATRAC encoding/transfer time. BTW have you actually tried dragging and dropping mp3s onto it?

I just tried.

If you drag & drop to the drive letter in Explorer it copies the MP3's across as 'data' i.e. it doesn't add the DRM wrapper and so the file won't play in the unit.

If you drag & drop onto the SonicStage icon on the desktop it imports the tracks into SonicStage & then when you go to the transfer window it asks if you want to synch (I have 'Always ask before transferring' checked). If you uncheck the 'Always ask before transferring' box then it may well do the whole job, but it does load SonicStage in the process.

Col

HD1 v HD3

Hello! I got the HD1 initially but after realising I was conned by the salesman (he said it would play mp3s natively) I took it back and swapped it for a HD3. It's a UK version btw.

So far I've been very impressed. It's a lot smaller than the IPod, lighter and build quality is good. Am rather disappointed it didn't come with a dongle thingy and the carrying pouch is of a lesser quality than the HD1 but the earphones are better.

Now I just wanna know what the technical differences are between the HD1 and HD3, coz if it's true that they're releasing a firmware upgrade for the HD1 then I'd rather swap it back (because I paid an extra 20£ for the HD3). But if there are some hardware advantages to the HD3 e.g. longer battery, gapless playback (is that due to software or hardware??) etc. then I won't bother.

Anyway, the sound quality on the HD3 is superb, absolutely no hiss whatsoever. Apart from the atrocious software that is SonicGAYge, it's a damn fine little package. Although I have been having trouble transferring ATRAC songs onto the device itself. Ironically I've had no such problems with MP3s (I thought Sony actually wanted us to use ATRAC!!). The UI is responsive and above all, browsing is fast; the use of the mode button allows you to change the browse category quickly, from artist, to album name to genre etc. It allows drag&droppin of files, but music files for playing on the device have to be processed through SonicStage. So basically the only real downside is SonicStage, I can't see why the world's biggest and most respected electronics brand cannot knock up a semi-decent piece of software. More to the point, what is sony's ridiculous obssession with format-control???? They have a well designed Ipod-beater of a product, yet they decide to throw away market dominance by forcing everyone to use SonicSh*t. GGGGRrrrrrrrr

Another Question: Would anyone here know which format would be better, Atrac 256 or mp3? in terms of both efficiency and sound quality? I've been using CDex to rip mp3s to date, a nice piece of software although I've heard other people professing superior methods. Any suggestions?