[Baba booey]

ok I have a 4+8 cowon D2 right now and for some reasons I'm planning to rid my self of it. I went to the Sony Style store on tuesday and saw this player and was blown away.
there's some things I want to know about it though
1) percentage wise, how much video encoding needs to be done?
2) how does this player make up sq-wise considering it doesn't do any higher quality audio codecs such as .flac, .wav, or .ogg?
3)does it do audio bookmarking?
4)how fast is the ff/rw?
5)how intuitive is the user interface?
6)how is the bass and how well can it be adjusted?
7)does this player warrant using my X3i's and can it drive good headphones easily?
8)will it be much of a transition size-wise from my D2 and E270?

Thanks

I can't tell now. 828=noise canceling and 728=not?

 

[ShinyFalcon]

1) I think the A818 is very picky when it comes to format. It doesn't like my encodings and I haven't really figured out what works yet. H.264 (320 x 240, mp4 format) and AAC is needed
2) It does .wav files; not sure what your question means
3) You mean resume? I think so, but I don't know what audio bookmarking is, unless you're talking about audio books.
4) Very fast if you pause before you hold the rev/ff, rate of one minute per second. Slow if you have the song playing, about 8 seconds per second
5) Very nice, you can go anywhere in less than three seconds.
6) Bass is pretty good, but you can only adjust it in three steps: +0 to +3.
7) It can drive low impedance phones very nicely, but doesn't drive big cans well.
8) Not sure, I think it's a bit bigger than the D2 and thinner.

 

[Baba booey]

When I say bookmarking I mean like my D2. I stop the file, bookmark my spot, and come back to THAT point at a later time. Like for a long radio file.

 

[Baba booey]

When I say bookmarking I mean like my D2. I stop the file, bookmark my spot, and come back to THAT point at a later time. Like for a long radio file. And I didn't know it does wav . That's really good.

 

[woopididi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShinyFalcon /img/forum/go_quote.gif 1) I think the A818 is very picky when it comes to format. It doesn't like my encodings and I haven't really figured out what works yet. H.264 (320 x 240, mp4 format) and AAC is needed 2) It does .wav files; not sure what your question means 3) You mean resume? I think so, but I don't know what audio bookmarking is, unless you're talking about audio books. 4) Very fast if you pause before you hold the rev/ff, rate of one minute per second. Slow if you have the song playing, about 8 seconds per second 5) Very nice, you can go anywhere in less than three seconds. 6) Bass is pretty good, but you can only adjust it in three steps: +0 to +3. 7) It can drive low impedance phones very nicely, but doesn't drive big cans well. 8) Not sure, I think it's a bit bigger than the D2 and thinner.

i don't know if you meant A828 or A818, but the OP meant the new A828.

 

[Baba booey]

what's the difference? according to best buy, what I'm actually looking at is the a728..

 

[woopididi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baba booey /img/forum/go_quote.gif what's the difference? according to best buy, what I'm actually looking at is the a728..

the only difference between the 728 and the 828 is that the 828 has built in bluetooth.

 

[thetuc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baba booey /img/forum/go_quote.gif what's the difference? according to best buy, what I'm actually looking at is the a728..

My A728 from Best Buy was just delivered. Can't wait to get home...

 

[lucky_star]

I have just bought the 728 because i don't need the bluetooth option(the speed is still pretty low in the current technology right now).
My past: I owned the Cowon X5L for 2 years (the battery died now)
I think the bass control of Sony player is very good. When I increase the bass, the sound become fuller. However, the bass doesn't become tighter so it will cover the other high frequency if you increase the bass too much .
About bookmark option, I don't think the sony player has that option
About interface, it is extremely easy to control the player. You don't even need to read the manual papers which are only 2 small pages.
About software, I don't think you need to install the software of sony because it uses drag/drop option to transfer files to the player through window explorer (My favorite option). In my opinion, the bundle software is kind of unnecessary.
I am using the shure E530 to listen to the player and I definitely hear hiss sound from the player . However, If i use the original phone included with the player, there is no hiss at all. I also try the player with my edition 9 or denon d5000 and get no hiss result. Therefore, I think the hiss problem comes from the shure E530.
There are two things I don't like about the player:
1. There is no ACTUALLY turn off button. The player only has the PWR OFF button which will make the player into standby mode(will turn off actually after 24hr without touching any button on the player). However, there is also one good thing about that feature. We can use the player immediately without waiting for system reboot.
2. There is no power adapter including in the package. We only get the USB adaptor so we can only charge the player through our PC. And it become worse when we can't listen to music during charging through USB. However, I think we can buy the charger of Ipod for the Sony player due to its similar input charge.

 

[Baba booey]

usb only doesn't bother me. I have a wall adapter anyway.
I guess I can manage w/o bookmarking...
Do you lose much battery with the power thing?
and also:
would you say it sounds better than the D2?

 

[Baba booey]

and just wondering, between the 728 and the 1.8" and 2" players, is screen size and a bit of battery life the only difference? like should I really spend 160-170$ on the 8gb A728?

 

[RoadHazard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucky_star /img/forum/go_quote.gif I am using the shure E530 to listen to the player and I definitely hear hiss sound from the player . However, If i use the original phone included with the player, there is no hiss at all. I also try the player with my edition 9 or denon d5000 and get no hiss result. Therefore, I think the hiss problem comes from the shure E530.

Sony DAPs do have a slight hiss (I have the A818), but as you say, you can only hear it through some phones. The more sensitive your phones are, the more you will hear the hiss. I can hear it clearly with my Denon AH-C551 canalphones when no music is playing, but with the included phones (MDR-EX082) I can only hear it if I really listen for it. The reason is simply that they are less sensitive. So the hiss problem you're having doesn't really come from your E530s, it's just that they're sensitive enough to reveal it.

Anyway, the hiss doesn't bother me with the C551s either, because I can't hear it when music is playing, and that's what matters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucky_star /img/forum/go_quote.gif There is no power adapter including in the package. We only get the USB adaptor so we can only charge the player through our PC. And it become worse when we can't listen to music during charging through USB.

I use a simple USB charger, like this one:

I just plug the USB cable (the one that comes with the DAP) into the charger, and plug the charger into a regular wall outlet.
This way I don't have to plug the player into my laptop to charge it, and I can also listen to music while it's charging.

 

[RoadHazard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baba booey /img/forum/go_quote.gif and just wondering, between the 728 and the 1.8" and 2" players, is screen size and a bit of battery life the only difference? like should I really spend 160-170$ on the 8gb A728?

Unless you want the larger screen, or prefer the physical design/layout of the A728, you could just as well get the A818 (which you should be able to find for much less). There's really no other real difference, at least nothing that matters.
I read that on the A728/828 you can delete video files from the player (but not audio files) without using a computer, and that's something you can't do on the A818. But really, what's the point? It's not like you can use the extra space, since you can't transfer anything to the player without connecting it to a computer anyway. So I don't get that.

 

[Baba booey]

I bought a black A728 8gb for 179+ tax and accidental damage plan.

 

[lucky_star]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baba booey /img/forum/go_quote.gif usb only doesn't bother me. I have a wall adapter anyway. I guess I can manage w/o bookmarking... Do you lose much battery with the power thing? and also: would you say it sounds better than the D2?

About battery life, I think you don't need to worry about it because the player can last around 30 hr

. I used it the half of the day and it only loses one small part of battery indicator.
For sound quality, I definitely like this player. Soundstage is very big and especially the equalizer . At first, I choose "Unique" (the sound become fuller due to increasing bass). However, after a short listening, I decide to use the edit option and this is my customize:
clear bass +1
0.4khz 0(default)
1.0khz +2
2.5khz 0
6.3khz -1
16khz +2
Mine is 16gb version and no accident plan. I bought it online at J&R(no tax for 299$)