[FenderP]

Quote:

yeah, I was hoping for a 128gb too. I still can't see any difference between the A850 and NWZ- A840 line...not sure what warranted the change in model name. maybe i am missing something? 
 
the problem with atrac is they still haven't come up with a mac compatible sonicstage. so unless you are using windows, no lossless..

Aesthetically it looks the same as the NW-A847 I own, and in terms of specs, the same as well. But knowing Sony based on going from the X to the A, they tweaked the sonics and I would almost bet they do a touch more tweaking.
 
And technically you can't install the Japanese X App on an English OS unless you tweak the install anyway

 
As much as I'm curious about the A857, I may skip this generation unless I hear the sonics are better than the A847.
 

 

[batphink]

Quote:

Sweet malware on those links.

It turns out one of their advertisers got infected.  Everything should be O.K. now.
 
E series
 

 
S series
 

 
A series (also in silver and pink)
 

 

[tds101]

Quote:

yeah, I was hoping for a 128gb too. I still can't see any difference between the A850 and NWZ- A840 line...not sure what warranted the change in model name. maybe i am missing something? 
 
the problem with atrac is they still haven't come up with a mac compatible sonicstage. so unless you are using windows, no lossless..

Actually, the newer Sony's all do lossless - WAV.

 

[LevA]

yeah I forgot bout wav files. though I was thinking more about compressed lossless like FLAC.  wav files are too big. 
I know they do atrac lossless, but only the japanese versions with sonicstage...

 

[paulypaul]

Im not too keen on on the flush buttons on these or the sound of the S544, S545.
I like to feel the buttons im pushing, particularly since i always have the player in my pocket.
Maybe they can do a return to the A72- A82- series (minus the hiss)

 
I wonder if you get those IEMs with the E & S series or they ship the crappy buds like the current E & S series ?

 

[batphink]

Sony Insider has a more detailed look at the new A series.
 

 

[shigzeo]

^^ That and re-coding everything for a 100% propreitary system is really bad news. I love my Sony, but I was not impressed by the A845

 

[penartur]

Quote:

^^ That and re-coding everything for a 100% propreitary system is really bad news. I love my Sony, but I was not impressed by the A845

What do you mean by "recoding"?

 

[penartur]

Quote:

Sony Insider has a more detailed look at the new A series.

It's such a long review, but it is still unclear what is the difference between A840 and A850.

 

[tds101]

Quote:

^^ That and re-coding everything for a 100% propreitary system is really bad news. I love my Sony, but I was not impressed by the A845

Quote:

yeah I forgot bout wav files. though I was thinking more about compressed lossless like FLAC.  wav files are too big. 
I know they do atrac lossless, but only the japanese versions with sonicstage...

I agree w/you both, as straight up FLAC support would be stellar. Still, AAC on a Sony DOES sound amazing,......

 

[nonsupremous]

Wish it was going to come to the States.
 
Not even sure if the new S series will get released here.  Might be stuck with just a revamped E series this year.

 

[shigzeo]

Quote:

What do you mean by "recoding"?

It really is relative, of course, but if your music is in AAC or MP3, for example, you would have to transcode or re-encode or recode (bad word choice, perhaps) to ATRAC in order to get gapless. The audible difference can be very minimal, but it can be annoying. ATRAC, too, has never really stood toe to toe with modern encoders once LAME got on its feet. Sony's marketing 'independent' test will say otherwise, but in most cases, independent tests done on ATRAC has shown it to perform worse than most other modern encoders.
 
I love my Sony, though, and make do with AAC and MP3 and gaps.

 

[penartur]

Quote:

It really is relative, of course, but if your music is in AAC or MP3, for example, you would have to transcode or re-encode or recode (bad word choice, perhaps) to ATRAC in order to get gapless. The audible difference can be very minimal, but it can be annoying. ATRAC, too, has never really stood toe to toe with modern encoders once LAME got on its feet. Sony's marketing 'independent' test will say otherwise, but in most cases, independent tests done on ATRAC has shown it to perform worse than most other modern encoders.
 
I love my Sony, though, and make do with AAC and MP3 and gaps.

Ah, you did say about gapless... i'm using AAC and i just somehow got accustomed to gaps (however, of course, it is impossible to listen to albums such that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death's_Design
And, AFAIK, MP3 has serious design flaws which makes it sound bad on a high frequencies or something like that. Modern codecs (AAC, WMA, Atrac3plus, OGG etc) are free o this flaw, because on the time these were designed, MP3 already existed for a long time (e.g. MP3: 1993, Atrac3plus: 2002), so the developers could see and avoid this flaw; and also could use higher processing power.
It is just ridiculous imho to compare such a legacy codec as MP3 to a modern codecs, and even to use it these days. It is just like using DOS instead of Win7 or at least XP.

 

[Jupiterknight]

LAME is a very up to date encoder that create mp3 format's that I consider very competive against any other codecs. OGG is also not a codec, but just a container.

 

[penartur]

Quote:

LAME is a very up to date encoder that create mp3 format's that I consider very competive against any other codecs. OGG is also not a codec, but just a container.

LAME encoder can't overcome MP3 format limitations.
As for OGG - i've chosen a wrong word, i meant Vorbis