nismo96
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2003
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After a long and utterly frustrating search for a new personal CD player (PCDP) that would play Ogg Vorbis files I gave up. I am a big fan of the Open Source Movement and I felt that using a completely open source audio codec like Ogg Vorbis would be the best choice for me. My only choices in this area were from iriver and I'd have to mail order a unit. I am a touchy feely guy and wanted to at least check out a CD player before buying one so I was hesitant to purchase one without reading any and every review I could get my hands on. After several reviews I felt that the iriver PCDPs weren't up to snuff in regards to Ogg playback and there weren't any other viable players out there, so I said goodbye to Ogg and hello to Sony's ATRAC format. I am using ATRAC with all my Minidiscs anyway aren't I?
I was tempted by last year’s offerings by Sony but I waited a little longer to see what new stuff would come out this spring, and boy am I glad that I waited. I just picked up a Sony D-NE500 CD Walkman from Wal-Mart of all places. Other retailers, some of them big names like Circuit City, Best Buy, etc don't even carry this model. It's been a very nice purchase for me and I hope that other stores will start to carry it.
I'll start with a description of what is included in the packaging of the unit. The first thing to note is that the CD player comes in the now infamous "Plastic packaging of death." Included with the CD player is a pair of Sony MDR-027 headphones, Sony's new non-LCD remote model RM-MC27, a very weird plastic belt clip for the CD player, a Sonicstage 2.0u CD, and the manuals for the CD player and Sonicstage 2.0.
I wasn't surprised by the lack of quality of the headphones, nor was I surprised to get a non-LCD remote. I am surprised by Sony's inclusion of this weird belt clip thing. They call it a carrying case, but there's no way that I'd trust my CD player to be safe while it's connected to this thing. I’d rather have had a felt bag or vinyl slipcase of some sort for the PCDP. The CD player itself has an entirely plastic black exterior shell, the top has a shiny reflective finish while the bottom is has matte finish. It has a remote jack that fits my RM-MC33EL remote, but doesn't utilize its LCD screen.
All functions other than Hold, which is on the bottom of the CD player, are on the lid of the device. There is a control stick similar to the Sony MZ-S1 minidisc recorder, a scroll wheel, group forward and backward buttons and a one piece rocker button for the volume. A 4-line LCD screen is a nice touch as is a multicolored LED light for indicating whether you're listening to an audio CD, MP3 file or ATRAC/ATRAC3plus file. I think that the LED is a nice feature. The PCDP runs off of one AA battery. I've used it for over 10 hours of use and the battery indicator on the LCD displays full bars. Sony claims up to 60 hours of battery life with the PCDP, I'm sure that you'd have to use Sony's lowest ATRAC3plus bit rate to achieve this. The unit also has a 3V AC port so you can use an AC adaptor with it. There is no mention of charging a battery in the manual though. I've tested a MP3 CD, a couple of ATRAC3plus 256kb CDs, and Redbook audio CDs on the unit so far. One awesome function of the CD player is that it can read the additional info on CD-Text CDs. I have several compilation CDs that I've made with Nero and it makes CD-Text CDs. It's nice to see the track info displayed on the LCD for Redbook audio tracks.
The menu system for selecting a song is pretty easy to get your head around. The control stick lets you push up for Play, down for Stop, left for Back, and right for Forward as you'd expect. The PCDP plays files in folders as well so there's a Group (next folder) button on the right and a Group button on the left to go back. ATRAC/ATRAC3plus file folders can only go one deep, while you can use subfolders for MP3 files. The scroll wheel is great because it lets you scroll to a song later on the disc while continuing playback of the current track. You push down on the control stick to select a choice.
The options menu is easy to get to and make choices as well. You can press on the control stick and hold it down for a couple of seconds to access it. There are Repeat, Play Mode, Sound, and Options menus. The Repeat menu is simple it offers the choice of on or off. The Play mode menu is very nice, it offers All, Group, 1, Shuffle, Group Shuffle, Auto Ranking, and Ranking Shuffle choices for playing back tracks. The Sound menu offers preset sound EQ choices of Off, Soft, Active, Heavy, and Custom. Custom is the option that everyone is talking about with the Parametric EQ. I’ve played with this feature a lot and it’s nice. It basically allows you a lot of choice in setting up the low, mid, and high for the EQ setting. I tend to listen to my music with a flat EQ so I use the off position. The Options menu offers (G-Protection), AVLS, Timer, Beep, (Seamless), and Light. G-Protection and Seamless can only be accessed while the unit is not in playback mode. There are two choices for G-Protection, G-Protect 1 and G-Protect 2; these offer varying levels of shock protection. AVLS “protects” your hearing by limiting how loud the volume can get. We all know to turn this off don’t we? The Timer feature allows you to have the unit turn off at a set time between 1 and 99 minutes. The Beep menu allows you to turn on or off the beep noise when you make a menu selection. Seamless allows for gapless playback on ATRAC/ATRAC3plus CDs. The Light menu allows you to turn off the light or set it to one of two levels of brightness.
I've used Grado SR60/SR125, Shure e2 and Koss Portapro headphones to review this PCDP. The first thing I liked is that the unit could sufficiently power these phones. I’m not well versed enough as a reviewer to use terms such as harsh, soft, warm, cold, etc to describe this unit so I won’t. I liked the output of this unit and it's sound a lot.
The fact is that I was looking for a nice PCDP with digital audio file capability as well. I travel a great deal for my job so I wanted to buy a PCDP for times when I buy a CD on the road and want to listen to it. I hate to take my laptop out of its case and fire it up just to listen to a CD. It's also nice to be able to have several hundred songs with me on a couple of CDs too. I am impressed with this PCDP for several reasons. It drives all my headphones well, but then again I’m not trying to use HD650s with it, the battery life is terrific, ATRAC3plus files at 256kb sound good to me, and the menu is easy to navigate.
There’s no line out port or defeating the anti-skip, So this isn't a PCDP for an audiophile. It's great for just about anyone else though. I’d recommend this unit to just about anyone looking for a new decent CD player if you’re willing to spend $100 USD on it.
I was tempted by last year’s offerings by Sony but I waited a little longer to see what new stuff would come out this spring, and boy am I glad that I waited. I just picked up a Sony D-NE500 CD Walkman from Wal-Mart of all places. Other retailers, some of them big names like Circuit City, Best Buy, etc don't even carry this model. It's been a very nice purchase for me and I hope that other stores will start to carry it.
I'll start with a description of what is included in the packaging of the unit. The first thing to note is that the CD player comes in the now infamous "Plastic packaging of death." Included with the CD player is a pair of Sony MDR-027 headphones, Sony's new non-LCD remote model RM-MC27, a very weird plastic belt clip for the CD player, a Sonicstage 2.0u CD, and the manuals for the CD player and Sonicstage 2.0.
I wasn't surprised by the lack of quality of the headphones, nor was I surprised to get a non-LCD remote. I am surprised by Sony's inclusion of this weird belt clip thing. They call it a carrying case, but there's no way that I'd trust my CD player to be safe while it's connected to this thing. I’d rather have had a felt bag or vinyl slipcase of some sort for the PCDP. The CD player itself has an entirely plastic black exterior shell, the top has a shiny reflective finish while the bottom is has matte finish. It has a remote jack that fits my RM-MC33EL remote, but doesn't utilize its LCD screen.
The menu system for selecting a song is pretty easy to get your head around. The control stick lets you push up for Play, down for Stop, left for Back, and right for Forward as you'd expect. The PCDP plays files in folders as well so there's a Group (next folder) button on the right and a Group button on the left to go back. ATRAC/ATRAC3plus file folders can only go one deep, while you can use subfolders for MP3 files. The scroll wheel is great because it lets you scroll to a song later on the disc while continuing playback of the current track. You push down on the control stick to select a choice.
The options menu is easy to get to and make choices as well. You can press on the control stick and hold it down for a couple of seconds to access it. There are Repeat, Play Mode, Sound, and Options menus. The Repeat menu is simple it offers the choice of on or off. The Play mode menu is very nice, it offers All, Group, 1, Shuffle, Group Shuffle, Auto Ranking, and Ranking Shuffle choices for playing back tracks. The Sound menu offers preset sound EQ choices of Off, Soft, Active, Heavy, and Custom. Custom is the option that everyone is talking about with the Parametric EQ. I’ve played with this feature a lot and it’s nice. It basically allows you a lot of choice in setting up the low, mid, and high for the EQ setting. I tend to listen to my music with a flat EQ so I use the off position. The Options menu offers (G-Protection), AVLS, Timer, Beep, (Seamless), and Light. G-Protection and Seamless can only be accessed while the unit is not in playback mode. There are two choices for G-Protection, G-Protect 1 and G-Protect 2; these offer varying levels of shock protection. AVLS “protects” your hearing by limiting how loud the volume can get. We all know to turn this off don’t we? The Timer feature allows you to have the unit turn off at a set time between 1 and 99 minutes. The Beep menu allows you to turn on or off the beep noise when you make a menu selection. Seamless allows for gapless playback on ATRAC/ATRAC3plus CDs. The Light menu allows you to turn off the light or set it to one of two levels of brightness.
I've used Grado SR60/SR125, Shure e2 and Koss Portapro headphones to review this PCDP. The first thing I liked is that the unit could sufficiently power these phones. I’m not well versed enough as a reviewer to use terms such as harsh, soft, warm, cold, etc to describe this unit so I won’t. I liked the output of this unit and it's sound a lot.
The fact is that I was looking for a nice PCDP with digital audio file capability as well. I travel a great deal for my job so I wanted to buy a PCDP for times when I buy a CD on the road and want to listen to it. I hate to take my laptop out of its case and fire it up just to listen to a CD. It's also nice to be able to have several hundred songs with me on a couple of CDs too. I am impressed with this PCDP for several reasons. It drives all my headphones well, but then again I’m not trying to use HD650s with it, the battery life is terrific, ATRAC3plus files at 256kb sound good to me, and the menu is easy to navigate.
There’s no line out port or defeating the anti-skip, So this isn't a PCDP for an audiophile. It's great for just about anyone else though. I’d recommend this unit to just about anyone looking for a new decent CD player if you’re willing to spend $100 USD on it.
