[castleofargh]

  I just updated the firmware, it seem to go smoothly, but after replacing the SD card a lot of problems came up, such as an alleged fault on the SD card, an alleged missing song, even after I tried to restore it back on the SD card it took several tries for the Sony to recognise it...

my guess about this is that the sony already has the library of the sd card and just checks that nothing changed, instead of doing a real rescan.
maybe adding a few songs(some that aren't supposed to already be on the DAP, or maybe trying to put another µsd card and then the first one back on.
in short anything that would make the DAP believe it really has to do a complete new scan.
 
this is just a guess of course, I didn't have such trouble on mine so I can't really say if I'm offering a solution, or blowing wind.

 

 

[Eddy Flycatcher]

 
my guess about this is that the sony already has the library of the sd card and just checks that nothing changed, instead of doing a real rescan.
maybe adding a few songs(some that aren't supposed to already be on the DAP, or maybe trying to put another µsd card and then the first one back on.
in short anything that would make the DAP believe it really has to do a complete new scan.
 
this is just a guess of course, I didn't have such trouble on mine so I can't really say if I'm offering a solution, or blowing wind.

 

Oh, I did add a few albums, that was were it found the problem, track nr. 5 was the problem, I had to delete it and put it back on the card twice to make it accept song nr. 5 (and there was nothing wrong with song nr. 5...and it wasn't Blowing in the Wind by either the Hollies or Bob Dylan! 

 

[castleofargh]

and there goes my hypothesis to the trash. ^_^

 

[BartSimpson1976]

  Wonder what kind of music you listen to, or what music you play/compose to say you cannot hear the difference

Doesn't matter. You don't hear a difference. The quality of the recording/mastering is what makes the difference. Not the bitrate (at least at 320).
I have tons of FLACs and HiRes files, I also fail miserably in blindtests to spot a difference.
 
Still, I also rip everything in FLAC as space is no issue nowadays and it gives me a better feeling.
 
People complain about barely noticeable hiss on their DAPs. At the same time still in 2015 there are so many recordings made
with a constant, nearly ubeareable background hiss which overpowers the own DAP hiss by miles.
With that kind of recordings nobody notices a difference. And really funny are people who try to tell they could hear a noticeable 
difference between flac and DSD. Maybe reborn bats?
 
But let's move on. Sure this topic has been discussed a million times here.

 

[Kvud]

I did not notice the difference between Flac and 320!

 

[headwhacker]

NWZ-A15 pairs well with Beyer T51P. Very good detail and balance. This is will all sound efx turned off.

 

[castleofargh]

to those who can tell 320bps mp3 and flac apart, and believe they can prove it, I warmly recommend going to sound science sub section and offer some evidence ("believe me I can do it", isn't one ^_^), or a recording of the passage that does sound different.
we know some sounds are suggested to fail an MP3 encoding(and might do better in AAC), but we have a really bad time finding some/any.

 

[gerelmx1986]

I did rip to FLAC as a backup means for all My CDs after accidentally spilling soda to a Tchaikovsky one and it was rendered useless BTW, but i am just too lazy to tell mediago to convert them to mp3

 

[legendcheater]

Guys i need your help. Recently i've changed from using iPod to Walkman, and everything seems fine, except the tagging for converted file. Before i've been using always Easy CD-DA Extractor for converting FLAC file and for adding information to my music, and it was totally fine, without any problem at all. But now when i'm using Walkman (A10 series), for some reason, all of my tagging, information are now unable to be seen. Everything remains "unknow", without album cover, artist, even the displayed name shown the file name, not the tilte of the song, and whatsover. I've tried mp3tag but no luck either. I still can see my edited information on my laptop normally, even on my Touch. Others type like iTunes musics display perfectly.
 
Anyone knows what kind of problem do i have now :/? I'd be very appreciated.

Sorry for my bad English tho.
 

 

[Kvud]

you need to do it again, or change the names manually!

 

[castleofargh]

  Guys i need your help. Recently i've changed from using iPod to Walkman, and everything seems fine, except the tagging for converted file. Before i've been using always Easy CD-DA Extractor for converting FLAC file and for adding information to my music, and it was totally fine, without any problem at all. But now when i'm using Walkman (A10 series), for some reason, all of my tagging, information are now unable to be seen. Everything remains "unknow", without album cover, artist, even the displayed name shown the file name, not the tilte of the song, and whatsover. I've tried mp3tag but no luck either. I still can see my edited information on my laptop normally, even on my Touch. Others type like iTunes musics display perfectly.
 
Anyone knows what kind of problem do i have now :/? I'd be very appreciated.

Sorry for my bad English tho.
 

check for the usual ID3 tag problem. sony likes V2.3 and doesn't want to have anything to do with V2.4.

 

[ravdo]

I always use foobar2000 to tag my musics.  Works great with my A15 too.

 

[castleofargh]

  I always use foobar2000 to tag my musics.  Works great with my A15 too.

like most programs really, foobar too has a setting to chose the ID3 version in "options" "advanced" "tag"... but they have the good idea to warn about compatibility.

 

[Kvud]

ID3 is not valid in all cases!

 

[fish1050]

  to those who can tell 320bps mp3 and flac apart, and believe they can prove it, I warmly recommend going to sound science sub section and offer some evidence ("believe me I can do it", isn't one ^_^), or a recording of the passage that does sound different.
we know some sounds are suggested to fail an MP3 encoding(and might do better in AAC), but we have a really bad time finding some/any.

As someone who has a mix of 16 bit flac and mp3 tracks on my A17 I will say that in some instances I can tell and some I can't.  As a rule I encode all my tracks in 16 bit flac when I have the CD's to rip.  I did download some 24 bit flac files but I ended up re-encoding them down to 16 bit flac to save space. 
 
Before I got my A17 I had a Cowon C2 so I had all my songs encoded in 320 Kbps mp3 due to limited storage.  I went ahead and re-ripped all my CD's to 16 bit flac so I had all my songs in both formats.  As I said sometimes I can tell and sometimes I can't depending on the track.  Where I can tell a difference the tracks seem to have a bit more detail and clarity but no it isn't night and day.  With 128 GB of available storage I can load all my tracks and have lots of room for more.  So for best results I will encode tracks at 16 bit flac whenever possible.
 
As for proving it, sound quality is in the ear of the beholder