grommal
100+ Head-Fier
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- Aug 31, 2007
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I recently picked up a Sony NWZ-S616 (4GB, red) DAP. After quite a bit of listening during the last few days, I thought I’d offer my impressions. To put things in context, I’m pretty new on the DAP scene, but I did have a Rio Carbon that was crushed (as was I when it happened), so my comments are based on comparisons to my memories of that player, and to a few others I auditioned at stores or with friends.
The Package
Sony doesn’t give you much in the box. You get the player, some really dismal earbuds, the proprietary (-1 point for Sony) USB cable, a little plastic disk of uncertain function (supposedly something to do with interfacing with a cradle), and a CD with WMP11, Napster, and a conversion utility to help folks with ATRAC files convert them to MP3. That’s pretty much it – no AC adapter, no case or sleeve.
Appearance and Construction
The shiny red color is very eye-catching, and it makes the player look like it has a metal body (it doesn’t). A side benefit of this particular color is that fingerprints are invisible on the case. The player is about credit card size, and a little thicker than a Nano. Its shape makes it very easy for one-handed operation. The presumably large battery (judging from the 33 hour audio playback battery rating) gives it some heft in the hand. The buttons and switches feel solid, and give the player an overall quality feel. The headphone jack is on the top edge, and the reset hole and proprietary USB jack are on the bottom edge. The player does not feature a dedicated line out, and the battery does not appear to be replaceable. The battery is charged through the USB, and the player cannot be operated while connected to the PC. I don’t know if the same is true if connected to an AC adapter alone. While I have not done any extensive battery life tests, I have used the player for up to 6 continuous hours of playback, and have not seen the 4-level charge indicator drop more than 1 notch.
Interface and Controls
The interface is very intuitive, at least to me. I had no difficulty mastering it within a couple of minutes without reading anything. The controls are all of the tactile feedback variety, which I prefer over touch-sensitive pads. There are dedicated volume controls on the right edge, and a hold switch on the left edge, both near the top.
The front of the player has 7 buttons that control all other functions. Five of the buttons are arranged like a single control, with arrow buttons in the 4 directions and a play/hold button in the center that also acts like an “enter” button when making menu selections. Above and to the left of this array is the back button, which will also take you directly to the main menu if you hold it down for a second, a nice touch. Above and to the right is the option button, which brings up context sensitive functions, depending on what’s currently on the screen. A nice feature is that there’s always an option there to return to the “Now Playing” screen if you’re anywhere else. This button also functions as a pseudo-power button if held down for a couple of seconds. It really just puts the player in standby mode, and a full power down occurs if the player is not used for a day. It can be used easily in one hand, and I’ve also found it pretty easy to do basic things like volume adjustment, play/pause, track skip, track restart, and even a little navigation up and down a level or two, all while in my pocket.
Music can be browsed in folder views, or by tag info for artist, album, genre, or release year. Random shuffle modes can be easily set up for the whole library, or for a particular release year (the so-called “time machine shuffle”). A nice touch in the interface is that, if a particular artist or album is selected on the screen, holding down the play/pause button for a second automatically starts the player sequentially playing all the tracks for that artist or album. This saves a few clicks for me quite often. When paused, the player automatically goes into standby mode after 30 seconds. It wakes up instantly with a button push, resuming right where it left off.
Adding music to the player is simple via drag/drop in Windows, or it can be synced via WMP or other applications. With my WinXP system, the player was recognized as a Walkman, and I could drag/drop or edit/delete files on the player from within Windows as if it were a drive. It does not appear to be UMS mode, though, as the player is not assigned a drive letter, and it does not appear in the “safely remove hardware” menu for stopping the player before disconnecting.
Album art must be embedded in the MP3 tag info in order to be visible, if you use drag/drop to load the files. If using WMP or other apps to sync, the album art seems to carry over without embedding it into the individual file tags. There is a strange behavior regarding ID3 tag information that varies with the method of putting files on the player. If I drag and drop from Windows, the year info fails to make the transition to the player. If I sync using WMP, the year info is there, but the bitrate info shows 0 (no big deal). If I sync with Media Monkey, all the tag info that the player knows how to display seems to be intact. I tested this using v1 and v2 tags, and it made no difference.
The screen is a 1.8”, 320x240 LCD, which can rotate orientation for better video or photo viewing. The menu graphics are clear and bright. The Now Playing screen is attractive, though nothing special, showing a tiny album art thumbnail and the basic song info of artist, album title, track title, genre, and year. Unlike some other players, the interface cannot really be customized. There are no themes, wallpaper, color/font choices.
Video and Photo Viewing
This will be a short section, as it’s not why I bought the player. It can play MPEG-4 and H.264 formats, with a framerate of 30 fps. Max individual file size is 2GB (though that seems pretty silly on a 4GB player), and up to 1000 videos can be stored. I only played the included demo trailer, which was reasonably smooth, very sharp and bright. With the small screen size, I don’t think I’ll be watching any videos anyway. Photos must be JPG format and no more than 4000x4000 pixels in size, and the unit can store up to 10,000 images. I did load a few of my own, as well as look at the included samples, and the display is very sharp and bright. Photos load almost instantaneously when moving through the slideshow, and you can listen to music while viewing the photos. It could be a pretty reasonable little photo viewer.
FM Tuner
This DAP has a built-in FM Tuner with manual and auto-preset functions. It’s easy to add or delete stations manually, and you can have up to 30 presets. The unit picked up all the fairly strong local stations very well, but struggled with weaker signals. The headphone wires act as the antenna, and I found that the reception of weaker signals was highly dependent on height and orientation of the wires (just walking around I could find spots with outstanding reception, and other spots where weak signals were gone without a trace).
Audio File Playback and Sound Quality
Finally, the reason I bought this thing in the first place – listening to music! All my listening tests were done with Future Sonics Atrio M5 IEMs. I rip my MP3 files with EAC, and encode with the latest Lame to either V0 or V2 VBR. The player can handle MP3, WMA, AAC, and WAV files. It does not support OGG or FLAC. The documentation does not quote an absolute max number of audio files, but in the tables of file capacities vs. bitrates, it shows up to 2450 songs for the 4GB player and 5050 songs for 8GB (for low bitrates, of course). This presumably means that there are no lower limits imposed by firmware restrictions.
The player does not provide true gapless playback, but on my albums ripped with EAC to V0 or V2, the gaps are very brief, perhaps 0.1 seconds or less. Some older MP3 albums I ripped using other software exhibited longer gaps, but when I re-ripped with EAC the gaps were very short. I have not tried file formats other than MP3.
As for SQ, I feel that the player sounds very good indeed. I’m quite pleased with the detail and smoothness, the even frequency response, the dynamic range, and the soundstage (which is pretty good with Atrios, as IEMs go). I detected zero hiss with my Atrios in silent passages, even with the volume turned very high, though the Atrios are not known to provoke hissy fits as much as some other IEMs, and my chronologically-challenged ears are not as sensitive to hiss as they were decades ago.
No EQ was needed to get good sound to my ears, but the unit does have a 5 band EQ that seems to work reasonably well. It’s not a parametric EQ, and the bands cannot be adjusted in terms of center frequency or width, only output. Boosting the bass moderately didn’t turn it especially mushy, and boosting the treble didn’t make it overly harsh or introduce sibilance (though the smooth Atrios would not be the most sensitive IEMs to show source harshness). The EQ has 5 presets (including “none”) plus two user-customizable profiles. Sony quotes a meager 5mW power output per channel, but it was plenty to drive my Atrios. A pleasantly loud listen could be had at about half volume for most of the tracks I tried, and it got deafening well before max volume.
Sony endows the player with a few “sound enhancement” technologies, called Clear Bass, Clear Stereo, and Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE). These functions are all disabled by default, but can be engaged separately or in combination. Clear Stereo supposedly reduces “signal leakage” between channels. When I tried it out, it had a subtle, and negative in my opinion, effect on the stereo image. Clear Bass is said to enhance bass while reducing distortion. To my ears, it did have a pleasant, apparent tightening of the bass when boosting bass EQ. DSEE is touted as restoring the lost high frequencies on low bitrate files. Sony says that it will have no effect on high bitrate files, and it was completely inaudible to my ears at V0, and just barely detectable at V2. I did try it with some 128kbps CBR files I grabbed offline long ago, and it did “enhance” the high frequencies. I thought it sounded a bit artificial, though. All of these features increase power consumption of the player, however, so they should be used only if the user thinks they bring something to the table.
Final Words
All in all, I like this little Sony, and I’m glad I decided on this particular unit. It’s kind of light on the bells and whistles, but does a fine job of the basics of serving up great sounding tunes. The NWZ-S6xx series is kind of the underdog to the more expensive A8xx series. But, for the extra money, what you get with the 8xx is a slightly slimmer metal body, slightly larger screen, different looking but identical function control buttons, better earbuds, and the LOSS of the FM tuner. To me, especially already having the Atrios, I’d take the addition of the FM at the lower price any day. I figure this player will hold me over until we see 80GB+ flash memory players in a few years.
I was also considering a Creative Zen, but I thought it felt more flimsy and plasticky in the hand, though it might be a fine player. The other player on my short list was a Cowon iAudio7, but I got a good deal on the Sony, and I couldn’t find the Cowon in order to test drive the swing-touch interface before purchase. I wish I had a half dozen other players here for direct comparisons in this review, but I don’t, so you’ll just have to take my comments as they are!
Pros
Attractive form factor and exterior
Solid feel
Sharp, bright screen
Photo and video viewing capabilities
Great battery life
Easy navigation, one handed use, even while in the pocket
Very good sound quality
Usable EQ
Good shuffle functionality
No special software needed to transfer files
Immune to fingerprints on the case and control surfaces
Cons
Interface not customizable
Limited codec support
No true gapless MP3 playback (though gaps are very brief)
Few bells and whistles
Battery not replaceable
Proprietary USB cable needed
Bundled ear buds are very poor
No extra goodies in the box
Strange ID3 tag behavior at times
The Package
Sony doesn’t give you much in the box. You get the player, some really dismal earbuds, the proprietary (-1 point for Sony) USB cable, a little plastic disk of uncertain function (supposedly something to do with interfacing with a cradle), and a CD with WMP11, Napster, and a conversion utility to help folks with ATRAC files convert them to MP3. That’s pretty much it – no AC adapter, no case or sleeve.
Appearance and Construction
The shiny red color is very eye-catching, and it makes the player look like it has a metal body (it doesn’t). A side benefit of this particular color is that fingerprints are invisible on the case. The player is about credit card size, and a little thicker than a Nano. Its shape makes it very easy for one-handed operation. The presumably large battery (judging from the 33 hour audio playback battery rating) gives it some heft in the hand. The buttons and switches feel solid, and give the player an overall quality feel. The headphone jack is on the top edge, and the reset hole and proprietary USB jack are on the bottom edge. The player does not feature a dedicated line out, and the battery does not appear to be replaceable. The battery is charged through the USB, and the player cannot be operated while connected to the PC. I don’t know if the same is true if connected to an AC adapter alone. While I have not done any extensive battery life tests, I have used the player for up to 6 continuous hours of playback, and have not seen the 4-level charge indicator drop more than 1 notch.
Interface and Controls
The interface is very intuitive, at least to me. I had no difficulty mastering it within a couple of minutes without reading anything. The controls are all of the tactile feedback variety, which I prefer over touch-sensitive pads. There are dedicated volume controls on the right edge, and a hold switch on the left edge, both near the top.
The front of the player has 7 buttons that control all other functions. Five of the buttons are arranged like a single control, with arrow buttons in the 4 directions and a play/hold button in the center that also acts like an “enter” button when making menu selections. Above and to the left of this array is the back button, which will also take you directly to the main menu if you hold it down for a second, a nice touch. Above and to the right is the option button, which brings up context sensitive functions, depending on what’s currently on the screen. A nice feature is that there’s always an option there to return to the “Now Playing” screen if you’re anywhere else. This button also functions as a pseudo-power button if held down for a couple of seconds. It really just puts the player in standby mode, and a full power down occurs if the player is not used for a day. It can be used easily in one hand, and I’ve also found it pretty easy to do basic things like volume adjustment, play/pause, track skip, track restart, and even a little navigation up and down a level or two, all while in my pocket.
Music can be browsed in folder views, or by tag info for artist, album, genre, or release year. Random shuffle modes can be easily set up for the whole library, or for a particular release year (the so-called “time machine shuffle”). A nice touch in the interface is that, if a particular artist or album is selected on the screen, holding down the play/pause button for a second automatically starts the player sequentially playing all the tracks for that artist or album. This saves a few clicks for me quite often. When paused, the player automatically goes into standby mode after 30 seconds. It wakes up instantly with a button push, resuming right where it left off.
Adding music to the player is simple via drag/drop in Windows, or it can be synced via WMP or other applications. With my WinXP system, the player was recognized as a Walkman, and I could drag/drop or edit/delete files on the player from within Windows as if it were a drive. It does not appear to be UMS mode, though, as the player is not assigned a drive letter, and it does not appear in the “safely remove hardware” menu for stopping the player before disconnecting.
Album art must be embedded in the MP3 tag info in order to be visible, if you use drag/drop to load the files. If using WMP or other apps to sync, the album art seems to carry over without embedding it into the individual file tags. There is a strange behavior regarding ID3 tag information that varies with the method of putting files on the player. If I drag and drop from Windows, the year info fails to make the transition to the player. If I sync using WMP, the year info is there, but the bitrate info shows 0 (no big deal). If I sync with Media Monkey, all the tag info that the player knows how to display seems to be intact. I tested this using v1 and v2 tags, and it made no difference.
The screen is a 1.8”, 320x240 LCD, which can rotate orientation for better video or photo viewing. The menu graphics are clear and bright. The Now Playing screen is attractive, though nothing special, showing a tiny album art thumbnail and the basic song info of artist, album title, track title, genre, and year. Unlike some other players, the interface cannot really be customized. There are no themes, wallpaper, color/font choices.
Video and Photo Viewing
This will be a short section, as it’s not why I bought the player. It can play MPEG-4 and H.264 formats, with a framerate of 30 fps. Max individual file size is 2GB (though that seems pretty silly on a 4GB player), and up to 1000 videos can be stored. I only played the included demo trailer, which was reasonably smooth, very sharp and bright. With the small screen size, I don’t think I’ll be watching any videos anyway. Photos must be JPG format and no more than 4000x4000 pixels in size, and the unit can store up to 10,000 images. I did load a few of my own, as well as look at the included samples, and the display is very sharp and bright. Photos load almost instantaneously when moving through the slideshow, and you can listen to music while viewing the photos. It could be a pretty reasonable little photo viewer.
FM Tuner
This DAP has a built-in FM Tuner with manual and auto-preset functions. It’s easy to add or delete stations manually, and you can have up to 30 presets. The unit picked up all the fairly strong local stations very well, but struggled with weaker signals. The headphone wires act as the antenna, and I found that the reception of weaker signals was highly dependent on height and orientation of the wires (just walking around I could find spots with outstanding reception, and other spots where weak signals were gone without a trace).
Audio File Playback and Sound Quality
Finally, the reason I bought this thing in the first place – listening to music! All my listening tests were done with Future Sonics Atrio M5 IEMs. I rip my MP3 files with EAC, and encode with the latest Lame to either V0 or V2 VBR. The player can handle MP3, WMA, AAC, and WAV files. It does not support OGG or FLAC. The documentation does not quote an absolute max number of audio files, but in the tables of file capacities vs. bitrates, it shows up to 2450 songs for the 4GB player and 5050 songs for 8GB (for low bitrates, of course). This presumably means that there are no lower limits imposed by firmware restrictions.
The player does not provide true gapless playback, but on my albums ripped with EAC to V0 or V2, the gaps are very brief, perhaps 0.1 seconds or less. Some older MP3 albums I ripped using other software exhibited longer gaps, but when I re-ripped with EAC the gaps were very short. I have not tried file formats other than MP3.
As for SQ, I feel that the player sounds very good indeed. I’m quite pleased with the detail and smoothness, the even frequency response, the dynamic range, and the soundstage (which is pretty good with Atrios, as IEMs go). I detected zero hiss with my Atrios in silent passages, even with the volume turned very high, though the Atrios are not known to provoke hissy fits as much as some other IEMs, and my chronologically-challenged ears are not as sensitive to hiss as they were decades ago.
No EQ was needed to get good sound to my ears, but the unit does have a 5 band EQ that seems to work reasonably well. It’s not a parametric EQ, and the bands cannot be adjusted in terms of center frequency or width, only output. Boosting the bass moderately didn’t turn it especially mushy, and boosting the treble didn’t make it overly harsh or introduce sibilance (though the smooth Atrios would not be the most sensitive IEMs to show source harshness). The EQ has 5 presets (including “none”) plus two user-customizable profiles. Sony quotes a meager 5mW power output per channel, but it was plenty to drive my Atrios. A pleasantly loud listen could be had at about half volume for most of the tracks I tried, and it got deafening well before max volume.
Sony endows the player with a few “sound enhancement” technologies, called Clear Bass, Clear Stereo, and Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE). These functions are all disabled by default, but can be engaged separately or in combination. Clear Stereo supposedly reduces “signal leakage” between channels. When I tried it out, it had a subtle, and negative in my opinion, effect on the stereo image. Clear Bass is said to enhance bass while reducing distortion. To my ears, it did have a pleasant, apparent tightening of the bass when boosting bass EQ. DSEE is touted as restoring the lost high frequencies on low bitrate files. Sony says that it will have no effect on high bitrate files, and it was completely inaudible to my ears at V0, and just barely detectable at V2. I did try it with some 128kbps CBR files I grabbed offline long ago, and it did “enhance” the high frequencies. I thought it sounded a bit artificial, though. All of these features increase power consumption of the player, however, so they should be used only if the user thinks they bring something to the table.
Final Words
All in all, I like this little Sony, and I’m glad I decided on this particular unit. It’s kind of light on the bells and whistles, but does a fine job of the basics of serving up great sounding tunes. The NWZ-S6xx series is kind of the underdog to the more expensive A8xx series. But, for the extra money, what you get with the 8xx is a slightly slimmer metal body, slightly larger screen, different looking but identical function control buttons, better earbuds, and the LOSS of the FM tuner. To me, especially already having the Atrios, I’d take the addition of the FM at the lower price any day. I figure this player will hold me over until we see 80GB+ flash memory players in a few years.
I was also considering a Creative Zen, but I thought it felt more flimsy and plasticky in the hand, though it might be a fine player. The other player on my short list was a Cowon iAudio7, but I got a good deal on the Sony, and I couldn’t find the Cowon in order to test drive the swing-touch interface before purchase. I wish I had a half dozen other players here for direct comparisons in this review, but I don’t, so you’ll just have to take my comments as they are!
Pros
Attractive form factor and exterior
Solid feel
Sharp, bright screen
Photo and video viewing capabilities
Great battery life
Easy navigation, one handed use, even while in the pocket
Very good sound quality
Usable EQ
Good shuffle functionality
No special software needed to transfer files
Immune to fingerprints on the case and control surfaces
Cons
Interface not customizable
Limited codec support
No true gapless MP3 playback (though gaps are very brief)
Few bells and whistles
Battery not replaceable
Proprietary USB cable needed
Bundled ear buds are very poor
No extra goodies in the box
Strange ID3 tag behavior at times
