[astranovus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bangraman In which case, why do I get the same battery life out of a Nano at high bitrates that I do out of an NW-A1000 when it claims 20 hour life? Perhaps you might like to do some real tests instead of quoting Sony brochures, no?

i own the a3000 which has a much longer battery life than the a1000; sony and nano quote similar battery lifes for the nano and a1000 so similar battery lifes could well be possible.

i am aware that you only get 35 hrs on the a3000 with atrac 48kb/s, which is unusable.

i've yet to test how long my player lasts, but i am sure it'll give me at least 20 hrs with 352kb/s

this is not meant to be some kind of sony is better than apple thread

i just wanted to make the point that the a3000 is a good machine and rarely gets a mention ion this forum,

i think it's mainly down to its none-availabilty in the US.

the line-out on the a3000 lends itself well for pocket amps,

bangraman, have you tested the sound quality on the a3000 line-out?

i'm happy with it, sounds good with my dt770s

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dvallere Evidently you've not purchased a new Sony product in the last 3-4 years, then; they always include a gift card for free Connect downloads in the box (even in, for example, the new DVD-RW drive we bought for our mediacenter). If you look at your left-hand tab in SonicStage, one of the options is "Music Store" (I think - been a long time since I deleted SonicStage).

Actually, I have. I have a Sony PCDP that I purchased about 2-3 years ago, and a Sony HDTV that I purchased within the past year. I have a MD recorder too, but it's pre-Net MD, so I'm sure that it's older than 4 years. I don't remember seeing anything about free Connect downloads with the PCDP or the TV, but then again, I never installed SonicStage, so I wasn't looking for it and could easily have missed it.

 

[bangraman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by astranovus bangraman, have you tested the sound quality on the a3000 line-out? i'm happy with it, sounds good with my dt770s

With the Orpheus or the Qualia (out of the Emerald prototype) it was fine, but the iPod 5G or the Creative ZVM matches or exceeds it.

 

[kencer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by YamiTenshi I like drag-n-drop and external hard drive. Oh, and Rockbox is nice too. If Sony came out with the equivalent of the iRiver H100/300 with a bigger hard drive and 30+ hours of battery life I would buy it.

Until Sony Music goes totally indie, This will never happen. I remember reading something like this back in late 2002 in an issue of Wired where the head honcho guy in charge of Sony minidisc players was lamenting that there had to be so many restrictions because of the pressure Sony Music was giving to the Electronics dept.

So honestly when i hear about how hard is it for SS to import music from the player and all..im not surprised..i still bought the HD5. Granted the earlier versions of SS were crap but i have 3.3 and crashed on me once but still very stable. At the end of the day, i only use it when i wanna transfer songs into my HD5..that is if im not using mp3fm..everything else goes to winamp

the ppl who makes SS are all from the electronics dept..they could of course, use programmers from the PS dept or soemthing but thats a whole new dept(pride plays an important role here). as to why they couldnt make it more competent in the first place, i guess its because of deadlines and such. kinda typical and in no way excusable. and yeah itunes is more stable (i think) but thats only coz Apple is, first and foremost, a company that makes hardwares and softwares.

in some ways, a dap player is like an extension of the computer. Something very new for Sony. give them the benefit of the doubt. if in the next 2-3 years, the same problems still exist in SS/connect...i take back everything i have said and to hell with them

 

[mazinger]

people need to suggest depending on the needs of the individual/potential buyer....

... what may be good for me, might not be for you.

In my case, I was looking into a compact 20 GB HD player,with very good battery life, excellent sound and solidly built ad with Line Out. All my music is in MP3s using LAME encoder at VBR 192-320.. I have 28 GB, but i do not listen to all of my music....

The Sony NW-HD 5 was perfect, bought it and cannot be happier.... SonicStage 3.4 works flowlessly for me (my computer is an IBM Thinkpad T42 Centrino and 1.5 GB RAM)... never crashed once....

Now, may I suggest Sony? if someone has the same needs as I, definitely YES

 

[astranovus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mazinger people need to suggest depending on the needs of the individual/potential buyer.... ... what may be good for me, might not be for you. In my case, I was looking into a compact 20 GB HD player,with very good battery life, excellent sound and solidly built ad with Line Out. All my music is in MP3s using LAME encoder at VBR 192-320.. I have 28 GB, but i do not listen to all of my music.... The Sony NW-HD 5 was perfect, bought it and cannot be happier.... SonicStage 3.4 works flowlessly for me (my computer is an IBM Thinkpad T42 Centrino and 1.5 GB RAM)... never crashed once.... Now, may I suggest Sony? if someone has the same needs as I, definitely YES

hurray, somebody who thinks a long the same lines as me,
i didn't like the plastic buttons on the hd5 though, so i got the mw-a3000.

 

[Spaceage]

Sonicstage has to be the number 1 reason. iPod users will knock Sonicstage til the day they die, disregarding the fact that it has come a LONG way.

The Sony HD5 is always the first mp3 player I recommend. Sound quality is tops in my opinion, Sonicstage is solid, and the Connect store has buy one get one free albums on Tuesdays!! (my favorite thing) They also offer exclusive tracks from Sony artists, small bonus.

 

[dhaven]

I agree it's not as bad as people make it out to be. I have a Sony NW-A608 that I use for jogging and biking, etc., and it's an excellent little player. However, although the softwares come a long way, it's still not as easy as my old drag-and-drop Samsung player. Though, I've heard those are now all MTP instead of MSC.

 

[RedLeader]

I have no problems recommending Sony at all, the best sound I've heard out of any sort of dap is out of my MZ-R50, including my Karma. This seems to have turned into a sort of discussion about apple/sony so I'll just say this. Why do apple fans bash sony for things that apple does the same way? Bloated front-end, way too much support for a proprietary format, downloads in said format, restrictive DRM, etc.

 

[dvallere]

I'm an equal-opportunity basher...Apple AND Sony!

 

[RedLeader]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dvallere I'm an equal-opportunity basher...Apple AND Sony!

See, THATS what I like to see. Nicely done sir! I use my karma and play-yan and just couldnt be happier I don't deal with any of those problems.

 

[halcyon]

Got my NW-A608 (along with SS 4.0) for my gym / running duty.

Things I like: size, shape, sound quality & battery life (pretty much unbeatable on the latter).

Sonic Stage is horrible though.

THe device itself is a mass-storage compliant USB device - no drivers.

However, as usual for Sony, the music database in the player is a proprietary implementation and dragging mp3s to the player via Windows Explorer will not make the files playable. You have to do it via SS4.0.

There are some really useless features in SS, like having to "organize" your music into it first, before being able to transfer it into your player. i.e. you can't just drag stuff from your hard drive onto your player through the SS main window. First you have to drag the stuff to the SS main window designated as your music library. Then the stuff is indexed, after which you can commence the second transfer to your player. Stupid and time consuming. I don't use SS to index/organize my music library. Sony should understand this.

Other than that, I like the player and it does what it's supposed to do, even though the interface is perhaps not the best when on the go.

But battery life - unbeatable.

 

[grenert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by halcyon Sonic Stage is horrible though. But battery life - unbeatable.

Man, I just need to vent about this:
Out of (misguided) curiosity, I wanted to see if I could hear an improvement going to 256kbps Atrac+, over LAME VBR 192. I don't have a Sony DAP, but I have a couple of Sony PCDP which I like a lot and have Atrac support. Even if I couldn't hear an improvement, I figured I'd get improved battery life. Sooo... I spent many hours converting some FLAC files to WMA lossless, then converted to Atrac. After all of that, using either SS 4.0 or 3.4, I COULD NOT CREATE AN ATRAC CD! The program just hangs when I try to select "Create an ATRAC CD" from the dropdown menu. Sony also doesn't allow you to use a normal CD burning program such as Nero to make Atrac CDs (the player tries to read the disc and gives a "No File" error). This seems especially ridiculous since I can make MP3 discs with Nero that work fine in the players.

My other big problem with SS is that I CANNOT SHUT DOWN THE PROGRAM (OR MY COMPUTER)! If I exit the program, the window closes and looks like the program is shut down. However, a check of Task Manager shows that OMGJBOX.EXE is still running. The progam will just not stop. As a result, my computer will not shut down, and I need to hit the reset button.

OOoohh, I can't tell you how much I hate Sonic Stage... I have absolutely given up on Atrac and any Sony product that requires me to use its bug-riddled software.

 

[Paul L]

Well, sounds like I'm in a minority having ordered an NW-A3000S which arrives in a day or two together with protective case and Sennheiser PX-100 (I already have some Sony in-ear phones). All new and £203 in total.

Perhaps I had a different perspective to most. This is my first 'kiddie' audio as my years (over 40 of them) can't help but term it. No offence to anyone intended, as an older duffer I've been into audio for 30 years and the new generation of compressed audio hits someone like me very hard. Audio to me is quality FM broadcasting, years of vinyl, CD is a convenient medium I have nodded to but which never gets a look in (and 'perfect sound forever' 25 years ago was an insult), DAB with it's maximum MP2 quality is an insult, 'earphones' are something carefully placed in the room and weighing 37kg each, separately driven by their own power amps. However, I do like music on the move given the mobile lifestyles we all have.

So, no intention to express a superiority, only to create the perspective of someone older who:
- doesn't care for the fashion
- doesn't like the media attention Apple got over iPod cases*
- doesn't care about locking in to a proprietary format as I'm likely to burn my own CD collection anyway
- wants a quality name and decided (rightly or wrongly) to choose between Apple and Sony only (I'm aware there are dissenters about support from any company)
- doesn't care too much about battery draining and trendy colour displays
- has uncompressed audio quality and battery life as primary goals
- wants capacity for a lot of classical music
- wants charging from USB cable
- doesn't want a theft-icon on the high street

I may have got it all totally wrong even from taking a few days reading and researching on the web plus seeing machines in the flesh. However, I just have not escaped the feeling during this whole iPod craze in recent years that Apple have cynically exploited a low quality young-generation approach to music. I can't deny Sony might have simply done likewise though (albeit later and possibly too late) if the suggestions in this regard from some people are true.

I guess the strength of the Sony brand over many years has sway with someone like me and I hope Sony has not sold out despite more recent mistakes and reported Net-MD fiasco.

* The closer for me was the iPod case saga. In the UK earlier this year it was reported that Apple took huge criticism for telling their customers (politely I'm sure) to bu66ar off when screens and cases were cracking, I'm a parent now and the thought of my daughter spending what to her would be a huge sum on a brand-leading product from an allegedly premium company would outrage me to watch her 'investment' trashed by an uncaring company. The reporting added that in our era of the internet, a collective case was forming in the US and Apple backed down. Meanwhile, whilst this all remained very visible here in the UK, Apple continued to treat UK customers with contempt by sticking to the denials and refusals to repair/replace at no cost. This last point alone was enough to remove an iPod from any short-list I might have.

I'm not wishing to add to the flame wars, I would not be surprised if there are pages and pages on this already and I hope it doesn't upset the mods. I thought I would just give my perspective on what I have chosen and why as I came onto this forum purely to search for Sony-related threads and this one has naturally caught my attention.

 

[zip22]

i hate to break it to you, but the nwa3000 does not have a high capacity and does not support lossless (or uncompressed).