stim

Yeah, it's a good unit, it's tiny and battery lasts forever, but make sure you get the E016 not the E015, as it's a 4GB unit, not the 2GB. Bizarrely i just had a phone call from Sony updating me on the SonicStage situation - bascially he told me that whilst we can use SonicStage for all of our music now and in the future, any future Walkman won't use it. ATRAC is essentially tied to SS so when all of the current Walkman's are dead and gone there won't be a way of getting the music out of SonicStage on a device... (hoping my E016 lasts a few years!)... i think i have come to the conclusion that one day i am going to have to re-rip my entire CD collection again into, most likely AAC or something (hoping AAC supports gapless play)... but at least i've got a few years until that happens... even then i might keep SS as it is, as i like the way it displays music on the TV for jukebox purposes (although no doubt the next version of Windows will force it's death). Apparently 4.3 is the last major update... but i guess things might change?

I own: NW-HD1 (although don't use it much now) and... NW-E016F (Black) (used daily with my Ultimate Ears Super-Fi Pro 5 Headphones). What's the issue with the ATRAC Lossless? - i actually don't use it, but find that anything from 320Kbps upwards is bordering on the limits of what my ears can pick up, so tends to be good enough... Exactly my point of filling out the 'Album Properties' dialogue box - it can loose tracks everywhere if this isn't filled out properly (checking the 'compilation' tick box tends to keep them together).

Ok, i'll try and explain the album art. In SonicStage i have ripped my CDs into various Genre's, for example 'Breaks, Beats & Bass', 'General Electronic', 'Renaissance', 'Hard Dance' etc etc (as you might tell i'm into my beats!). I fill out all the information in the 'album properties' dialogue box so that all the albums in a certain genre are listed in the date they were released and make sure they all have album art etc. (i actually believe one of the reasons that SonicStage gets such bad reviews is that people don't fill out the information in the 'Album Properties' dialogue box which causes tracks to sometimes go astray, and can make SS difficult to initally understand). In SonicStage i then do a 'View'>'Sort By'>'Genre' and also do a 'View'>Album>'Icons (All Categories)' This gives me a view with all off my albums in a little 1.5cm/sq box (probably larger on the TV), rather than the list/details view. You also get a list down the left side of the album window so i can quickly jump to whichever 'Genre' i want. Having these small 1.5cm/sq boxes literally covering the majority of the screen mean that i can quickly and easily see my music. It enables album art in a size to be useful when quickly selecting and is much nicer on the eye than the 'Details' view. I know that itunes does offer a list, larger-icon and also page size view of albums, but when you have over 400 CDs ripped into SonicStage, anything larger than the 1.5cm/sq would just take years to search through. IMO, i have it on the best view for my needs. I will have to get a screenshot from home to show what i mean if i'm not making sense. (Soz, yes i meant gapless play - nearly all (95%) of my stuff is gapless, and when it's a mix, the jumps are irritating - it's meant to flow from start to finish). (Yes both my HD and Flash stick Walkmans are gapless play as well as my old minidisc player, and obviously SS on the PC plays in gapless too)... I wish people were concerned about sound quality - they're missing out so much! Like the kids who listen through a speakerphone mobile at the back of the bus - i used to get better quality out of plastic fontopia headphones and a tape walkman than the noise those things make! MP3Sparks.com..... oops...

hi, this is my first post, and i have joined up because i have seen the recent news about Sony dropping the Connect , but i am slightly confused by what i am reading on the boards and the net in general. I have over 130GB of music in ATRAC3 format, 100GB of which is CD rips in ATRAC 320Kbps quality or better and the rest is converted MP3s, mostly long plays, like 'essential mixes' etc. ATRAC is, in my opinion, one of the better codecs out there, but i guess at the higher bit rates, they all sound pretty similar. I don't use lower bit rates, even on my 4GB NW-E016F, i only carry about 30 CD rips, in full quality. I actually really hate the fact that with the 'new' digital approach, quality is being sacrificed. (I was forced to by something from itunes the other day as the label only released to them and i found that a) itunes sucks compares to sonicstage - it's just designed for millions of single songs, b.) it's nearly all 128kbps downloads - i can't understand how the thing has got so popular! I actually get all my online music from MP3Sparks.com, where u can download in upto FLAC quality if needed. But anyway, i am under the impression that Sony is dropping Connect, no big loss, as i never used it to buy music from anyway, but i don't believe they will be dropping SonicStage, and if they don't drop SonicStage then they probably won't drop the ATRAC format? Or am i missing something? I have SonicStage installed on my shuttle in the front room, connected to my HD LCD TV and it works PERFECTLY as a jukebox, itunes doesn't display the covers as well as SonicStage IMO. Also, ATRAC and SonicStage can play all my CDs (which are nearly all 'mixed' cd's) with no track breaks, now as i understand, mp3's always have track breaks, that would be a disaster for me. I like SonicStage and i think a lot of people out there do to...in fact i would imagine most people left on earth who arent sheep and have an ipod would give it a go. (That's just one of the reasons i would NEVER buy an ipod - why be the same as EVERYONE else on Earth, when there are alternative small, higher quality devices available). So does anyone actually know, for definite, the future of SonicStage or is it just all speculation after the press release concerning the dropping of CONNECT? (If Sony is reading this, please keep SonicStage, oh, and can you make it so that the screen saver can come on while SonicStage is loaded - my only niggle!) stim. I own: NW-HD1 (although don't use it much now) and... NW-E016F (used daily with my Ultimate Ears Super-Fi Pro 5 Headphones).