Debbie

Have you tried changing the name of each album to "Various"?

I got one of these cradles for my A808 just before Christmas. It was £29.99 from Argos. Cradle at Argos It says it's for the 800 series but clearly works on the 810 series judging by the posts on here.

Oh sorry - I assumed they were still on your computer. I'm afraid I can't offer any more suggestions then. Hope someone else can be of more help. Good luck.

OK - when you connect your 806 to SS, do the songs appear down the right hand side in the player as well as in the SS library? If so, try deleting them from the player using SS, then reimport them.

Are you using SonicStage v.4.3? I had a similar problem when I bought my A808 a few weeks ago and tried to use it with v4.2 which I was using with my A3000. I upgraded to 4.3 and it's been fine since. I had no trouble with the firmware upgrade. What problems did you have when you tried?

Cheers Weaves. I did the upgrade a few days ago and I'm happy to report that SS and my A3000 are now back on speaking terms. The Trash Bin issue on my A808 hasn't happened since either so maybe all is well. I'm just a bit hesitant to declare it a roaring success without a bit more testing! I should have more faith shouldn't I?.....

But as the alternative is losing a shedload of money on it, you're better off sending it off for repair sooner rather than later.

Bobman - just stumbled across this while looking for some support of my own. ATRAC converter Seems like you could use the 818 if you convert your ATRAC files to MP3. I don't know how well it works but I thought I'd point it out in case you find it helpful.

Hi Gifford - I've never found anything other than the "Help" option within SS itself. Have you read through that? And don't forget you can always ask on here if there's anything in particular you need clarifying - most people will have some experience of SS, and there'll be others who know it backwards!

I'd think you were losing out too. I'd definitely take it back for repair. What's worse? Losing all that money or being without it for another month? If you give up and sell it, at best, you're not giving the shop a chance to rectify their mistake and at worst, you're letting them get away with providing a below standard service. If they get it wrong a seond time, you'll have more reason to demand a replacement or refund - then you'll be able to buy that 818 Wait till after Christmas though as the repair people will undoubtedly have a 2 week shutdown! Good luck with it - let us know how you get on.

Oh Bobman - you beat me to it while I was constructing my lengthy reply! The ATRAC thing wouldn't have been a big deal to me as I've backed them up as music CD's anyway so I can always rip them to MP3 if I need to.

I can't answer all your questions as I've never used the 407 so I don't know what it's features are but I've just bought an 808 instead of an 818 as I wanted to keep the features I'm used to with my A3000. From what I read before making my decision, the 818 doesn't allow you to bookmark (create playlists) tracks on the player. I like to set up playlists while I'm listening so didn't want to have to go back to my PC to do that. Another feature missing from the 818 is the Trash Bin. I like to put entire albums on my player, then decide which tracks I want to keep. The 808 allows you to mark tracks for the Trash Bin, and when you reconnect to SS, these tracks are deleted from the player. With the 818, I'd have to make a written note of which tracks to delete, then do it from my PC. The 818 doesn't support gapless playback either but that isn't important to me. I think you would have to upgrade to SS4.3. I was using 4.2 and had problems with deleting tracks via the Trash Bin. I upgraded to 4.3 yesterday and it was OK on the first test, but as it was an intermittent problem before, I'll need to try a few more times before I'm convinced the problem's gone away! I don't think I ever used SS3.1 (I used Connect) so I don't know how much of a difference there is, but 4.2 was great for me. The Sony website says 4.3 is compatible with all E-series so you should be OK - look:- SS4.3 help Every upgrade I've done has been fine. I have mainly MP3 with just a few ATRAC. Hope that helps a bit - sorry if it sounds a bit disjointed - my brain and fingers don't always work in sync! The only thing I would say is act quick if you want an 808 - I had real trouble getting one in the shops. Online should be easier but I always worry about warranty problem with online purchases.

You'd sell something you know to be faulty? (Hmmm, makes mental note not to buy anything from Firbird) I think you'll have to let them have another go at it. Most warranties I've had say they'll only give you a replacement if it can't be fixed. However, it wouldn't hurt to tell them how disappointed you were with the service last time - despite the length of time they had it, they still couldn't fix it properly. Might be worth checking with your local Trading Standards people to see what constitutes a reasonable repair time, then use that information to suggest you get a replacement if they can't repair it in that time.

Thanks Weaves - I don't plug them in at the same time. I just started playing with my A808, had a few problems so tried connecting my A3000 to see if that was still OK. Evidently not In the absence of an alternative, I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and upgrade as I can't use either player properly at the moment.

I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I've had my A3000 for over two years now and love it. I'm a fan of SonicStage and decided to buy an A808 a couple of weeks ago before they become obsolete (just in case my A3000 bites the dust!). The Trash Bin and Bookmark features are important to me so I don't really want one of the newer models until Sony can give us these features. I've been using SS4.2 since it came out with no problems but since I got my A808, the traumas have started! Having transferred some of my library across, I've had to be more selective about which music to keep on there due to it's smaller capacity. That's where the Trash Bin bit comes in. Then when I connect to SS I'm getting an intermittent fault with deleting tracks. SS will give me a message saying "unable to delete the following", and lists the offending tracks. These appear in the A808 window down the right hand side but give an error message if I try to play them. When I disconnect my player, I then get told there are no songs available for playback and to connect to compliant software or device and transfer songs. Reconnecting to SS shows the songs on my player and they can be played through SS, but I get the error message again when I disconnect. I've had to keep deleting them all through SS and transferring them again but the novelty's wearing off now. I've pressed the reset button a couple of times but that's not helped and I don't want to format it unless there's no other option. I've also tried reconnecting my A3000 and it just freezes SS completely. It brings up the player window on the right hand side but it remains empty. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be causing any ill-effects on the A3000 itself. The only thing I changed when I bought my A808 was the check box about transferring tracks automatically when the player is connected. I didn't want to blow my A808 up by trying to fit 10GB of music on it! Does anyone know if upgrading to SS4.3 will cure my problem? Or can't you have more than one ATRAC device talking to SS? I'm reluctant to upgrade in case it causes bigger problems but I may just need a nudge from someone with more knowledge than myself. Or is there an easier way that I'm missing? Sorry for the long post - I just hope I've explained things enough. Thanks in advance, Debbie