ceres

Hi bud, I am sure you will be wrong on the price point. By the time a 16gb unit hits the shelves it will be only a bit more expensive (if at all) than the NWZ 8gb unit was when it was introduced. Prices for flash memory have come down immensely the past few months. Sony has also effectively abandoned selling at a premium vs. other dap manufacturers. Both Apple and Samsung are pricing aggressively so I don´t think Sony will charge too much. Of course, if Sony was to come out with an entirely different design and/or feature set things could be more expensive. Sony usually debuts new stuff in March/April at the IFA Trade Fair. It wouldn´t be terribly wrong to consider selling whatever you own right now before that happens.

Atrac has reached end of life status in all non Japanese Walkman devices currently on sale. There is still compatibility in Playstation products but once you move on to new Walkman gear, you will be left out. So yes, I would go ahead and use lame mp3 even if this includes re-ripping all your cds again.

You definitely need some proof of purchase e.g invoice.

It´s probably a sign for the things to come at CES. Sony is unlikely to show up with empty hands. Cramming Japanese S7 series into the more attractive NWZ A shell is a likely stop-gap measure until new designs crop up in march/april at the IFA 2008 trade fair that is usually the venue of choice for Sony to show off new consumer products.

Do you have MPT or USB Mass Storage drivers installed for your Walkman on your xp machine?

Granted that demand may not be that high, it would still be a boon for those that listen to electro samplers, classic and such. Surely Sony should implement gapless in new players should it prove not feasible in the current lineup. ceres

You are right. there is no English ui. Anyway, as I said highlight the entire library, pick Nützliches (useful) and then Einsetzen (embed). Magic will happen. One more thing: Make sure that you don´t try to transfer aac lossless files bc those cannot be played by your walkman. Make sure to drop all music files in the "Music" folder on your 818.

Okay, as you are on a mac and use itunes there is a very easy solution to your album art problems. You see, with itunes album art fetched from the its is stored in a seperate database and NOT embedded in the music file itself which is necessary in order to have it show up on your walkman. Provided that your tags per se (artist - album - song - year) are all right I would advise you to download and run this tool: http://www.tune-instructor.de/0001_Data/TuneInstructor.dmg The webpage itself is in German. AFAIK, there is an option to set the program itself to English. Anyway, you let itunes dl all the album art it can find, highlight your entire music libraray, bring tune instructor into focus and mark "embed album art". Tune instructur will embed all album art directly into the tag and your files are ready to be transferred to your walkman. I did that myself on more than 8000 tracks and the entire operation was done in a matter of 5 minutes or so. Amazing. You can also use tune instructor to keep your library tidy and well organized. BTW, drag and drop works perfectly under osx 10.5.1. Just make sure you don´t connect your walkman to the usb ports on your keyboard. Those don´t provide enough current.

Ex-85 and Ex-90 are very close in SQ with crisper highs on the 90s. EX 85 are a great deal.

well that and the fact that zune is not available outside of the us. what a joke. might have launched xbox 360 in the us only as well. argh. @zizone: I wouldn´t get worked up about aac too much. At v1 mp3 is perfect for portable use. For archiving purposes I´d store a lossless version on my harddisk but not on a portable device. Larger files mean more bitrate = more cpu power required with obvious effects on battery life.

How does playlisting work? I wasn´t able to find out using built-in help? Overall this piece of software is very rudimentary, yet slow. There are almost no options in the settings tab. AAC encoding relies on installed Quicktime-itunes, how funny. Transfer and connection to Walkman devices is as slow as ever. As is this is a big disappointment.

If you can get the winamp plugin to work then yes.

busy on PS3 and HD-War. It´s plain to see that S is moving in the right direction with portable audio. As nobody else in the business is moving at speed of light let´s just wait for new models that will be available by march/april at the latest.

In fact, the technical design could in deed be superior to the NWZ A8 series simply bc s6 is a few months newer. I haven´t seen any lab work on the s6 but once I do I will post it here. Note that there is also an s7 series in Japan that can handle he-aac and has nc built in. I would reckon that this actually is the best Sony Player at the moment. Unfortunately it´s Japan and SonicStage only at the moment. My projections for the next walkman refresh would be: A8 enclosure with S7 Japan tech specs + 16gb option + Media Manager / UMS / MTP all in one package.

0,5db is inaudible. that´s a fact. absolutely nobody can hear it.

that´s a 0,5 db spike on the a800, rh1 and h5. hardly a v curve. clear bass-1 makes it linear. it´s completely inaudible, in fact. 2-3 you could talk to careful listeners. 0,5db is inaudible, a joke.

I´d like to extract the icon that shows ip in Windows Explorer in order to use it as a volume lable in os x and linux. Unfortunately, I didn´t have any luck in locating it on the player. I have already tried to show hidden/system files. To no avail. Any ideas? Thanks!

I´d say it depends on the phones you want to use. The touch is rather hissy with sensitive phones. It´s okay with the likes of MDR EX90 but rather displeasing with iems such as Super Fi 5s. I´d order from amazon and give it a try.

Yes I have owned these phones. They are a very good improvement over the vibez but imo comfort and fit are bad (just like the triple.fis). I´d look elsewhere.

The device I received wasn´t capped. At 65% volume I had to stop bc it got brutal. 45% was plenty with triple.fis. Also output came in at 25,5mw. I have never seen such numbers on an Ipod. Strangely the documentation I found in the package wasn´t localized so I might have received an uncapped Ipod.

yes rather sooner than later.

Unpacking and handling: After a rather long waiting period of three weeks my (actually purchased for mommy) touch 8gb arrived. Once you open the attractive packaging you are in for a few surprises. The touch comes at a 50% premium over current 8gig flash competitors. Of course, in a number of ways there are no competitors. The most prominent feature is the touch interface. After some playing around you get the drift and controls work fluidly and intuitively from that time on. However, as usual there is an Iphyrrus victory involved. The touch interface could have made for easy eq adjusting, otg playlisting and such. Apple chose to forego that opportunity. To be fair, playlisting has been improved. Searching and selecting albums and individual songs or precreated playlists is faster than ever and getting in touch with your music is fun. Coverflow works the way it was meant to be. The implementation on nano3g and classic is a worthless gimmick in comparison. While in your hands, the touch is a wonderful device. In your -large- pockets it is lost and cannot be operated. This device screams for a high quality remote as seen on past high end md players from Sharp and Sony. Also adjusting the voulme with the touch controls is a pain. Build quality of the Ipod touch face is top notch only scratchable with vile. The back should have been anodized Al just like the front frame but Apple wants to profit from windfall profits generated from made for Ipod cases. Or whatever. Video Playback: Kind of undecided here. The Screen sports good contast and brightness. However, blacks are totally washed out. i purchased two test videos from ITS. The Strokes - Heart in a Cage b&w and -only for test purposes 50 cent - Ayo technology. Video was choppy at times with artifacts and blurring. No homerun but certainly better than everything I have seen. I haven´t seen the Samsung Touch DAP yet. For casual use and videocasts and such the touch is a great device. Audio Quality: Most hiss ever on an Ipod (of course still way better than shuffle II), overall sound signature is very similar to Ipod 5.5 Video. Mids and Treble are warm, silky and harmonic. Great musical sound (re)productions. Bass is deficient (see frequency response curve). Good news for EU buyers: No cap seems to be in place. Measured output is 25.5mw, SNR 85(A) db and thd 0,073% via headphones. Noteworthy: The touch comes with internet access via wlan and access to the wifi ITS. I use Apple´s latest AirPort Router. Wlan Setup on the touch is a matter of seconds. The connection remains stable all day long, Rendering of web pages is the best I have seen on a mobile device to date (don´t know Nokia´s N95). Still pages filled with css and ajax will take some time to load and scrolling through page such as bbc.co.uk will take some patience. Personally, I am not into this kind of thing. Notwithstanding my personal preferences internet on this device is a very pleasing affair. Great job on that! One setback. You cannot dl free content from the wireless ITS. No podcasts, webradio and such. Lame move. Getting fresh podcasts or radiostreams on the road would habe been terrific. Outlook: There is much space for fancy icons left on the screen. We will see new apps and an expanded ITS in the future. Right now, the touch is a scaled down version of the Iphone with worse sq and screen. The 2nd gen Touch will probably be the touch you would want to buy. Buy then 32 GB should be feasibe for 399, 16 GB for 299. Right now, the 16 GB touch is too pricey coming in at the same price point as the PS3. Software Intergation using Itunes 7.5, FW 1.12: top notch and stable albeit slower transfers than Nano. Pictures: Once I find my camera

Now that I have put the Sennheiser CX 95 to the test here is my verdict: Good but not groundbreaking. A solid update from cx 300 model with more neutral, balanced sound. Overall I think these IEMs are worth the money but they are not special. Sound signature is comparable to MDR EX90 with a tad more resolution and (artificial) bass impact. Upper bass is artificially augmented while deep bass is a step up from the MDR EX90. Probably largely due to the real IEM design resolution and clarity are a tad better than MDR EX90. Highs are more brilliant with the Sony phones, however. The Sennheisers block external noise very well. Any more would be hazardous imo. There is no noticable sound leakage. Cable quality and microphonics are middle of the road. Generally, fit is comfortable although not suited for sprinting and such as the small iems will probably fall out. The CX95 don´t have to nudge your brain in oder to be at their best. To the contrary, they only need to be inserted as deep as the cx 300 and such. Just like the cx 300 you will be buying an ear wax magnet. There is no way to clean the filter grill. Once clogged you can toss the phones. This will happen despite rigorous qtip jousting. One major drawback of the Sennis is the very short cable that is intended to be connected to a remote. Given the fact that the Ipod is the dominating on the road device the short cable is an odd choice. There is an extension cord supplied in the package, however. A further pack in, a cheap plastic carrying case, is also supplied. Once a retailer is set up in Germany I will take a look at the q-jays.

let´s just hope that this is a rudimentary piece of software that serves SE as a means to discourage sideloading.

A few gigs of NAND Flash would not have made the PSP any fatter. Let´s face it. Sony just likes the revenues from ms products.