ceres

well this means eac embeds a jpg in the mp3 tag. That´s good news because album art will show on the player.

It works like this: you add music to the wmp library by either drag&drop or you can scan folders or directories. You can also have wmp watch a folder for changes. Once you start up WMP it will scan the watched folder automatically and add the new files to your library. Once registered in the library you can drag and drop mp3s on your walkman or use the wonderful windows thing called context menu --> right mouse click --> send to walkman device. This is not possible in itunes because it stems from the stark osx world (how often have i dragged stuff to a playlist next to the ipod in the list) I also use lame v2/v1 but don´t know about the eac tagging system. does eac download artwork when it queries for tags?

Can anyone tell me how the Sony A series is in fact more ADVANCED than the S Series? I see noice cancelling, fm, video, great stock buds, 8 gig, he-aac (so the time for 128 kilo audio may have actually come) in the S package for Japan. I am glad to have sold my A 808 only with a small loss because I am hoping right now that Sony will incorporate that great feature pack in a 16 gig 299-329 A series player. If not I don´t think I will buy another dap to accompany my gym player (s706) any time soon. Has Sony gone completely mad now?

of course you can add individual albums. gapless is not supported for the time being. the player shows album art when it is embedded in the tag, you can use mp3tag from www.mp3tag.de to easily achieve this.

also seems to be the first device that comes with media manager for walkman. other than that it is still a sonic stage device w/o ums?? i guess we will have a review soon from one of our japanese members. i wonder though, the inclusion af he-aac and noise cancelling should provide for a more powerful cpu, no?

Nicely put guys. I concur as far as waste of potential is concerned. As far as I know Sony DAP market share is 2% in Europe. Big S has been ridiculously stubborn the last past yrs and has just recently awoken and acknowledged reality. There is no reason on the planet why sony shouldn´t be the no1 manufacturer of daps at least as far as hardware is concerned. Still, they are not. When I look at the current lineup I strongly feel that this a legitimate but not very daring first try. Sony can do much better than that and there is good reason to hold that against them. However, take note that in the small pocketable flash market they are extremely competitive outclassing Apple at the same price point (check the net for how nano3 falls apart after a few days´ use etc) It´s really the first time in a long time that this company is blip (small) on the radar. I expect major things in the comming months (before the next ipod) that will broaden the market presence of Sony in the DAP market. The big hurdle was SonicStage. I am very positive that Sony will be able to leverage its superior engineering skills in the fight for market share. There is no reason other than negligence why- let´s say Samsung - should have marginally better SNR or THD on its devices. Sony has shown that it understood why it underperformed. Now they have to prove that they can be the best around. BTW, my comments on touch tech etc. merely depicted my personal preferences. Of course, bigger capacity, gapless, psp style video should be included in a future walkman lineup for the crowd that wants it. If there is a market it should be catered to. No doubt. Every so often Sony pops up with a massive product. The last one I bought was the R1 camera. Currently there are the top line Bravias that are a cut above the competition. I am confident that the Japanese giant will regain its edge with the walkman brand.

read:I have a NW-S203F .... as far as I can tell updated will only be made available for A8 series walkman devices.

yes for Christmas. I reckon they will introduce something above the NWZ 818. Sony considers itself a Premium Brand and they have never been shy on pricing so yes there will be something at 299 and 399 (usd and euro).

exactly my cup of tea. also, there is no 16 gig nano as it would be to expensive. the price difference from touch 8gig to touch 16 gig is 100 dollars so it seems apple is not ahead of the game any longer as far as the ability to procure flash for cheap is concerned. samsung and sandisk are pretty much the sole providers of bulk quantities. apple was given great deals a few years ago which secured the pole position in the capacity for money race for a long time (only san disk competing there) the industry is not stupid and will not likely allow a single buyer to dictate terms any longer. i don´t understand the bustle about the touchscreen and some nice icons on it. i don´t need an advertising channel in my mp3 player. neither do i require reception of the virtual farts morons emanate on youtube. no need for relics in my pocket.

wait for the next cowon in spring 08. it´s been a long time in the making so i would expect a great device.

CX 300 are a marvel at that pricepoint. it´s the first time that decent sound quality is available to the masses. I wouldn´t use any modern dap with phones of lesser quality. If you want to step up go for the MDR-EX 90. I have read that they cost twice as much in Australia as they do in HK, JP and Europe so you might just as well import them. They are lightweight so shipping won´t be much. The problem with phones is not in the sub 100 sector any longer but rather in >100 usd sector. Which are reasonable 200 USD Phones?

That is terrific news although it is not quite clear to what extent compatibility will be achieved. In any event it sounds very promising and it might just be that Sony caved in to consumer demand as so many people rang them up. Initially, the response I received was negative so my dumping of the 808 may prove hasty.

...Windows 98 has been stomped dead for a while and my sister is currently writing her master thesis on such a machine. I am sure you will be able to use sonic stage for the remainder of battery charge cycles on your walkman device As far as warranty is concerned attach a printout of you confirmation and send the unit back to Europe (what about canada?).

Well, Sony did answer some of those questions albeit not in a satisfactory manner. Big S proposed you burn your atrac drm files and re-rip the cds to your preferred format. Obviously this would incur transcoding losses. As far as the 808 is concerned, I have come to the conclusion that the transition to mtp and ums was a long time in the making, at least from may on. The 808 was not released in the US exactly for that reason. Sony didn´t want to bother the American audience with Sonic Stage as this piece of software has been notoriously ill received in the US. Sony wanted to avoid another smack in the face. The buyers in Asia and Europe that took to the 808 were in a sense hardware testers and easy prey for big S. Easy prey because Chronicstage has been considered a nuisance in these regions not a deal breaker. As hardware was at least on par with everything else on the market Sony decided to go for the quick buck disregarding how buyers will feel in a few months. @rocklegend nobody forces you to buy drm tracks from wma vendors as nobody forces you down the "fair play" itunes route. It is simply a matter of having more choice as far as syncing and music management is concerned. With UMS you have total choice. BTW, WMP11 is much more stable on Vista (surprise) than itunes, especially since the decrepit 7.3 version which crashes a lot and destroys my library files randomly. With 7.4 I am greeted with itunes didn´t install correctly / no burning possible every time I open the program. Why do I have to install qt? Why is all the apple hardware bloat integrated (even if dormant) in itunes? There have been so many bug fixes since itunes7 that its reputation as being the best music management tool is seriously impaired.

funny thing is apple caps their products way too low here in europe and there is absolutely no need for that as all other vendors demonstrate. also, there is no current sony hdd product on the market so i don´t see your point. ipod rules the hdd realm. besides, this is a review thread so please open a new thread to compare hdd players. i can´t see your point with pricing. nano fatty comes in at 199, sony 249 suggessted retail price. howver, you get a leather case, 40 euro ear buds and a leather lanyard for the price so there is no advantage to nano 3g.

you raise a valid point. the emulation of innovation and sheer marketing up to the point of religious zeal have clouded the core competences a dap should offer. in order to have people consantly shell out money for things they do not need industry "innovates". btw 200 usd off the iphone are pretty shocking. must not be selling to good despite the embarrassing hype created by Steve Jobs, the holy canon of the digital sepulchre.

sure it´s all about your personal priorities. If you need gapless Apple is the only way to go as far as I can see. The classis seems to be the best value. If you need a flash player also look at samsungs new lineup. They should have gapless playback, too.

aznbro85, your review is truly inspiring. I am wondering about one more thing, though. Previously, I was under the impression that Chronicstage accounted for the bulk of nifty database features the A808 walkman offered. To figure out whether Sony succeeded in farming those out to hardware it would be really kind of you to rip a few more cds lets say from the same year (glad to see that full tags are shown via ums!) and artist. Then from the now playing screen scroll down to year or artist and have a look whether the other transferred tracks show up. In my opinion one of the main staples of the A8 series is the ability to quickly move around the player w/o needless backtracking. Thank you!

AZNBRO85, no need to install ubuntu. You could have just booted the live environment. Anyway, can you please move some mp3s over to the walkman using linux? Thanks so much! For me the player is 3 steps forward, 0.025 back as I don´t own a gapless album so that this particular function doesn´t matter. However, I deem it likely that one can buy a 16gig flash player for almost the same price in the not so distant future. So as far as pricing goes, even considering the S premium, it´s a step back. Which in summation leaves 1.75 steps forward (to me) Akai Kenshi, mp3.tag is probably the best tagger out there but you can configure nero digital to write tags, of course. I recommend dbpoweramp as a gui for nero aac and for ripping / encoding in general. You can easily configure it to make use of nero aac.

That´s good news bc when you manually add cover art it is indeed embedded. However, in case you just import a cd the file remains unchanged. Itunes uses a database file to link cover art. In order to properly retrieve and add album art I recommend mp3 tag from www.mp3tag.de As far as I can see what needs to be done is support for winamp playlists and gapless playback.

okay I see. when I tick gapless when I import can I force gapless playback? How many gapless albums are out there? As far as I can see gapless applies mostly to live albums and classical music, no?

when importing via itunes, did you tick gapless album in file properties?

Sure, I meant the NZW A818 when I said Z 818. I think 40 Euros is an adequate fee for the riddance of Chronic. I also look forward to giving Linux a new try and UMS would be a blessing in this context.

I just rang up Sony support. It was apparent that they knew exactly about the situation. However, support claimed that there was no information available at this time. Should that change relevant news will be posted on sony´s support site. a) They don´t want to take away any spotlight from the new players and will release new fw for A8 later on Which I think is more likely: We are SOL I have just sold my A8 for a decent price and will look at the new samsung players, ipods as well as the revised Z818. I felt that it was time to cut the losses on a piece of hardware that will not be properly supported in the future. My course of action might have been premature but I rather lose 40 Euros and be done with Sonic than see my investment deteriorate as time goes on.

That of course depends on how you define the mark. One can ask for touchscreen, large screens, voice recorder and so forth. However, none of this aids in having an ultra portable device that can be operated in your pocket. I prefer small flash devices with fast ui and operation. Companies tell you much just to justify the introduction of new hardware and the need to upgrade. They want to put the pressure on the consumer to always own the latest and greatest despite individual needs. Last time I was shopping for a cell phone I noted how I was looking for features I have absolutely no need for such as hsdpa connectivity, pop email and so forth. The only things that count for me are: sq, durability, fast and responsive user interface and warrenty support. i didn´t like the introduction of video in the a8 as that blows up the software on the player and introduces new potential glitches. i would have hoped for built in noise cancelling and fm radio but that didn´t happen. when i assess the market today the new az series is the device that best suits my needs. what else can be done to improve the device. that is the question. more storage capacity, fm and nc. then it´s perfect for me. anything else doesn´t grab my attention.