rumblefish

i picked up a set of these a couple of month ago - thought they looked great and i liked the previous sony fontopia earphones i had - these seemed to be an upgrade to those. they sounded OK, but because they're not fully in-ear, you can hear a lot of background noise unless vol. is up v.high - then i suspect you're broadcasting to everyone else around you! but anyway, for me they proved far too painful to wear - they really hurt my ears after just a short time wearing them. You'll notice that the actual ear-bud is soft rubber, whilst the casing - that also sits in your ear - is hard and offer no comfort! I find the same thing with the b&o earphones... DSP -- i'd also picked up some sennheiser cx300s and not only can you wear them continuously - they're so comfortable - for me i thought the sound is far superior - they're the best earphones i've come accross in this kinda price range...although i note that the cx300s are around $40 vs.ex @ around $100...

i came across this - sounds pretty interesting - can anyone offer any user comment - or maybe comment on portable headphone amps in general... http://www.headphone.com/products/headphon...tal-airhead.php

OK - anyone who's interested here's what i just did in pursuit of best quality playback... as i commented, i noticed that WAV was 'highest quality' so i imported some CD tracks making up a particular playlist with wav setting. then i transferred those at ATRAC 352. so i had one nwa1000 playing this playlist with these settings, and another nwa1000 playing same playlist on my previous setting - transfer was the same, but the original content had been imported on AALossless @ 352. i used sennheiser cx300 phones on both players. i've gotta say, there wasn't a lot in it, but certainly i could here less background hiss between tracks on the wav original content version. i really like these cx300's, but i guess the better the phones you're using, the more you'll be able to appreciate the difference. i also guess many people might know all this already! so this is just for the benefit of folks like me who know next to nothing about this kinda stuff... as a side comment; one of the nwa1000's i picked up in Japan - the other is a UK/EU model that i'd taken the volume limiter off - so both have no vol. limiter. For sure the Japanese unit delivers noticeably higher volumes at same volume setting. I also noticed transfer speeds to the Japanese unit was a lot faster. As far as i can tell all settings are the same on both units and in SonicS., so who knows what that's all about...

-Nav - appreciate your input - and the other folks here too. One final question; as i've been scouting about i've seen this WAV option which says '...highest quality...'. Is it worth ripping on this setting and transfering as previously stated? As for the earphones - if i remember i'll report back and give my review...

-Nav - so if i understand you correctly, i should rip using AAL (currently set @ 352) and then transfer using Standard Transfer option, yes? However, Standard Transfer option on SonicSt. 4.2 still has a checkbox option - Specified Bitrate Transfer mode. Do I need to set this to 352 too, or leave as is? This issue's just become more significant for me since i had a rush of blood to the head and have just ordered some Ultimate Ears super.fi 5Pro earphones...(i live in UK and right now $ is v.weak against £ so it's a good time to buy stuff from US that you don't really need!)... many thanks for your feedback.

-Nav - that's some good feedbck - thanks. I'm ripping @ Advan.ATRACLossless with Recording Qual. = High. I've got a lot of available disc space, so if there's a better option, i could probably go that. Realistically, how does this stack up against WAV? I use Sennheiser CX300 ear-phones. I've tried many but these are the best i've come accross.

thanks for the feedback... i've got 6gb on my NWA1000 - even with 320odd tracks on there, i've still got around 2gb left so plenty of room to mess around with higher bit rates if that's all there is to better sound quality, in this context... i don't know if i can/could tell the difference, but i take comfort from knowing i've got the best quality out of something

I got some feedback from Ishii: 'If capacity is not an issue, aim for ATRAC3plus 352kbps or 256kbps' But, I'm using SonicS. 4.2 and I don't seem to have those options. Under Transfer Mode Settings I can choose either 'Standard' or 'ATRAC3' transfer. Under Standard I can set bit rate to 352kbps, but under ATRAC3 i can only set max. of 132. I don't seem to see anything related to ATRAC3plus. Any further suggestions would be very useful. Many thanks in advance