Sophia Hapgood

I also use 256kbs on Atrac+ its ounds great, when i first got my HD5 i tried both ends lossless and heavilly compressed and was not happy with either. So settled on good middle ground and have never looked back, i can't see the point of carrying 5000+ songs in my pocket. I have 200 great albums and i am a happy bunny. Sophia

Thanks for all the help and advice guys. I wish I could say thanks to SONY for an easy upgrade to Sonic Stage 4.2 but thats not going to happen, now I am aware of the bitrate issues I can manage my music better. Also thanks to another forum user i have managed to sort out my problem with zillions of obscure artists clogging up my Artist sort list (caused by loads of dance albums). I just changed them to Various Artists and tht works a treat. cheers guys Best get listening to more music. PS alos ordered a new set of headphones a pair of Sennheiser MX400's so hope to get them soon.. www.play.com shipped for £9.99 UK

I quite agree with DSJ above the IPhone will be a huge success with the wannabee's and the must have brigade, but lets face it there in it for the all show and no go. I have been with Sony and Atrac for over 6 years now back to MD and for the last 2 years with my HD5 and for me I like keeping my music device seperate. For me the quality of my unit at 256kb is fantastic and the fact that it JUST plays music means i get no cluttered displays no other things eating my battery, also when i need a new set of headphones i don't have to buy some special ones with a boogie sunshine adapter (Sony Erricson especially). I like SONY for one big fat reason, there players do exactly what it says on the tin...Fantastic music portable quality, after all thats what the origonal Cassette Walkman was all about, Sony haven't changed one bit, its the wannabee's that want them to bend to mass market appeal....Stick with your guns Sony and i will be a happy bunny.. Sophia

Sooo..If i upgrade the firmware on the NW5 will its support 320+ bitrates? One thing i also noticed having a play last night is if you rip at 320 and tell Sonicstage to downrip to 256 for the HD5 it takes ages to transfer, i guess its crunching the numbers, so i deleted the CD's i had ripped at 320 and re-ripped them at 256 and it transfers back to super speed.... Hummmmm I think i will stick to 256 for ripping unless anyone out there thinks there is a noticable difference uppring the bitrate, Come on folk what do you think? Also on a slightly different note does anyone know how to stop Artists from Compilation albums appearing in the Artists search list as i have loads of dance and trance albums and my artist list reads like a Sci-Fi novel....sigh... Sophia

Firsty Hello all and its great to find a forum just dealing with Sony Atrac Stuff. I made the move from a useless I-Pod to Sonys NW-HD5 about two years ago and have never looked back. A fantastic product with great battery life and no irritating pauses in between tracks on mixed albums...Grrrrrr..that made me so mad with the I-Pod... I have been running my Sony on an earlier version of Sonic Stage for ages with no worries at all happilly ripping all my CD's at 256kbs and transfering them without any problems at all. Recently i updated my software to the newer 4.2 and have had a few Gremlins, firstly i found you could rip at 320kbs so though great a bit more quality.... BUT....on listening a few days later on the move i noticed that the CD's ripped were saying only 64kbs on the NW-HD5..??? Anyway to cut a long story short, by getting Sonic Stage to prompt when it couldnt send a track in native format to the NW-HD5 i kinda discovered the NW-HD5 doesn't like tracks encoded in higher than 256kbs...? So during the transfer it was sending them at 64kbs (Sonys default Transfer) Anyone come across this? I have noticed there is a firmware patch for the unit also and wondering if i should apply this, will it allow the HD5 to support the higher bit rate? Any thoughts out there, i'm not to worried as quite frankly 256kbs is fantastic quality and i adore my HD5 completely, although the Headphones are rubbish arn't they? I have a pair of Sennheiser MX-500's and they are the bee's. Sophia any one any ideas drop me a mail sophia.hapgood@ntlworld.com