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lyris

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Posts posted by lyris

  3. OLED problems anybody?

    in Audio

    Posted

    I think that the problems with OLED are only related to OLED TVs (which is why you can't buy any yet). The blue component of these seems to fail quickly.

    Since the OLEDs in the players are monochrome (right?), I don't think you have anything to worry about.

  4. NW-HD5 hard disk problem?

    in Audio

    Posted

    Yes, that's a hard disk problem. I'm not sure if the disk can be repaired.

    However, I think I may be able to find you a perfectly good 20gb drive that came out of an HD5 that had a broken headphone output if you're interested in spare parts...

  8. Sony Walkman A800 now available in Canada

    in Audio

    Posted

    Glad to see it's coming out in North America. I'm in the UK and bought mine from Japan but most people are scared of imports.

    I also love the "Disappointed when your battery dies" mention. Subtle.

    Why do none of the Sony sites promote the hell out of the fact that it comes with $105 value headphones?

  12. NWHD5 Serious Problem, Please Help.....

    in Audio

    Posted · Edited by lyris

    That's what's confusing me as well. Are the buttons actually "built in" to the shell? The shell costs 49.25 UK pounds, or $88 US to replace (I called the UK and US Sony Spare Parts centers).

    Does anyone know if I bought a new shell, would it com with the cable already attached to the button part?

  15. Lowdown on the NW-A800 series

    in Audio

    Posted · Edited by lyris

    Excellent :D ! Thanks for the answer!

    So, these can all be played natively:

    ATRAC3

    ATRAC3Plus

    ATRAC Advanced Lossless

    MP3

    And these need to be transcoded by SonicStage:

    AAC

    WMA

    WAV / AIFF / Linear PCM

    Or, can it even play AAC and WMA natively (so long as the files are without DRM)?

  16. Lowdown on the NW-A800 series

    in Audio

    Posted

    I just ordered an NW-A808 B from Japan :) I hope it arrives soon!

    It's going to replace my old Sony NW-HD5 which is having LCD screen problems. Luckily, I never used much space on my HD5, so going down to 8gb from 20gb won't be a problem for me - so long as the sound quality's as good as the reviews say it is!

    I have a question - the ATRAC Advanced Lossless tracks I make from my CDs using SonicStage - can the NW-A808 play these natively or does SonicStage transfer a lossy version for playback (like it did with the NW-HD5?)

  17. Sony vs. Ipod concerning sound quality

    in The Loft

    Posted · Edited by lyris

    I can only talk about my experience with the iPod products so here goes.

    I was first looking for an MP3 player in late 2004 and ended up buying an Ipod. Back then, they were using 4th generation models, so that's what I got.

    When I first heard the player, I was underwhelmed. The premium price tag and impression I had got from other users - I just wasn't hearing the results. I bought better headphones than the ones I was already using (not the in box ones, those were unusable) but was still upset with the sound quality. Anything with bass would "crunch up" and distort which made listening to a lot of music subconsciously unpleasant to me. This wasn't all heavy bass stuff - sometimes even relatively light effects would produce nasty distortion.

    The problem is, I was getting bass distortion despite the fact that the bass was weak sounding already! The Apple elite told me, "You must be using bad headphones". The headphones were of great quality (Etymotic er6i) and sounded great on everything else - the Ipod was to blame! The analog audio output of the players just isn't good enough. It's puny and lifeless.

    Eventually I felt ashamed to actually own the Ipod. I felt like a complete and utter sucker for being fooled by their advertising. The almost total market dominance of the Ipod had fooled me into somehow believing that other manufacturer's players were flawed to the point of not being worth considering. The Sony players are flawed - they require the use of annoying software (SonicStage) but that's really the only slight annoyance I can think of.

    I think about it this way. It takes almost no time at all to transfer music to the player (even using Sonicstage ;) ). Even if the software is annoying to use, you spend a lot more time listening to the excellent sound that most of the Sony players produce so you soon forget any software annoyances.

    Back to the Ipod. I got sick of the thing freezing up and eventually eBayed it, and bought a Sony Network Walkman (NW-HD5) the next week. It sounds a HELL OF A LOT better. The only down side is that there's a slight hiss over the audio output, but other than that, I really can't fault it for what it is - a damn good sounding portable player.

    The Ipod fans tell me that the problem has been solved with new Ipods, but I listened to my friend's new one and it sounded just as bad. HomeTheaterHiFi.com have graphical evidence of the bass distortion problem from one of the new models - see this blog post which contains a link: http://www.lyris-lite.net/2007/03/im_not_t...on_who_hat.html

    All in all, I can't say if they're THE best audio players around, but I am very happy with the Sony ones. The sound quality really makes me smile.

    Ask yourself this: if the sound quality wasn't good, do you think we would be putting up with Sonicstage? :)

    (Interesting note: remember how I said i eBayed the Ipod? Well, a week after selling it, the buyer contacted me and told me that it had broken and would no longer turn on. Fortunately, this was only 5-6 months in to its warranty so he was able to get it repaired).

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