tman

I would think if they all have the same "album name", then the compilation should appear as an album when browsing by album, and if the "album artist" is "various artists", then that's where it will show up when browsing by artist. Why not just browse by folder?

yup. only problem using drag and drop is album art will not work unless it is embedded in the tag, and the year might not show up. Then again, pretty sure you can transfer folders using drag and drop and it will keep the same configuration regardless of tags.

They need to add gapless capability via firmware. That's the biggest problem, for me. (a rating system would be nice too, so I can go back and make artist comps based on the ratings)

Did you give them all the same album name also?

I know I'm one of those people. Despite the reports of good sound quality I never even considered a Sony because of ATRAC and Sonicstage. When they finally dropped those my ears perked up and after a good deal of research I decided to go with the 818 as my first flash player (good timing since I was just about to get a Samsung T9 when I heard about Sony dropping ATRAC and SS). I like it a lot except I wish it could do GAPLESS.

looks pretty useless (at least for music, which is all I care about). nothing WMP can't do. No gapless (SHOCK!). not even on the fly playlists?

Anyone know when this will come out? I'm curious if it will enable gapless playback (I doubt it, but it would be very nice).

[NEVER MIND - THEY SEEMED TO HAVE BEEN ERASED NOW. OOPS!]

I got the A818 the other day. Great player, but CAN YOU REALLY NOT DELETE FOLDERS ON THIS THING?!? I fixed some tags and retransferred, and deleted the misnamed folders. They don't show up in WMP 11 but they are still on the player (without the songs). This is somewhat annoying, esp since some are duplicates. Is there any way to delete empty folders?

Thanks for the report! Too bad abou the (lack of) gapless. It would be great if they fixed that with a firmware but I'm not holding my breath. So, is the gap a split-second, like a little 'click', or can you hear a bit of silence?

The only thing the 'negative' review had a problem with was the capacity and that Sony doesn't have a large capacity player. That's not a fault of this player. I'd still love to find out if the 'gaps' are different depending on transfer method.

... and make it gapless!!! Can anyone transfer the same gapless tracks using WMP-11 and drag and drop and report if there is any difference in the gap?

How long are the gaps with the new players? A 1/10 of a second blip, or longer? (I think I could live with a split second, but if they made these gapless they seem like they'd be perfect.)

I'm no expert on it, but I've had album art show up with albums I've ripped using EAC.

OK well that's good to know. I get nervous when I hear people use the word "synch", which to me implies that the contents of the player will be matched to the contents of the computer (thus losing anything that is not on the computer). So does this mean it's like a two-step drag and drop? (drag albums to WMP, then drag from there to the player?) Forgive my ignorance but I've never use itunes or any other software to transfer music (my only DAP is a rockboxed Toshiba F40). Regarding gapless - is the gap longer when using drag and drop, vs. WMP? Is it very noticeable or a split-second 'tick'? Somone in this thread on head-fi (post #19 and following) thought the player sounded gapless when using the Sony software. Any comments on this? I use EAC -V2 (meaning LAME), which I believe imbeds album art, so hopefully the aa would show up for me.