Olz

I doubt there will ever be a Bass Boost function. This would have to be added with hardware. The best thing I can suggest is to buy some quality (ear/head)phones if you haven't already. If you are using the supplied ones, that could be the reason for the drop in bass. If find if you put the player on Jazz EQ the bass is fine even with the normal earphones. Just how much bass do you want?

Yeah, that sounds like a OLED problem to me. Quite a few people have experienced it with their new players. Just take it back to the store, and they should offer a replacement.

I set out to defrag mine just like you Nick Van Howen, but after analysing and then getting it going it took ages to do relatively little, so I gave up. I may retry, but a quicker and more effective solution may be to initialise the player and put all of the songs back on it.

You may be able to get a special Action Replay set that allows you to transfer PS2 game saves directly to the computer. Apart from that, I don't know how it could be done. As it is, the only thing you can put on a memory stick from the PS2 via GT4 is pictures taken in GT4 (if you own it). There is the off chance that computer PS2 card readers exist.

I agree it disappears all too quicky. You should be able to look through the days and months of the year on the calendar. However setting it as a screensaver makes it come and go giving you more chances to see it. As for the new beep, that also annoys me. Its too long. I feel like turning 'beep' off now. However when it comes to the new loading icon, I just can't get enough of it. Its soo cool. Another change is the 'Sony' logo now displayed when you turn the player off.

I was surprised when I heard that Sony had released firmware version 3.00, as I suspected 2.01 to be the last (based on how many updates the HD-5 got). I think three was mainly released to increase the overall ease of use and link between the player and the new Sonic Stage. I would be surprised if the NWA's got any more updates, but one can hope. Anything to increase speed and add new features is good in my book. You mention a 'Bass Boost' feature. It would be nice, but can't you do that already? Go to one of the custom equalizers, and drag the first few sliders up one or two notches. Admittedly this does distort the sound slightly, but sometimes its ok. They certainly could make a Bass Boost that can be turned on on top of one of the preset equalizers. It also depends on how good your (ear/head)phones are. Unless you've already got a good pair, then I would suggest buying some better ones.

I have the same problem as both 'greatbigkev' and 'Digital Pimp'. My player only has 665 songs on it yet it is a lot slower than my mates which has over 2500 on it. Its really annoying. I don't think the computer software will make any difference. I'm gonna try defragging my player, and if that fails I will initialise it and put all of the songs on it again. I say the above even after upgrading to firmware version 3.00, which I have to say is pretty dam amazing. Its so sweet. All of the things I wanted...screensaver select, clock, canlendar, little sqaure loading icon (cool), etc etc. Its slightly faster at accessing menus and songs, but not much of an improvement.

Two hours eh. Hmm. The chances are, either you have a slow computer (I doubt it), or SonicStage is actually converting the songs to some form of Atrac still. If it is doing this, then transferring 10 albums could take a needlessly long time. Dinko's list to change the transfer settings may not have been too helpful (no offence), so I will expand: To change the transfer settings: (1) Connect NW-A3000 to PC, wait for SonicStage to recognize it. (2) Click the Transfer bar and select the NW-A3000. (3) The right side of the screen will open a new section. (4) You should have six buttons between the Library and Transfer sections. Click on the gray one that looks like a briefcase. (5) The chances are that at this point, you clicked on the "Specified bit rate transfer mode" radio button and selected 192Kbps. You may think this will not convert the songs, but actually it will convert them to Atrac. (6) The easy thing to do is to close this dialog box and select the songs you want to tranfer and then click on the hollow arrow below the briefcase. If you notice this will transfer the songs "as is" and save a lot of conversion time...thus making transferring 10 albums quick. (7) The more complex way is to click on the briefcase, select "Standard Transfer Mode" and then click advanced. (8) You now want to click the "Convert automatically and transfer" radio button and select the bitrate that you would like songs to be converted to if they are not a standard format. 192Kbps is good enough for most. (9) Click "Ok" then "Ok" and select the songs to be transferred. Then click the red arrow pointing to the right. As for the limited features on the player, this is indeed becuase you are using SonicStage instead of Connect. Features like Artist Link and Song History are things that only Connect can give to the player...for now anyway. Hope this helps. The chances are that that isn't the NWA making that noise. It may well the the ear/headphones you use or the format that the songs are in. For example at low bitrates you often get hissing or strange noises. Despite this, I think there was an issue with the HD5 hissing, so I wouldn't be surprised if you were right. All I know is that I haven't noticed this hissing on my NWA, but then maybe I don't listen hard enough.

A number of issues here. Some of you are getting things wrong, or not making sense. Firstly MDX-400 the NWA does not have a OEL display (Organic Electroluminescent) as this is a rare Pioneer technology seemingly. It actually uses an OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) screen. I might stand corrected if someone prooves me wrong. Secondly about the illegal copying of sofware etc that you were sarcastic about. Are you trying to tell me MDX-400 that never, not once in your life have you copied or lent or borrowed etc a music, game, video cd/dvd? Never? Or used P2P software to download songs illegally? I have to say I think you are probably in a minority there, becuase I know an awful lot of poeple who have/do. I appreciate the reasoning behind the laws and dont like breaking them, but when Sony do things like pointlessly stopping people playing videos on the PSP at the screens native resoultion I do get slightly annoyed. All it results in is a loss of money for them. The chances are you already bought the DVD from them (Sony Entertainment). I along with you MDX-400 am totally against people copying PSP games and putting them on their Memory Stick for free, as for one it stops companies bothering to make more good original games as they make too little profit. Its very annoying. Wouldn't you agree however that people should be able to make their own software and play it on the device they paid £180 for? Not according to Sony's rules. Instead people are forced to hack Sony's work just to do this. By the way MDX-400, you do know that under Atrac devices youve got just the letter "A". Is that deliberate or just a mistake? I agree with you Ascariss, given the choice I would rather watch a film on a large TV at home. However if you are away from home you cannot do this so need a mobile device. Roll on PSP. This allows you to watch movies on the go, at the cost of a smaller screen. Anyway there is no point trying to make you like the PSP or watching movies on the go, after all, if you dont want to you dont have to. I totally agree with what you are trying to say here Stuge. Desite having a PSP, I still wanted an NWA becuase its much smaller, cheaper by the GB, and have more music related features...along with a longer battery life. I dont want to swap it. Devices designed for one thing usually do that one best. A great example it the modern mobile phone. Does almost everything expect make a phone call. Cameras...well near pointless, as the lense is ridiculously small and they generally only have 1-2 megapixels. Music players...less pointless, but storage space is usually the limiting factor. Videos...on what, that puny screen at a terribly low bitrate, you've got to be kidding. Ive gone on at a lot of people, but this is a forum and things are meant to be discussed, so if you want to have a go at what I've said, or totally disagree, sure go ahead.

Woo woo, slow down Ascariss. Have YOU actually ever watched a movie on the PSP that is coming from UMD. Huh? Have you? Before you start saying you cant see "jack" maybe you should experience it for yourself rather than assuming it will be poor. I agree the IPod video has a small screen, and when watching videos is near pointless (it plays music teribbly too), but watching things on the PSP is actually quite good. Before I got mine I was doubtful about just how easy it would be to see, but after using it for a while (Spiderman 2 is good) you appreciate it. Anyway isnt the point of having a portable movie player, so that it is actually portable? Small enough to carry around without looking an idiot. I cant really imagine you sitting at an airport waiting for you flight with a 17" flatscreen monitor in front of you with a DVD player next to (maybe even surround sound) . A silly but rather amusing idea. The PSP has a good balance of screen size and portability. The IPod video is trying to be a small HDD mp3 player AND a video player, result....it does neither very well. Maybe you would like the new iRiver (G-10). Which has a very high-res screen and HDD. Shown here: http://images.google.co.uk/images?svnum=10...ver+g10&spell=1 Sorry for that rather long rant above, its nothing personal Ascariss, but I get annoyed when people judge things before having experienced them for themselves, especially the PSP as it is an amazing device (or at least in my opinion), that supports many standards, but unfortunately is still hampered by Sony's insistence to stop copying and illegal software making. I totally agree with what you say about the MD being a dying species (as much as some people at the MD forums may hate to hear). I've sold two of my players and got an NWA instead. The space is limiting and I found my Hi-MD incredibly slow. You say you live in Canada and have to import them from the UK. Why all that way? Do we in the UK have all that greater selection of music?

I agree with what you have to say Tetsugaku-San. Manufacturers cant mobile products not be dropped. The reason that things like PDA's and mobile phones keep on going is becuase they use flash memory and have no moving parts. If you want a portable music player that wont ever break maybe you ought to get a large (obviously not as large as as a HDD as that isnt possible atm) flash mp3 player. You could probably snap it and glue it back togther and it would still work. Just an idea. Or you could just stick with your old faithful Creative. Does that make loud noises when playing?

Tetsugaku-San, do you make it a habit to drop your players as much as possible or something? I mean sure the player should resist a one or two drops from 1m or less, but it isnt really designed to. All the gravity protector thing does is park the read head off of the HDD, to stop it being damaged. The HDD on your one probably still works, its just the rest of the electronics have given up.

It might well affect and OLED screen, but Stuge was actually talking about the LCD screen on the HD-5.

Yesterday I got my NWA 'replacement'. It turns out that its just as bad as the one I already have. As a result I am sending the new one back and keeping the old one...its starting to grow on me now. As a result any of you guys wanting to replace your current NWA will probably be able to no problem, especially if its from Amazon, as long as its within 30 days of purchase. However do not be surpised if the new one has the same problem, its seems like it is more common than I thought. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to live with it. Still an amazing player!

If you havent already seen it, this is where most of the NWA problems are being discussed: http://www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=786&st=0

I do exactly the same as you Nova using my PSP cloth to clean my NWA. My NWA has the same problem of light shining around the buttons. I think this is quite common and probably unavoidable. My replacement should be coming today or tomorrow...yay, I hope its better.

Im not quite sure what you mean. I have no problem copying the songs to the new player from my computer, I was just wondering if I should return the old player to Amazon with my songs on it. Ahhhh wait I might understand you now, you think I should put the two songs that the player comes with back on to the old one right? As it happens I haven't actually deleted them from it, so all I have to do is remove the ones I added. You know this from past experience do you? Thats cool. Sony must be getting a hell of a lot of NWA's sent back, either due to software or poor build quality. Im amazed they are so casual about it.

May I ask why you upgraded to SonicStage 3.3? If the previous version worked alright then it seems a bit pointless. If you want to avoid formatting your HD1, I suggest re-installing an eariler version of SonicStage, possibly reverting to the previous one. To do this you will have to completely un-install SonicStage 3.3 and all of its components and then re-install the old version. If you havent got this on disk, then it can probably be downloaded on the internet. Hope this helps.

I am very happy right now as I have just received a reply from Amazon, and it is a good one: Doesn't sound bad to me. They will pay for the postage for me to send the old one back, and I can check out the new one before doing so to check it is an improvement (hopefully perfect). Just checked 'Your Account' on Amazon, and sure enough they have dispatched another one to me...1st class. I think Amazon deserve a pat on the back as they did all of this at 8:24 last night on New Years Eve. Amazing (no pun intended). So anyone else thinking of returing their NWA shouldnt have many problems, especially if it is from Amazon. One question, should I remove all of the songs before returning it?

So sir_surfalot you've read my topic have you? What are you going to do about the creek that your NWA makes. Sounds exactly like the problem with my player. I totally agree with you on how annoying it is without hindering useage of the player. Im still waiting to hear from Amazon. It sounds like this creek problem could be more common than I thought. Thats 3 people including myself with it.

Well all I have to say sh33p is that you won't loose anything in trying to get it replaced, so you might as well try. Ive just e-mailed Amazon to see if they will replace my one. The problems dont stop the player from working, its just annoying. Ill post up when I get the outcome.

Thanks for the reply. It seems I like you, sumguy_, must have similar obsessiveness, as I like my products to be perfect, especially, when I pay £160 for them. For that sort of money you should get a properly made product. It might just be down to some glue that isnt there, and is supposed to be, but its annoying. I bought mine from Amazon.co.uk, do you think they will replace it? Should I ask? Or would it have to be Sony themselves that I contact?

I got an NW-A3000 for Christmas, and am very happy with it, apart from one thing (no its not the software), the bottom of the front plastic panel. On my NWA this is slightly loose, and as a result there is about a one millimetre gap between the metal band and the edge of the plastic cover (position shown in picture). I might be able to put up with this if it was fixed there, but instead every time I press the 'Back' button, the plastic makes a small creek noise and bends to sit flush on the metal band. When I let go it bends back again. At night you can see the light from the buttons shining through this gap. I find this quite annoying and think it is probably uncommon with NWA's. Now to the point. I was thinking that if I could take the back cover of the NWA off, then I might be able to secure the front cover down properly. There might be (I wish) a loose screw, but more likely I may have to glue it down. I have read the manual saying how the back cover is supposed to come off, but have no luck using tweezers to remove the Walkman logo metal disc on the back. Does anyone know how to open the back up, or can anyone think how to solve the loose front cover problem? Any advice would be appriciated.

I have had a very similar problem 'ajwhitehead' in that when i try to use Connect to register, i wait a while, then a screen comes up asking me to verify my connection...which i know is present. I have now registered using IE by going to www.connect.com. This does work. I think the only reason for registering is so that Sony have some of your details in the hope you will use Connect store in the future, and so you can log in and out of their website. According to this forum: http://www.atraclife.com/index.php?showtopic=730 it would seem like you only need the serial number of your NWA and a speical number that came in the box to get the free album, once you have registered. I will now try getting an album and seeing if this works, hope the above works, and I will report back with the outcome later.

I have just got my NW-A3000 and when looking at the purple box (not allowed to open it yet) found something that I thought was rather funny and typical of Sony to get round the poorness of the Connect software. Im sure you have already read it, but here goes: "We do not ensure trouble free operation on all computers that satisfy the system requirements." Classic.