barney

fugusushi- I personally rip everything in AAC 192, having compared MP3 128 to this and found AAC 'cleaner'. However it's whatever you find best. I'll hve a lok at this links, cheers. I did a lot of research about the A829 (including reading old skool d's initial comments), I looked at the ipod touch and classic and considered a 8GB A81x series. I took the plunge and must say I'm really pleased with it, ok no fancy UI or controls however I knew the battery life of an ipod would drive me mad. I am frustrated by playlists and video but I think I just need to invest the time in finding out how. As for voicing concerns/issues, surely that's what a place like this is for to talk about things and get answer to problems?

Default options- No sound settings defined. I've listened to it on a pair of Dennon AH-D1001 cans and the bundled headphones, sounds better on both.

It works well (i'm no apple fan, but it does what it says on the tin), although I have a few grips with itunes: 1, album art doesn't appear on the walkman unless you manually add it (ie get album cover art option doesn't save it in to the file). 2, ripped folder arrangement, although I've become savvy to it now and make sure the album/artist names are identical for each track before ripping. 3, all the extra software installed, apple update, quicktime, bonjour. I must have a look to see how to slim down itunes to the bear essentials. Outstanding issues: playlists- my missus has a A81x and complains she can't have play lists video- a definitive conversion guide. When the missus is away next week I'll write up an iTunes guide, I think it could help some ex ipod owners transfer to sony! On the A82x front, i think it sounds fuller than the previous A8xx series. Just my humble opinion though!

I'm down to two apps to manage the music on my A829, iTunes to rip music in AAC format and sort out tags/artwork. Explorer to drag and drop the albums onto the player. I'm no fan of itunes but not many other apps rip aac from my research. As for video that's next weeks fun and games. As for screen protection I put a PDA overlay on but it's coming off as the screen isn't recessed like the A80x/A81x series.