fredman22

I'm definitely staying with Atrac as long as I can, mostly HiMD. I have a couple that I just mothballed (RH-10, NH-900) as I recently found a new NH600D for everyday use (saving my babies!). I've also gotten an A829 to face the inevitable. After loading and reformatting several times, I've settled on AAC-VBR350. In the A829 this sounds pretty close to A352 on my HiMDs (it only takes up double the space!). My grand plan is to wait for 32Gb or larger players, then import an Atrac one from Japan...:-) Cheers.

Ugh. Me too. I thought I had it licked using dbPoweramp to rip & tag but: dbpoweramp rips to .m4a files which, as you say can be made to play, but transfering or playlisting is tough/non-existant. I'm back to Walkman Media Manager since it creates its AAC (256) files in .mp4 format so it and WMP will recognize and allow playlisting. The caveat is v. slow/tedious ripping/loading, and I seem to have lost the ability to add/modify tracks to appear in the same folders in proper order, etc. Whew. I'm still looking forward to a >32GB importable (from Japan) ATRAC/SS flash DAP, and screw these formats...

I pretty much use A352 exclusively on my Atrac stuff (occasional 'mix' discs using Simple Burner/HiSP) simply because if I could fit everything on disc @ PCM I would, so I use the highest codec 'speed' that still gives me some capacity (A352 = ~5.5hrs./Gb). The sound differences between HiSP (A256) and A352 are very close but as with MP3, I think the spatial presence as well as high end clarity suffer with compression, and now and then I think I can hear that (mostly as a wow or wavering in the high end during busy musical passages, for example). I find that very noticeable on MP3s and although I did not seem to hear it on the 320kbps samples I had, they still lacked a little depth or sonic punch that WAV/Atrac files seem to have. I'll not deny that any of this is placebo effect, but using A352 gives me piece of mind, so... As an update to all of this, a little more browsing here and on Headfi shared the discovery of AAC codec and dbpoweramp. Using AAC seems to restore that 'snap' to music I don't get with Mp3. The dbpoweramp program not only tags/edits your files, it also rips to AAC as well, and the produced files can simply be dragged/dropped into explorer bypassing that whole Walkman Media Manager/WMP mess. I can now edit files/folders as I like, and this AAC sounds as good as Atrac/HiMD to me, so far - so I'll live with it a little longer and we'll see. Cheers.

I'm in the same boat, having recently acquired an A829 to 'replace' my still-operational Atrac equipment after the inevitable happens. I only have 400 CDs or so, and as a rule did not keep them archived on HD at all. The suggestion to re-rip to MP3 made the most sense, unfortunately. I experimented with the Sony program but yes, it only goes to 256, so I began using the formerly much hated WMP to re-rip CDs @ 320kbps and add album art, having to re-create a library in MP3 to support the player. The result is a format less than Atrac - noticeably more lifeless in playback, non-gapless - but a bit more manageable/handier on a 16Gb device, and ooh, I can look at album art briefly during playback. A brief re-training of WMP will give you pretty much what you want, but you will have to maintain a HDD library to 'sync' with easily. I find that most annoying when I only want to rip existing CDs. At present, I reformattted the device (removing all sample tracks, pictures, and video) and re-sync-ed 70 albums/997 tracks @320 with about 5GB of space left. When these things hit 32Gb, I'll either import an Atrac version from Japan, or simply begin using WAV as MP3/AAC just don't do it for me... Cheers.