Dinko

Sorry! I wasn't referring to you. I just didn't want to post two entries so I quickly replied to you about iPod EQ features then moved on to the other topic. With "ipod bashing" I was referring to the comments on this and other threads around the board where a variety of posters parade the "Apple sucks, Sony rules" mentality. Which is just as annoying as the Apple fanboy mentality which proclaims that "Apple rules, the rest of the world sucks".

Not really. iPods aren't drag and drop, but you can sync with a number of (freely) available software (RealOne, MediaMonkey...).

If you mean the physical build (chip and processor), I have no idea. If you mean the enhancements available through the menu: virtually none. The iPod has pre-programmed EQ settings covering the major genres (acoustic, classical, pop, dance, jazz...) and some generic variants (increase trebble, increase bass...). These are hardly worth writing about. I rarely find they make any difference. As for all the iPod bashing going on around here: iPods are not so popular just because they're fashion accessories. They're that popular in large part because through their lacks and problems, they actually work. You don't have to deal with SonicStage or Connect. iTunes handles large libraries relatively well. Playlists are pretty basic and easy to use. You can call people simpletons and what not, but sometimes, you just want to transfer some music and get on with your life. The iPod is the only product currently on the market which offers that. Consider this: SONY - SonicStage is buggy for a large number of users - SonicStage can't handle libraries exceeding 5000 tracks (well it can, but you need a PC with a couple of Cell processors to handle the load) - ATRAC-only at the beginning (yes, ATRAC sounds fantastic, but it's also proprietary and no-one else used it) LG FM30 - in MTP mode: will recognize ID3 tags and play albums in order, but will not recognize random tracks; will refuse to play them - in MSC/UMS mode: will not play tracks in album order; but will play and recognize all tracks - tracks transferred in UMS mode cannot be accessed in MTP mode and vice-versa (on the plus side: best sounding device after Sony products. best Preset EQs, custom EQ also available, perfect highs: crisp and clear but never shrill or acid; deep & warm bass, doesn't miss the mids; and a freakin' 60 hour battery life!!! also supports OGG). CREATIVE Zen V+ - painfully slow transfer rates - buggy interface, constant freezing - painfully slow transfer rates (bis) (on the plus side: standard plug, better than average sound, many extras) SAMSUNG YP-T8 - will not recognize ID3 tags - plays tracks in the order they were transferred; plays albums in the order it decides - Samsung Media Studio is easy to use, but crashes the moment you rush it (on the plus side: incredible transfer speeds, many extras) SAMSUNG YP-Z5 - menus won't scroll - gapless option isn't gapless - sound devoid of any bass whatsoever (on the plus side: metal casing) ...and the horror stories pile on and on. Pretty much every single device I've encountered has serious user-friendliness issues in the most basic departments. Like it or not, and iPod works out of the box. Charge, transfer, play. You don't have to plan the music you'll be listening to the next morning so it can transfer overnight (Zen). You don't have to worry that some tracks won't play (LG). You don't have to worry about not being able to find the music you want (Samsung and ID tag issues). You don't have to worry about your software crashing on you or demanding you "initialize your atrac device". True, the sound isn't all that good (though it's perfectly acceptable and superior to many available devices). True, the clickwheel is hit and miss. Good for some functions (rapid scrolling), not good for others (volume should have it's own button). True, you have no extras (Samsung, LG and Creative had line-in, radio reception and video playback when Apple was still wondering what a video was, and still hasn't figured the concept of line-in recording). True, iTunes is butt-ugly and often unintuitive (menus which are clearly labelled on SonicStage or Windows Media Player are lost and buried in iTunes). But it still works. Sorry! But it's not always about style. iPods perform decently in their main functions, and they outclass the competition in many of the key user-friendliness criteria.

Wise move. Better player than, but at the same price as the iFatty. Now we're talking.

They better fix the pricing though. With the Fatty selling at 220$ for the 8 gigger (not to mention the 199$ Creative Zen V and the occasional Sandisk rebate which can decrease the Sansa's price below 200$), a Sony product can clean the house and do your homework and it's sales numbers still won't register on anyone's radar if they price it above the competition. Sound quality and higher-end earbuds only matter to a very small minority of people. Not to mention the 4GB NWZ-A8** Sony gadgets selling for 30$ above the 4GB Fatty and an even greater price discrepancy between Sony and Creative/Samsung/Sandisk/RCA 4GB players, all in the 130$ range. Hope they fixed the transfer speeds too. Given their lame transfer speeds, Creative probably uses the same cheap second rate flash memory, but at least they sell their players at a discount relative to iPoos.

Sadly, I think they're doing a pretty good job already. All they need to do is just keep churning out those half baked Walkmans once every quarter in the hope that the next one will be "it", when each is crippled by one of it's key aspects (lack of features, buggy features, size (NW-A3000!!!), transfer speeds, design (pucks, beans and dildoes)) while maintaining a software/jukebox which can't handle a library greater than 1000 tracks, and crashes on you once a week with a new excuse, proprietary cables with no or few added accessories, high prices and you've pretty much boosted Apple sales by a few hundred units per week. Put it this way, design, sound quality and battery life may be very important, but at some point, Sony should realize that time is as precious if not more important than those. Spending hours waiting for SonicStage to get its act together everytime you want to transfer some music in the fear that you'll encounter yet another unexplained crash can take it's toll even on the most die hard Sony fan. iPod: connect, select cues, transfer, disconnect. Catch bus. Arrive on time. Happy. Low on battery? Forgot your charger? Drop by the first department store, pharmacy or electronics store and pick-up a stand alone charger or computer cable. Want better sound quality? Use better ear buds. You can't reach Sony sound quality, but it's quite acceptable. Sony: connect. "You must authorize this ATRAC device to work with this computer." wait. wait. select cues. wait. select more cues. wait. transfer. wait. Crash: error 11002111. Retry. Wait. Miss bus. Arrive late. Unhappy. Go to electronics store, buy iPod. See iPod procedure five lines above. I'm sure there are thousands of people out there who buy iPods as fashion accessories. Then there's true music lovers who buy iPods to spend more time listening to music, and less time trying to transfer it to their device. I think the crucial question goes the other way: What would it take to abandon an iPod for a Sony? Is sound quality sufficient? Battery life of the new Nanos is on par with the NW-A800, so there goes that advantage. I'd really like to know how well those noise-cancelling players are doing in terms of sales. They were marketed as high-quality sound products. Was it sufficient? So many of us Sony freaks have made the move to the dark side, that the answer to the thread's question seems almost obvious. And the reasons are pretty different. Some made the move because of mp3 support (some years ago when Sony = Atrac only). Others switched because of accessories. Others switched because of iTunes (iTunes has been very stable for me so far, but I still find it a painfully unintuitive). Because of the iTunes Music Store. Because of sound output (Sony = 5mW + 5mW: try powering large headphones or sending a clear signal to your home stereo with that). Oh well... live and hope. Maybe next time...

I tend to change the music fairly often. On a 4GB Nano, I used to change the music once every three days. It was pretty fast, so I didn't mind. Later I tried a Zen V, and changing the music on it was a massive pain. What took less than half an hour with the Nano would take in excess of two or three hours with the Zen V. In other words, if, sometime in the morning, you got an urge to listen to something that is not on the player, you could forget about being able to transfer it before hopping on the train to work.

Cool. Thanks folks! That answers the question. Guess I'll be waiting for the next Sony guizmo.

I'm considering an NW-A800 model as a potential purchase in the next couple of months. But past Sony flash players have tended to be a little slow on transfer rates. CNET UK says in its review that the transfer speeds are comparable to the Zen V Plus. From personal experience, the transfer speeds on the Zen V Plus are absolutely pathetic. From that review, the NWA800 is closer to the Zen V than Samsung players or iPods. Transfer speed is my #2 criterion for flash based players. If it's as slow as CNET says it is, I'll be avoiding this thing. If it's comparable to a Nano, a Samsung Z5 or Sony HDD players then I'm sold on it. Any comments on transfer speeds would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

oooh!!! I love idiotic studies and lame news reports with scary titles. So Halloween! 80% of [undefined something] suddenly equals [undefined level of hearing loss]. Oh yeah, and that part about "day after day, month after month, for years". Uhm... exactly how many years would that be? The plural implies more than two. Infinity limits it on the upper end. So uhm... how many? Doesn't Reuters ever read the garbade they publish? This study says nothing about some thing. 80% of a Sony player is hardly an 80% on an iPod. And what about earphones? I've had earphones that required the player to be at max, when another set of earphones would only require it to be at half volume for the same loudness. That's almost like a UN report. Full of vague numbers someone pulled out of nowhere, extrapolated from a microscopic sample and applied to the general population. At least it's appropriate for this time of year.

Battery life according to SonyStyle.ca is based on ATRAC3 at 132 kbps: "50 hours playback with built-in lithium-ion rechargeable battery in ATRAC 132kbps at power save mode “Super”, Noise Cancelling/Clear Stereo/Equalizer/VPT/are not in use"

Depending on whether you need access to the CONNECT music store, you may wish to download the Asian version of SonicStage 4.0 I used to get the same error message as you got until I finally installed the Asian version. I no longer need to reformat my device whenever I have a PC bug or reinstall the software. That's what I used to do before: (1) create a new folder on my hard drive (2) via Windows Explorer copy everything from the device (HD1) into the new folder (3) delete the SonicStage library (4) import the folder to SonicStage (5) transfer to device I did it three times. It worked with the HD1 using ATRAC files. But... it was all on the same computer. I have no idea if it will work on a different PC.

Or a cable thing. If the line-in cable or cradle is not conneted, record function might be disabled in the menu, but becomes available upon cable connection.

Indeed, the price tag is the thing that just scared me away from the Canadian version. At that price, I'd probably get an 8GB Nano, or a 30GB regular iPod. The noise cancellation feature is a very good introduction, as is (optional) line in, but except for ultra-Sony fanpersons, I'm not convinced that thing is price-competitive. On the other hand, this has been Sony's pricing policy for quite a while in Canada. Every time they introduce a new DAP, they push up the price, then gradually bring it down. These will probably shed 25%-30% off their price tag by February if not earlier.

I'd disagree with that (which you probably already know ) Same mp3 file (192kbps) be it orchestral or rock, same ear phones (typically JVC ear canal phones), no EQ: NWHD1, NWE407, NWE99... outsound iPod Nano by a 10:1 margin. The difference between the Sony devices and the Nano is just huge. Instrumental separation, 3-dimensionality & width of sound stage, upper end clarity, depth of bass line, presence of mid range... in terms of sound, the Sony thingies just take the Nano and mop the floor with its scrawny carcass. The Nano lacks the depth of sound the Sony provides, upper ends sound metallic and edgy, bass is a joke: if you push up the volume on the Nano, you'll get a decent amount of bass, but it's just a shallow bass line - the Sony gives you that reverberating "boom" that good home speakers do - it's a blooming sound. The Nano sounds more like a portable boom box you bring to the beach.

And those two phrases sum up exactly why some of us who believe the iPod to be an inferior player are probably going to get an iPod next time we're in the market for a DAP. They also explain why the much-made-fun-of "average Joe" gets an iPod and never thinks back, making the iPod a near monopoly, while many who got burned by Sony, UMS or Windows-based devices end up buying an iPod. Beethovenian, many thanks for your comments on the 80GB iPod.

I don't know who "Sp1n" is but I like that person's attitude.

The part I find interesting: "Line in". Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a first for Sony NW players. Next step: include mindisc-style on-device editing of recorded tracks.

I don't want to think about it. I tried once. It took almost 24 hours. I don't like smart playlists or auto playlists. Usually I know exactly what I want to listen to, where I want to listen to it, etc. When it comes to music, I'm a control freak. I decide. I want my ID tags in a special way. I want my folders organized my own way. I'm sure smart playlists are convenient, but I don't like losing that bit of control. I'm really not sure that they would fit my listening style. Podcasts are uhm... a waste of time. I see no reason to listen to podcasts when I can listen to music. Podcasts never made any sense to me. The only podcasts I might consider are news updates, but then again, if I want the latest news, I just go to Google. Faster. Easier. So... podcasts are a completely useless functionality for me.

Indeed it's not all that great when you have a giant library full of classical music. Especially that the album art on half of my CDs is wrong. The Stanley Black Decca compilation is not the same thing as the Stanley Black CD from Chandos! iTunes was really developed for medium libraries I think. As an example, take the number of background operations that iTunes engages in: volume analysis, gapless, album art, etc. All of this works fine for 300 songs, but try importing 10000 songs and iTunes operations slow each other down. It's also not very easy to get around the menus. SonicStage: change the rip settings with two clicks. iTunes: change the rip settings if you can find your way through the menus. Editing tracks' ID tags is still as annoying as before. But, it has a number of advantages: it's really clean, usually works pretty fast, and... uhm... well that's pretty much it. Just like the iPod, iTunes isn't all that great, but it works as advertised. If you don't want any special functions, iTunes pretty much does the job of managing your library for you.

Thanks.

Thanks for the additional feedback. I'll try that in the future. Truth be told, I wanted CBR for two reasons: faster ripping & more predictable file sizes. I rarely use VBR. But I might start. As for ABX... it's a very good concept, which is statistically meaningful, but in the end, there were artifacts and distorsions in the CBR Lame encoded tracks that simply do not appear in the FHG versions. Twist and turn and randomly try as I might in blind listening tests, it's not going to change anything. The artifacts are so audible, that I'm pretty sure anyone could get 90% accuracy or more in guessing which file was Lame and which was FHG. This really wasn't like guessing between AAC, ATRAC or WMA files at 192kbps. The difference in sound was more like comparing 96kbps mp3s with 192kbps ATRACs, if you see what I mean. In any case, I'll try some VBR rips. The results that I got were so weird compared to the general consensus on LAME, that I'm wondering if there was a momentary computer glitch that might have caused such a difference in quality. BTW, you have an iPod, right? I suppose you mostly use VBR mp3s, but do you have any idea how (if at all) the iPod battery life would be affected by the use of VBR relative to CBR?

Ok, so I kept reading how LAME was the best to use to rip CDs to mp3, as much here as elsewhere. I rarely used DBPowerAMP but I figured I'd try it. I upgraded to the latest version, and ripped a bunch of files using RealPlayer (FHG) and DBPowerAMP (Lame) using the same basic settings. End result: a *very* audible advantage to FHG. For illustration purposes, let's take one of the tracks I used: the second movement from Balakirev's First Symphony. Difference #1: the oboe in the LAME recording has a digital echo and background artifacts. Difference #2: the drums in the LAME recording produce clear distorsions and artifacts. These are loud and very obvious. To the point that the artifacts become louder than the drums themselves! Difference #3: with LAME, the strings become acid, with distorsions, as if they were being torn to shreds. Difference #4: the soundstage in LAME is reduced. Reverb is lacking. Instrument separation is lower. I'm really not sure why everyone keeps touting LAME as the best thing since the wheel, but my personal experience just now indicates that it's a pretty poor performer for orchestral music. I tried the files on the PC, on a Samsung DAP and an iPod. The iPod showed the least difference between LAME and FHG. I haven't tried gapless, but I really couldn't care less. Given the audible distorsions I just experienced in LAME, I'll put up with gaps if needed to avoid the artifacts.

Short term: Sony will come up with a few more stupidities which: - are announced 3-4 months before being released - at the announcement date are already outdated with respect to their main features - will offer some kind of new imaginative feature (calorie meter, artist link) which has a lot of promise but is poorly implemented or completely useless the the majority of users In the long run, I'm still betting on Sony to deliver the ultimate DAP. I have yet to encounter a device which sounds anywhere near as good as Sony DAPs. Not to mention that whatever anyone else does, Sony manages to extend battery life better than most manufacturers. I suspect that they need to get their act together with respect to: - exploding laptop batteries - PS3 delays - the blu-ray vs HDDVD war without screwing up something else along the way. I'm very pessimistic with respect to the PS3. I'm almost 100% sure that the first batch of PS3s will have some sort of defect that will slap Sony again. But once they clear out the PS3/battery/blu-ray hurdle, they'll have a little bit more time and resources to concentrate on the Walkman brand.

Cool. Thanks!