Beethovenian

One thing I don't understand about the NWA series, and the bigger step back in my opinion, is why they're so much bigger than the HD ones. Sony used to be the reliable choice when it came to pocketability, and now what they have is almost twice the size of the iPod without having the "aura" of stylish and cool of the iPod (not that I think the iPod is cool or beautiful; indeed, I find it so bland).

I agree, willykyu. All Sony devices should support Atrac, regardless of anything. It's stupid to ask your customers to have a music collection in one format (and one Sony format) and then tell them that they're not welcome to another line of products, unless they rip the music all over again. And I think one explanation to this stupidity should be demanded from the company. Chris, Ishi, did you guys get any information about this?

I'm sure you're not alone. Sony is so behind that it's indeed tempting to jump ship. I for sure won't go to the white side, because of the gapless issue, but if the new Toshiba Gigabeat solves it, I'll take it. I need more than 20GB, and it would be nice to have album art in a higher resolution color screen. If the NW-A series had a 40 or 60GB version, I'd buy it in a second. I particularly like its navigation scheme better than the iPod's or any other I've seen. But it's just so frustrating that Sony is opting to adopt other open formats instead of opening their own Atrac that I fear being stuck with files that soon even Sony players won't play.

Yes, a big disappointment. Not even the new version of Connect Player. Sony needs to start anticipating (or creating) demands, instead of just catching up. Next to new players like the Toshiba Gigabeat S, the Walkmans look so old, and they're not even available yet in the US.

I'm hopeful Microsoft managed to get gapless playback on the new version of their Portable Media Center. After all, Windows Media Player does play WMA files gaplessly. If it is gapless, I'll buy this instead of waiting for a new Walkman (60GB and that nice screen certainly beat the current Walkman in attractiveness).

How come they're not gapless? What has Sony done? How can they screw up so badly one of their most notable advantages?

I hope some good announcement indeed comes. Sony has been a reliable source of disappointments lately. No good Connect Player yet, no support for Atrac in Sony Ericsson Walkmans yet (if ever), no news about new Walkmans for the US market (or about higher-capacity versions, or whatever), not even news about the PS3. Let's hope the company finds its way soon.

Could you test a gapless album to see how it goes? WMA is gapless on Windows Media Player and nowhere else, but then again, no player other than Sony's is gapless.

Razor, why are you concerned about frequency range? I don't think it will actually make such a difference. I mean, the md33 (and IE4, which are the same) won't be worse than the Philips if their listed frequency range is not as wide. It may even happen that the Philips are better, but it won't be because of that. I really don't know the md33, only from reading very favourable comments. Some people say it sounds better than the Shure E2. I had the E2, and they're good, though not very detailed in the high end (bass is powerful). The E3 are definitely a step above (many dollars more also). They take some time getting used to, and some people give up before feeling comfortable with them. But they offer very good isolation and are very sturdy. Being more similar to the ex71 than the E2, I believe the md33/IE4 are much more comfortable. Isolation is not nearly as good with the ex71, though, and since they don't go deeper inside the ear canal, they can slip off your ears more easily as well. Also, the Shures are designed to be used over the ears, behind the neck, and that reduces microphonics a lot.

What about the Sennheiser IE4? Apparently, they're exactly the same as the Sharp md33, but without the need for an extension cord to have the regular three poles connection. The problem is that they're more expensive than the md33 (check eBay; I've seen them there for around US $55, a price that's close to the Shure E2c's). Or just get the md33. I don't think you'll have any degradation of sound quality because of the extension. And don't be so attached to specs. They don't mean much at this price range.

The qualities here refer to ripping. If you use high quality, it will try to get a more accurate rip, slowing down when it reaches points on the CD surface that may be scratched or smudged and that may produce artifacts. Normal will overlook these eventual problems, meaning an old CD may sound with glitches. It won't affect the quality of your encoding. I think it's better just to use high quality, unless you're time pressed and have pristine CDs.

Go to head-fi.org and you'll probably find some comments for all of those phones. Use their search. Just be carefull. If you're already, as Stuge said, overanalizing, you'll be even more after reading head-fi. Your wallet may be at risk.

Razor, the noise from rubbing clothes can be reduced by attaching the cord with a clip or keeping it as tight as possible, and its perception will vary from person to person and depending on the music. But microphonics do exist. Think of how you feel when using earplugs or just holding your ears closed. The Shures do a better job of diminishing this noise because of the way you're supposed to use them. At the same time, isolation makes these types of phones a good option exactly for when you're walking on the street or riding a train, because you limit outside noise. It's all a matter of choosing the best compromise for you. I've read the md33 have great sound, better than the ex71 and actually better, according to many, than the Shure E2. They are made for Sharp minidisc players, though, that have a slightly different connector, with four poles instead of the regular three. Because of that, you need to do some kind of modification or use an extension cord that has the usual three poles. I'm not sure if that extension comes with the phones or not. Take a look also at the Sennheiser earbuds. They're not in-ear types. I have the mx300, which are cheap phones, and they sound very well considering their price. I suppose better models from Sennheiser must be quite good.

Razor, in-ear phones work like earplugs. They are not sometimes the most comfortable (after all, you have to insert them in your ear canals) and may take some time until you get used to them. The advantage is isolation from outside noise. Good if you listen to music while riding public transportation. In general, if you don't need that type of isolation, you may well get only the regular earbuds. There are some clear drawbacks to the in-ear types. For instance, you listen to noise every time the cord rubs your clothes, you can listen to your feet hitting the ground, it's discomfortable to eat while they're at your ears, if the buds don't fit your ears correctly, sound quality deteriorates. That said, if you want some minor isolation, and considering the type of music you listen to, the ex71 are probably not a bad option. They sound good enough, are reasonably comfortable, isolate a little and, with that type of music, will produce enough volume. But they're fragile, which is your concern. I've read Sharp has a very good pair of in-ear phones (the MD33), but I particularly don't know them, and they have a different kind of connection that requires some kind of modification. I don't know about the Panasonic ones.

Very nice comments. And to think the HD1 is not so much bigger than the Nano... Why did Sony decided to make a much bigger player now is beyond comprehension. I agree Apple has an advantage for classical music in browsing by composers, and don't understand why Sony doesn't do it as well. But how is the hierarchy? Composer > Album, as before? It really should be Composer > Artist (by the way, DAP makers should adopt the diferentiation between Album Artist and Song Artist) > Album. And the iPod should display the composer name on the Now Playing screen.

Oh, OK, sorry, didn't understand that. But I actually prefer organizing by ID tag instead of folders. It works the same way if you figure out the more appropriate way of tagging according to your habits. I'd recommend you to use a tag editing program like Tag & Rename (Connect is way too cumbersome) and make your Genres, Artists and Albums information follow the folder structure you'd like. I suppose one of the problems is that, despite the fact that Connect organizes by Album Artist, the player uses Song Artist, so you'll have the same album showing as multiple entries. Other than waiting for Sony to also adopt Album Artist (which will probably take an eternity), what you can do is rename your tracks with title and artist, and put Various or something like that for the artist field.

Razor, I don't have an e818, but I suppose the main difference you'll find is that the ex71 offers more isolation (not much, but it does have some). If you listen to music that doesn't have wide dynamic ranges, that isolation will probably compensate the lower sensitivity of the phones, so in the end volume won't matter that much. If, though, you listen to music that goes very soft at some moments, the ex71 may not be loud enough, unless your environments are reasonably quiet. In my experience, the ex71 produces considerably less volume than other phones. (By the way, I had the impression its sensitivity was actually around 92db/mW. I suppose I'm wrong.)

You can actually create folders with Connect. It's just a matter of designating how you want your files to be saved when copied from CDs. I suppose this doesn't work for imported files, though. I agree with most people about Connect Player being something Sony should be ashamed of. And that Sony needs to start doing more than just trying to catch up. I just don't understand why they don't unify their efforts and make products that interact one with the other. It's ridiculous that Connect Player doesn't work with the PSP or with the Sony Ericsson Walkmans, not to mention, obviously, previous Walkmans. It's absurd that Atrac is not compatible with all Sony products across the board. Sony could perfectly make Connect Store the place for PSP users to get video downloads, for instance. Those videos could then be compatible with a future video Walkman, which for its turn could have a UMD-player add-on, for instance, and so on. But I don't see all the intuitiveness and easy of use of the iTunes/iPod combination everybody keeps talking about. Maybe it's just me, the fact I'm album-oriented. I agree it's much better than Connect (it works, for starters) and SonicStage (just because it's more stable and faster). But I don't think the iTunes interface is such a wonderful thing. Indeed, I plainly dislike its basic organization structure. And the iPod could perfectly have already incorporated alphabetical browsing, besides giving you more information in the Now Playing screen (such a waste of space).

It may actually be possible to find Shure's E2 for something close to that price, though not including shipping. Are you looking specifically for in-ear phones? If not, I think there are quite reasonable Sennheiser phones available.

Weird that Sony would not sell the players in the US because the software is buggy, but do it in other areas. Do they have less consideration for other consumers and think they can push bad software to them? But I've seen the A608 available for pre-order at J&R in the US, and the Sony US support site actually lists the A608 among its Network Walkmans. Does the A608 have any feature that would be crippled with SonicStage? I wish Sony came up with a higher capacity player when it finally decided to market the new Walkmans in the US. It's about time to have a 40GB model.

I don't have an A-series Walkman, but have already tried Connect Player quite a lot, and would prefer SonicStage even if Connect was not so buggy and slow. Dinko summarised everything very well. Editing track info is painfully laborious in Connect, since there are no batch editing methods. I'll add to what Dinko mentioned the lack of a next button when you're in the track properties window. That means if you're editing a particular information (say, song artist) and want to move on to the next track, you have to close the window, select the next track, right click, select properties and go to the tag you want. A big step backwards compared to what you have in SonicStage. Also, there's no easy way to add album art. In SonicStage, you can just drag the image file and drop it on the album icon, and it will be applied to all tracks. In Connect, you can drag the image to the box for album covers, but it just stays there while you have that album selected, it doesn't apply it to tracks. You have to go individually and do it one by one. SonicStage also displays cover art for some albums while you're importing them. It doesn't automatically add it to the album, which would be the ideal, but at least links you to Amazon where you can grap the image. Connect doesn't do that. Plus, Connect always displays the CDDB window when you insert a CD, instead of simply applying the info to the respective fields, as SonicStage does (unless there are too many options for one album). That's kind of annoying, especially considering you can see lots of info in that window that simply are not imported to the tags, meaning you need to go and edit them in case you want to have the info. And I forgot to add: Connect needs to have gapless playback, otherwise it can't be a primary music player on the PC.

Razor, how much are you willing to spend? I'd recommend the Shures (E2 or E3), but they're reasonably more expensive. The advantage is that they're very durable, with thick cords, and they have much more sensitivity than the ex71 or ex81, especially the E3. So you can have much higher volume than on the ex71. The E3 sounds very good, the E2 is OK. But they are not as comfortable, at least initially, as the ex71. As for the ex81, it seems a little stronger than the ex71.

It doesn't make any sense. Those must be the capacity of the players. It's impossible to have such a big drop in battery life just for going from 48 to 320kbps.

Sony is stupid. Instead of opening their format and letting others use it freely, they are slowly moving away from it. Why don't they at least make this player and the Sony Ericsson Walkman phones able to play Atrac? How do they want their customers to be faithful to the company if they don't let them use their music files in every Sony device?

To be honest, I think for the majority of people the use of a software to transfer music is a better option. I don't think people are organized enough to deal with Windows folders and true drag & drop. But it would be nice if the option was there.