pata2001

I would not go high-end for your purpose. Any plain PCDPs will probably do. If you use MP3, don't buy panasonic models since they cannot do fast-forward/rewind on MP3s. Sony D-NE330 is probably more than sufficient for your needs.

Atrac3 132 kbps (not atrac3+) is also known as LP2 used in MDs. In the bitrate selection, there will be an option for 132kbps, and this is automatically switch the encoder to Atrac3 in Sonicstage. It's probably the best balance between size, sound quality, and compatibility (if you have older Atrac devices). I would rip your favorite track to different bitrates, listen to them, and decide which bitrate you like. Unfortunately your selections is a little bit limited for AtracCD, since Sony has not enabled the various new Atrac3+ bitrates in making AtracCD.

Transcoding from lossy to lossy (in this case, from 256kbps to 64kbps) in general is not recommended. If you want to use A3+ 64kbps anyway, just rip directly to that bitrate. I would say yes. However, in general use outdoors, it's probably not noticable. Best way for archiving is to rip your CDs to uncompressed WAV. Therefore you have the original source and quality. DVD blanks are so cheap nowadays that you can simply backup you audioCD in uncompressed WAV without worrying about space. I would try to rip 1 track first, and see if you really like 64kbps' sound quality. If not, but you still need small file size, I would suggest using Atrac3 132kbps (LP2) instead. All of that in assumption that you need gapless. If not, all Sony AtracCD PCDPs support MP3, and if you don't need gapless, I would just rip to MP3 instead of Atrac. Lame MP3 -V 5 is pretty good.

Either you got used to it, or your hearing has been affected.

As I said, crossfade != gapless. iTunes cannot play anything gaplessly, not even AAC. Even foobar can play AAC gaplessly.

You know, the E005 is getting more interesting. Will be a nice replacement for my slow USB1.1 E99. The E99 is much heavier, but IMO the button placements are more ergonomics than the E005. I agree with Damage regarding the volume buttons. I want them to be where the FF/REW button is. Another nice thing Sony did, which no other manufacture can seem to do, instant playback. My E99 is still faster, but the E005 is defnitely almost instant-on compared to other devices that take forever just to boot-up. I'm tired of waiting for the S205, plus the more expensive price for some useless (IMO) features (shaking the player 3 times will switch to shuffle mode?)

If the device is flash based, using rockbox would still yield decent battery life. My only beef with iPod is no tactile buttons for volume (except for the shuffle, but no rocbkox for shuffle), which is why I still prefer Sony flash players. Looks like the Zune is just an in-house branded (MS) PMC device. It might be interesting if MS can pull off the wifi and buying tracks wirelessly, but I doubt it. If it's a PMC, then its video support will be only for WMV, and only MTP device (only works with winXP). I'll take Cowon's A2 anytime.

There's iPod + Rockbox, and you don't have to use Atrac to boot. Which I think there is less and less reason to go Sony, except for the form factor.

BT is about numbers. The more people seding, the better the system is. If there is only 1 or 2 people, it's useless. Might as well have somebody set up an FTP server or fserve in IRC.

How did you get the device in the first place? Did you buy it from a legitimate place? If it's a prototype, there's probably nothing you can do about it. You can try asking your local Sony service center, but it would be a risk if it's actually not a legitimate retail unit.

The NW-E00x has not been out for long, so who knows. The only major concerns are the life of the OLED display, and probably the built-in battery (which also applies to all DAPs having a built-in battery).

iTunes cannot play anything gapless, and cross-fade != gapless. iPods got better the moment rockbox worked on them, enabling gapless playback. I doubt zune will be gapless. As for Sony, they cannot even make a unicode software. As I've said many times, until Sony cut their music/movie industry arms off, they won't be able to release any competition for the ipod.

With the PSP being region free for games, I don't see this being as popular as mod-chip for consoles, especially for that price. As for pirated games, I have heard there are UMD rips of the games you can put on your memory stick. Unless the modchip can give the PSP more functionality (eg. direct Divx/Xvid playback, unrestricted mp4 video support), It's hard to justify the price.

Nobody knows since I don't think anybody got either one of this yet. Both models are not released outside Japan. The NE20 is still the top end, even at Sony Japan, at this point. Damage gave NE20 a bad score mainly because of its media compatibility and a buffering "bug" when playing high bitrate AtracCD. At this point in time, I would not recommend a PCDP unless it's really cheap or there are features you must have (eg. line out). Flash based MP3 players have been incerasing in capacity and decreasing in prices. Do a price comparison at your local currency to see what kind of MP3 player you can get for the same price of the D-NE20. 2GB flash players are probably cheaper now.

At this point, you have to import it (through ebay or audiocubes). Regardless, it will be quite expensive ($300 for the 2GB model form Audiocubes). The E005 is not that bad. It's no as plasticky as other MP3 players out there. I wouldn't get the E50x/E40x at this point, as they are USB1.1.

That's the annoying part if you have the PSP in a case and on the go. This reminds me the same annoyance I have when I got a PS2 for the first time. On the dreamcast, there's an option to disable auto-play. It annoyed me to no end when I cannot do that on the PS2.

Is there a way to disable PSP's auto-play? If I have a UMD game disc inside, everytime I turn the PSP on, it will automatically run the game, which quite annoying if I want to just listen to music or do something else. Sure, you can always pop up the UMD disc, but it's annoying and sometimes hard to do if you're on the go, and have your PSP in a case.

I'm tired of waiting for this. At this point, the E005s seems like a better choice, the fact that you can get them now.

AtracCD is a dead end format, meaning you cannot obtain anything from an AtracCD anymore, and it's only playable on atracCD devices. It's pretty much a music industry ideal format, but a nightmare for consumers. I don't think you can just import Atrac tracks from a network walkman.

I heard the resolution of the screen is ony 320x240, less than the PSP. Video and web browsing would suck. for those who want a video PMP, get the iAudio A2 instead.

I don't know. Before, $150 for 2GB seems like a good deal. That might not be the case in September. What if Apple released the 6-8GB nanos before that? Sony needs to learn to release product quickly. Announcing a product months in advance, including price tag, is not a good idea in a market where prices go down on a daily basis.

I would only use Atrac for gapless, nothing else. Stick with MP3 Lame --preset fast standard, and you won't have to worry about compatibility with other/future devices.

Don't use HE-AAC on devices that don't support it. Although HE-AAC is backward compatible, non HE-AAC compatible devices will only play HE-AAC tracks with half the bandwidth (shitty 22kHz freq response). Have you considered MP3? In recent tests, Lame MP3, even at -V5 (which should give you the range around 128kbps VBR), is still competitive with newer codecs like AAC.

Where does this news of "bye bye Atrac" come from? Am I missing something here? simon.giesen, I think you're the only one who said this.

Wait. Everybody is moving to flash based, with 6-8GB nano looming. Small hard-drive DAPs are not worth it anymore, considering the reliability vs solid state memory. If you want one to get you by, get the zen micro instead. You should be able to find one at cheap price, and the 8GB zen micro photo can be found cheaper than the NW-A1200.