lamewing

Where did you hear that rumor? So is Sony just going to stop selling mp3 players here in the States? I guess they have decided to give up to Apple? Does Sony sell the other A-series models in Canada, such as the A-1000? Thanks.

You can charge from a wall-socket if you use the AC-USB adapter. It looks fairly similar to the Apple AC-USB adapter...just black in color. I got it for 19 dollars at Best Buy in Fort Worth, TX. I think it charges faster than the computer USB.

Oh, yes. I knew about the iPods displaying east asian font. That was the reason I avoided all the other players. No others I looked at could do both japanese and korean besides the iPod and the Cowon units. I have yet to find another program that does unicode. I don't understand why Sony has waited so long... NPR is 90.1Mhz and it seems japanese radio is 76Mhz to 90Mhz, otherwise the import would be fine. I cannot believe I am out of luck by .1 Mhz!!! Ha Ha!!!

I see many folks have looked at this mic, but no one has commented or sent me a reply, so I am reducing the cost of the mic. The new price is $30.00 and $3.00 shipping. Let me know if you are interested. OR The price is $35.00 and shipping is $5.00, but I will throw in 5 80 minute minidiscs. Thanks.

Okay, I will go on the record as one who really has had a beef against Sony the last year or so. The only mp3 player of theirs I really liked was the Pocket Vaio. Sony has flipped-flopped on designs of their walkman HDD players since the HD1, and I am still not convinced about the new A-series HDD players. Having said that, I decided to "rent" a E507 from the local Beast Buy, since the A608 aren't officially available in the States yet. I figure if I liked it, I would upgrade to the A608 later on. The import idea has me worried, since the radio freqs aren't the same in Japan and the U.S. Importing an A608 is faster, but the radio loss might be a deal-breaker since I like to listen to talk radio now and again (showing my age). Well, after playing with the E507 I find that I really like the player. The USB 1.1 is slow as heck, but the A608 alleviates that issue with true USB 2.0. The only other problem I see is the screen is useless outside, but this player is more for exercise, walking my dog, or listening in the university library. I do wish Sony had thought to allow the option of putting the unit in "hold" mode and allowing the user to hit the display button to show the time/date versus the "HOLD" status. If that were the case, this would make a nice little pocket watch as well. I guess they didn't think of that option. What won me over on this player (the nano and the Cowon iAudio 5 or U3 were competition) was the extra long battery life and the fact that it can display japanese, korean and chinese fonts!!! All I have to do is open SonicStage with Applocale and transfer to the player. No registry hacks...just straight transfers. I still use iTunes to rip since it is the only program that rips and supports those languages with ease. If I use sonicstage to rip korean and then add the file to iTunes, the title is garbage. iTunes works across the board. I did load the connect software and it seems to be unicode, but I couldn't transfer to the player (of course). What bothered me is that I couldn't playback the mp3s or ATRAC that I ripped with Connect - using connect. Anyone have the problem? In the end, I think I found a nice flash player. It would be nice if it had recording capabilities, but hey, Sony has yet to realize that idea. Overall, I will upgrade to the A608 when (if) it hits the States as the 2 GB and USB 2.0 will be nice. We will have to see about the Connect software and see where it goes. As an update, I just sold my Cowon X5L to a gentleman in New Zealand to help pay for the E507 and my new Cowon A2 PMP. Both serve their purpose well. The X5L while a fantastic player really didn't fill a specific need. Oh well, I hope that Kiwi enjoys it!!!

Japanese radio freqs are 76 to 90, so you will loose stations from 91 to 107Mhz. Joe

Nope. You will be able to load windows onto the intel mac, but just because the mac has an intel chip doesn't mean any windows software will run under OS X. There hasn't been any mention of an emulatoin layer either.

I only found this site thanks to minidisc.org, but it is a site that Sony should promote as it truly can help those who are new to Sony devices. I will check out Xispe's software. Is is available for download here (haven't checked yet, and my lab is about to begin!!!)? If that is true, then Sony must really not care about the U.K. that much, or they figure it is a good testing ground due to Europeans being more forgiving than us Americans. (?) They do have a right to worry, because if they release connect here in the States in the condition it's in, there will be quite a backlash against them, only strenthing Apple's stranglehold here in the U.S. I hope these will be carried at my local Beast Buy, Circuit City, etc. as I would like to see one in person before I make a final judgement. Joe

I will have to check and see if my player handles gapless playback or not. It might, depending on the specific codec. Good point though. This is one of the reasons that makes a great deal of sense to use the Sony devices.

I just like the OS drag and drop since I can use any computer that recognizes the X5L as mass storage device. "Since Sony is also making Cds in the name of Sony Music so they don`t like there music to be exchanged.So this could be the reason they haven`t` given us drag & drop facility...." I don't really think this makes sense on Sony's part (or at all for that matter) as the unit can still be used as a standard usb hard drive - so the music can still be exchanged, so this solves nothing and is just an excuse on Sony's part. If they truly don't want folks to share their music, they wouldn't even allow their players to act as a usb HDD. I would love to know the real reason they choose to do this. Palmer's device makes a nice compliment to my earlier point...Why does Sony feel the need to create different versions of their hardware for difernet regions, when Apple has shown that one singe device version is all that is needed? Has no one a clue (an insider's perspective perhaps) as to why Sony chooses to use a non-unicode program that cannot support mulitiple languages. This is the second reason I have stayed away from their units (even though I did try a HD1 and a Pocket Vaio). I loved the P.Vaio, but it and the HD1 had a niggle the bothered the hell out of me - ANYTIME I pressed a button, the hard drive spun up. This makes no sense as it wastes battery power for no reason. Anyone with electronics knowledge understand the reasoning behind this. I DO APPRECIATE all the info folks have provided so far, but a few questions remained unanswered such as why Sony would choose to provide a broken piece of software for their players upon release and not keep folks up to date as to the problem's resolution. Not everyone who buys such a unit will ocme here and read Kurisu's post about a major update. Another question. I would have figured that Sony would release first in Japan, second in the U.S. and then in the U.K./Canada, etc. Any clues as to why the U.S. didn't get an early release? Does Sony have that little confidence in selling their products here due to Apple? Or is there a more reasonable business reason that I cannot come up with? Don't get me wrong; I don't expect the U.S to get a release first, just because we are the U.S. but this does seem different than how Sony normally does things. "I don't see that drag and drop is such a big issue - not enough to not buy a Sony on anyway. Once you've selected your tracks to transfer, you just hit the transfer button.. " No need to roll your eyes at me because I feel the forced use of software for transfers is unnecessary and outdated. This does play a role in the use of a player on mulitple OS platforms. I can use my X5L on any OS that supports mass storage and USB. I guess Sony just has no interest in anyone outstide of Windows XP, etc. Also, I can attach my player to any OS and play from the the player on the spot. Can this be done with a Sony player without SonicStage? If Sony is going to stop us from using true drag and drop, how about the ability to connect to a PC (at least) and still play the music (esp.if it is mp3s) from any mp3 player. Or have a mini player on the unit that would allow for play through usb just as with SonicStage. This would allow for play away from home, but still keep folks from the dreaded music exhange..

Ascariss, I guess I should have made myself more clear. When I say drag-and-drop I mean TRUE drag-and-drop from the OS without the need of any intermediary software. My mistake in not making myself clear on that point. I see that most folk seem to be buying the unit for the hardware (Sony fans) or just to avoid buying an iPod. I can support the 1st one, but the 2nd reason seems a bad choice. That is like not buying a Honda just because too many folks use them, or drinking RC cola instead of Coca Cola. I agree that the new iPods are much easier to scratch. This wasn't always the case, the 1st and 2nd generation models had a thicker and much tougher plastic. I never did understand the idea of the silver backplate. The mini had the best phycial design, it was very resistant to physical damage and scratches. It is too bad Apple didn't just add a color screen to it and replace the HD with flash RAM. The battery life on the 2nd mini was easily up to 25 hours. This is just as good as many of the Sony's. I am still unclear as to why the rest have such poor battery life. The Cowon X5L is another example of good battery life - around 30 - 35 hours. Very nice indeed. It seems that most of the Sony fans are willing to put up with the bad software just so they can use the nice Sony hardware, but doesn't anyone here feel that this may not be the case with the average user? Worse yet, if the review sites start in on Sony's new line, things could look grim if the software isn't fixed. Sony could eaisly get a bad rep ... again. Does anyone else wonder why Sony would release such poor software with so many bugs? It just seems...counterproductive, I guess. Also, why would Sony walk away from the use of the nice color LCD screen on the Pocket Vaio (especially since Apple uses only color screens now) to instead use the OLED which just looks so plain-Jane in comparison. I guess I come from another time, but I like album art...even if it is just a small pic on a color LCD screen. I wish Sony had kept it...ESPECIALLY the idea of browsing albums by the cover art!!!! Truthfully, does anyone here truly believe that these new products are going to do much to help Sony? This isn't meant as a barb to ya'll, but a serious question. Can Sony make a go of it with these new products? I personally see this as the equivilant of Nintendo and the upcomig Revolution. Sony might stay in the game, but I don't see them making any headway. I WOULD LIKE TO BE WRONG, but I don't think I am. Also, while I purposely mentioned the iPod since it is the industry leader, I am really comparing the new units to any of the other quality players out there. Beethovenian, I do agree with you about listening to albums moreso than individual songs, that is why I am a fan of the file-system method that the Cown players use. It is just like browsing the music my hard drive. I know all my music and where it is located, plus I don't buy downloaded music (no DRM for me), just CDs. I acutally find itunes (and because of that, the iPod) to have ONE SERIOUS ADVANTAGE (just like you need gapless!!!). I NEED the easy of use when dealing with Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, Hangul and Chinese. The native unicode that iTunes has has kept it as my program of choice. I have NEVER UNDERSTOOD why Sony has to produce so many iternations of the hardware and software for each part of the world. WHY can't Sony just do as Apple does and produce a product that natively supports MANY languages, without the need for us to use AppLocale and registry hacks, which still doesn't give as much language support as iTunes. It would be nice if Sony provided the same range of hardware outside Japan as in Japan. Look at the NW-HD2 (Japan only), the new A1200 (8GB - Japan only), the special editions of the A608 (Japan only). Minidisc has the same issue...lesser remotes, etc on the western models, while Japan gets the best products. Let's not forget the wider range of colors too. I guess I am just really concerned about Sony screwing up again. I was a customer for two decades and now it looks like they just cannot get it right. I guess it wouldn't be such a big deal if they just gave the digital music player market to Apple and kept a small portion for themselves....just as Apple does with the Mac. BUT, they keep saying they will take back the market and each time they just get pie in the face. Sometimes it is okay not to be the top dog...I wonder if Sony will ever figure that out?

Guys and gals, I have been reading and rereading the comments regarding the Sony HDD DAPs and flash-based players - particularly in regards to the new "Connect" software. I am really confused as to what Sony is trying to accomplish here. Why are they even still trying to compete in this market? It seems that Sony isn't at all serious about competing with Apple in any way. Perhaps I am missinng something, and if I am, feel free to comment. Sony has been slow on the draw regarding the DAP compared to Apple. I guess they thought they could survive on the Sony name alone. /sigh In the last couple of years they have created the HD1, HD2, HD3, HD5, and the Pocket Vaio - not to mention the numerous attempts at flash players. The HD1/2 were of one design, the HD3 a modification of the HD1/2, and the HD5 was an entirely new design. NOW, we have the A3000/A1200(japan only)/A1000, which are yet ANOTHER new design. All the while, Apple has created a DAP that has backward compatibility (except that 1st/2nd gen are orphaned from the new accessories due to a lack of a dock connector) across the board with iTunes. Also, the iPod has kept the same naming convention, which is very simple...iPod + size/type. That is it, simplicity at its finest. Now Sony goes with this Network Walkman idea, but uses arcane names like NW-HD1, etc and now Sony Walkman A3000. This numbers mean nothing to the consumer and don't follow any real pattern (when you look at all the units designed by Sony). The numbers on the new units make no sense either...A3000 = 30 GB. A1000/A1200 = 10GB/12GB NO! The flash players are just a bad in this regard. A608??? /sigh Putting all of this aside, Sony has stated that they are making a comeback with their new Walkmans. Well, how do they plan on doing this when their units (while sounding good) are SEVERLY crippled by the very software NEEDED to transfer music to the player? Okay, every software goes through beta testing, but WHY would they want to damage their reputatoin any more than it already is by releasing this product so early, other than to gain end of the year sales? Do they feel that they are so far behind Apple (once again) that they must release now and fix the software later? If that is the case, then they are just repeating their problems over and over again. Okay, I can understand why folks buy MD units; they need to record music, sounds, radio, etc at a good quality. Therefore they are held hostage to Sony's SonicStage if they want to use software at all. At least they can use their recorders without ever touching a computer (even thought HiMD is marketed to PC use). Speaking of PC use, what is wrong with Sony NOT providing Mac OS X support. They seem so inept with PC programming, should we expect worse with OS X? You would think that they would want to open up the market to as many folks as possible; Apple did (no Linux though). Is Sony afraid that the Mac folks would just tear them to shreds over their terrible software? Now, while I can understand the folks who purchase MD (I just sold my last three HiMD units last week). I cannot for the life of me understand why the DAP folks are still supporting Sony. Sure, Sony can make good hardware, but it looks as if Sony just has no concerns about their customers, much less concern about providing solid support for those products. What is keeping Sony from just allowing drag-and-drop? Cowon of Korea does it. Other companines do it. I LOVE the ability to drag and drop my files directly the my X5L and A2; no software needed. Just drag/drop/play. Plus I can copy them back off at any time. Some folks (and Sony) scream piracy. Whatever. The A series (and some of the earlier models) could be used as a mass storage device, so they are just as apt to be used for piracy...eg not hardly at all. The real piracy doesn't take place in our homes and offices, but is instead big business overseas. Is the reliance on transfer software still based on their reliance on ATRAC??? Can't ATRAC be used in a drag and drop manner or is the DRM just too restrictive? Instead of giving true drag/drop, they force a new version of transfer software on us. Software that isn't even useable. The many reports on this site indicate this. Now, sure, Sony may (and proabably) will, improve the software. BUT at what cost to their reputation and the reputation of the new DAPS? Was it worth putting the product to market before it was ready? After all of this, I guess my question is this, "Why are you folks buying these products when they have so many issues?" Does the Sony name mean that much to you? I admit it used to mean a great deal to me, but after the problems with the 1st and 2nd gen HiMD units, the issues with HD series DAPs, their lack of decent software, the root kit issue with some of their music CDs, the abandonment of support for those PS2 Hard Drive owners, etc. I just don't know if Sony is worth trusting any more. What do they offer over the others? Better sound quality? There are other players out there with excellent sound quality. I don't think the iPod sounds as good (the 1st/2nd gen sounded better) as the Sony's, but for a portable, it really doesn't matter if one unit can produce sound quality that only an audiophile will appreciate versus something a tad bit less. Aside from my rant, I would love to know why folks still are willing to deal with the crap that Sony is shoving down our throats. PLEASE, no flames. If you aren't happy with what I wrote, just follow the old saying, "if you have nothing nice to say...."

I don't see why we're seeing these bugs at all. You would think with years of practice with SonicStage that Sony would get it right, especially considering that their new line of players are supposed to reinvent the Sony Walkman line. While the hardware may be solid, they have put themselves in a difficult postion...again. I really don't understand Sony.

I am quite aware that you answered my question. My native tongue is english. I simply don't see the need for you to play the "look it up next time" game when I clearly stated that I had tried to search the forums regarding this question before I created this topic. Joe

As I HAVE STATED BEFORE... I have tried to use the search engine, using MANY iterations of the search, to NO AVAIL. If I had been able to locate an answer to my question I would have done so? I have been a member since 2002 (so I am not a lazy newbie) and know how to use the search feature...maybe it was down, I don't know.

And Sony wonders why folks flock to the iPod and iTunes instead of SonicStage and now Connect. What benefit is there in keeping their software OUT of the hands of those who wish to use it. Stupidity and yet more stupidity.

As a favor to us "old folks" - could we stick to using full words when typing sentences? It isn't much harder and really is much easier to read. Plus using real words doesn't make the writers look uneducated and lazy. I don't care if it is "cool" or what, it just looks silly. Sorry if I just stepped on some folks toes.....

I am not a newbie, but often I find the search engine pretty useless, so I just ask. Also, if a person is, by definition, a newbie...they many simple not know all of the ins and outs of a forum. I have seen many first timers get their butts chewed on because some folks are all into the "look it up you lazy newb" mentality. All in all, so what if someone asks a question. Isn't that what these forums are all about....discussion amongst folks who share a common interest?

Hey folks, I just sold all of my HiMD units, but held onto my mic. Now I have decided to sell it for $40.00 + $3.00 shipping. This is $20.00 cheaper than at minidisco.com. The mic is in new condition and has only been used about 8 times to record a class. If anyone has a question feel free to contact me here or via private message. Thanks. Joe

Hey folks, Just a quick question. I have tried the search feature to no avail. Does anyone know if the new HDD DAPs and the new flash based players are compatible with the current interatation of SonicStage? I have no interest in messing with the new Connect software that would come with a A3000, A1000, or A608, but (this suprises me to say this) the new hardware does catch my attention. I have given up on minidisc (I kept a few discs for nostalgia - Miffy and Hello Kitty) as I really no longer have a reason to record with a mic and I can handle line in with my Cowon A2 or iAudio X5L (where is the line-in Sony?), but one of the Sony flash players might be worth looking at. The nano doesn't interest me at all, but I am also considering an iAudio flash player as they have always served me well...and they are all drag-and-drop. The Sony flash units look nice, especially the new models out in Japan and the U.K., but that connect software looks to be a bear. So, what is the scoop regarding using the new equipment with SS 3.3? Anyone get it to work? Thanks. Joe

Both of the NH900s and the EH1 have been sold, mostly through contact with minidisc.org. I will keep lurking (and perhaps posting) until an answer is made regarding Sony and the future of minidisc, but for the time being I am staying clear of MD and Sony. Especially until they get the new connect software debacle cleared up. I wish the MDers good luck. Hopefully there will be a third generation coming soon or solid state recording.... Thanks.

My wish list for the 3rd generation: Sony, just TELL US if there is going to be more and when!!!

That is a good point. I am not looking to buy, was just curious as to why there was such a large number of UK sales.

Just a quick thought. I was just running thru ebay to see where most of the HiMD and MD units are coming from these days. It seems that the largest percentage are coming from the UK and Canada, with a few from Australia. Very seldom do you see them from Japan - except for dedicated importers. Anyone have a clue as to why so many HiMD and MD are being sold in Canada and the UK? It is almost like an exodus!!!

Good luck finding a black model. Audiocubes cannot get them either. I spoke with a couple of folks on ebay, who are in japan, to no avail either. Sorry, I just assumed that folks would look the information up on ebay. This is especially true since the EH1 isn't a common item on ebay. Mine is the only one right now. Will do so in the future.