jonny mac

I'm not interested in this player, largely due to the fact that it's much bigger in real life than it looks in photos. I'd rather get one of the other flash players.

Where did you get to play with this new toy? People are dismissing the video capabilities of this player as a gimmick for the low-res screen & poor codec support. TBH, I don't see any point in watching video on any screen smaller than 15" & even then a decent TV is preferred. All video playback on DAPs is a gimmick.

There's capping & there's capping. Some MD units have been capped as low as 1.2mW, some at 4.5. Some have even been falsely advertised as being 5mW when they're not. There's no predicting how severely Euro-capped a model is. For this reason I would NEVER buy a Sony unit until I was sure it either had sufficient volume already or could be hacked. I have been re-assured that the 70X series are fine & I hope to pick one up at some point in the future (prices are still dropping).

The A800 looks very nice indeed. In Europe the deal-breaker would be if it's Euro-capped, the 70X series reportedly isn't but who knows about new models? On the other hand, the prices for 70Xs are dropping now (maybe due to this announcement??) so maybe I'll pick up one of them for less...

Check the format/bitrate that SS is exporting the music to your HD5. If it's transcoding or even changing ATRAC bitrate there will be small gaps. If it's not that then my only thought is that it's due to Vista & therefore it's yet another problem that's Bill Gates' fault.

Of course you can convert MP3 to ATRAC. I do this a lot, most of my collection is in MP3 (LAME, VBR 0, averaging aprox 256kbps) & I convert these to ATRAC 192 kbps. They sound great after conversion. However, I'd be wary of converting a low bitrate MP3 to another format. I've listened to 128 kbps MP3s converted to ATRAC & the compression is clearly audible. With 192 kbps you'd probably be ok. What you need is better quality MP3s from which to convert. (However, always for best results convert from lossless/CD, it's just that most people won't be able to tell the difference.)

I have these earphones but don't ever use them. I'd be willing to trade something for the phones including all the accessories. All earpieces would be included, the small ones haven't even been tried.

I was going to recommend you get the DNE830 from Audiocubes but it seems all the portable CD players are now gone from their site. If you are going to buy a Sony player then import one. The volume capping makes them next to useless, honestly you shouldn't have to get a separate amplifier to make them useable.

It would be nice if this were possible with all HDD DAPs as it's the HDD that's most likely to fail. That would do something to dispell the constant fear of HDD failure in using one of these.

Nothing in-built in Sonicstage unfortunately. If you rip with Audiograbber & set it to standardise volumes then you can convert to ATRAC. Rip the CD to WAV & use that directly to avoid quality loss. It's an extra step but sometimes it's really necessary for low volume stuff.

HiMD Walkmans can be hacked, as can HDD DAPs. CD players & flash DAPS can't. Only Sony know the reason for this. The hackability of MD is one of the things that kept me with it. Music is useless if you can't hear it.

The Trafford centre shop will be operated by another compnay, as mentioned above all Sony Centres are franchises. Unless they're feeling very friendly they won't take back for repair/exchange or anything else, a player that was bought from another company. It would be like buying something from John Lewis & taking it back to Dixons if it goes PT.

So you borrowed your pal's player & wiped it? Nice one. Try formating it with Sonicstage although I'm not sure if that will work or not... But the songs are gone.

Is it not covered by warranty? And surely you have to pay this credit back at some point? The $150 is not a free give-away, you'll need to repay it at a later date so the new player wouldn't really be $50.

The only things I can suggest are (1) use Sonicstage instead or (2) use an XP PC. SOrry I can't be more helpful, good luck.

If I were you I'd contact Domestic & General now to check that they'll honour the warranty. Better to find out now & stop payments if necessary.

Are the old MS walkmans limited in the capacity of MS they can take or could you put a 4 or 8 gb card in them? Also, aznbro85, I think most of the SQ difference between old & new will be down to the codec choice. 66kbps cuts out a lot of high frequencies leaving a very muddy sound while 64 kbps cuts out fewer high frequencies but has more artifacts. I suspect if you were to compare LP2 on two devices you would hear little difference (& better SQ than either of the low bitrate options).

Earphones should be covered under warranty. It would be pretty bad if they weren't since the noice cancelling feature only works with those earphones. Out of interest, anyone know how much Sony would charge to replace these earphones out of warranty? I'm sure they wouldn't last forever & almost certainly have a shorter lifespan than the player itself. I'm surprised to hear that a dinky little flash player like this can record at all & very surprised to hear it can do so at PCM quality. Anyone care to compare a recording with the same done with MD?

You can burn a data DVD with ATRAC files. If the files aren't DRMed then Media Player will play them, although it won't read any information other than the file name. SS will also play them, of course, but not until they've been imported.

I am in the process of re-importing my entire library because I have moved all my music files. I suggest that you do what I do: don't do it all at once. Import chunks at a time and see how that goes. Make sure all the ID3 tags are in order, especially the album name as this will group songs together. If it doesn't work then get yourself a program to make M3U lists and import them instead of the files themselves. The problem with importing M3Us into Sonicstage is that you can only do it one at a time, not all at once, but it seems to get the music into the library and working, so... Good luck

To me, this is all a moot point. This looks like a really nice player but for one thing. HOW BADLY WILL YOU CRIPPLE THE VOLUME THIS TIME, SONY?? The Sony flash players aren't hackable and as such will be useless in Europe. Have fun working out when you can't hear you music over the gym stereo system. Enjoy your jog when you can't hear the music for the traffic driving by. Portable amps aren't too practical for exercise.

1. I don't know anything about GYM, not even what it is. 2. All Sony's European walkmans have this volume limitation. The limitation can be removed on HDD and MD players but not on flash or CD players. As such I could never recommend to anyone to buy a Sony flash or CD player from Europe. They are unuseable as you have found out. I can only recommend you try to return it if you can. Sorry.

I had one of these and no, the volume can't be hacked. Mine was skipping for no reason so I eventually returned it anyway. Don't buy Sony CD players in Europe, all the volumes will be low, it's not worth the trouble. Find a way of getting one from Japan or the US.

Is it the same track every time? Try transferring different music.

I won't be buying either of these any time soon, perhaps in three months at the earliest. I'll try to have a listen beforehand. By then maybe there'll be something else on the market.