cauldron

Hey ntwc, The cord isn't delicate, they seem like they would last. The CK5 has behind-the-ear cord. If you prefer the Y cord, you can get the cheaper CK31/32. The CK5 is low on bass. It's a pair of phones for people who like lots of high frequencies. If you like a lot of bass in your music, then the MD33 (or perhaps the Sennheiser CX300??) might be the way to go. The CK31/32 have a bit more bass, and less treble.

Have you tried using SonicStage CP to make your AAC files? A lot of reviews I've seen say the sound is different from files made by iTunes.

I was debating this a couple weeks back. I suspect the A608 is the way to go if you don't want to send the player back after a year to replace battery. A long battery life like that allows you to extend the battery's life span (eg. only charge up to 80% full). But if every other mp3 player on Earth died out, and I have to copulate buy one of these, I'll take the E005. I'm looking at using low bitrate, and a large music collection in a 25g player is amazing, it was unthinkable a year ago, and just a really nice thought all in all. The A608 is almost double that weight, and even though small enough, just wouldn't have the same "progressive factor" I was about to buy an E005, but then the S205 came up, I guess I prefer the more phallic of the two.

I've been in the same dilemma for a few months, and I absolutely didn't want to buy a Zen Micro because it's not UMS -- despite talking about SS so much, it's WMP that I hate to use and absolutely can't figure out for transfer to a portable player. If you look back on the history of Sony HDD players, there's a fairly steady string of improvements. That means if there's anything you don't like about the A1200, chances are it'll come to Sony's attention and be fixed in whatever player that replaces the A1200. I say if there's nothing that bothers you with the player, or you can shave $20-40 off the MSRP, go for it. Seems to me that the new Sony players won't be arriving before, say, Halloween.

Thanks for the replies, guys

I've seen reviews that say the HD3/5 have stronger midrange, and the A1000 is closer to neutral. The HD5 and E400/500 play tracks slightly faster, a 4-5 minute song would finish a second or so early. This might have something to do with the sound... By the way, which atrac3plus bitrates can the HD1 play, on top of 48/64/256?

Beethovenian, Thanks, great comparison piece. I saw the A3000 in person and it's really a lot smaller than the specs suggest. The A1000 I saw didn't cache nearly as much as my old HD5, but that's probably because the demo unit only had 30-50 songs inside. I don't see myself building a music library on the hard drive, so artist link might be useless for me, but I quite fancy the shuffle features. Stuge, you're no fun In this case they cost the same, and for me a bad user interface would render capacity useless, so I give those two the same consideration.

Hello, new to the forum here... thought this might make for fun discussion. I currently have the opportunity to get a new NW-HD1 for a similar price as a new NW-A1000. You read this, you wonder out loud at your computer screen "why would anyone want the thingy Kunitake Ando held upside down at a press event, over the thingy Howard Stringer held upside down at a press event? Is he high on couscous?" Please, do hear me out. The HD1 is still THE smallest 1.8" HDD player on earth. Archos may claim otherwise, but IMO the HD1 it is. It's a measly one gram heavier than the A1000, thinner, with better battery life. Being ATRAC-only doesn't bother me so much as navigating with that contorted "mode" button - cycling through album-group-genre-other-artist enough times could make my hair fall out. The A1000 is great too. Easily the best Sony design in a few years (the designer used to work for Karim Rashid). Feels awesome in the palm, the GUI is very good. With SS-CP arriving in ten days it'll work well with my mixed mp3/wma/aac library. On the down side, the battery life makes me go meh, and I foresee paying for a remote in the interest of saving both the battery and my fingers. Ouch that volume slider! I don't mind converting everything to atrac because I'm always re-encoding to fit more stuff on the player. But that's only me. Which would you guys pick, sheer capacity, machine intelligence, rosie o'donnell (I mean, the A3000), or something else?