akasan

I actually prefer sonicstage over itunes, wm10, and media monkey for playing music off my computer.

I have the 8 gig 610, had the choice of the two but went with the 610. Sound-wise both units are identical, (i never use the bundled headphones with any mp3 player). Aside from the slightly bigger screen, there is probably no difference between the two units. Since I don't plan to watch videos or pictures with this the screen size wasn't too important to me. The smaller form factor was the major factor in my purchase. Radio is a + i guess but I can honestly say I haven't used it. This is the best sounding MP3 player I have ever own, better than the HD5. I can listen to older tracks (from 90's 80's and before and they don't have that thin sound older tracks usually do. There is NO distortion on any tracks and I have clear bass set to maximum.

bought the 4 gig from jr late july, the head phone socket is loose and no sound in the left ear. Anybody know how to fix?

I can confirm you can use with mediamonkey.

Still stuck at work, will try to do some time this weekend, but the tracks I transferred over last night transferred very fast. Yeah, I meant the six hundred series. Getting all these numbers can be confusing at times.

I went to the sony store yesterday intending to pick up the a818 but they only had the 8 gig in silver so I picked up the black 816 instead. First impressions: on an engadget post they said these were chunky, if you consider these chunky you have a problem. They are almost the same thickness as the 816. control is tactile, buttons hidden under the surface. Sound quality to my ears, paired with shure se210's is great. I did not use the included headphones even to test them but they look cheap. Powerful bass, no distortion, sound is very clean. I don't plan to watch videos on this but they do provide a sample trailer for the upcoming cartoon movie with the penguins in the tropics and the picture is very clear and vibrant. I do not miss sonic stage at all. WMP11 transfers fast. Also can use with media monkey, only problem with media monkey is it will actually transfer over a wav file that can't be played on the player but WPM11 will automatically convert. You can also transfer by drag and drop in explorer. They do provide a software to batch convert atrac file into mp3 however it would be nicer if they allowed you to convert individual files, I have atrac files spread all over my computer.

I plan to buy either one of these tomorow at the sony store in nyc (thanks for the b-day present sony) but I'm wondering if there is any difference in sound quality between the two. Leaning towards the a808 or whatever they call it now because it is the higher end model, but many people thought the cheaper s706 had better sound than the 808 so can't say for sure. Kinda want the newer model because it has a radio but then I'm thinking "when is the last time that I actually listened to the radio?".

Where in nyc? Around for how much?

sounds real good. the wait is worth it.

takes real long for songs to tranfer though

Just bought the nw-s706 violet 4gig from J&R in manhattan for $119, with tax $130. Waited until I bought it before I announced it up here. I think they imported it from europe, no place else really sells the 4 gig. Sounds good so far.

also i know the nw-a1200 and 3000 series converts all tracks to atrac on the fly while playing, it doesn't actually convert the track to a new file but the sound output is atrac....maybe this does the same?

did you change the transfer settings to "As is?"

So I opened up my HD5 after reading some guy's post about how he fix his ipod after poking around, first time I opened it no problem, but saw nothing obvious that I could fiddle with (the hard drive was clicking and unit would power off after the splash screen) closed it up, experienced the same problem. Then I thought about buying a 4g ipod (which uses the same hard drive) and opened it up again to see how hard it would be to replace, the hard drive is basically plug'n'play. I ressembled the unit again but unlike before, it doesn't power on at all. Any body have any idea what I could have done wrong? Thinking about sending it in for repair, no other hard drive unit on market catches my attention, would they repair it even after all my fiddling? It's out of warranty but I would pay up to the price of the unit itself to get it working again.

My Shure e4's left channel just gave out, about to send them back for repair/replacment (under warranty) but looking into other phones. Love the shures but the bass isn't there. I've heard the super.fi's compared favorably to the e4's before, are they truly similar. Just as the shure's are giving out, my Hd5 died earlier this month, looking at either the a808 or the s706 (4gb real cheap on ebay) or maybe just getting a larger mem card for my w810i (yeah I am a unabashed sony whoar, unfortunately my first player was a md player a few years ago, everytime I try to buy into another brand I come running back to sony so they got me for life now) but I really want something close to the hd5 in SQ, most people hear seem to think the s706 are closest...should I go with that ?