dura_

I used to have an A3000, bigger brother of the A1200; beautiful machine to behold, but very annoying; slow, unreadable screen in daylight, and worst of all, ridiculous short batterylife. People here hypothised the internal memory was so small the DAP needed to read its HD much more then my former player, the incredible NW-HD1 (same as the HD3, but with a magnesium instead of aluminium housing). Could be, anyway, battery life on the A3000 was <5 hours, where I could easily get 20+hrs out of the HD1. The A3000 sounded slightly better though, but I was happy to give it away once I bought the A808, which is still my DAP today. Great sound, long batterylife, beautiful design, only 8Gb is too small to hold all my favorite music, but I'm skipping the A82X and waiting for a 32 or even 64 GB sony, probably next year or the so.

Even then, you loose the cable, but you have to carry an extra battery, watch its level and recharge it separately. And you'll usually still have a cable joining the two earpieces and the battery. Too me that seems a rather high price too pay to lose the cable, even if sound quality remains acceptable ; I love using IEMs and just put the piece where the cables splits in the back of my shirt, the cable from the Y split down to the DAP doesn't hinder me at all that way, I don't even wear the cable around my ears (hate that). The only cables that -slightly- bother me are the ones cominng from the earpieces and even with BT they usually will still be there (ore you'll get earpieces with their own battery and receiver, I think I'll prefer the cable, thanks) , so frankly, the advantages of 'wireless' headphones are not clear to me and so I don't care about BT in my DAP.

Don't expect too much from burn in; I haven't had the pleasure to oewn these famous 770 but most other headphones I had didn't chance very much after thew first few hours, getting more balanced and refined but the differences were small enough to enjoy them from the first hours on (say after 5 hours of white noise, except for the Sen HD485, which were very boomy at first but got more mid and treble and more bassdetail later, but even that took only a day). So IMO 5 hours of white noise (or overnight), then they are ready for use and after 20 hours they should be very close to their final sound signature. A question Stuge: how do this 80 ohm version (there are also 32, 600 and probably other 770 versions sound out of a DAP unamped? This 80 ohm version can be had really cheap here compared to other BD770s.

Does setting the normaliser too off (as well as CS and DSEE) work?

I stay with ATRAC 256kbs as long as my beloved A808 lives; after that, I'll rerip in lossless, FLAC or WAV, and recompress, not sure to what. This sounds like an interesting alternative (allthough I do not like the slow starttime of HD-players).

Reading that interesting article PCM just seems a general soundencoding type and LPCM is a more specific name; in the context here, they are the same I think. so it seems you're stuck on 700 Mb (or rather about 450, which seems to be the average CD-size). Í dream of a 64 gb Sony flashplayer that does FLAC...

But, uhh, you weren't gonna buy it anyway, where you? hahaha, we know you.

Sigh....don't take it too personal Paz, but I've seen too many ''how to remove the volumecap on the A8** series".There used to be a time that some Sony players were indeed hampered by a cap and removing this had clear audio-benifits, not only in max. vol. but also in bass energy. But I wish people would update their grapevine more often; not so the A8** series, no cap and if you need more power either your phones or your ears are insensitive.

Haha, doesn't take much to push you over, does it? I'll probably fall for it too, but after my holidays in Thailand next month. Besides, today I'm gonna buy a new smartphone with gps so I'm broke for now. But back to the Sony, like otherss, I'm very interested in your remarks considering build quality and SQ, Old skool D.

Agreed, plus I hate the way you can't grab or accidentally touch a touchscreen without activating something. I start up my little A808, put it in my pocket and hardly ever touch the buttons, except for the volume, so I'm glad that is hard buttoned. For smartphones it's a different story, I consider buying f.i. a HTC Touch or an Iphone, and i love touchscreens there, but for dedicated musicplayers, no, no touchscreen for me please.

Funny, I was wondering about the same thing last week. I agree it does not feel like metal, but not like plastic either. Kind of ceramic material perhaps?

Stay strong Juli, please. For if you fall and buy it and then start juicy threads about it, I'll probably give in too. And my wallet is not in a good condition after I bought that plasma tv last week (BTW, plasma tvs give incredible color, really beautiful). Edit, just saw this machinetranslated from French: So, SQ seems slightly worse then the A80x/81x!

I doubt it; speaking strictly for myself I would be paying €300,- for an extra 8 Gb, and getting a plastic back-device (I love my A808 esthetically); if there are SQ advantages, i suspect they'll be small, more differences then large steps forward. So as long as my A808 still going strong (it looks like new despite the fact I just put it in my pocket without any protection) I'm not interested, and nowadays A818 can be bought cheap on f.i. amazon. But if you like to watch video's the bigger screem is a plus of ocurse.

Thanks for the video, very interesting. Well, that settles it; I'm gonna stick with my A808 which still looks as new, and consider again next year when there are 32/64 GB players to onsider, hopefully from Sony. But spending €300,- basically for 8 GB extra going from the A808 to the 82X seems uneconomical; I do not watch video's so the bigger screen means nothing to me, I don't care for bluetooth (loose the cord get another battery to carry and watch) it's bigger so i don't see why i should buy it.

The problem with bluetooth lies in the extra amp in the headphone; that's gotta be as good as the one in the player to offer the same soundquality as connection through wire. Personally I do not dislike the wire between player and phone enough to pay for a new amp, lug along an extra battery in the phone, and watch an extra battery level. People consulting their local Sony distribution should by now be aware that these centres are rather ignorant, but hate to admit that, preferring to give wrong information. Just wait and, if necessary, order through ther internet seems to be the best advice.

Seems rubbish to me; in order to play a compressed file it has to be decompressed, to WAV or PCM or whatever. in order to convert from one compressionstandard to another it has to be decompressed too. So why re-compress it again and then decompress it for the second time?

Thanks for the detailed comparison Juli, I really feel this is giving me a good impression of the Zune. And it's Elton John-loving software. I completely agree with this description of the Sony A8xx. However, older Sonys, like my old MD-player, he NW-HD1 and the A3000 sounded far less dynamic, softer with smooth, a little rolled off treble and more midbass warmth to my ears.

"but 32 would be the sweet spot for me as it is 16GB more than my HD5 and HD1." 12 Gb more I think the players have a 20 GB HD (therei s also a special editon 30GB HD5). Anyway, looking at the past and hearing about the leaked out A82X which, as Zizone mentions, seems to max out at 16 GB, I do not expect a Sony 32 Gb before Q3 2008.

It could be some software conflict, but this is also how aging, failing HD's often act. Given the age of the NW-HD1, I think it might be its time. Pity, when it came out I bought it immedeately (had the first one in Holland the importer said) and loved it intensely for 2 years, and I still think it is a design classic; beautiful, compact, solid, long battery life with very nice sound quality. you could probably tranplant the HD (there is a tread somehwhere here about chancing HD's in HD5 I think), and a new battery, but perhaps retiring it and enjoy your fond memories of it is the best way...

And depends a lot on your headphones too.

That and hitting the searchbutton. No limit, buy one.

I don't see why not; I used to have two sony Daps and two PC's. As long as your tracks are DRM-free you can import them into sonic stage from the DAP, multiple PCs were no prblem at all, so multiple HDs should work fine.

interesting, thanks for the link.

I can simply import my music files from my DAP into Sonic Stage. I ripped all my music from CDs, it seems that makes a difference, anyway, my tracks are DRM-free.