dura_

Not exactly the answer you are looking for but maybe informative;I use ATRAC 256 kbs with Sonic Stage (DRM off!): I can transport music between my DAPs (a HD1, now gone, and a A3000) and my 2 computers as much as I want.

I became a Son fan after owning an ipod mini for two weeks; I really wanted to love it and I hought the design, screen and sofware was great; I hated the short batterylife but the absolute dealbreaker was soundkwality; the sharp and flat sound was impossible to enjoy. So, after some other experiments I ended up with the Sony NW-HD1. At least a musical sound that was a pleasure to listen too. And so is the sound coming from my A3000. As long a the sound is this good (and the builtquality is good too) I can life with the other imperfections.

Yes, contact Sony. I could be wrong but this sounds like a harddiskproblem. Good luck.

Frankly, I find it ridiculous that Sony now has the 1xx, 7xx & 8xx series flash players. Of course there are differences, but basically they are all 1-8Gb flashplayers. Instead of the 1xx a new line of HD-players would have been more logical. Here in the Netherlands in the shop are a bewildering variety of Sony flashplayers; the other 4xx & 5xx (?) series, the round ones, the beans, the 6xx&7xx etc. Very confusing and it gives Sony a bad name.

haha, now the counts gets negative, that's all.

Absolutely. The MP3 files suffer one hit going form lossless to Mp3. The ATRAC-files suffer another extra hit going form MP3 to ATRAC. Pity, would have been an interesting test.

That can be interesting too (especially if it is about headphones also suitable for portable use), so if you feel like giving it a shot, please go ahead.

I enjoy this too, and this threat inspired me to start a spinoff thread about our portable audio history here.

Recently I was in thread started by DSP and he asked me which players I owned. I found it was fun to write down, and wondered what other peoples history was. So I thought I started a new subject. In which you describe in your own words what you had and what you thought of it. Here is my story, ripped from DSPs threat, slightly editted: I used walkmans for almost as long as they exist, starting in the early eighties, when I was a poor student. Had some cassetteplayers, a simple nameless one that died fast and that I used as a HD for those days computers (a Sinclair Spectrum). Then I got an Aiwa with integrated radio which had a nice sound, lasted for two years. I found cassetteplayers to large, they broke down very fast unless you had the real ones by Sony (ver expensive) and the batterylife was horrible. So I switched to little radios. had a beautiful little yellow Sony, waterproof that worked on 2 AAA-batteries. My father still uses it occasionally, more then 30 years later! After I gave it to him I had severeal other models, especially by Aiwa; they had great bass and very good headphones. In the early nineties, PCDPs came up. After some trial and error I had a large but beautiful all metal Philips which had a great sound. Two years later, PCDPs were much smaller and I sold it and bought a technisch; little round black plastic thing that had excellent sound and I used for 7 years untill it broke down. I used it with Aiwa earbuds I still have and occiasionally use, they have great deep bass and a pleasant slightly papery sound that reminded me of vintage tannoy speakers. I still used radios too, especially on biketrips. After the technics st the end of the 90s I had a very compact round all metal screen-in-RC Sony, which was beautifull but I didn't like the sound very much, to sharp and digital. The first ipod came out but they were vulnerable and expensive and had very short batterylife so I went over to MD, that was in its prime (though never really popular in the netherlands) a Sony player (forgot the type) that lacked treble but had a nice full sound, especially combined with the sony MDR70. And it worked on one penlight, for weeks. Then about 3 years ago, DAPs became interesting, and portable audio became much more interesting to me. First I tried a ipod mini, which had an unpleasantly flat and sharp sound to my ears, and turned me into a neurotic batterylevel watcher. Trying friend's ipods, they all seem to sound like that to my ears; probably something to do with the bass rollof from the headphone-out, that apple uses to disguise the limits of their amps. Pity, I would love to have a 8 gb nano 2G, they look nice. Then I tried an iRiver 799, 1GB flasplayer that costed e450, 3 years ago. The sound was nice but too dynamic to my ears. Use normal level and the percussion would be too prominent compared to the rest, turn it up and proportions became normal but the sound then was simply too loud for my ears. Finally Sony came with the NW-HD1. Bingo! I think I had the first one sold in the netherlands, according to Sony Overtoom. Very good sound, the best I heart yet form a portable. And beautifully made and good batterylife. Iused it first with a Sony MDR71, too sharp, then with Shure E2, slightly muddled but nice, E3 okay but needed equalising and finally Shure E4, no real criticism for my ears and my favorite phone right now. Last year I also bought a A3000, which together with the Shure e4 is my daily combo, with which I´m very happy, so I sold the NW-HD1 last month. I´m still interested in a flash player, an 7xx or that new one perhaps... I wish Sony would make a 16Gb flashplayer working on a AA battery. I would buy it, no matter what it would cost. So that was my story, long because 'm in my forties, what is yours?

Hi DSP, momenteel voel ik me erg oud, zware dag op het werk. You're probably right about the codecs; advantage of Atrac is that it sounds good and uses less power on sony walkmans, disadvantage is that you can only use Sony players. I got an Atrac-library, but if I had to start again, who knows, it would have been MP3. And perhaps a creative player. I used walkmans for as long as they exist, back to the first Sony cassette players. Had a lot of cassetteplayers and portable CDPs, all kind of brands. then I went to MD, a Sony player (forgot the type) that lacked treble but had a nice full sound. Then DAPs became interesting. First I tried a ipod mini, which had an unpleasantly flat and sharp sound to my ears. Trying friend's ipods, they all seem to sound like that to my ears; probably something to do with the bass rollof from the headphone-out, that apple uses to disguise the limits of their amps. Pity, I would love to have a 8 gb nano 2G, they look nice. Then tried an iRiver 799, 1GB flasplayer that costed e450, 3 years ago. The sound was nice but too dynamic to my ears. Use normal level and the percussion would be too prominent compared to the rest, turn it up and proportions became normal but the sound then was simply too loud for my ears. Finally Sony came with the NW/HD1. Bingo! I had the first one sold in the netherlands, according to Sony Overtoom. Very good sound, the best I heart yet form a portable. And beautifully made and good batterylife. Last year I also bought a A3000, which together with the Shure e4 is my daily combo, with which I´m very happy. But I´m still interested in a flash player, an 7xx or that new one perhaps...I wish Sony would make a 16Gb flashplayer working on a AA battery. I would buy it, no matter what it would cost.

ha DSP, Beef, nee, ben ik te oud voor als veertiger denk ik ;-) You got a point about the ATRAC giving the Sony's an advantage; if people have a large MP3-lib they won't take the trouble to rebuilt their lib. OTOH, starting anew you want the best sound from your device, so why not use ATRAC if it's there? But you say the difference isn't large, which make the Creative an interesting device...

Anouk, André hazes...a fellow countryman from Holland! Thank you DSP for this informative interesting and somewhat surprising review. What amazes me is that you seem to find the A1200 a little bit lacklustre. Owning an A3000, I absolutely love the way it sounds. But appearantly to your ears it can be bettered (I suppose that the A1200 and the A3000 sounds the same, haven't tried that myself) OTOH there are differences, I use ATRAC 256 kbs and Shure e4s as headphones (those are truly excellent to my ears). And I've heart ATRAC sounds better then MP3 on the sony walkmans. What's your experience, do you think ATRAC, WMA and MP3 sound different on the Sony devices?

Yes, I would like a little review DSP. personally I'm more interested in sound signature descriptions then in features, after all, I can look those up.

I uses SS too. Sometimes I reload my whole 20 Gb library again on my A3000. That usually goes well, but only if I leave the PC alone and have no other tasks running. Otherwise, I get error messsages.

No problem, the Shures (and other IEMs) give excellent noiseblocking; I use them daily on the bus and train, and very often on a plane; isolation is very good. Only prob is, you can't switch it off, like active NC.

Just a suggestion; Shure E4. I haven't jet bought a 7xx but I use them with my A3000 & NW-HD1 and the sound quality and synergy is absolutely fantastic. And the isolation, even though it's passive, is very good. Downsides are nc isn't adjustable, and the E4s aren't cheap. OTOH, the advantage of Shure phones is that, should they ever break, even long after the warrant period is over, they sent you new ones for ~ $50,-

Atrac lossless is a confusing term; if I understand correctly, it mean how the CD is captured on your PC HD. You get the ATRAC lossy file, plus another part somewhere that contains the rest of the data that was on the source. Playing back from SS on your PC you get lossless, on your device you get the lossy thing. BTW I think 256 kbs gives very good sound quality.

Hi Ssasha, re-reading yuor post, I suddenly remembered reading years ago that lower kbs ATRAC use a kind of integrated stereo; not 2 channels seperated, but coded together fore efficiencyreasons. The "lossless" has nothing to so with this, that only indicates the way it is stored on your PC in the SS-library. So try again using f.i. 256 kbs Atrac 3+, which I think has proper seperated stereo (someone correct me if I'm wrong please).

I remember vaguely about hearing something of Sony giving it's own mini CES in februari and presenting new products. Is that true? And, if so, when? I'm really curious, does anyone know what to expect in the near future that would be of interest for ATRACLIFE? Me, I'm hoping for a PSP2, a new Sony PMP/DAP, and a 7xx maximum memory upgrade.

Sonic Stage in its 2.x versions was slow, unreliable contra-intuitive and generally one of the worst pieces of software ever made. However, SS in its 4.x version is much much better and well usuable; not perfect, but good enough. It's a pity people still repeat obsolete things that were true in the past, but not anymore.

If it's a Europian model, you can use the hack to remove the volume cap, instructions can be foun d elsewhere on this site, on the HD3 service manual (under downloads). Further check if AVLS isn't set to "on". A last tip: some headphones are more sensitve then others, meaning they make more noise with the same juice, so another phone might give you the volume you need.

Yes, no problem, my NW-A3000 works with firmware 3.0 + the volume hack.

Not yet owning a 7xxx myself, I could be completely wrong, but I've heart static noise in all players I owned that did have a radio on board. Sometimes really really bad, for me a reason to buy DAPs without tuner for the last years (the 7xx is vertempting though). But I also read somewhere people blaming it on noise cancelling; is the static still there when nc is turned off?

very tempting, especially the nc and the sound quality.....again, thanks for the tips and opinions.

I first tried LP2 (128 kbs) on my NW-HD1 (and NW-A3000) but found some slight but irritating artefacts, especially some treble distortion. I now use 256 kbs and I love the way that sounds, even in a quiet surroundings with a better headphone through an amp it sounds copyperfect to my ears.