Count Zero

Thanks Zizone, I was pretty sure that I could use that model, just wanted confirmation. Cheers!

Hi. Just got a new NWZ-818 over Christmas (Nice unit but no bookmark list facility? Come on Sony!). Can anyone confirm whether Sony do a charging cradle for this device, and if so what is the model number? I suspect that the BCRNWU3 will do the trick, but I've just been into my local Sony store, and have been advised (quite categorically) that they don't. However I suspect that the sales person was a half-wit. I can't believe that Sony don't want to take £30 of my money in return for a plastic stand that gives me no additional functionality other than line out & something nice to put my walkman on (like the BCRNWU1 for my NWA 3000). Any help gratefully received. Cheers.

Hi evilmuffin. To free up more space on the player you can get Sonic stage to transfer the songs to your device at a lower bitrate. Files in Sonicstage on my pc are mostly ripped at 128kbps (ATRAC), but when I download them to my A3000 I transfer at 105kBps ATRAC. Sonicstage converts the files to the lower bitrate as it sends them to the player. From an audiophile viewpoint it's not the best way to do things, but I listen through relatively inexpensive headphones whilst on public transport or at the gym, and I find the quality more than ok (it's still an improvement on MP3 at 128kbps). At those rates the player still sounds great, and I've currently got around 5600 songs on there with room for more besides. I've rather sacrifice some sound quality if it means I have my entire music collection in one place. I think in their blurb Sony quoted a 13000 song capacity for the A3000 based on ATRAC 48kbps. But I'm guessing you don't need to go to those extremes!

Hi Bruce, Have you seen the following thread? Sounds a bit similar to your problem. Doesn't say whether it worked or not, but it's got to be worth a try. http://www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?...ost&p=15219 Good luck!

I'm getting around 8 hrs from a full charge, with everything at 105kbps ATRAC 3+. I was thinking about returning it to Sony under warranty as this is nothing like the battery life they state in any of their documentation, and battery life was one of the reasons I chose it over the iPod I did consider trying to change the battery, to see if this made any difference. I was stopped by general laziness and lethargy. Does anyone know how much a replacement battery would cost? And is anyone else (apart from Xufar) getting battery life anything like Sony's specifications?

I burn from CD to the hard drive at 132Kbps ATRAC3Plus, then transfer to the device at 105Kbps (though it did take 12 hours to transfer 5000 songs in this mode ). At 132Kbps I reckon you could fit around 4500 songs. At 105Kbps you're looking at more like 5600 songs. Through my Sony MDR A44s I can't tell the difference between 132 and 105Kbps. But then I'm the first to admit, I'm no audiophile . The sound quality of the A3000 does seem very good to me though! At that bitrate I'm getting around 12 hours per charge, depending on how much skipping from track to track I do Also be prepared to mess about with it a bit, and read the posts on this forum to get it working right!! (Firmware updates, defrags, etc)

The prices online seem to fluctuate massively. I bought my A3000 at the end of June for £130 from Amazon. I looked recently, and they're selling them for £200. £130 for an A3000 is a bargain!

Hi Jamie. I defragged my A3000 last week using windows, which worked very well. Took your advice yesterday and used diskeeper. It took 3.5 hours, but it did speed up my A3000 even more. Thanks for the tip!

Mine is exactly the same (i've had it for about a month). I get around 10 hours battery life from a single charge. I thought it might have been a duff unit, but looking around on various sites (including this one) it seems about right. I'm at around 4500 songs all in ATRAC3 format (132kbps) filling up around 16G. The manual suggests turning off the EQ settings, to improve battery life - have you tried that? The quoted battery life from Sony is based on much lower bitrates, but one of the reasons for buying Sony is the sound quality, right? I'm having a love/hate relationship with my A3000 right now. Battery life is a third of what I expected, I'm had to update firmware on the unit, update software on my pc, defrag the thing to speed it up. It's still gorgeous though. Just a bit high maintenance.

Thanks Zepnut. The Defrag worked, despite the program stating that I didn't need to and it wouldn't work with so little free space. Took a long time (30 minutes or so), but it now works like a charm. IN fact it's working faster than it ever has done before. I'm in love with my NW-A3000 again.

Thanks for the suggestion, Ishiyoshi. Looked at the drive using Windows Disk Defragmenter, and it advised that the drive didn't need a defrag. I could try it anyway i suppose. I was wondering if the reason for slow navigation was down to the number of tracks (if so how would it deal with 13,000!) or to the fact that 88% of the free disk space is utilised. Anyone experienced the same thing?

Has anyone else experienced problems with really slow operation on the NWA 3000 when ? I’ve got a lot of music on there – 4500 songs, filling up over 16Gb (all ATRAC132, all fields automatically populated by gracenote). When I select some of the menu options, it can take 15-20 seconds to move from one menu to another. In some of the lists it can take 15 seconds to move from one track/artist to the next.The unit looks and sounds great, but this makes it really hard, and frustrating to use. Any suggestions would be gratefully received (even if it’s just confirmation that with this kind of loading, the unit is normally this slow!). I’ve had a number of Sony products in the past, and always loved them. Right now I wish I’d bought a Creative…

Yes it does!