DSP

well stge, On my PC the clock is gone... It´s not there at all. Did they take it away?! stupid people overthere.... greetz

well, I´m in the netherlands and it´s showing 00:00:02:00...... I´m waiting!!!! edit: It shows the same mesage as in the above picture. And I know it´s march 1th in germany now, ´cause I live 30 minutes driving from the german border. I think this sucks.. greetz

yeah indeed, me too greetz

Both. I've sold it to my brother. He wanted it real bad so... I've sold it, But it'll be around if I wanna play with it. greetz

well guys, the walkman is not for sale anymore. greetz

well guys, I'm a bit confused at the moment. I've transfered some DRMed files that came from my samsung player, and they play. But when I do this again with new DRMed files it won't play them. So was it a flaw in SURF2MUSIC? or in my computer? I don't know. I'm sure that the songs wich I've transfered must be DRMed. I've downloaded them from SURF2MUSIC and they claim that all their songs are DRMed. I must say that these files were downloaded directly to the player (samsung) and I copied them back to my HDD. If I download these files directly to my hDD they won't transfer. So I'm a bit confused now. I'm sure the files I've transfered to my sony are from SURF2MUSIC and should be DRMed. greetz

It's obvious that a good listening test has to be doen with files ripped directly from an audio-CD (preferably retail) to the target codec. This provides the best results. greetz

Hi guys, the price is 160 euros for the whole package. It seems a fair price to me. The walkman costed me 249 euros, the dock 50 euros, the pouch 15 euros. that's 315 euros all together. I'm currently negotiating with some people so if you're really interested please respond quickly. greetz

hi, - I´ve had an MZ-N707 for four years because I sold it. The guy who bought it from me says its till working. So It´s almost 5 years now. - My 7 year old Discman still works (sony) - My PSP is a year old now. still working - My MZ-NH900 is 2,5 years old. still working - My 10 year old Sony cassette walkman is still going strong. - My 1.5 year old NW-E307 is also working - My Sonyericsson S700i is 2 years old and still working - My SE K700i is 3 to 3.5 years old and still working. (joystick has flaws) - My other 5 year old Sony Discman is like new. So I wouldn´t say that Sony equipment doesn´t last long. It´s well-known that Most of the older MD units last like forever. Just like my MZ-N707. Just take good care of them, and polish them once in a while. greetz

well dura, I also think that it´s fun to go back in history and describe all those DAP´s and gadgets you´ve owned. it brings back old memories, not only of the DAP´s themselve but (in my case) also from the time, period and situations I used them in. It just brings back old memories of those good times. I started My portable audio in the Mid-ninties. It was a Sony Cassette player. Dunno the type, but I still have it and it still works. Great device. Sound was okay for the time, it was my first portable audio player so I was not too critical. Worked on 2AA batteries and lasted for days. (daily use). When I noticed that I liked music on the go I bought a Philips Cassette player. Nice design, good sound but it was with this player that I began to notice the flaws of cassette players. So I got a PCDP, a sony Discman. Dunno the type, but that too is still working. The sound was a bit muffled and too ´´distant´´ to my ears but it was a huge improvement to the Cassette players. It had this ´´groove´´ function wich I used occasionally, It modified the sound, but It didn´t work for all music. the big Flaws of this player were the battery compartment: it had a little clip for some special sony accu pack. Due to this clip or bump the batteries (2 x AA) wouldn´t stay in place and just pop out. Verry annoying. The second flaw was that it had no ESP. So it skipped very often. For this reason I bought a cheap Tom-Tec (philips insides) PDCP with ESP and DBB. DBB was very nice, it didn´t really muffle the bas as much as the sony did. ESP was very relax. It never skipped on me again. I could use it anywhere and that´s when I began t roll in t the world of Portable Audio. The sound was okay, but nothing special. Just normal. With all these players I used it´s stock earbuds or just some cheap sony or philips earphones/buds. I wasn´t all that into earbud at that time. It was 6 or 7 years ago (when I had my Tom-Tec) that a friend of mine showed off a little square, grey box with some buttons and a display. I asked him what it did and he said ´´to listen music´´. So I aked him what went into it. It was too small for a Cassette tape or CD. the only option I could think of were those little casettes for voice recorders. But he said that it didn´t use such media. You just put the music in the device ad play it. He let me play around with it for a while and I was stunned. Sound was´t that good, but the technology behind it just attracted me. I guess you guys allready know what I´m talking about: It was the first MP3 player I ever saw. And one of the very first MP3 players of the world. It wasn´t even availaible here in Holland, he bought it in germany. It had 128MB memory and no sound functions at all. This was the push for me to go out there and look for a real good and fantastic DAP. I wanted one. So at first I went to look for MP3 players. But there was not much to choose from. Just brands like MPMAN and things like that. No-one even heard from iPod since it didn´t even excist. Eventually I saw a little machine wich looked a bit more natural to me ´cause some media had to go into it in order to play music. Yes, I fell in love with my first MiniDisc. It was an MZ-N707. I bought this player and I totally loved it. The sound was stunning compared to the things I´ve heard before. It had DSP (digital sound preset) and a remote!!! I was the man, ´cause my DAP had a remote It lasted for months (really!) on a single AA battery. It lasted almost 5 years. It still works, But I sold it. After my very pleasant experience with MD I decided (two years after the purchase of MZ-N707) to buy the newest MZ-NH900. By the time I got very demanding when it came to soundquality and I only wanted the best. I´d bought better earbuds too. First sony clip-ons. Then the MDR-EX71. Together with the absolutely stunning and perfect sound of my MZ-NH900 it was (and somewhere in my heart still is) my favorite combo. The I got A PSP for xmas. It´s for gaming in 1st place, but I used it for music a lot. SQ was surprisingly good. (read the thread I wrote about it). I also got an Sonyericsson W800i somewhere along the line. SQ was good, especially if you notice that its a phone. But there was a hiss all the time wich annoyed me. After two years with my MZ-NH900 I wanted a backlit display and more space. After almost 5 years of MD use (I hated MP3 players for its SQ) I was ready to take the jump to ´´MP3´´ players. This as only since there were no MD´s around. The MZ-R10 and others from that serie were just out of pruduction and the MZ-RH1 had yet to come out and was way to expensive. So I had to get an MP3 player. NW-A1200 came into my life. SQ was very good. Allthough I doubt it to be on par or better with my MZ-NH900. But the backlight, the menu structure, its many options etc made it a really great device. Last Xmas I bought an NW-S703. Well, you know the thing. Stunning SQ, great battery, nice screen. I´ve mentioned this before. And finally, as you know, I bought a creative zen vision:M. I made a review in ´´review and pictorials´´ if you wanna know my experiences on this one. Oh, I just remember: I have a sony NW-E307 too. good SQ, but too much hiss. Battery is great. sorry for the amount of text, but that´s my history. greetz

thx for the positive replies guys, @ ceres: I doubt if NW-A800 will have the SQ and tuning options of S700. It seems very logical, but you never know. SSCP is very good as it is. But it could be much better. What I meant by ´´They have all the ingredients for that spread randomly over various of their products´´ is the same with their Software. look at PSP. It has Drag n drop suport. So why the hell can´t they enable that on their walkmans too? It would save them some time and money, and would prbably earn them some money too ´cause it would make a lot of people very happy. greetz

Damn... you poor guy, Ipods are just Crap. Sorry that you had to experience it´s disgusting sound. I can´t get myself to say soundquality,´cause there´s absolutely no trace of quality. NW-HD1 was indeed an awsome player. Don´t get me wrong about NW-A1200. When I bought it (it was my first ´´MP3 player´´, I used to use good old MD) I loved the sound, allthough I think the sound on my MZ-NH900 was somehow better. But NW-A1200 was great. Great menu, great battery, great design. Just perfect! But time goes by and sony is pissing me off right now. They seem so idiot. They could easily make the best DAP ever. They have all the ingredients for that spread randomly over various of their products. So I went and gave the Zen a go. With no regret at all. So I´m curious to the NW-A800. Hope it´s good. Otherwhise, sony will have to try hard to concvince me again. I´ve been a BIG sony fan for many years. but they have to get their things right now, ´cause they´re just losing the battle now. A big capacity flash player would be nice, but I don´t really care about that kinda things. HDD or flash, It´s all the same to me. I care about SQ. so things like VPT, HD digital amps, SNR, EQ, output power etc. greetz

Je bent nooit ergens te oud voor. Je bent zo oud als dat je je voelt ineed. If you´re starting a new Lib you should go for atrac if you own a walkman. But on the other hand.... The difference between the sound of atrac and MP3 isn´t that big. WMA and atrac even less. So I use WMA on my Zen. You´ve also gotta look at simple things. Zen has incredible soundquality but doesn´t play ATRAC wich imo is the best codec around. But is that really such a problem? If you look and see that the Zen has 30GB, very good video support, photo support, wonderfull colour screen, FM radio, voice recorder etc etc and costs roughly the same as my NW-A1200? (The Zen costs 229 euro @ mp3shop.nl) If it comes to what you get for the price, the Zen wins hands down from the Walkman. If I where sony, I would ensure that MP3 sounds as good as atrac on their devices since half the world uses MP3. Otherwhise they won´t earn a dime. BTW dura, do you have experiences with other DAP´s besides your NW-A300? If so, wich DAP´s? greetz

haha, landgenoten well Dura, I can assure you that those Shure IEM´s make a big difference. But pure theoretically you should get a good comparison from the devices´ sound if you use the same headphones. But they can shure make a difference. But the players stay the same. I Must say I LOVE atrac´s soundquality. I´ve been using it for years now and all my music is stored in atrac. On my Sony DAP´s I use ATRAC3+ @ >192 Kbps. I really don´t notice much difference between MP3, WMA, AAC and ATRAC on the walkmans. Atrac does sound better to me than MP3 and WMA (don´t use AAC that much) bit it´s not a hge difference. Since the Zen can´t play Atrac I´ve tested it with MP3. Interesting question could be: How would they compare if the zen could play atrac? I suspect it would be the same. Because they would all benefit the same from the better codec. You just take SQ on all three a tad higher. I could test it with MP3 on the Zen and ATRAC on the walkmans, but that´s not fair because the walkmans would have an advance then. But I can give it a go just to see if ATRAC drastically improves SQ on the walkmans. BTW: ken je Beef niet? Reggea/Ska band uit eindhoven And no thanks. It was my pleasure greetz

Hi guys, as promised, but too late , my short review/comparision between Creative Zen Vision:M, NW-A1200 and NW-S703. I focused on Soundquality mostly because there are hundreds of general reviews on the Zen allready. Hope you´ll like it: http://www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3245 greetz

well guys, As promised. Here´s my short review in the Creative Zen Vision:M and a comparison between this and the NW-A1200 and NW-S703. Sorry for the delay and the bad pictures. These pictures are taken with my Phone. I´m not goin to sum up all the specs of the device. I advise you to look them up here, at creative. They can do that much better *KLIK* first of all a side by side comparison so you can see the dimensions and get an idea of their sizes etc. And here´s what the screen looks like. I can ensure you that it´s awsome! General The Zen is a very nice looking DAP. Actually, it´s a PMP´cause it plays videos and photos, has an FM tuner built-in and a Voice recorder. The screen is absolutely fantastic! It´s crisp, vivid and very sharp. The player supports many video formats right away. So no fuss with converting and everything. The software to transfer your media is surprisingly simple and fast. It does everything you want without all the hussle and is very easy and comfy to use. In short: It´s truly a wonderful device to work with. the controls on the player are realy easy and very intuitive. I must say that I´m surprised with the way I like this device. I truly love it, and I never thought that I would ever love something else but Walkman. And I can ensure you that it´s not the talk from some-one woh tryes out an other brand for the first time, I have had many DAP´s reaching from earlier Creative´s to Ipod´s to Samsung´s and so on. But this one really stunned me. Sound quality For the SQ comparison I used this track: - Lou bega / Mambo No. 5 ripped from an original retail cd in MP3 (LAME 3.98) @320 KBps CBR 44.1Khz. I used on all devices the same Sennheiser CX300´s. - Flat Well, If you turn all 3 players flat. So no EQ, no bass boost or anything (on NW-S700 clearstereo was on) you´ll get the best impression of what the sound processor and sound technicians really have to offer. I was very surprised with my results. The one wich lost is the NW-A1200. It sounds really good on itself. But compared to the other two it just fell short. It wasn´t crisp and detailed enough sometimes. it gave me the felling that it left something out. When on Lou Bega´s mambo No. 5 the intro stops and the song really gets on it seems to muffle it a bit and take the ´´life´´out of the song. It doesn´t sound as vivid as on the Zen. Dunno how to say this right, but it sounded a bit supressed or sober. Muffled. The NW-S700 sounds very good Flat-out. Compared to the NW-A1200 it´s crisper, clearer and more vivid. The soudstage sounds (to me) a bit nicer and perhaps wider. However, it does have the same problem as the NW-A1200 has. Taking the life out of the Lou Bega song right after the intro. All in all the NW-S700 sounds fairly good and You can clearly hear the improvements between it and teh NW-A1200. It just sounds better. The Zen however, it really surprised me. Yes I know how many times I´ve said that the Zen surprised me, and no I don´t get paid by creative to do so . It sounds very clear, crisp and extremely vivid from the start. i think the 97 Db SNR has something to do with this too, I really notice it and it´s sweet! The intro is so vivid. Really beutifull. I get the idea that I hear things I didn´t hear on the sony´s. But the big point: It doesn´t drop back when the intro is done and the song starts. It just stays Nice and vivid all the time. it sounds brilliant. You can really feel the excitement in the song. So I can say, that Flat out The Zen really sounds best. NW-S700 comes close. But not close enough. NW-A1200 just falls short. - With adjustments Most people play around with the sound settings ´till they have the sound they want. I do this to. So I´ll compare them a bit more realistic now, setting the players´ sound settings exactly the way I like it. After playing around with their settings, I compared the players again. And I´m very sorry but NW-A1200 still ranked last. It´s EQ just isn´t good enough. It doesn´t really adjust the sound. It stayd the same sound but with a bit more bass or treble or whatever you´ve set. It just disappointed me a bit. The Zen and the NW-S700. The NW-S700 has more possibilities to adjust the sound and the Zen has a stunning 97Db SNR. I´d mind you that I didn´t use NC on NW-S700. After a good 40 mins. of comparing I come to the conclusion that the NW-S700 wins. Allthough it lost the ´´Flat-out´´ test, you can twak and adjust the damn thing so much that you´ll get your sound eventually. The Zen has an EQ, but it´s not very effective in my opinion. Somehow the same story as NW-A1200´s EQ. It aslo features Bass-boost but it´s useless. It only Muffles the sound. keep off! Í´ve set the Zen Flat for this test, ´cause it just sounds best that way. The NW-S700 has a very clear bass and a good soundstage. It´s still not as crisp as the Zen though. The problem of the lack of vividness is NW-S700 can be solved by playing with the EQ for a while. just set the higher tones a bit up and you´ll get some vividness. - Final Conclusion: After some hours of testing and comparing, playing with settings and concentration I can say that NW-S700 wins. NW-S700 has a very nice bass, you can get it a bit more vivid and it´s a bit warmer sometimes. But please realise that I had almost chosen the Zen as winner! They come ver close to each other, because the Zen has a very bright, vivid and Clear sound. But NW-S700 has just a little edge with it´s clear-bass and VPT. Flat out it really lozes from the Zen so it´s not a victory NW-S700 can be proud of. Remember that the Zen sounds best when it´s flat. Son EQ off, and bass boost off, and smart volume off (it suppresses the sound somehow) I must say that (yes again) creative really surprised me. Some of you might know that I´m a big sony fan. Especially when it comes to Walkmans. I´ve had walkmans my whole life! But this little machine really got me numb. It has a very, very good soundquality. BUT remember. Soundquality is and will always be a subjective matter. So one could feel totally different. I just want to share my thoughts. It might be helpfull. I hope you guys find this a bit usefull. I don´t do reviews very often, so I hope it´s good enogh. greetz

damn Tiesto: That slick Sony MD (4th pic) and the Sharp MD are really beautifull!!! Can you tell me what models they are? And that ligo in the down-right corner of the sharp MD is that a Dolby logo? Or did I see it wrong? They´re really nice! especially that sony. Coolest and slickest MD I´ve ever seen!!! greetz

what OS do you use? windows 95,98, ME, 2000, NT, XP or vista? greetz

I don´t have this problem with mine (NW-S703FB EU) No paint is fading, no loose jack and no scratches. greetz

well, sony have revealed their new NW-A800 series DaP. If we add this to the latest NW-S700/600 realeases and look at this discussion, what do you guys think now? Is sony gonna make it this year or will they make the same mistakes as they always do? Honsetly, I´m loosing faith when I look at the spy pics of the NW-A800. I even caught myself buying a creative Zen vision:M, after trying out a samsung YP-K5. I notice I´m slowly looking at other brands and DAPs rather than Walkmans. There was a time when I, if I needed a new DAP, only and directly was going for Sony Walkmans. And I was never disappointed by the walkmans. But the NW-A1200 somehow made me open up my eyes and let me see that there is more out there. NW-A1200 is a great device. good SQ, great design, neath little features. But it just made me think, why no video? why no big colour screen? So I guess these good old times are fading away. I´ll stay with sony for soundquality for a long time, since NW-S703 is absolutely stunning! But even I want some newer and moderner features in my DAP now such as video and photo etc. We´ll see about the NW-A800. Maybe it looks very neath in real life and black. And maybe the feature pack is stunning. But as for now, I´d watch out setting my hopes for sony on NW-A800. what do you guys think? greetz, and good luck sony

well, unfortunately my dads´ camera is in use. So I have to wait ´till tomorrow to do a review. I´m a little bit short in time this evening, so sorry guys. I promise I´ll post the review/comparison tomorrow!!!! I can allready say that I´m gonna test the SQ with MP3 (LAME 3.98, 320Kbps 48.0Khz Stereo CBR) and WMA (have toc heck what settings). Off course I will also test it with WAV/PCM. All encoded directly from an original CD. I´ll do (as promised) a in-dept review/comparison to nw-a1200 on the zen tomorrow. I´ll (as requested) pay special attention to the sound. greetz and sorry for the delay

well, I LOVED the sound that HI-MD (MZ-NH900) used to give me, I thought I´d never experience that again. But I was wrong. indeed, this walkman beats everything I´ve ever heard, and I´ve heard many! It´s been a very long time ago that I was totally stunned by a DAP. Normally, I do have some criticisme to the sound. But this just made me speechless. So I hope The NW-A800 will have similar sound quality, ´cause it´s design is not helping at all! Also, the design Of NW-S700 is very stylish. black and chrome. I just love it. the sexiest DAP so far! If sony can release a DAP with big capacity, great video performance and better SW (drag n drop would be the best) with this kinda sound quality they will have a big hit! greetz

well, in that case I´ll go and get a better camera somewhere (probably from my dad) and give a quick review in ´´reviews and pictorials´´ this afternoon. I hope it´s not a problem that it´s not a sony or atrac device? If it is, you just warn me. Stay tuned for the review. greetz

well giki, you´re a fast replier! I´ve just sent you a PM. greetz

since navsimspon requested a review of my zen, or comparison between zen and nw-a1200, I could give a little review/comparison on the zen vision:M in ´´pictorials and reviews´´. But I´m just asking if any-one would like this and if it´s aloud, since it´s an atrac-related forum and teh zen doesn´t play atrac. just let me know and I´ll give a little review. greetz