D-NE20 Review

[Damage]

In a post far far away, I promised to post a review of each generation's top of the line ATRAC CD player. I'll eventually have to get to it, so I'll start with the D-NE20, the current top of the line ATRAC CD player. Information on each unit can be found in the CD Player section, so I'll leave it to the reader to dig that info up, it's very hard to miss.

D-NE20 is the current top of the line ATRAC CD player. So by Sony's standard, it has to have the following to qualify as such: Full Metal Construction, smallest form factor, heaps of accessories, unique problems that doesn't plague other players of the same generation or such.

Whattya mean unique problems? We'll get to that in a moment.

The player comes with the following accessories: Dock, 1x 1200mah Gumstick, 3V AC Adaptor, RM-MC53 Remote, 1x AA battery pack, cloth carrying case, Earbuds (909SP earbuds, iirc).

This player builds upon the improvements found in D-NE900, what is probably agreed by most as one of the best PCDP offering by Sony since D-EJ2000, a high compliment. It uses the same "UFO" design, that it tapers off at the bottom and is no bigger than a CD Diameter wise, and no thicker than 1.5 - 2 jewel cases. In fact, Sony touts the D-NE20 as the world's lightest and thinnest full-sized CD Player. And it feels incredibly small in your hands, especially compared to other, cheaper, PCDPs. Make no mistake, most of your money's going to the size of the CD Player, or its lack of.

Only the "silver" color is available in the US, and it's more reminiscient of iPod white than Silver (as was the D-NE900's iPod mini Silver color Silver). But it's the "anodized" aluminium white, not pure white. As such, the CD player itself doesn't pick up any scratches that shows. It's a rather beautiful player to behold, especially sitting in its matching dock.

Now, the second thing that comes to the mind after "gee whiz it's beautiful" is how do you control these thing? Thankfully, a set of control buttons are located on the bottom of the player (!). With all 8 buttons, you can control the volume, stop, pause/play, skip your groups forward and backward, and tracks forward and backward. However, these controls lack any way to alter the SQ or do advanced searching. That requires the brand spanking new RM-MC53.

With the remote, you can search through the disc and find individual tracks, apply your favorite parametric EQ settings, make remote do fancy animation, and control your disc's playback amongst other thing. First new button you're bound to notice is the Search Button. And it stinks. You have to use the volume jog and the group jog wheel to control the search function. Counter-intuitutive isn't the word to describe it, it's nigh unusable. Even with fumbling with it for months on end, I've still not gotten the search down pat. The RM-MC40ELK's remote was a joy, this is torture in un-named prison camp in that forgotten country best left unspoken.

It stinks.

Talk about another thing that stinks: Media compatibility. If it pukes on a Japanese made CD-Rs, I'd hate to think what it would do with cheaper media made elsewhere. Oddly, it seems to hit the first few and last few tracks (seemingly), especially on MP3 and ATRAC CDs. It pukes on good media burned at 12x, 16x, 24x, so I hate to see what it does with generic media made elsewhere to save on labor costs...

Update: Running the disc with low bitrate files (64kbps) has no adverse affect on the playback. That is, it doesn't stop unexpectedly in the middle and respins the disc. This has a hallmark of a bad firmware bug and should've been caught in the QA process, considering it is next to impossible to upgrade the firmware with D-NE series. Huzzah!

Having said that, the main thing that counts is the sound quality, isn't it? And it lives up to the D-NE900 and D-NE1 quite well.

The redbook playback is pretty good, with strong and fast vocals. The instrumentation plays the supporting role. Not to say that the trebles or bass lines get lost in the playback, not at all. In fact, with Clearbass turned to 3 (and with proper headphones), the bass get nice and deep without the obvious distortion that Digital Megabass adds. However, you're listening to the singer and the instrumentation rounds out the entire presentation into a singular experience. The Redbook playback just emphasizes that experience here-the singer/vocalist is the main attraction and the band is... supporting cast.

The parametric equalizer, once you get used to the remote's quirks, can help you round out your listening experience. That I consider gravy on what is a pretty good experience. But who really listens to CD these days right? After all, who listens to Vinyl?

So, here comes a bit of a contentious part, the MP3 and ATRAC playback. As you may or may not be aware, RH line of HiMD players seemingly "handicapped" MP3 playback by a bug where the higher frequencies of MP3s are clipped. Is this the case with D-NE20? No. At least, not to my experience. However, you're going to get angry here, as the unit is very finicky about media and formats...

So, if you can find good media that the D-NE20 likes, and plays without major problems, you'll generally like the sound quality of the D-NE20. It's certainly better than RH910's default MP3 playback, though I'd say it won't compare to redbook nor other mp3 player's playback. For instance, those of you who likes the bright sounds of iPod's playback will notice that it isn't bright as iPod. Not to say that it isn't "detailed." Two different things. Brightness to me is that subtle harshness in the extreme high ends. Think cymbols and that ssshhhhh sound. iPods have more of a metallic ring to it whereas it's more softer and rounder on D-NE20. Oh, yes. More bass on the D-NE20. It's that traditional Sony sound that you're used to by now. Nothing fantastic, but nothing dramatically wrong either.

As for ATRAC3plus playback? I'll say its par with other ATRAC products that has the Digital AMP. If memory serves, the non-digital AMPed units have bit more bass oomph at the expense of bit of background noise. And both of these units can't hold a candle to the HD Digital Amp flavored NH1. It's what you'd expect from ATRAC products, so I won't go to that much detail here. However, the SQ on the D-NE20 can be improved with the Parametric EQ, I think, better than the standard 6-band EQ. And, again, ClearBass goes a long way in adding that extra oomph in bass. Oddly (or expectedly?) the choice of media fares better here vs. MP3s.

Overall, the D-NE20 is the most advanced PCDP devised by Sony thus far. However, the unit is hampered by crappy UI with the poorly designed remote. If you have a 2nd generation ATRAC CD unit, you should probably do well to stay away from them.

Good: Digital Amp, ClearBass, Redbook Sound Quality

Bad: Finicky about MP3 and Media

Ugly: RM-MC55 and its useless Search. Showstopping Firmware Bug (see below).

Score: 50 (F)

Update: I'm running the disc with some of the low-bitrate files that I burned several eons ago. Surpringly, the disc doesn't puke as it would with high-bitrate file. I'd chalk that up as a firmware bug and a bit of a showstopper one at that. I've readjusted score to reflect the bug...

[mercury_in_flames]

Cool review. What are the 'start-up' speeds like? A friend of mine had the D-NE511, which i thought sounded a joke and was a snail when it came to actually getting started. I am of course comparing their speed to minidisc start up speeds, redbook cd players and my hd5.

[Guest Stuge]

Really a nice review

Ugly: RM-MC55 and its useless Search

I agree with u that remote that is supplied is very very ugly when compared to the remote of D-Ne900.

[pata2001]

Hmm, I find my D-NE20 to have much better media compatibility than my old D-NE9. So far, I don't have much media reading problem. The only thing is, at certain points, the unit seems to choke in trying to fill up its buffer, resulting a quite lengthy "skip/pause" as the unit spins up and read the CD. This doesn't happen all the time though. Weird.

Yes, the "search" feature is useless when combined with a 1 line only display of the 53EL. Too bad that the navi function on the 40ELK doesn't work either.

[Damage]

To answer couple of questions:

1. About 20-30 seconds for initial boot. It's the same for all Sony MP3 CD units upto the D-NE20, so I didn't write it up.

2. Regarding the Media problems... Yep, Pata2001 has it right on the nose. It struggles to keep up at certain points, stops and restarts, with very loud noises during this process. Something was added between the 2nd gen and the 3rd gen, and it only seemingly affects MP3 CDs only. Which is strange.

I was wrong, it chokes on ATRAC CD as well...

I think, the way to improve the D-NE20 is to do the following:

Add MC-40ELK remote compatibility, or redesign the nav into something functional.

Add HD Digital AMP.

Use the LiIon Removable Battery for even smaller PCDP.

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

Funny thing the media compatibility..

In compressed audio mode (ATRAC/MP3) :-

Now i dont use a lot of CD-R's in mine, only stuff on a final burn (aka burnt disc-at-once) so it never had to handle multi-session stuff i made up - seems to work well ok and cleanly with the cheap white-back bulk pack stuff got from Maplin UK (my main source of disposable cheapies). The discs in question are 52x rated, but my 40x and 16x burnt examples (burnt using DAO-96 mode in Nero).

CD-RW's, now we talk a diff story.

One trait it seems to share with the D-NE1, is a slight intolerence of decent grade hi-speed RW's.

Maybe i am unlucky, or maybe the images burnt were a little iffy (will retest tonight), but the D-NE1 & 20 loves my old crappy Valuepoint 74min 2x's (which will burn to 4x) and they are seriously battered (only used really as tolerence test discs, due to a much poor condition now).

Likewise, the first gen D-NE1 and the D-NE20 also gets on very well with 4x rated (and burnt at) Maxell 74min CD-RW's. If the disc aint got really noticable gouges on the underside, the deck will play even scratched examples ok (as long as the data is intact i mean).

It's a little bit like a nervous kitten over Memorex medium speed 80m examples (4-16x rated range stuff), it can sometimes take one or two loads before it recognises and indexes one, but that said those discs were burnt with an LG 16x DVD-Rewriter which i am not fond of (has produced some questionable condition CD-R's and DVD-RW results), will reproduce this with my old Liteon DVD and CD writers and edit/amend appropriately.

Using stuff burnt on that same LG unit, the resulting hi-speed (16-24x rated range stuff) discs have been very much hit and miss. Actually, this is a dissapointment, as i bought the hi-speed stuff specially for the quick makeup of ATRAC CD's on CD-RW (i clone the results to CD-R outside of SonicStage, I simply dont trust SS with CD-R's).

As for audio cd use..

Loves the hybrid Sony BMG stuff i have (including the SA-CD hybrid of War of The Worlds, the recent remastered one) and the EMI Gold Classic Rock comp set i picked up (copy controlled stuff), also handled my very old and borderline dodgy condition home-burns (stuff i use as working copies, on cheap media, that are analogue restorations).

We aint talking Sony home CD deck bombproof as far as damaged discs go (their late 80's decks, were like the dogs wotsists for tolerence with scratched media), but way above the grade of tolerence of many decks in the portable field.. and almost as bombproof as my old iMP-250 (that was to iRiver what Sony of old was to indoor decks).

That all said and done, and bear in mind i will amend this as i am writing from memory mostly at the moment, i would go with what has been said over audio (using Speedlink Medusa analogue 5.1 phones with 2 channel adaptor for indoor use, MDR-V300's for outdoor use, and sometimes the Senheisser EH2200's when they aint used elsewhere). The cat wont use 'earphones', so got no idea how it sounds on the lil beasties.

Totally agree with the comments re the remote, was it supposed to be a integrated dexterity tester as well, coz damn well feels like it, so i simply whack it one shuffle all.

[pata2001]

I was wrong, it chokes on ATRAC CD as well...

←

Second that.

[Damage]

Second that.

←

I'm going to restate that it chokes on any high bitrate files. I think it's a firmware bug, something that should've been caught.

I've readjusted my score to reflect this, and get a big stinking F for it. Shame.

[adam917]

Wow. What a disgrace for their 20th-anniversary model. I can't believe all them problems occurred. I was wondering if Sony's ever going to give up the 'tube' one-line remotes in favour of something more like what iRiver offered (four line 'flat' remotes with sturdy clip). It seems like you realy _do_ need a screen on the Sony units to make full use of them, as one line can't cut it when you got menus, indicators, options, submenus, directories on the CDs, etc. What a shame.

I once saw a different remote in a Japanese Sony catalogue being used with their new MD products that looks not too different from later iRiver remotes (multi-line screen, 'flat', etc.). Anyone have any clue on whether they finally decided to make a significant switch in their remote design?

[adam917]

I'm going to restate that it chokes on any high bitrate files. I think it's a firmware bug, something that should've been caught.

I've readjusted my score to reflect this, and get a big stinking F for it. Shame.

Did you try to speak to Sony about these issues? iRiver gave in after me pressuring them daily for a year with my unit being in their repair centre on a very big firmware problem on their iMP-900. I wonder what Sony would do should someone do the same to them for a year about some issue like this...

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

Well, i can't say i've hit an instance yet where high BR encoded MP3's has caused any kinda grief.

Admittedly, my few thousand mp3's are FHG/CT encoder generated (aka they were encoded by the late encoder variant that is used for MP3PRO and MP3 and CBR/VBR capable), and as for Lame and Xing and Blade generated stuff.. never tried with those.

MP3PRO (played as legacy) Q100 VBR's (basically playing back as 32-320K spread VBR encodings but the SBR data is ignored in legacy playback - high quality setting) have played back fine here for me on both the D-NE models i prev mentioned have used/owned...

*makes mental note to dig out the NE20 as it kinda fell into disuse after getting an Hi-MD unit*

Likewise CT/FHG encoder generated Q100 VBR's ( equiv to a 32-320K spread VBR encoding setting with 'high' setting to process intensity) panned out nicely and decoded nicely - no sign of any 'choking' on files the decks couldn't handle.

In fact, it's only ever been dodgy media related issues (easy to solve) and the prev mentioned 'nervous kitten' tolerence of ultra-speed RW's that were shadows on what i found to be a sunshine bright series of multi-codec decks.

[grenert]

Just got a D-NE20 myself. I was about to throw it against a wall in frustration because of what I thought was media incompatibility: Brand new, Taiyo Yuden discs would not work or would take long times to read. As it turns out, the super-thin design leaves VERY little room between the disc and the lid. I happened to notice that one of the small, black felt pads on the underside of the lid was somewhat flattened compated with the other pads. I suspected it may have been brushing against the CDs as they spin. It's just stuck on with some weak adhesive, so I pulled it off. Since then, no problems! Perhaps the rest of you might have a similar defect. So far, I haven't heard any scraping sounds from the player, so I haven't noticed any adverse consequences of removing the pad (several other pads still remain anyway).

I was actually able to test for the problem by leaving the lid open and using a small screwdriver to push in a sensor on the side of the player that goes down when the lid is shut. This fools the player into player into playing the disc even with the lid open. Before I removed the pad, playing the same disc with the lid open worked, but once I closed the lid, the disc wouldn't be read properly. At that point, I knew the problem was related somehow to the lid.

I really like the sound of the player! It sounds like my MZ-NH900 HiMD Minidisc recorder, which also has a digital amplifier. No incompatibilities so far with any of my LAME VBR-encoded MP3s, or my ATRAC CDs.