NW-A3000 + Connect (now with pics) (part 2 at end)

[Tetsugaku-San]

(IMPORTANT go onto my second part of this review where I slam the player )

So here it is, the walkman I have been waiting for for over 4 years, a decent MP3 player, made by Sony. It appears I have not waited long enough but not for the reasons I expected.

But first a few pieces of back ground. I use my ‘personal audio’ whatever it may be, all the time. On the way to work, at work, at the gym. I average about 6 hours use a day and therefore my standards are high. I’m upgrading from a 3 year old Creative Zen 20Gb, upgradeing only because the battery life has slipped down to about 3 hours nowadays through use, and the HD clicks and sometimes the heads don’t make contact so I have to hit it . . . .

I bought a black NW-A3000 on Friday 25th Nov in the Sony Centre in Totenham Cort Road, London for £199.99. They can be found for cheaper but I just got paid, I just can’t wait for this sort of stuff.

First impressions.

The player is lovely; it’s smooth, silky, fast. You actually want to sit and stroke it when you first take it out of the box. And mantioning the box, it’s hardly a mahogany, varnished case but it does come with a nice presentation style case, good to see they have gone a little further for the presentation.

Sounds.

First listen was to a couple of tracks that were already on the player. Excellent quality sound, very very impressed on that score. I admit I never even took the supplied headphones out of the box, instead I plugged in my trusty MDR-EX71S and had a go with those. Decent bass, not too tinny on the highes and a good rich sound to this machine. Once I finally got some tracks on the player, I was a little less impressed with the MP3s that I ported over, now they were high quality, 320Kbs and ripped slowest most corrected rates I could. It might just be that the vollume level is just too low compared to the last player I had. There are some EQ thingies on the machine but I reckon they’re a waste of time and I never use em.

Menu + Screen.

I like the OLED screen here, I mean it’s not as good as a colour one really, but using a colour screen on something you look at for about 3 minutes a day seems like overkill to me. I have no urge to watch teeny tiny videos on a teeny tiny iSheep. The OLED isn’t as clear as people make out, it is perfectly readable however and has a great oldskool feel to it. The way the screen seems to meld into the case is also worth mentioning it’s not as good in real life as it is in pictures, but it does look very smart all the same.

With the menu system itself I was quite impressed but I’m still getting used to how things work. Put it this way I didn’t need to look at the manual  some good features include during playback you can click down on the D pad and choose to look either at the current album, current artist, current genre or related tracks (artist link thing). The menu is very fast and responsive, no lag between clicks or anything nasty like that.

Misc.

There’s a good weight to the NWA-3000, not too heavy and not too light. Just enough weight to make you think it’s well built. On the buld quality I cannot fault Sony, and as a quick test I managed to drop the bugger last night after visiting the pub, 1.5 metres, onto concrete no case. Ooops. Small scratch on the back, and the player works grand still  So that’s good.

Software.

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Dear. Really this is shocking. I won’t cover this too much as you all know how bad Connect is, but here’s the issues I had.

I installed Connect in about 10 minutes, including a five minute download to patch up to the latest version. I can only say the last one must have literally ripped your computer a new access port if the veriosn I am using is an improvement. Now My PC is not underspecced at all but it ground me to a hault. I’ve got an Athlon 64 3200 and 2Gb RAM, I was not expecting the software to be quite so resource intensive. The tinyhttp.exe that has been mentioned took up a staggering 430 Mb of system memory at one point.

When you start Connect for the very first time you have to import all your tracks into it’s own library. I have 7,500 MP3s and this took a rather impressive 40 minutes (FORTY BLEEDIN MINUTES!!!) to do. Once this has been done you have a standard ish library view of all your tracks and you can simply select or muti select folders/artists/albums etc. and drop them straight onto the players folder. Transfer of MP3s without converting them to atrac takes about 1 minute for a fat album, so nice and quick. You can tick some options to recode your files as Atrac files of whatever bitrate you like – but this currently crashes Connect and requires a reboot + it wipes the HD on the player. Not good, thumbs down Sony.

Oh and one more thing, actually launching Connect is incredible, it pops up a load screen and takes about 5 minutes to properly load. Sometimes even more.

I can only hope that the fabled patch we may get in th next few weeks solves these problems because at the moment it’s almost unusable, I can’t even make playlists it’s so slow.

So to sum up, this is a fantastic piece of kit, at a relatvely good price, let down only by the pathetically bad software that ships with it. Damn you Sony, your going to loose this war with Apple, all because your too pig headed to realise you’ll make more money from Hardware than selling music.

Pffff

Pics:

Click for large

Click for large

Click for large

Click for large

Click for large

Click for large

Click for large

Click for large

Click for large

Any questions or anything, please ask and I’ll answer if poss.

(this review cross posted to my blog)

Edited February 4, 2006 by Tetsugaku-San

[Ascariss]

Any chance you could post picture comparisons to other things, because the A1000 looks smaller in real life than oddly on paper.

[Tetsugaku-San]

Pics added by request

[Ascariss]

Appreciated very much, thanks for not resizing as well.

It's pretty damn small as well.

Edit, I personally recommend to use the EQ, will make the music sounds much better.

Edited November 27, 2005 by Ascariss

[Tetsugaku-San]

No problem (Pics taken with a Sony Ericsson K750 BTW)

The player *IS* very small, do bear in mid I have massive hands however, the best size comparison is the last one next to the can and mouse.

I did try the EQ settings, you can just scroll through the preset ones and it instantly applies them (Handy to check em out), they're really not up my street, I listen to so many diffeent types of music I'd be changing it all the time and I reckon with the sound quality of this player linked up with the good headphones I'm using, it's surplus to requirements. For me anyway I'm sure many people will use it

Oh a couple of things I forgot to add. I just broke out a brand new pair of MDR-EX71S that I had and the vollume problem is nowhere near as bad, weird cos the old pair were only a month old. Never mind, covered under guarentee and an extended warrranty

And the other thing I forgot to mention, possibly the coolest 'little touch' on the player - When it's plugged into USB to charge, or when you just leave it playing for a while, the screen goes blank but every now and then a funky anmation floats by There's things like fireworks, pretty patterns, exposions and they seem to happen totally at random, makes it look V V cool.

[Ascariss]

The EX71s are the best choice for the player, even though the stock buds, the MDR-E931s are not that bad, when compared to some other stock buds.

One question about the EQ, does it function with MP3s files as well, since the older HDDs only had it with atrac files.

Hmm, could the animations be like a screensaver? The comparison with the popcan is the best one, and does help in showing the size of the player.

Also more of a personal question, since I haven't owned any HDDs yet, how easy can you fast forward the songs? since I have plenty of house music sets that are hours upon hours, and I don't want to split them into ind files.

[EZero]

This is just so annoying. I was so sure that I was going to get an iPod rather than this player, but after reading yours and others' review, and seeing the screens, I'm having second thoughts. I mean, on one hand, I'm getting a better value with the iPod, but I'm still a Sony fan. This player also boasts more battery life, which I like. And it's even more gorgeous than the pics showed, and doesn't seem that large.

But then, 30GBs and a color screen.

Why couldn't this come with 30GBs, a color screen? I don't know which to pick.

[Beethovenian]

I know what you mean, EZero. I would immediately buy this one if it had a 40GB, or at least 30GB version (not that I'm buying an iPod instead; that won't happen unless they solve the gapless issue, which seems never). I also would prefer a colour screen, or at least a higher resolution one. Fonts are still very pixelated.

Tetsugaku-san, very nice review, thanks. Now a few questions:

- Is there any lag when accessing the menu or jumping to the next track? Kurisu here said there isn't, and Ascariss mentioned he thought it was instantaneous, but both the AVWatch and the MP3generation reviews mention a lag, as was the case with the previous Network Walkmans.

- What are the track details showed when you access that in the option menu? Is it just bitrate, format, or is there more from tags (like composer, album artist etc.).

- When you're in the current playing screen and select album title or artist, does it scroll the name, or it's only for browsing from those characteristics?

[Guest Stuge]

Hi Tetsugaku-San,

Good lay out....

Does it have Digital sound preset equaliser?As i went through pdf manual of a3000 i didn`t find digital one but i found 6 band eq......

[Tetsugaku-San]

Ascariss:

Yes the EQ function does work on MP3s or anything else you port across.

Fast Forwarding is easy enough, press and hold 'forward' and you get a much speeded up version of the song playing so you can hear where you have got to.

EZero:

Well you obviously have to make your own decision but I'd say this player is much better than an iPod, the battery life, the sound quality, the looks, + noone else has one, which has to be good eh

Beethovenian:

No lag worth mentioning when skipping tracks forward or backwards. If the VWatch & MP3generation reviews marked it down for this, they are being very very picky.

Track details, well on the standard screen that you see when a track is playing you already see Artist, Album, Genre, 6/12 to show where in an album or playlist you are, the star rating you have given the track (out of five)and how far along the track you are, both in a bar and using a 00:55 style. You can hit 'detailed info' to bring up total length, encoding type and bitrate.

If a track name is too long to fit, it does scroll yes.

Stuge:

Well it does have the EQ with 6 presets, but you can also add a few of your own and save them as custom EQ, is that what you mean?

[Guest Stuge]

Yes the EQ function does work on MP3s or anything else you port across

Nice to hear that now we can plays mp3 with eq settings working...

Well it does have the EQ with 6 presets, but you can also add a few of your own and save them as custom EQ, is that what you mean?

Like in Nw-HD3 & HD5 three different sounds functions which have been given with

1 A special feature which is given by sony IS V-SUR it create sounds of different atmosphere i.e arena,live,club etc...(THIS IS NICE FEATURE)

2.6 Band Equlizer which includes Jazz ,heavy,pop etc... & also two custom.

3. Digital Sound Preset Which Is far the best i think soo.(includes +3 TO -4 BASS & TREBLE).

This quote is from my review of HD3 .I`m taking about the first line (1) & 3rd line bold & italics

Like in manual i see only second feature only .I didn`t find desCRIPTION OF THE 1 & 3

Edited November 27, 2005 by Stuge

[Tetsugaku-San]

Nice to hear that now we can plays mp3 with eq settings working...

Like in Nw-HD3 & HD5 three different sounds functions which have been given with

This quote is from my review of HD3 .I`m taking about the first line (1) & 3rd line bold & italics

Like in manual i see only second feature only .I didn`t find desCRIPTION OF THE 1 & 3

←

Well the choices are:

None

Heavy

Pop

Jazz

Unique

Custom1

Custom2

With Custom1&2 you have access to a 6 band eq with a range of 7 settings for each band, from -3 to +3.

You *don't* get arena,live,club etc settings, but I think you could probably emulate exactly what you want with the 6band EQ.

EDIT: Something else I forgot, the Artists view (for example) is case sensitive so where I have System of A Down and System Of A Down (not the capitals,or lack of, on'of') it shows up as two seperate bands. That is a pain in the arse. grrr.

Edited November 27, 2005 by Tetsugaku-San

[Guest Stuge]

Thanks Tetsugaku-San for giving quick answers...

That means they haven`t given the digital sound preset & NO V-Sur which is really bad ,only 6 band eq & thats it ...

Something else I forgot, the Artists view (for example) is case sensitive so where I have System of A Down and System Of A Down (not the capitals,or lack of, on'of') it shows up as two seperate bands

I think they should not have made it case sensitive like password..so while adding ur artist name or album etc u need to be careful about caps lock on or off.Hope Sony will do about it in there next walkman

Thanx again,....

Edited November 27, 2005 by Stuge

[Beethovenian]

Thanks, Tetsugaku-San. Just to confirm then: Do the names of artist, album and genre scroll when you're on the now playing screen and use the up-down buttons to select them (to use them as starting points for browsing), in case they're too long to fit? I'm asking again because you mentioned only track title, and I'm not sure I had expressed myself correctly.

[Tetsugaku-San]

Thanks, Tetsugaku-San. Just to confirm then: Do the names of artist, album and genre scroll when you're on the now playing screen and use the up-down buttons to select them (to use them as starting points for browsing), in case they're too long to fit? I'm asking again because you mentioned only track title, and I'm not sure I had expressed myself correctly.

←

When you have the 'now playing' screen up, the track name automatically scrolls yes, and the album etc. do not scroll UNLESS you click up/down to select an item that's too long for the screen, THEN it scrolls. To be precise

To be honest the screen is very large, and each line is 15 (I think) characters long, so you generally don't even need the scroll, but it is there if required.

[Razorback]

Tetsugaku-San, thank you for the review..

And i think i have to buy a MDR-EX71S earbud.. But i am living in Turkey and it is not sold here....

Can you place saome screen shots while changing the key pad colors??

Edited November 27, 2005 by Razorback

[Skypilot617]

Ordering one almost as I type this!

One question:

I tend to move around a lot and use several different computers for ripping files (yes my own CDs, of course). With my HiMD this got me in trouble when wentto sell it to raise the funds for the MP3 player. I tried to back up the discs to a computer so that I could put them onto the A3000 when it arrives. SonicStage wouldn't let me because I'd used other computers to rip the tracks. I'll have to start again and rip all the CDs afresh - which should keep me busy over Christmas!

Is there any way round this nonsense?

[mercury_in_flames]

Tetsugaku-San, thank you for the review..

And i think i have to buy a MDR-EX71S earbud.. But i am living in Turkey and it is not sold here....

Can you place saome screen shots while changing the key pad colors??

←

you could always get them from audiocubes.

[Ascariss]

Tetsugaku-San thanks for the info on the mp3s, this is great news indeed since I doubt I will be transferring songs as atrac files with this player.

None

Heavy

Pop

Jazz

Unique

Custom1

Custom2

I have the exact thing on my MZ-N10 and only use the custom ones, and never use the V-Sur, since it doesn't sound very real and you can't use it with the EQ either, on the N10 at least.

[Beethovenian]

When you have the 'now playing' screen up, the track name automatically scrolls yes, and the album etc. do not scroll UNLESS you click up/down to select an item that's too long for the screen, THEN it scrolls. To be precise

To be honest the screen is very large, and each line is 15 (I think) characters long, so you generally don't even need the scroll, but it is there if required.

←

Thanks. This player's interface is looking more and more attractive. If they just had a higher capacity version... I also wonder why they add lots of tagging options in the Connect Player, like Album Artist, if they don't make use of them in the player. It was about time somebody did it. (Or Sony should at least have a browse by composer option, since gapless playback make it a good alternative for classical music fans.)

[Beethovenian]

One more question: Is there a limit number of characters for any title? I'm not sure the limit in the HD series (40 characters?), but I know at one point longer titles will be cut. Would you happen to have big titles that could test this? Of course, it will be a rare occurrence, but I just would like to know if the few very long-titled tracks I have would have to be edited prior to transfer.

[Guest Stuge]

Beethovenian,U can write long titles in short form..so why worry about it.....

[Beethovenian]

I have a few albums with very long track names (they're all classical music), and it's not easy to abbreviate them. So if length is not an issue, I'd prefer to leave them as they are. Also, I think there's no reason anymore to have low limit lenghts as before.

[Tetsugaku-San]

One more question: Is there a limit number of characters for any title?

Um, I don't know as I don't have any long files on there at the moment, I would say there's no reason for a limit however, if there is, it will probably be 255 characters which I think is the limit for a file name on a Windows system. Having said that, the ID tags on MP3s may follow a different rule I'm not certain.

If I get a chance I'll try making up an extra long tagged MP3 and try it out.

More News:

I figured out how to boost the vollume if you reckon it's a bit low. All I did was set the player to use custome 1 on the EQ, and set custom1 to have all 6 bands up to +3 - as if by magic the vollume 'sounds' as if it goes from 0-35 on vollume rather than 0-30

[Razorback]

wowwwww... congratulations Tetsugaku-San... any distortion on the sound with the highest vol??

[Tetsugaku-San]

Nope none There again I am using good 'phones so that must help (MDR-EX71 of course . .)

[Pooh]

"Is there a limit number of characters for any title?"

That's a question I'd also like the answer to. Yes, one could truncate them, but that option is way too much of a hassle if one has a large number of long titles, and I do.

[Ascariss]

So far I think the mp3 players and minidiscs by sony are limited by windows limits, so 255 is a good guess. I've yet to encouter any mp3 that has any longer name than 255, and trust me, I have long mp3 file names.

As for the EQ, I've never set all 6 on my md to +3, but I have done a range of high lows, mid mids, and high highs, and the sound coming out is perfect.

I am in short of time at this moment, but I am sure there are sites out there that explain the EQ and so forth.

[Pooh]

"So far I think the mp3 players and minidiscs by sony are limited by windows limits, so 255 is a good guess."

Another issue relates to length of album title names. As far as I understand these particular titles do not scroll and as very few characters fit on a Sony screen (on the iPod 5G, I think it's around 40 characters including spaces per screen) this will necessarily mean that in many cases one won't be able to see much of the album title, or, more significantly, in the case of a series, which particular one it in fact is.

[Tetsugaku-San]

The iSheep has smaller characters, that's the thing, the NW-A3000 has about 15 per line, they do scroll (see my previous posts in this thread).

However you can see the Sony's characters a lot easier, just because they are bigger. I suppose it is possible that there is a mode to change the font size, no idea how if you can though

[Pooh]

The iSheep has smaller characters, that's the thing, the NW-A3000 has about 15 per line, they do scroll (see my previous posts in this thread).

←

I did see that before, but I wasn't absolutely sure what you meant. I take it now that you were saying that the album and artist information will scroll, but the line has to be highlighted first.

By the way, have you heard any hiss at all on your player, Tetsugaku-San? I understand that hiss can be a problem with Sony players depending on the type of music and headphones.

[Beethovenian]

I was seeing pictures of the new iPod and it indeed handily beats the new Walkmans in terms of displaying track titles. Surprising, since the old iPods didn't display so many characters, and their screen wasn't so much smaller. I would actually prefer smaller fonts and more information to bigger fonts. Still, the iPod wastes screen when showing the Now Playing information. They should give you at least genre, and preferably composer as well, besides artist, album and track title.

My HD1 certainly doesn't go up to the Windows limit of 255 characters. It's much less than that.

[Tetsugaku-San]

By the way, have you heard any hiss at all on your player, Tetsugaku-San? I understand that hiss can be a problem with Sony players depending on the type of music and headphones.

←

No hiss that I can hear on any of the tracks I have used. As mentioned I am using the MDR-EX71S 'phones, but I should think most people here will be using aftermarket 'phones that are better than the mid range supplied ones.

On quality in general, it is *very* good, for all sorts of music. I listened to some Ultraviolence (Techno industrial) this morning and the bass sounded clean and succinct and the trebble wasn't tinny and annoying. As a better test I also listened to 'Bullet in a Bible', the live green day album and that also sounds fantastic (Live music being a pain to listen to because of crowd noises etc. normally)

[Pooh]

I was seeing pictures of the new iPod and it indeed handily beats the new Walkmans in terms of displaying track titles. Surprising, since the old iPods didn't display so many characters, and their screen wasn't so much smaller. I would actually prefer smaller fonts and more information to bigger fonts. Still, the iPod wastes screen when showing the Now Playing information. They should give you at least genre, and preferably composer as well, besides artist, album and track title.

My HD1 certainly doesn't go up to the Windows limit of 255 characters. It's much less than that.

←

I can see that you and I share the same problems re classical music and viewing tag information. I've given up trying to decide and have ordered the iPod 5G 60GB (together with a Vaja case and an Invisible Shield) and the 6GB Sony (because I like the look of it, and for its gapless playback).

[EZero]

EZero:

Well you obviously have to make your own decision but I'd say this player is much better than an iPod, the battery life, the sound quality, the looks, + noone else has one, which has to be good eh

←

While I do like the looks, and I like Sony, I think I'll pass on this one. If Sony ever manages to release a product that is on par with whatever Apple has, I'll get it. Until then, I'll just sadly be cheering for Sony on the sidelines holding an iPod.

[angschte]

Hi Tetsugaku-San!

I'm posting in this forum again, because my 2 questions haven't been answered yet...

Nice review of a beautiful Sony-player! I couldn't find anybody else with a black A3000, and I'm thinking of buying one for myself. Could you post a few more livepics? Perhaps the back of the unit and a picture where the buttons are lit? Is the display-color really blue, oder more green? Is it possible to change the colour?

What colour does the backlight of the buttons have, or asked in another way: when are they orange and when white? Do they just change on purpose?

Thanks in advance and sorry for my poor English!

[Ascariss]

Willkommen angschte.

I should be able to answer your quesions, since the A1000 has the same aspects, just smaller drive, less battery life and smaller in size.

The colour of the butons can't be changed as far as I know, they are whitish in colour and when you press the artist link they turn to an orange colour, and then fade back to white.

The OLED colour seems to be connected to the colour of the unit I believe, where the silver model has all white text, menus and etc, the purple one has violet coloured, green for the greenish unit and so on.

[angschte]

Hello Ascariss

Thx for your fast answer... I see, the colour of the buttons change only if you press the Artist-Link-key.

I had to chance to play with the NW-A3000 in silver a few days ago, and the display seemed to me more light-green/blue than white - that's the reason why I asked.

The colour was as it is in this picture:

So I wonder what the colour of the black A3000's display is in real-life?

Greetings from (snowy) Switzerland

Fabian

[Ascariss]

Interesting, could it be different in europe? Maybe it is only the smaller A1000 that are white?

I am looking at my A1000 now and the colour of the letters and screen is white.

Then my guess is that the larger A3000 units have the blueish colour? Not sure, I will look into this as well once my A3000 arrives.

[Ascariss]

angschte to answer your question, yes the larger A3000 has a different colour on the screen versus the smaller A1000. It is more of a greenish tint. But the buttons still have a white colour to them on the silver A3000.