Do you prefer Connect Player or Sonicstage?

[Christopher]

Instead of the usual news story, we here at ATRACLife are interested in understanding how the community feels about Sony's new software. This is a poll for our forum users to answer, simply asking the principal question of which Sony music management software they prefer. If this topic is a success, we will introduce a more specific poll with more specific questions. Connect Player has reached a somewhat stable point, so it's fair to compare it to Sonicstage at this time.

We would also appreciate specific reasonings behind your answer as a reply to this topic. Any posts that are hostile in nature will be removed, as the intent of this topic is not to foster such emotions. If we feel that your words are sound enough, we will forward them to Sony's software development accordingly. ATRACLife has become a very promiment voice in the world of Sony portable music players, so we can make a difference with our words as long as its organized.

For those of you who are reading our portal, please click here to vote/reply.

[Guest Stuge]

No other Choice But Sonic Stage .I have only HDD model(HD3,HD5) .A-series is still to be marketed in India .....so without A-series "Connect is of no use to me .......

[Darth_fool]

At the moment i'd have to say sonicstage - connect player is still too slow to be really usable for anything other than actually shuffling files of the computer and onto the player.

That aside i prefer the look and layout of connect player.

One thing both are missing is a quick way to update the tags on multiple files in one go.

[Tetsugaku-San]

Not enough poll options I use Connect because I've only ever had the NW-A3000 and I'm hoping Connect will get properly patched, too many pieces of software doing the same thing leads to instabilities.

[xispe]

GYM to the pool options! bahhaha

[willykyu]

Connect player is the worst application ever used, lack of option, slow to death, bugs a go go, you can(t even use it as your default player, IMPOSSIBLE, it freezes for minutes before controlling anything. And of course no compatibility with "older" devices (PSP included..)

Sonicstage has improved pretty well, it's fast, easy to use, easy to play (CD covers, really cool), easy to transfer. It's big lacks are: no unicode (which is sooooo important), no sync, no smooth transitions. If only Sony took Sonicstage, put all the connect player features, and add these important options (unicode first), and rename it Connect player if they wanted, I think it would be cool.

Of course, if SONY created a really cool store as Itunes music stores, with sveral bitrate contents, large collection of music, without country limitation, video contents for your psp (films, tv series, short, clips etc. with original version and subtitles oprions), and of course podcasts and video casts... well we'll be close to perfection...

Looooooooooooooong way to go, but is it SO difficult to do??? Apple does it some way!

[Dinko]

I really prefer Sonic Stage over CONNECT.

SonicStage 3.3, while still not optimal in terms of speed, offers everything I would want from a music management software.

It is clearly laid out. Menus are logically developed.

The different menu screens are based on the same template. Such that the CD-to-Library Screen is similar to the Library-to-Playlist screen and similar to the Library-to-Device or Library-to-CD screen. In Connect, some of these are different. The buttons move all over the place, depending on which function/screen is displayed.

CDDB connection is good to have, but often the CDDB track titles will not correspond to the track titles the user may want to have. Editing the ID tags in CONNECT is a long and painful process.

SonicStage is much easier to use in this respect. Once the tracks have been imported to the library, one can select many tracks and use right-click on the mouse to edit properties. During import, basic information can be easily edited by using the Artist, Album, and Genre fields at the top of the SonicStage import screen to edit those fields for the whole CD, and alternatively editing each track artist individually is simplified by clicking on the track and either hitting the F2 key, or a second mouse click. Moving between tracks to edit them one after the other is easy in SonicStage: arrow keys or tab key. These functions are disabled in CONNECT.

The abundance of purple and grey in Connect creates a monochrome view. The Sonic Stage colour scheme is significantly easier to follow.

Importation of tracks in SonicStage is easier to follow as a progress bar is clearly displayed.

Connect does have some advantages. Top left part, where all drives and devices are shown, as opposed to using the SonicStage pull-down menu.

The CONNECT folder/tree-like database is much better than the double click required in SonicStage. In CONNECT, the library organization is clearer: Choose to display the library by artist. Under each artist there are albums, and under each album there are tracks. Connect does not change screens like SonicStage. Rather, Connect simply opens the subfolders and shows their contents = faster & clearer.

Import of tracks to the library, does not disable other Connect functions. In Sonic Stage, while the software is importing tracks from other folders into the SonicStage library, no other functions are possible. In Connect, one can simultaneously import tracks from other folders, and still perform other tasks (editing existing tracks, creating playlists, etc).

[Ascariss]

Well no surprise here but I prefer Connect Player. It runs about the same as SonictStage for me, and has now stopped crashing.

Importing files is a breeze and I like the way you can organize them via artists, albums, genres and etc. Never really tried that in sonicstage since my MD didn't have a huge capacity so I had no need to import all my songs into SS. But now with the A1000, I do and CP does a fine job of importing the songs and keeping them organized.

The design of the program is less complicated and more windows like, which I prefer, SS seems to afterthought in some of its functions.

[mgillespie]

Cannot use either. Curently my A3000 is a pretty brick.

Sonicstage misses out required functionality

Connect is virtually useless, it crashes all the time, very slow, and unintuitive.

[Beethovenian]

I don't have an A-series Walkman, but have already tried Connect Player quite a lot, and would prefer SonicStage even if Connect was not so buggy and slow. Dinko summarised everything very well. Editing track info is painfully laborious in Connect, since there are no batch editing methods. I'll add to what Dinko mentioned the lack of a next button when you're in the track properties window. That means if you're editing a particular information (say, song artist) and want to move on to the next track, you have to close the window, select the next track, right click, select properties and go to the tag you want. A big step backwards compared to what you have in SonicStage. Also, there's no easy way to add album art. In SonicStage, you can just drag the image file and drop it on the album icon, and it will be applied to all tracks. In Connect, you can drag the image to the box for album covers, but it just stays there while you have that album selected, it doesn't apply it to tracks. You have to go individually and do it one by one. SonicStage also displays cover art for some albums while you're importing them. It doesn't automatically add it to the album, which would be the ideal, but at least links you to Amazon where you can grap the image. Connect doesn't do that. Plus, Connect always displays the CDDB window when you insert a CD, instead of simply applying the info to the respective fields, as SonicStage does (unless there are too many options for one album). That's kind of annoying, especially considering you can see lots of info in that window that simply are not imported to the tags, meaning you need to go and edit them in case you want to have the info.

And I forgot to add: Connect needs to have gapless playback, otherwise it can't be a primary music player on the PC.

Edited December 7, 2005 by Beethovenian

[LeeMcC]

i have just got myself a mw-a3000 and i installed connect player it took about 30 min's to load then 4 hours to upload my music only to fail and currupt.

i went to the sony website and got sonic stage and uploaded my music in about 2 hours.

only downfall being i cant use all the features on the unit.

[sxc_]

In theory Connect player would be better, but only if it allowed my HD5 to be connected.

However, if SonicStage sprouted a "Now Playing" area where you could quickly queue up some songs to play, like Win Media Player, then it would have almost everything I want.

On the other hand, why doesn't Sony just make their players compatible with Win Media Player? I think the ease of use of WMP and the name of Sony might just give it some momentum against Apple. And it would save Sony a heap of money in software development costs.

[shirleywhite_]

I think Sonic Stage "3.3" says it all!!! Whilst not perfect - it's been through quite a number of iterations and (imho) is pretty good now! Connect 3.3 (!) might not be so bad!! LOL

[without_me]

Can you have one song in more than one playlists in connect and only a single copy of the song in the player , sonic stage sucked because if i wanted to have one song (5MB) in 5 playlists I actually had the same song copied over 5 times (25MB) in my player

[KJ_Palmer]

By the sounds of it Connect is pretty poor (but the updates already seem to be showing signs of improvement), so I'm sticking with Sonicstage (3.3) for the moment, which seems pretty decent.

[Pooh]

Cannot use either.  Curently my A3000 is a pretty brick.

Sonicstage misses out required functionality

Connect is virtually useless, it crashes all the time, very slow, and unintuitive.

←

While my NW-A1000 is not a brick, I'm beyond disappointed with the player for all kinds of reasons and will probably be returning it (the gapless facility in no way makes up for all the problems and deficits, not in my opinion anyhow). A few days ago I also picked up a 60GB 5G iPod and despite one or two niggles (it does scratch very, very easily - you must put a case and/or skin on immediately), it really is the cat's pyjamas. There's a lot of stuff I miss from my 2 Rio Karmas (both gone t**'s up with hard-drive issues), but the iPod's ease-of-use, great support, zillion-and-one accessories, good looks (to my eye, in any event), excellent forums, Redchair's Anapod, sound quality (all the audio problems of the 4G appear to have been cleared up) more than make up for this.

If Sony want to catch up with Apple, they're going to have to start listening to their customers and giving them the respect which is not only their due but also essential if they want to recapture their lost market share.

In the likely event I do return the Sony, I'll probably replace it with a 4GB Nano (I do prefer the Sony's looks).

Sony ain't what it used to be.

[Dinko]

In the likely event I do return the Sony, I'll probably replace it with a 4GB Nano (I do prefer the Sony's looks).

Funny... that's exactly what I ended up doing. And while the Nano has disadvantages relative to the Sony, I won't be returning it like I did with the A1000.

[harryg]

Bought the Nano for my son's Xmas, big mistake......not as well built and now both my son and my daughter inform me they want Sony A1000 with 6 GB. Bought one for daughter, but son will have to take the domino sorry nano.

This is first Apple IPod product I have bought......found it OVERPRICED, OVERRATED AND UNDER ENGINEERED.

Connect will be better, only needs a few tweaks, I have loaded 17GB into my A3000 with no problems. Don't recall any software being perfect on first release....this is nature of the beast.

[EZero]

Connect. If only it wasn't as bad as it is now. If it was as intuitive or fast as iTunes, it would be great.

Sony's not going to touch Apple if they can't get their act together. Look at what Apple is offering, and beat it. Simple. Even Creative can do it, why can't the founder of portable music players?

[Joe Hendrix]

Since I'm an NW-3 owner, I've never even bothered with Connect, since I've heard that Connect is useless unless you have a brand new player.

Why didn't they build in backward compatibility with their software?

Sure wish SonicStage had a bigger window for the NW-3. You can't really do true maintenance on the unit, especially with such a small window.

And... as someone else pointed out, you can't create true playlists. If you want a song in more than one playlist, you have to make another copy of the same song. What a waste.

[Pooh]

Bought the Nano for my son's Xmas, big mistake......not as well built and now both my son and my daughter inform me they want Sony A1000 with 6 GB. Bought one for daughter, but son will have to take the domino sorry nano.

This is first Apple IPod product I have bought......found it OVERPRICED, OVERRATED AND UNDER ENGINEERED.

Connect will be better, only needs a few tweaks, I have loaded 17GB into my A3000 with no problems. Don't recall any software being perfect on first release....this is nature of the beast.

←

Overpriced? Given that the Nano contains flash memory, it's actually insanely cheap. Just for example, iRiver and iAudio are introducing 2GB flash players at a retail price of just under £200.

Overrated? In what particular way?

Under engineered? (sic) In what particular way?

Connect needs a lot more than a few tweaks. It's quite the craziest software I've ever encountered. I cannot believe that a major corporation like Sony released it without testing it properly first. And if it takes as long as SonicStage to fix, the job will never be done. I find it most appropriate that you talk about the "nature of the beast" for no piece of software was more entitled to the moniker "beast" than Connect. Sony should be ashamed of themselves.

On top of that, you have all sorts of idiosyncratic Sony madness. All this business about 5 playlists with a maximum of 100 tracks each and no ability to add more than one track at a time is something out of the DAP dark ages. And then we have no proper bookmarks. And then there's no clock or wake-up feature. And then there's... and on and on and on.

[Pooh]

Sony's not going to touch Apple if they can't get their act together. Look at what Apple is offering, and beat it. Simple. Even Creative can do it, why can't the founder of portable music players?

←

I agree. It's symptomatic of the malaise and chaos which has affected the whole Sony empire. If they don't buck their ideas up very soon, it's an empire that's going to be broken up and sold off in chunks.

[Christopher]

Keep it civil, guys. Remember the intent of the topic and what we're trying to accomplish here.

[Ascariss]

The difference is quite large, not a real surprise, but nonetheless, still nice to see some stats for preference.

One thing that puzzles me is why sony left out folders from CP, I didn't use them on my MD, but now with almost 20 gigs at my disposal, folders would come in handy for albums and different genres. Until sony adds this, I don't think any of the older players and MD models will be supported.

I would have thought sony learned a thing or two from SS, but not enough SS ease of use, stability and speed went into CP. Does sony even beta test software?

[Beethovenian]

You can actually create folders with Connect. It's just a matter of designating how you want your files to be saved when copied from CDs. I suppose this doesn't work for imported files, though.

I agree with most people about Connect Player being something Sony should be ashamed of. And that Sony needs to start doing more than just trying to catch up. I just don't understand why they don't unify their efforts and make products that interact one with the other. It's ridiculous that Connect Player doesn't work with the PSP or with the Sony Ericsson Walkmans, not to mention, obviously, previous Walkmans. It's absurd that Atrac is not compatible with all Sony products across the board. Sony could perfectly make Connect Store the place for PSP users to get video downloads, for instance. Those videos could then be compatible with a future video Walkman, which for its turn could have a UMD-player add-on, for instance, and so on.

But I don't see all the intuitiveness and easy of use of the iTunes/iPod combination everybody keeps talking about. Maybe it's just me, the fact I'm album-oriented. I agree it's much better than Connect (it works, for starters) and SonicStage (just because it's more stable and faster). But I don't think the iTunes interface is such a wonderful thing. Indeed, I plainly dislike its basic organization structure. And the iPod could perfectly have already incorporated alphabetical browsing, besides giving you more information in the Now Playing screen (such a waste of space).

[Ascariss]

Beethovenian that is not what I meant, I meant creating folders on the new units themselves, the A1000 and the A3000. I've already ripped a few cds using connect and set up the folders and so on, but I wanted to transfer tracks onto the players into folders and not just all over the place.

[Beethovenian]

Oh, OK, sorry, didn't understand that. But I actually prefer organizing by ID tag instead of folders. It works the same way if you figure out the more appropriate way of tagging according to your habits. I'd recommend you to use a tag editing program like Tag & Rename (Connect is way too cumbersome) and make your Genres, Artists and Albums information follow the folder structure you'd like. I suppose one of the problems is that, despite the fact that Connect organizes by Album Artist, the player uses Song Artist, so you'll have the same album showing as multiple entries. Other than waiting for Sony to also adopt Album Artist (which will probably take an eternity), what you can do is rename your tracks with title and artist, and put Various or something like that for the artist field.

[Pooh]

But I don't see all the intuitiveness and easy of use of the iTunes/iPod combination everybody keeps talking about. Maybe it's just me, the fact I'm album-oriented. I agree it's much better than Connect (it works, for starters) and SonicStage (just because it's more stable and faster). But I don't think the iTunes interface is such a wonderful thing. Indeed, I plainly dislike its basic organization structure. And the iPod could perfectly have already incorporated alphabetical browsing, besides giving you more information in the Now Playing screen (such a waste of space).

←

I more or less agree about iTunes which is why I now use Anapod Explorer, a great piece of software that has been produced by Redchair.

Lookit, all players have their problems. The Rio Karma, imho, was easily the most brilliant player in terms of usability and audio features ever produced. The problem is that the hardware sucked and the hard-drives were very prone to failure. This in a way I can understand because D&M were stuck with the original design for the player when they bought the company. They were too small a company to develop a new design, but not so small that they didn't produce the most brilliant firmware. The easy scratchability of the iPod is real and its very bad. In my opinion, it's symptomatic of the arrogance of the man at the top, a character trait which nearly destroyed the company once before. The Archos AV 560 (A 60GB version of the AV 500) is the most beautiful player with a fantastic screen and an excellent price (£299), at least in the UK. It does have a number of minor firmware glitches though that may or may not ever be fixed given Archos' track record in this area. In all these cases though the problems are either to some degree understandable and/or don't fundamentally destroy one's enjoyment of the player. This is not true of the players produced by Sony. This is a gigantic company with a long and proud history and the most enormous human and financial resources. Yet, despite all that the firmware features are highly idiosyncratic and dated and Connect is at best extremely difficult and very time-consuming to operate. Yes, the players themselves are beautiful, but what use is beauty in these circumstances? What is truly unforgiveable is that Sony would have such contempt for their customers that they would release the Connect player while it is obviously in an early stage of development.

Coming on top of the fiasco of the computer viruses, it's obvious that there needs to be a fundamental reassessment of the company's direction. Before that is undertaken, a lot of people at Sony need to be fired as soon as possible, starting with the man at the top.

[willykyu]

Absolutely Pooh! I agree with you about SONY, wich I like very much, but they screwed it up with CONNECT Player. I was thinking yesterday, if Sir Howard Stinger had an A series in his pocket to listen to his favourite tunes, or maybe does he have an Ipod instead. I couldn't beleive one second that SONY's head, who I think is a more than normal conumer, cannot get pissed off 3 sec later after using C.P. ! He's not the "technical"kind of guy as I read somewhere, and if I were him, I 'd fired right away the guys who made this! so the only thing I have in mind is, Stinger has no walkman, don't use them at all, or has an Ipod,...or something else than a sony one! OR, his secretary puts music into his devices for him (poor girl! -or man!)!!!!!

I ripped some jap cds yesterday through Sonicstage 3.3 (it had been a long time I didn't use it) and I thought it was really nice to use! of course, the unicode issue is the BIG problem, but, this appart, it's kind of cool. What I do is, I ripp cd's with SS, take the cd infos through Vaio Zone / Do Vaio (unicode) to code in real japanese, then change my personalised infos again with SS, and THEN import the folder in CONNECT.... well, do you think it's normal to do that? I don't!!!!!!!

(I don't use applocale anymore, it creates some incompatibility within the atrac file, and everything goes wrong afterwards.. the tracks can't be read without applocale and so on and so forth...).

[EZero]

The thing about Connect is, I love the interface, a lot more than iTunes. I just wish it was a lot faster.

[sc_bond]

SonicStage is by far the better for me, because of Connect I'm on my second NW-A3000. I took the first one back due to the poor software and also because my Walkman was freezing a bit. Connect is extremely slow, does not recognise more than 300 songs on my PC and it crashes all the time. With SonicStage I have had no problems!

I use both pieces of software, SonicStage to manage my music and my Walkman and I installed Connect to see if it's any better, which it is, but also so I can rate songs and use other features that require Connect.

Edited December 11, 2005 by sc_bond

[doerthe]

Can I make folders for my a1000 with SonicStage?

With Connect I can't even change the names of albums.

Is that supposed to be like that?