iRiver iMP-550 user going back to Sony

[adam917]

For those of us who have used iRiver stuff in the past will know that until they stopped making MP3-CD players, they just had it all on their devices. Six menus of customisable items for a boatload of personalisation. I never saw this with Sony devices and it looks like after reading their manuals that they are still pretty far behind.

Anyone want to point out to me whether their devices play WMA & Ogg Vorbis files, cache last 8 or more CDs played (for resuming), have adjustable-speed FF/REW, sort order changing (I only use [path/file name] on my iRiver), next-file queueing, backlight that can stay on all the time, charging _and discharging_ whilst playing a CD, _upgradable firmware_ and more unique features that set the device apart from the mainstream?

After I started using iRiver the only complaint of mine was lack of G-Protection that I loved on Sony's older D-EJ711 that I had in 2000--2002. When I heard that the D-CJ01 was junk (no FF/REW through an MP3!!!), I decided to go iRiver after seeing their great reviews. I have three of their devices (iMP-150, '550, and '900), and the '150 is getting old now, my '550 is still being used, and my '900 is in their shop either getting repaired or replaced. They sure do a whole lot more than any big-name manufacturer-device I ever tried.

Now, since iRiver stopped making MP3-CD players, I want the same level of versatility on a new device. Sony looks to be the best for now, and I am very curious about what their next flagship will feature. I will really miss firmware upgrades and all these features come the day I have to replace my '550 with something new, and I would hope that what I'm looking for is either out or around the corner. So, anyone know what Sony's D-NE930 and D-NE30 will have?

Thanks...

[Guest Stuge]

So, anyone know what Sony's D-NE930 and D-NE30 will have?

Do you want to speculate that what is going to be seen on Sony`s upcoming Atrac/mp3 cd Devices?

If yes then it is really hard to suggest what are they going to have in their new devices ..........Few days Back Sony launched A new Discman which has capabilities to play mp3`s only (nooo atrac )..So Since they(Sony) are not sure whether to carry Atrac or Not is quite amusing ...

[adam917]

Do you want to speculate that what is going to be seen on Sony`s upcoming Atrac/mp3 cd Devices?

If yes then it is really hard to suggest what are they going to have in their new devices ..........Few days Back Sony launched A new Discman which has capabilities to play mp3`s only (nooo atrac )..So Since they(Sony) are not sure whether to carry Atrac or Not is quite amusing ...

←

Strange that they're cutting back. Even though I wouldn't use ATRAC (I have hundreds of MP3-CDs), I find it odd they are dropping their own format on the CD players... Perhaps they're doing this to try to make the most money off their Hi-MD devices?

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

Well, as an ex-iRiver user, yeah.. i was one of their CDP fans for a long long time til i defected to the Sony D-NE series, i can probably be fairly objective on the subject :-

Quite simply, no, there is no Sony unit that would totally replace (in every respect) an iMP-550 when you include it's wider range of codec support. I wont even lower myself to talk about iRiver decks post the 550 model, as the 550 was probably the last decently built one they offered (and even that's stretching creditability somewhat, given i personally think the 250/350 models were the best of the Korean stuff).

What you will get with a Sony deck, and i talk D-NE models (aka ATRAC CD Walkmans with mp3 native support), is the ASP robustness iRiver users know and love in their preferred make (G-Shock was about the only ASP system i know of that rivalled 'ShockFree', and since your better iRiver deck is the 550, let's say.. it walks over the 550 on that account given the 550 has the ASP setup.. but dubious media tolerence).

You will get MP3 native playback of MP3 files, better legacy playback of mp3pro files (aka less the SBR decodable data) than the iRiver's ever produced - in fact, and it may be simply my ears here .. but i considered the Sony decoder to carry a less raw more music smooth decode of mp3 and mp3pro (in legacy mp3 use) output. You may not notice it on 'cans', but using line-out to a hifi, and you def can hear a difference (that said, i do use some substantial hifi kit, no high-street 'toys' in the stack).

Basically, mp3 and ATRAC support is the whole compressed audio support on the decks (by design), so if multi-codec=3+ formats is your impression of 'worthy' than the D-NE's are not gonna be your cup of happiness poison. For argument sake, i have lumped ATRAC3 and ATRAC3Plus together as one codec, even if they are really two, for simplicity.

So what you get with a D-NE is outstandng battery endurance still not really matched outside of Sony products, and a bombproof G-Shock system and mucho light (like it feels like a casing full of fresh air) build if you go for a super-slim item like the D-NE20.

Media tolerence is, in my experience, better with the D-NE'1 vs the iMP-550 ( i have RW's and R's here that a 550 would choke on, that the D-NE1 and D-NE20 will happily play).

It really depends on what you want - i eventually retired my iMP-250 (the last of a line of decks i had commercially exploited to death and killed) around the nth non-release of Ogg support for the iMP series, and opted for a D-NE1 for it's G-Shock (no way would i settle for less than the purrfect equiv to ShockFree robustness) and massive battery endurance.

The D-NE1, the two gumstick oldie, would literally run on shuffle play using mp3 discs, to it's specified endurance without fail, except for when air temp was real low (below the operating temp range of Ni-MH cells) when as you would expect (in they used Ni-Mh cells), the cell's would underperform.

Haven't ever needed the AA backpack on the NE-1, and i cannot state experiences of running times with the D-NE20 as i rarely need to run it for more than 8 hrs in one hit, so that's well below even worst case.

If you, as an iRiver user, remember the infamous 'Cat Test's of my namesake at the iRiver forum (yeah, i am that same 'cat'), then u know where i come from and do talk objectively.

If iRiver went back to quality decks, i'd be back in their arena, til then.. Sony is my CDP source

[adam917]

Well, as an ex-iRiver user, yeah.. i was one of their CDP fans for a long long time til i defected to the Sony D-NE series, i can probably be fairly objective on the subject :-

Quite simply, no, there is no Sony unit that would totally replace (in every respect) an iMP-550 when you include it's wider range of codec support.  I wont even lower myself to talk about iRiver decks post the 550 model, as the 550 was probably the last decently built one they offered (and even that's stretching creditability somewhat, given i personally think the 250/350 models were the best of the Korean stuff).

What you will get with a Sony deck, and i talk D-NE models (aka ATRAC CD Walkmans with mp3 native support), is the ASP robustness iRiver users know and love in their preferred make (G-Shock was about the only ASP system i know of that rivalled 'ShockFree', and since your better iRiver deck is the 550, let's say.. it walks over the 550 on that account given the 550 has the ASP setup.. but dubious media tolerence).

You will get MP3 native playback of MP3 files, better legacy playback of mp3pro files (aka less the SBR decodable data) than the iRiver's ever produced - in fact, and it may be simply my ears here .. but i considered the Sony decoder to carry a less raw more music smooth decode of mp3 and mp3pro (in legacy mp3 use) output.  You may not notice it on 'cans', but using line-out to a hifi, and you def can hear a difference (that said, i do use some substantial hifi kit, no high-street 'toys' in the stack).

Basically, mp3 and ATRAC support is the whole compressed audio support on the decks (by design), so if multi-codec=3+ formats is your impression of 'worthy' than the D-NE's are not gonna be your cup of happiness poison.  For argument sake, i have lumped ATRAC3 and ATRAC3Plus together as one codec, even if they are really two, for simplicity.

So what you get with a D-NE is outstandng battery endurance still not really matched outside of Sony products, and a bombproof G-Shock system and mucho light (like it feels like a casing full of fresh air) build if you go for a super-slim item like the D-NE20.

Media tolerence is, in my experience, better with the D-NE'1 vs the iMP-550 ( i have RW's and R's here that a 550 would choke on, that the D-NE1 and D-NE20 will happily play).

It really depends on what you want - i eventually retired my iMP-250 (the last of a line of decks i had commercially exploited to death and killed) around the nth non-release of Ogg support for the iMP series, and opted for a D-NE1 for it's G-Shock (no way would i settle for less than the purrfect equiv to ShockFree robustness) and massive battery endurance.

The D-NE1, the two gumstick oldie, would literally run on shuffle play using mp3 discs, to it's specified endurance without fail, except for when air temp was real low (below the operating temp range of Ni-MH cells) when as you would expect (in they used Ni-Mh cells), the cell's would underperform.

Haven't ever needed the AA backpack on the NE-1, and i cannot state experiences of running times with the D-NE20 as i rarely need to run it for more than 8 hrs in one hit, so that's well below even worst case.

If you, as an iRiver user, remember the infamous 'Cat Test's of my namesake at the iRiver forum (yeah, i am that same 'cat'), then u know where i come from and do talk objectively.

If iRiver went back to quality decks, i'd be back in their arena, til then.. Sony is my CDP source

←

Regarding anti-skip, this is where on my iRiver stuff, it lacks. Nothing like my old Sony D-EJ711 with the G-Protection. I always was able to get the iRiver units to skip easily - especially on CD-DA discs and MP3s above 192 kbps. I don't require WMA & Ogg Vorbis (or even ATRAC, for that matter!), even though it would be nice to play my handful of WMAs on a new unit (not going into Ogg Vorbis, as iRiver units have crap Vorbis support anyway), so this isn't much of a loss if I were to get a new high-end Sony. Battery life of all these Sony units beats iRiver big-time and I would look forward to only need the battery adaptor on trips of over 16 hours (the longest I've run my iRiver stuff was just over 12 hours with the supplied NiMH batteries on the iMP-900 (pretty much the same as the '550 except bigger headphone amp, more glitches in the EQ & resume feature, and better (feeling) remote than the iMP-550).

On this particular day, to listened to the unit on full-blast for about half that time total, and varying volume levels (mostly 'easy listening'/background/I-can-talk-to-my-friend volume of around 8 to 16/40). As soon as it started to get a little dark, I turned the backlight on and the batteries then gave in the remaining charge in a few minutes. I guess it was good timing, as I only needed to switch CDs then (and it was at a convenient place, too).

I currently have a Sony D-NE005 thinking it would replace my ageing iRiver iMP-150, but it looks like the iMP-150, from 2001, is far better except in anti-skip & battery life. This D-NE005 is bad-sounding (has an annoying hum on all low-passages on all MP3s (even L.A.M.E. --alt-preset insane)), has no dot-matrix display, and very slow (about 4x playback!) FF/REW. This unit is very barebones. It shouldn't cost 40 USD. It's worth only 20 at most, IMHO.

A major question about all Sony units with backlights: Can you set it to stay on all the time? This is a feature I'm used to on iRiver stuff since late 2002, upon buying an iMP-150 and upgrading firmware. It's important to a degree.

How fast do the high-end Sony units FF/REW through MP3s? ATRAC files? CD-DA?

Thanks for the report.

PS: I thought I remember you from somewhere.

Edited December 25, 2005 by adam917

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

Ah.. so there is at least one person here who remembers 'that darn cat' (as some people used to 'politely'

refer to me as)

Well, that's fair enough if you dont really need the WMA/OGG/ASF support, that mostly removes the codec support differences into irrelevency.

So really, for mp3, it's really down to MPEG 1 Layer 3 and MPEG II Layer 3 playback that is definately there (that said, i only used 22/24/44/48Khz where applicable on those mp3 encodings). I cannot recall (not having the manuals to either D-NE models possesed to hand) exactly what the supported sample frequencies are for the D-NE series - but 22Khz/24Khz MP3 and MP3Pro in legacy mode is read fine and decoding cleanly.

In fact, when it comes to mp3 playback (be it mp3 or mp3pro in legacy) I swear it sounds cleaner and less muddy than i remember on the iMP-250 and iMP-550 (and other iRiver decks) through cans/phones.

Regarding WMA's..

Well, if you do want to use your existing WMA's, a quick win solution to getting them usable is to import them into SonicStage and convert to ATRAC3/ATRAC3Plus as you prefer. For simplicity sake, whatever you used for WMA encoding bit-rate wise, use the nearest bit-rate in ATRAC3/ATRAC3Plus and that's likely to give you a pretty good approximation.

In a lot of ways, 105/132K ATRAC3 is a pretty good WMA 96K/128K substitute that is supported, on the D-NE series, so unless the results (which you can preview in SS before burning to data CD) really do fall short of expectations (in which case, transcode to higher rates), that's your quick win for WMA's you have that you cannot produce to ATRAC direct from non-lossy source. Personally, since WMA LSL's can be imported and converted, I favour using WMA9LSL as the catch-all lossless encoding for archiving when working with keeping archives to lossy encode from for multiple decks outside of Sony units. Where you have all original media to work from, then archive for fast conversion, using ATRAC Lossless instead.

Anti-skip ..

Again, i guess it was a case of some of us being unlucky and lucky.

I never found anyone else with an iMP-250 who got the totally bombproofness i got re anti-shock (because they used crap media, maybe, maybe i just got one deck that was sh*t hot in tolerences.. dunno), but i do know that the 350 was also pretty damn good, the 150 (which i believe was that cut-down 250 variant hybrid of two models thingy) not so good as also went with the 550.

Sure, like all decks, the D-NE's do hiccup on bad media - but they really only give totally bad tolerence on really damaged discs in my experience (and some ultra-speed RW's). Essentially, if the disc is hard to read on a CD/DVD-ROM drive on a PC, then you can expect a prob or two with D-NE's reading them.

Battery :-

Well, i do kinda miss the D-NE1's mega running time when i use the D-NE20 (about 50% of nominally), so i can see where you find the the D-NE005 lacking in that department.

The Hum :-

Between the use of my most hated 'buds' (the EX71's, which only get pulled out for rare testing, since i find them migrane inducing), E818's or MX200's being the 'buds' i would favour since i have multple pairs (convenience not choice), the V300's and the Medusa's and the EH-2200's, i cannot say i have experienced a hum come through on either of the older D-NE models.

Budget models :-

I think it's pretty safe to say that you really aint wanting a budget built-down model - if the 005 and the 150 (Sony and iRiver respectively) both lacked the finess you want.

I'm not anti-budget models, but i have noticed over time that it's often better to wait for top-end models to come on special promos or opening cut-prices and go for broke with them, then buy a cheapy budget model.

The exception to that philsophy, in my case, is when i know that the guts of a cheapie is identical (and hence consistency will go common to cheapy and pricey models).

Backlight :-

As best i recall, it's a choice of 'on' at a touch of a button (with an eventual shutoff) or an always off mode (that's part of how they get the battery endurance.., and how i got the mega endurance on the D-NE1, since i can often pick out display detail in low ambient light).

FF/RW Speed :-

Never actually measured the speed, but it does appear the apparent 4x scan speed would be the limit.

[adam917]

Ah.. so there is at least one person here who remembers 'that darn cat' (as some people used to 'politely'

refer to me as)

Well, that's fair enough if you dont really need the WMA/OGG/ASF support, that mostly removes the codec support differences into irrelevency.

So really, for mp3, it's really down to MPEG 1 Layer 3 and MPEG II Layer 3 playback that is definately there (that said, i only used 22/24/44/48Khz where applicable on those mp3 encodings). I cannot recall (not having the manuals to either D-NE models possesed to hand) exactly what the supported sample frequencies are for the D-NE series - but 22Khz/24Khz MP3 and MP3Pro in legacy mode is read fine and decoding cleanly.

In fact, when it comes to mp3 playback (be it mp3 or mp3pro in legacy) I swear it sounds cleaner and less muddy than i remember on the iMP-250 and iMP-550 (and other iRiver decks) through cans/phones.

Regarding WMA's..

Well, if you do want to use your existing WMA's, a quick win solution to getting them usable is to import them into SonicStage and convert to ATRAC3/ATRAC3Plus as you prefer. For simplicity sake, whatever you used for WMA encoding bit-rate wise, use the nearest bit-rate in ATRAC3/ATRAC3Plus and that's likely to give you a pretty good approximation.

In a lot of ways, 105/132K ATRAC3 is a pretty good WMA 96K/128K substitute that is supported, on the D-NE series, so unless the results (which you can preview in SS before burning to data CD) really do fall short of expectations (in which case, transcode to higher rates), that's your quick win for WMA's you have that you cannot produce to ATRAC direct from non-lossy source. Personally, since WMA LSL's can be imported and converted, I favour using WMA9LSL as the catch-all lossless encoding for archiving when working with keeping archives to lossy encode from for multiple decks outside of Sony units. Where you have all original media to work from, then archive for fast conversion, using ATRAC Lossless instead.

Anti-skip ..

Again, i guess it was a case of some of us being unlucky and lucky.

I never found anyone else with an iMP-250 who got the totally bombproofness i got re anti-shock (because they used crap media, maybe, maybe i just got one deck that was sh*t hot in tolerences.. dunno), but i do know that the 350 was also pretty damn good, the 150 (which i believe was that cut-down 250 variant hybrid of two models thingy) not so good as also went with the 550.

Sure, like all decks, the D-NE's do hiccup on bad media - but they really only give totally bad tolerence on really damaged discs in my experience (and some ultra-speed RW's). Essentially, if the disc is hard to read on a CD/DVD-ROM drive on a PC, then you can expect a prob or two with D-NE's reading them.

Battery :-

Well, i do kinda miss the D-NE1's mega running time when i use the D-NE20 (about 50% of nominally), so i can see where you find the the D-NE005 lacking in that department.

The Hum :-

Between the use of my most hated 'buds' (the EX71's, which only get pulled out for rare testing, since i find them migrane inducing), E818's or MX200's being the 'buds' i would favour since i have multple pairs (convenience not choice), the V300's and the Medusa's and the EH-2200's, i cannot say i have experienced a hum come through on either of the older D-NE models.

Budget models :-

I think it's pretty safe to say that you really aint wanting a budget built-down model - if the 005 and the 150 (Sony and iRiver respectively) both lacked the finess you want.

I'm not anti-budget models, but i have noticed over time that it's often better to wait for top-end models to come on special promos or opening cut-prices and go for broke with them, then buy a cheapy budget model.

The exception to that philsophy, in my case, is when i know that the guts of a cheapie is identical (and hence consistency will go common to cheapy and pricey models).

Backlight :-

As best i recall, it's a choice of 'on' at a touch of a button (with an eventual shutoff) or an always off mode (that's part of how they get the battery endurance.., and how i got the mega endurance on the D-NE1, since i can often pick out display detail in low ambient light).

FF/RW Speed :-

Never actually measured the speed, but it does appear the apparent 4x scan speed would be the limit.

OK so it appears you answered my questions with the Sony stuff.

I'm probably better off keeping what I have (iRiver iMP-550/900/150) for as long as I can and waiting until something really nice (either in HDD stuff like Neuros III or a future Cowon/iAudio device; or CD/DVD stuff like a CD-sized DVD player that can handle multiple digital formats and actually do a lot too).

Thanks for the info...