Burning questions regarding Sony A1000/A3000

[djmalice]

Hi guys, superb to see a community like this.

I'm a massive Sony and faithful Sony fan. I have gone thru many many walkmans moving forward with the technologies.

I finally reluctantly moved away from the superb Sony M3Cd range being convinced that the quality wouldnt be much worse, if not the same.

So i bought the Sony A1000, and i am massively disappointed.

The sound quality is poor, my Nokia 6680 provides better sound quality! I am appalled at the poor quality (no excuse for it since all my music files on my pc are 320kbps mp3 format directly ripped from paid for cds).

And then i'm told that the Sony A1000 can not play mp3 files!! It converts them to the (awful and embarassing) Atrac format!!!

Surely there's a setting in the (yet again embarrassing) 'Connect' software to turn off the conversion?

As per usual Sony have made a sexy beast with stunning features, but failed to provide decent software.

Please somebody offer me their shoulder to cry on, i am a very disappointed fan!

[imagine_]

I think the bad sound quality is because it converts it to 64kbps atrac3 by default... You should turn that off so that it doesn't convert at all.

[Viper]

You should also be able to use 132k as a conversion rate which doesn't sound that bad. Also, earphones that come with products (included) are generally crap. Even if they sound good they usually last you a couple of months.

The earphones that came with my HD5 were OK, but you should be able to pick up some sennheiser MX450's for under $30 (in Australia) or the MX500 for under $50. They sound good and will last you almost as long as the player itself. I'm currently using Sony's MDR-Q66 earphones which clip onto the ears and have retractable cords. They aren't awesome but they are better than what i started with and MUCH more practicle.

[Ascariss]

Hi guys, superb to see a community like this.

I'm a massive Sony and faithful Sony fan. I have gone thru many many walkmans moving forward with the technologies.

I finally reluctantly moved away from the superb Sony M3Cd range being convinced that the quality wouldnt be much worse, if not the same.

So i bought the Sony A1000, and i am massively disappointed.

The sound quality is poor, my Nokia 6680 provides better sound quality! I am appalled at the poor quality (no excuse for it since all my music files on my pc are 320kbps mp3 format directly ripped from paid for cds).

And then i'm told that the Sony A1000 can not play mp3 files!! It converts them to the (awful and embarassing) Atrac format!!!

Surely there's a setting in the (yet again embarrassing) 'Connect' software to turn off the conversion?

As per usual Sony have made a sexy beast with stunning features, but failed to provide decent software.

Please somebody offer me their shoulder to cry on, i am a very disappointed fan!

excuse me but bwahahahahahahahahahaha

poor sound quality. the best one I've heard yet.

Nothing comes close to the A1000 and A3000 in sound quality, and with EQ on, it's clearly one of the best on the market out there.

Tools --> preferences --> NW-A1000 --> file formats --> bottom one, covert only unsupported content into selected format, the format is the one above this option. It should tell you what you will happen if unsupported content is encountered, ie covnerted into the options you have chosen. I never changed any options on both my players and it never converted it to atrac. As well upgrade to the newest firmware 2.01.

[djmalice]

excuse me but clearly (one sec while i hold my sides from splitting) my program had it so that it would convert to unearthly 64 quality.

[zachtan]

but my A1000 can support for 320K MP3