New iPods

[bogon07]

2ndGen iPod Nano has a thinner anodized aluminum body. Also some models are coloured liked the iPod Mini: silver (2GB/4GB), green (4GB), pink (4GB), blue (4GB), Black with a black Click Wheel (8GB).

Also higher capacity HDD iPods 80GB with many incremental improvements, including a brighter screen and better battery life, and better designed earphones.

Has Sony anything new planned ?

[Beethovenian]

I think it's time to say bye to Sony. The new iPod is supposed to have gapless playback. I don't really like iPods, but it's hard to stay away from them when you can have 80GB and gapless playback with a decent size and price, especially considering the prospects of getting that from Sony are thin. Too bad. Sony fumbled big time.

[pata2001]

OMG!! OOMG!!

Apple just released a firmware upgrade for 5G iPods, version 1.2. I updated my 5G, ripped a gapless CD with Lame -V 2, transfer it to iTunes, checked the "part of gapless album," synced them to my iPod, and... and... They are played gaplessly on my 5G iPod!

Bye-bye Atrac. Bye-bye Sony. I'll still hang around at this board though.

[Dinko]

Yes. Next step to make it better: WMA compatible.

[DSP]

imho ipod is boring.

they only made up for the lacks in the older models.

the battery life sucked big time, they fixed it.

the screen wasn't that good, they fitted a better one

they didn't support gapless, they fixed it.

the nano was scratch-sensitive and the battery sucked, they fixed it and fitted a batter screen. But why no video??

the shuffle; they just made it smaller, I see no further improvements.

sony walkman's have always had gapless, great battery life, not scratch sensitive. imo ipod is just making up for its failures.

The only thing I like about the new ipods is the price. 250$ for 30GB is very good pricing! but that doesn't make a good product. I was very curious about the new ipods, after hearing rumors of touchscreens passing by. But with this news I'm kicked in the face once again: ipods keep having the very same design, no innovations there anymore (the nano looks almost exactly like the old mini, so it look kinda old-fashioned to me), and why should the nano be even thinner? and the ipod itself looks exactly the same.

If i'm honest, I'm very disappointed by this news. I hoped for more.

I'm sticking with the walkman because I have no need for a colour screen (but that's very personal), walkman has original and sexier design and of course much better sound-quality. In general, the sound-quality is the most primary factor that's keeping me with sony.Ipods just don't have that.

I was hoping that apple could surprise me only once, so that I had a reason to go and have a try with their product. But jet again, they didn't.

mind you, this is just MY opinion. you might 'think different', but everyone has it's own thoughts right?

for those switching from walkman to ipod: enjoy your new ipod!

greetz

[Guest Stuge]

DSP : You are the real fan of Sony

[DSP]

@ stuge:

yes, as you can read I'm a big fan of sony. Love my MiniDisc, my PSP and my Walkmans. but that's just ones opinion and experiences with a company

This doesn't mean that i can't be objective in my opinions. What I said was 100% objective BUT also 100% my own opinion.

greetz

[-walle-]

Honestly... i hate the ipod. It's a descent music player, but seriously guys, it's not all that.

I don't understand how anyone can like the design, i guess the new shuffle is ok. But the 5g's are ougly as hell.

The only reson 90% of their customers buy them is so they can prance around with those crappy headphones.

Also i hate the people who buy them purely because they like the stupid concept, and the I - whatever branding.

Another thing that i hate is the hole user friendliness trip, all they're doing is making computers usable by retards and screwing over the enthusiasts.

Some people think they're cool because they were first company to develop a proper visual user interface for a computer. Well they weren't xerox came first.

Well... thats my rant for the day.

[pata2001]

Honestly... i hate the ipod. It's a descent music player, but seriously guys, it's not all that.

Yes, it's not all that. You forgot iTunes. Unicode+smart playlist+gapless. Any other manufacture can do the same thing? Nope.

[bogon07]

Honestly... i hate the ipod. It's a descent music player, but seriously guys, it's not all that.

Another thing that i hate is the hole user friendliness trip, all they're doing is making computers usable by retards and screwing over the enthusiasts.

Life's too short to spend hours of it trying to get badly programmed and/or designed software to work so I'm all for user friendliness.

[Dinko]

Another thing that i hate is the hole user friendliness trip, all they're doing is making computers usable by retards and screwing over the enthusiasts.

You're right. And you're wrong.

You're right that many people using iPods probably couldn't figure out how to use the big red button in the center of a SonicStage screen to transfer their tracks.

But...

You're also wrong. The reason I personally went iPod, was that no one else seemed to be able to make a player that I could just dump tracks on it and have it work flawlessly. With Sony devices, I needed to prepare in advance, because I never knew when SonicStage would freeze on me, or demand that I initialize my device.

With this stupid MTP nonsense, you need a software combo to do what SonicStage or iTunes do alone. You need WMP10 so the player can work. You need RealPlayer to transfer tracks and edit playlists on the device itself (because you can't do that in WMP). And you may or may not neet Windows Explorer or another software like Yahoo Music Engine because for some reason, your player is no longer recognized.

Then there's regular drag and drop. I know RCA implements it properly, but Samsung and LG are having serious problems playing back tracks. Samsung players don't always recognize ID tags, and don't always play tracks in album order. LG players have similar troubles.

In the end... iPod may be a poor product, but it only shows how completely incompetent everyone else is.

iPod has crappy battery life. Sound quality is well below Sony levels. It scratches like hell. It's not always evident manipulating it in your pocket and a slight rub against your coat sends the volume breaking your ear drums. It's not always a good idea to take it out of your pocket (weather, rules, muggings, etc). But heck... if it means that I can get two more hours of sleep as opposed to wasting my time working around Sony and "Windows + Partners" software and hardware bugs just so I can listen to some music the next day... I'm all for it. User friendliness all the way.

iTunes is a retarded piece of software, but it does what I need: transfer music to the iPod, then let me create and manipulate my own playlists on the device itself.

[Beethovenian]

Funny, I realized I don't like the iPod when, learning that it now plays gaplessly, I was kind of disappointed to see I don't have any serious reason to avoid it. The thing is, it's hard to see a better option now, unless the Zune is truly wonderful. I don't like the iPod's design, find it bland, but it's not a dealbreaker. I hate the "it's cool" aura it got, but sometimes you have to go with the majority. I need more than just 20GB, and the 80GB I can get in an iPod fits more or less my needs, since I dream of having all the music I could want to listen to in the player. Plus, even though I find the iPod's interface in need of some improvement, it at least responds fast. Sony's wait every time I want to access the menu, aggravated in the A series, gets on my nerves sometimes. The iPod has also a higher resolution screen (visible in sunlight) that displays much more information per line. For my classical music collection (90% of my music), that's very useful. The iPod even lets you see lyrics. Not that I'll go adding them to my tracks, but it's useful for albums with lots of performers, like an opera. I can use for artist just the main names and put all singers and their roles in the lyrics, for instance. I wish the iPod had Album Artist as well.

I'll wait to see what Microsoft has to offer with the Zune. For one, I like the PMC interface, the ability to see cover art thumbnails when browsing the list of albums, for example. But since the rumour was that the 30GB Zune would cost the price of the 80GB iPod, it's hard to justify waiting for it, especially if it doesn't have gapless playback, as the Toshiba Gigabeat.

As for Sony, I wish it had something great to offer, but they're delaying even the launch of its sports Walkman, and they're still insisting in those impossible to read under the sun OLED screens.

[-walle-]

Yes, itunes is good. But doesn't really matter if you can't stand the player.

Also, i'm not saying sonicstage is better than itunes. And a program doesn't have to be unstable to be considered non-user friendly... catch my drift?

I also think WMP is pretty good, and therefore a playforsure player would be great for me. However i just don't like them as much as i like sonys mp3 players.

[AntiPod]

ok im way behind the current news now and i just read about the new ipods today >.<

my first impressions- how did they make the shuffle so small? that reminds me of the cube thing made by mobieu(i think i spelled it wrong) so i guess the i shuffle's butt has been kicked by sony's E000 and other brands so they decided to make the "USB drive" even smaller, and with a clip too (that clip's really good, way better than the ones sony gave out on E4,500 and A600s O_o)

the i nano's kinda interesting after putting on mini's outlook and with a greater capacity

interesting move by apple, even though the products are still not appealing to me. but i certainly hope that sony will make his moves too

i am looking forward to see new or enhanced products by sony

[RobA]

No ipod will ever be better than an ATRAC Walkman from Sony, period.

Apple can do whatever it wants, but the fact is, the sound quality, build quality, and battery life from sony is unbeatable.

I can't tell you how many arguments I get with other people. I hate when people say "Why didn't you just get an ipod?" when they see my HD5.

Apple won in marketing and advertising, but that's it.

[pata2001]

Talk about thread ressurection.

Anyway: iPod nano 2nd gen, aluminum body, 8GB flash based, 24hour battery life, gapless playback with MP3 and AAC, unicode display and software. Can Sony compete with that?

Sony USA didn't even release 4GB version of the S70x series in the US. It's like Sony doesn't even want to compete.

[carmelo]

Ok Ok Ok! Right, time for me to wade in here....

1. To address the user friendliness of I-tunes, well, its not. The I-tunes setup is rubbish, and not to sound stupid or anything, but it took me an absolute age to figure out you had to press CTRL to highlight multiple songs and drag them into the Ipod. Sonic stage, you simply click on the album title, and press transfer.

2. Photo support on the nano is next to useless as for some stupid reason you can't preview them in I-tunes.

3. The battery life is crappy on all of them, I mean really poor.

4. They don't even have a search option using cover art, unlike my NWS-705, which is a really useful option (surprisingly for me, who thought it would be a gimmick)

5. The noise suppresion on my NWS kicks ass!!!! It even drowns out london traffic, trust me thats no mean feat.

6. I've never known anybody's Ipod last longer than 18 months. Full stop. Ever. My old NW-E505 is still going strong, not broken once after nearly 2 years of continual use.

7. People tend to always associate Ipod with MP3 player, but it wasn't the first. Sony was the first name in portable music with the Walkman, long before apple even existed.

8. Apple are so insistent you have an internet connection, and so big headed that they assume you already have Itunes, so don't even bother to package the CD with Itunes anymore with the nano. Cocky gits.

9. The world seems to run on Ipods, hell even the queen's christmas speech is being podcasted this year, but its a nice feeling to know that you use something different, and in my opinion superior.

AND lets remember that Sony is a HUGE company, much bigger than apple with a much more diverse range of products to focus on too.

Also pata, my NWS easily goes at least double your Ipod's battery life, and sounds better too.

[giki]

Sony NW-S706F: 40 Hour battery life,

noise cancelling which works,

MP3 VBR and CBR,AAC (99% flavours of it),HE-AAC,WMA(Almost all flavours),ATRAC,PCM playback which i reckon is more than the precious ipod and gapless too,

never scratches,Chrome Body and Matt Finish,

Feels rock solid,not flimsy or cheap and its not MADE IN CHINA just like my other sony players(More profit for Apple I Suppose)

Recording in PCM, Is this the harbinger if the next Minidisc.

Fit 2 of these in 1 Nano,

Listen to it and you gonna be shocked out of your wits Pata2001,

makes even 128 kbps mp3s sound great,imagine wat 300+ mp3 or atrac would do.

CLEAR BASS IS THE NEXT MEGA BASS.Bring it on SONY I WANT MORE OF IT.(BASS IN AN IPOD=OXYMORON)

KILLS ALL IPODS ON SOUND QUALITY AND BATTERY LIFE(Business as usual here I suppose).

can also be used as a digital necklace with its myriad visualisation.

AND ALL THIS FROM A USER NOT A REVIEWER OR WINDOW SHOPPER.

Pata2001 listen to it before you say anymore and BTW the earphones that come with it the NC022 (NOT NC22) ARE WORTH MORE THAN A NEW IPOD SHUFFLE.cheapo apple!!!! and what happens the day ppl get tired of the ipods design.(its already happening),TADA apple wat u gonna do.

btw my R909 AND N501 which probably came out before the ipod are still going strong.how long willl your ipod last mate.my year old hd5 regularly gives 25-30 hours playback.A NEW ipod struggles to make it to 20 and we are talking real life not figures by apple or sony.

Also have you checked out SS CP 4.2. it runs as quick as Itunes and hasnt crashed on a guinea pig PC with 1 gig processor and 192 ram.Took me 15 minutes to transfer my tunes and get going.

Also i had ALL THE ACCESSORIES including software,cables,extension wire and so on.Felt like unpacking a sony player of yesterdays with their million accessories.My NHF800 TOOK ME 15 TIMED MINUTES TO UNPACK AND THIS WAS THE SAME.How much is that feeling worth!!! and does apple supply that too???

The minidisc took 16 years to die but the ipods gonna fade quicker.Rest assured.

Sony forever.AND MEGA/CLEAR BASS TOO!!!!!!!!!!

[carmelo]

giki man you kick ass dude! SONY ROCKS!

Edited December 24, 2006 by carmelo

[pata2001]

1. but it took me an absolute age to figure out you had to press CTRL to highlight multiple songs and drag them into the Ipod. Sonic stage, you simply click on the album title, and press transfer.

2. Photo support on the nano is next to useless as for some stupid reason you can't preview them in I-tunes.

3. The battery life is crappy on all of them, I mean really poor.

6. I've never known anybody's Ipod last longer than 18 months. Full stop. Ever. My old NW-E505 is still going strong, not broken once after nearly 2 years of continual use.

8. Apple are so insistent you have an internet connection, and so big headed that they assume you already have Itunes, so don't even bother to package the CD with Itunes anymore with the nano. Cocky gits.

1. With iTunes, I don't even have to click a button. I connect my iPod, and iTunes automatically sync all music (including ratings) and cycle my smart playlists automatically. Just because you cannot figure something out, doesn't mean the software is bad.

2. Can you even sync photos with Sonicstage? Yeah, iTunes for Windows sucks. However, on the mac, it sits nicely with iPhoto, and the photo sync feature seamless with iPhoto.

3. OK try this. Leave your network walkmen on "off" for 2-3 days. Next thing you know, the battery will be drained out. I can leave my iPod "off" for a week, and it still have some juice left. I have Sony Network Walkmen products too, so I know. Oh, and your battery life is achievable if you use what? Atrac3+ 48kbps with screen always off and low volume?

6. And I know people who are still using their 1st, 2nd, 2rd, gen iPods without problems, and those are hard-drive based iPods. I also see people who have problems on their Network Walkmen in this forum. With flash based storage, it should be expected to be more durable than hard-drive.

8. Try backing up your music library with Sonicstage and restoring it. You'll be force to connect to the internet too, just for restoring your own music library. Yeah, it's cheap for Apple not to bundle iTunes CD with the newer iPods, but either way, you will have to have internet connection.

giki: Regarding made in China? So? Many electronics are made in China now, even Sony's. The issue is quality control. And yes, Apple seems to have problesm with QC, but Sony is not doing any better either compared to their older products. Oh, and my nano can use Apple lossless and WAV. And you're so proud that it took you 15minutes to transfer your songs? :D I want to spend my time listening to my music, not waiting for transfer.

I repeat myself: Gapless with MP3, unicode display and software. Can Sony deliver that? Oh, read my sig. And yes, I do have my share of Sony walkmen (read my Atrac devices list). I've been using Sony walkmen since OpenMG jukebox, the NW-E3 (one of the first Sony network walkmen).

[giki]

Well when i first connected my player it asked for automatic transfer with an option for settings such as atrac or mp3.I didnt even touch the computer or sonicstage.well that takes care of the first issue.

Regarding photos you gotta go to each album and then select properties and add the pic.As on macs well thats just 3-4% of the computing population so wonder how much of a difference it makes to PC users.

Except for the Vaio none of my other walkmans including flash,minidisc,hdd.My hd3 managed to see some sunshine after 2 weeks and it was still full,just as i had left it.there must have been some leakge which is regular but it still worked fine and lasted a long time.Check yur facts again as its just the VAIO VGF-AP1L which suffers from this problem but even then it lasts 15 hours of regular usage.

Mechanical failure is much higher on Apple devices and theres plenty of evidence of that everywhere.People complain about software not hardware from ony.Anyways SS CP4.2 ALMOST FIXES THAT.

Regarding the Internet connection,its much easier to update my SS database on a 56k but try downloading 30MB+ ITUNES and you get the drift.Takes me less than a minute on a 56k to restore my library.

AND MY HD5 GIVES 25 HOURS ON 132KBPS ATRAC.On 48 i tried once and it was definitely above 30-35 hours.

Well even the fastest USB connection takes time to upload songs and i filled 4 gig in 15 minutes.Wonder if ipods take just 1 second and WHOA YOU GOT 8000 SONGS ON YOUR PLAYER!!.ANYWAYS HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO GET SONGS ON YOUR IPOD.1 SECOND OR 2 SECONDS.MAYBE SONY SHOULD CONTACT APPLE TO GET THEIR 1TB A SECOND USB INTERFACE!!!!!!!!!

Reagrding Unicode well I speak Hindi and SS DOESNT SUPPORT THAT.DO YOU SEE ME WHINGE ALL OVER THE INTERNET ABOUT THAT JUST LIKE YOUVE BEEN DOING.NO I DONT!!! AND SONY DOESNT HAVE ANY OBLIGATION EITHER AND REGARDING SOFTWARE WELL THATS ALMOST FIXED.I AHVENT HAD A SINGLE PROBLEM WITH SS CP 4.2 AND IT WORKS FLAWLESS WITJ ALL MY STUFF.GAPLESS WITH MP3 WORKS ONLY IF YOU USE CD TO RIP SONGS NOT DIRECT MP3,S AND SS CAN DO THAT .TRY IT.

BTW YOU HAVENT REPLIED TO ANY OF MY OTHER POINTS,MAYBE YOUR APPLE IPOD DOESNT MOTIVATE YOU ENUFF OR ITS JUST PLAIN DOESNT MATCH UP 2 SONY.

[kerfuffle]

Can we get over the Sony Walkman vs. iPod thing? *rolls eyes*

[giki]

BTW pata2001 claims to be "Team Apple".

Lets have a deal mate, i buy all your atrac stuff and you stop cursing sony and leave this forum to join your "team apple".

I reckon only people who love their Walkmans should be here.If you wanna shout the praises of the Ipod then there are plenty of other sites to do so.please join them.

Pata2001 from "Team Apple"

[Beethovenian]

Curious how the Whoever vs. iPod continues to rage on. It just feeds my belief that the iPod is the Windows of the digital music world. Flawed, but so overwhelmingly dominant that drives competitors out of the market and infuriates those who don't share the stupid cult that made it a "cool" product -- and I do have in mind the fact that the majority of the iPod users actually don't care about these things, just want something that works. There's no denying the iPod works better than Sony's Walkmans. But it's still so lacking in many aspects, it just shows, as Dinko said, how completely incompetent the other companies are. But just to give my two cents on the battery life debate, let me say that in my experience the iPod drains faster when off than the Walkmans. I have an HD1 that has not been used for at least seven months and it still plays. And the NW-A3000 is still with more than half of its battery after three months of no use (and it wasn't totally full when I stop using it). I've never stayed so long without using the iPod, but when I left it off for a few days, the battery meter was clearly lower. Not much, but lower. That said, I simply cannot go back to the NW-A3000 because, despite liking its sound better, I just hate how sluggish its navigation is. Plus, having gapless playback on MP3s and 80GB is a huge plus. If only somebody made a player good for classical music...

[giki]

Hey Beethovenian,

fully agrre with you but just wanna say that after sampling some new gear from Sony i dont know why but i just feel Sony,s gonna pull a big one.This time there are gonna be no mistakes.SS CP 4.2 feels great,support for so many formats compared to the hd1 which both of us have and probably remember how badly handicapped it was.I mean AAC,WMA,VBR MP3 doesnt all this signify that something smashing might be around the corner.wat do you reckon.

[DSP]

hi guys,

What device one likes is always personal. period.

personally, I like the walkmans and I truly hate ipods. I mean, I love walkman, but I can live with creative's, Irivers, cowons and philips DAP's. they all have their good things.

but the ipod is rubbish. It's marketing, the technical aspects and everything else. You can read it in an earlier post of mine in this topic.

@ giki:

yeah, I feel like sony is going to do something big too. I mean, NW-A**** series had their flaws and failures, as did the NW-HD* series. But I recently bought a NW-S703, and damn...it rocks.

mostly in soundquality, but also in everything else:

- in the nw-a series, the display was visible. so the effect of that unvisible display was a little overestimated. But with the NW-S series the display is really unvisible! the color of the screen itself is as black as the color of (the black) device itself. It just works!

- soundquality is really, really much better!!!! and it has a lot enhancement functions like clearstereo, clearbass and VPT I think this is important in a DAP, so that you can set the sound to your own taste.

- the walkman finally has a color screen!!!! and it's beatifull!!!

- buildquality is awsome. it feels rock-solid! the surface is shiny, but not mega scratch sensitive. it lokks stylish, made of metal so it feels really durable.

having said all this, I think the next (video) walkman is going to be absolutely awsome. If they keep up the good work, It's gonna rock. a few improvements here and there and they should have a winner, if they get the price, memory and marketing right.

ohh yeah, and please, set atrac free, and be carefull with the adjustments to sonicstage for the video support, sonicstage is very fragile. You just got it right with SSCP 4.2.

greetz, and succes to sony!

Edited December 26, 2006 by DSP

[Damage]

Having been in both camps (iPod and Walkmen), and having used several other DAPs, the whole iPod vs. DAPs is quickly becoming one of user experience.

1. Components: Nuts to soup (outside of Cheap Chinese Generics, CCGs), the DAPs that you're using are provided by very few companies-PortalPlayer, Sony, SigmaTel. SigmaTel now powers quite a bit of DAPs on the market, including most Creatives, newer iPods, and many smaller brand DAPs. PortalPlayer (which used to in majority of iPods until the newer iPods) now powers all of SanDisk's Sansa line (outside of the cheap looking E100s and M100s). Sony, obviously, uses its own solution mainly due to ATRAC, but it is obviously powerful enough to decode all of the codecs on the market. Given the commonality of these parts, by in large, most of these players will sound very similar to one another. In a blind test (which admittedly I haven't done), I'm not sure if I can pick out my NW-HD5, Rio Carbon, Sansa E100, or other various MP3s I've used over the years. And this is with any number of headphones I've used. I can tell you the impression of each DAPs I've listened to, but in a blind test environment (no EQ, same files, same CODEC choice, etc.), I'm not sure if I can tell which would be which.

2. Battery Life: Used to be that the battery life was critical, and it is to a degree. However, ask yourself this question. How much music do you really listen to during your day? And how often far away are you from a USB Charging solution? Granted, it's easier to charge a CCG DAP (or to a degree NW-HD5 among others) with a simple USB cable, but even then, the iPod cable is a de-facto standard of its own... Unfortunately, this is a bit of a hairy point since each brand of player seem to be using its own weirdfangled port for charging.

3. Capacity: I remember reading a report (that came out sometime last year?) that said an average user has a total of 400-500 songs in his or her DAP at one point or another. So, majority of people do not need a 30GB nor an 80GB (why is iPod the only DAP that has such a capacity? It's staring to answer that nicely, don't it?), their needs and their library can be filled with an 8GB DAP (or 20~30GB at most). As for the slow fill argument, it's an one time process, to copy your library to your device initially and update incrementally.

4. Feature Gap: Outside of actual functional EQ, the iPod and other DAPs have similar functionalities (outside of FM tuner, which seems to be a personal preference). With the Gapless playback, now enabled on the iPods, you can really say that most DAPs have become equal.

Given these four points, the biggest difference between the MP3 players now lies in the form, price, and user experience. OF the three, I think the user experience (how easy to get the DAP setup and running, how easy it is to navigate, how easy to add songs and podcasts, how easy... etc.) becomes a key point to how a DAP can succeed. Given its equal price and superior features, why has Zune all of a sudden fallen off the face of the earth? The Zune software is still rough around the edges (and given its 5 year late start, its understandable), and that in turn has turned off a lot of potential buyers.

Likewise, the early woes with SonicStage turned off a lot of potential customers as well. The whole 3 times checkout nonsense, forced transcoding to ATRAC (though the processor was apparently powerful enough to handle MP3s-note, this does not include about ATRAC3plus devices), clunky interface (that's changed very little since 2003? with SonicStage 2.0) all compounds Sony's problem. The Connect Player fiasco probably exacerbated the situation.

What about the navigation within the unit? All of the iPods (hell, even the Carbon) has zero lag during playback to navigation. HD5 on the other hand has that 4 second lag when you want to navigate during the middle of the playback. Or have you conveniently forgotten that part? The HD5 has a good navigation system given the lack of jog or scroll wheel. However, it still can't compare to the relative ease of iPods navigation system.

Sony has taken an interesting step with the newer DAPs - premium quality to add to the overall user experience. The newest Walkmen with the NC phones are I think an indication of where Sony wants to head in the future. That said...

[giki]

Hey DSP i reckon you just changed your atrac stuff list to include Sony in front of all of them.Way to go!!!

Anywayz well i know my local sony guys,Sony Central,Melbourne CBD,Galleria shopping centre well and he told me that a new walkman may be here sooner than expected cause aus got the nw-s series quickly after release,they had them in November itself!!

Well mayb its the new CLEARBASS or just sumthing else,but sony finally seems to be getting it together.Mayb i am repeating myself but i was on the train last nite and the nw-s surely got me thinking as to wat sony can do.I mean its so tiny yet packs so much.

The only fault with the NWA was the interface and the lag between songs.The sound,battery,shape,size etc were all fine and the display a bit crook but otherwise it had quite a bit going for it,

Minidisc is dead and i reckon sony knows that{btw i got myself an RH1 AND 2 nh14wm batteries so its all fine with me} therefore i reckon its going back to its core strengths and lets remeber sony was never cheap.we had a 21" inch crt from sony and it was bloody expensive even then.well mayb sony just wants to eat the cream and let the others have the leftovers,i mean Ipods.

Regarding chips for the players well they differ in their design and implementation too.Similar chips can give different results due to differences in IC,build quality, i mean the same engine in a single car can be tuned for more torque at expense of top speed or more top speed but no pulling power.

Sony chips are probably made and finalized in Japan and knowing sony they can cram a lot in a little.Anyone got any news rerding the tech used in the NC for NW-S706F or any related stories.

[Beethovenian]

Giki, I hope you're right, cause I'm sick of seeing the digital music world revolving around the iPod (and I have the damn thing and consider it superior to what Sony has so far offered). We definitely need competition. No monopoly is good for consumers, and iTunes cannot be the new standard for music purchases. People need to be alerted that if they decide in five years the iPod is not cool anymore, they may be stuck with it regardless just because their downloaded music won't play anywhere else. It's too much power for Apple. Still, I'm very skeptical of Sony. The company is suffering on all fronts and doesn't seem to me able to do what it needs, namely getting rid of all the copy protection features that made its products so hard to use. Microsoft may have a better chance. If they design the Zune better and work the software, it may very well be a winner. Its interface is already much more intelligent than the iPod's, and its features are interesting, though badly developed.

[giki]

Hi Beethovenian,

Regarding the interface well thats has always been fairly easy in all sony players and the DRM is the same on all players from sony,ms,apple.I cant really envision any company selling a player with zero DRM.

Apple has its fairplay,MS had Playsforsure and now something different for the zune,Sony always had magicgate/OpenMG.

When it boils down to DRM all firms are hand in glove and anyways the DSP issue got me searching the net and i found out the virtual mobile engine sony uses in its players.do have a look as it shows some really brilliant stuff there.

Sony anyways has to offer copy protection but in its newer players and SS they are a lot relaxed.Atleast you can get music back to your pc.I reckon thats what itunes also does,not too sure though.My NW-S706F plays mp3s natively and offers no restriction on transferring them back to my PC.Its just as in any other ipod.If the next sony hdd player also does that,i reckon thats almost on par with any other player out there combined with usual sony features such as battery life,SQ,bass,better software,looks and build i cant see why it should fail.anyways do keep me postedl

[pata2001]

I reckon only people who love their Walkmans should be here.If you wanna shout the praises of the Ipod then there are plenty of other sites to do so.please join them.

Pata2001 from "Team Apple"

Hey, I'm not the one who types in caps. Besides, I don't see you helping people that have problems with Sonicstage, etc. I've been helping others for quite sometime, even figuring out which registry to modify to enable kanji support/change region setting. I even tried to help you when you asked for a recommendation on bitrate to use. So unlike a fanboy, even though I will not recommend a Sony player to someone asking for a recommendation for a new DAP, I still want to help those that have problems with their Sony DAPs because I have dealt with Sonicstage for a while. Yeah, I want to see you helping somebody that have their library un-recognized by Sonicstage, or somebody that are force to initialize their walkmen when upgrading SS.

What is the point of the old T-board thread you're linking there? Just to show people more bugs of HiMD?

If Sony can deliver what I want, I'd be more than happy to buy Sony. They did do that in the past (gapless, battery life). Now, not anymore. Oh, I wasn't the one who started this thread anyway, and this thread is speaking about iPod, placed properly in "The Lounge" section.

To mods: Sorry that this is going this way. I guess I shouldn't have replied to this ressurected old thread. My apologies.

[Damage]

Regarding chips for the players well they differ in their design and implementation too.Similar chips can give different results due to differences in IC,build quality, i mean the same engine in a single car can be tuned for more torque at expense of top speed or more top speed but no pulling power.

Sony chips are probably made and finalized in Japan and knowing sony they can cram a lot in a little.Anyone got any news rerding the tech used in the NC for NW-S706F or any related stories.

When it's all said and done, and given proper equipment in a blind test setup, I'm betting that you won't be able to tell the difference between an iPod, a Zen, a Walkman, and whatever DAP you want to throw into the mix. You might be able to discern that one is different from another, but not necessarily say that A is iPod, B is Zen, etc. So, in light of that I say that most DAPs soundwise is equal to one another-or at least, there isn't one that is obviously inferior to another as you may have insinuated.

What is interesting is the addition of video, which I believe got started by Sony thanks to Vaio Pocket (to a degree) and PSP. If memory serves, both of these devices did portable video and (especially) PSP showed that there is some interest in the portable video market (that, along with tons of portable DVD players on the market to boot). Sony may have gotten there first, but as always, botched it with the UMD format.

Getting back to the point at hand. Frankly, no one has taken the time and the effort to actually do Blind Test to see which DAP is indeed superior. And that might be ways off, if it all takes place. However, understand that the iPod (for all intents and purposes) is still the leader inspite/despite/because of its lack of features and other weaknesses that we see because of very superior user experience. That is one thing that's lacking in all other DAPs, especially if you're not technical like many of us here are.

Yes, I think many of us would like to eventually see an iPod killer. I think there is already one in the making in Zune, in a way that's much like the original XBOX. XBOX had no right to be here, but look at its successor the 360... It revolutionized online console gaming, and now it's a standard feature in all consoles of the new generation. Once Microsoft figures out how to do the squirt properly, I'm thinking that WiFi might be a standard in the upcoming generation of DAPS.

The whole convergence thing notwithstanding of course. In that, Sony Ericsson has the advantage, but not the marketing. Whic is a missed opportunity... The Walkman Phone could've been the iPod of the Phone industry had SE marketed the heck out of it like MOTO does with its phones. As it stands, the Walkman Phones are virtually unknown here in the states.

Which is too bad. If the rumors are to be believed, then Apple's got the market sewn up even before it has released anything of importance.

[giki]

Hey pata2001,if you want i would love to give advice,on SS but trouble is the new version is so good no one wanta advice anymore!!!!!

anyways regarding caps well sumtimes u gotta force a point thru.

well faults of HI-md always gonna be there and lets not get into that and anyways i joined late therefore couldnt help much but i reckon if i can possess sonicstage 2.0 and use it in the past i surely have a clue as to what its all about.hell i even had downloaded files for CP 4.2 but not much clue as to how to put it together or else i might even have SS CP 4.2 FULL INSTALL!!!!!!

only trouble is if you gotta espose ipod values then please do it somewhere else.we know how good?! it is and do check this out and see whos typing this

"OMG!! OOMG!!

Apple just released a firmware upgrade for 5G iPods, version 1.2. I updated my 5G, ripped a gapless CD with Lame -V 2, transfer it to iTunes, checked the "part of gapless album," synced them to my iPod, and... and... They are played gaplessly on my 5G iPod!

Bye-bye Atrac. Bye-bye Sony. I'll still hang around at this board though. smile.gif"

--------------------

Sony USA thinks kanji is the source of all evil.

Sony USA thinks Divx is the spawn of satan.

The caps do look nice pata2001 and if its bye bye sony then why go around nitpicking sony stuff?

[Damage]

only trouble is if you gotta espose ipod values then please do it somewhere else.we know how good?! it is and do check this out and see whos typing this

"OMG!! OOMG!!

Apple just released a firmware upgrade for 5G iPods, version 1.2. I updated my 5G, ripped a gapless CD with Lame -V 2, transfer it to iTunes, checked the "part of gapless album," synced them to my iPod, and... and... They are played gaplessly on my 5G iPod!

Bye-bye Atrac. Bye-bye Sony. I'll still hang around at this board though. smile.gif"

--------------------

Sony USA thinks kanji is the source of all evil.

Sony USA thinks Divx is the spawn of satan.

The caps do look nice pata2001 and if its bye bye sony then why go around nitpicking sony stuff?

He has much right to nitpick Sony's stuff as you've done with iPods. And again, I don't think you've put in as much time in other DAPs as Pata or other members of the board have. As irrelevant as his posts might seem he has been a valuable contributor to this and other boards for far far longer than you. And you'll get other long time members to vouch for him at a drop where as you're essentially adding nothing to the conversation at this point.

Again, I will make my point that all DAPs will sound decent enought to most ears that the differences that are there will be minimal. The only glaring weakness that iPods have in the SQ regard (and most people will acknowledge this) is the lack of functional EQ. Personally, that's a moot point since I don't use EQ-if your gear can't stand the basic test without having to fiddle around with the EQ, your gears got issues. One of the bigger flaws in the previous generation of HiMDs and MP3 playback (the RH10 generation) was the crippled MP3 SQ. It's questionable decisions like these that made the Walkman more or less irrelelvant.

[giki]

Hi Damage, i dont care if anyone vouches for pata2001 and how can you say that i am lacking in experience in DAPs.

He calls me a fanboy but himself behaves like an apple fanboy on the post that i have highlighted about ipods being lossless.

see it for yourself and if he has to do this he can do so at ipod sites.reckon you must have heard of the saying that you cant rise by putting others down so why does he trash sony on a sony forum and that also to espouse ipods.

There are plenty of sites where his raving about the apparent greatness of the ipods can be done.

As for experience well mate my story started in 1993 with a SONY cassette walkman and the affair continues.Do check out my atrac devices to verify and not as a show off from my side.Cheers.I used to do optical recording on the R1 with my denon cdp in the 90s and wonder how many people today even know how to "do" optical.

and trust me after sampling creative,iriver,iaudio,ipods,toshiba,samsung and even kenwood DAPs of all sorts i can safely conclude that NONE of them sound the same.

try sampling a few of them and if i cant figure out the intricacies of each i wouldnt(or rather dont have the right) to join a tech forum like atraclife to waste my time and sleep.

and regarding nitpicking well dont get me started on ipods........

[Damage]

Hi Damage, i dont care if anyone vouches for pata2001 and how can you say that i am lacking in experience in DAPs.

He calls me a fanboy but himself behaves like an apple fanboy on the post that i have highlighted about ipods being lossless.

see it for yourself and if he has to do this he can do so at ipod sites.reckon you must have heard of the saying that you cant rise by putting others down so why does he trash sony on a sony forum and that also to espouse ipods.

There are plenty of sites where his raving about the apparent greatness of the ipods can be done.

As for experience well mate my story started in 1993 with a SONY cassette walkman and the affair continues.Do check out my atrac devices to verify and not as a show off from my side.Cheers.I used to do optical recording on the R1 with my denon cdp in the 90s and wonder how many people today even know how to "do" optical.

and trust me after sampling creative,iriver,iaudio,ipods,toshiba,samsung and even kenwood DAPs of all sorts i can safely conclude that NONE of them sound the same.

try sampling a few of them and if i cant figure out the intricacies of each i wouldnt(or rather dont have the right) to join a tech forum like atraclife to waste my time and sleep.

and regarding nitpicking well dont get me started on ipods........

Outside of the Vaio pocket, I've owned or used (and lost/been victim of theft) of many of the said devices you have listed, plus more (including most of the Atrac CD player lineup and couple of CLIE PDAs that are still in my collection). So, I think I know what I'm talking about when it comes to modern Sony Gears. In addition, I've owned too many devices, including Sansa, Rio, iPods, Creative Zens amongst others. So I do know what I'm talking about. And I do know that for the most part, they do competent job of decoding and delivering the decoded audio to your ears. I will stand by that given equal files (a 320kbps MP3, since all of these devices can handle MP3s) that you can find the tell tell signature differences of each DAP, but you won't tell which DAP is which DAP based on that difference alone in a blind AB Test setup. And I attribute this, in large part, due to the codec chip being commoditized by few companies: SigmaTel, PortalPlayer, and Sony being the major three that designs and furnishes the CODEC chips. The remainder differences do lie in the components used and what not, but unless thye've totally screwed with the design/firmware (see MZ-RHx10 HiMD for the blatant example) the final sound quality will vary very little.

Ancedotally, I'd attribute this to the big cable test that was done at Head-Fi, where a guy had cabled the phones with several types of cable (silver, cheap Radio Shack, and one other) and sent these cables to be tested. The results? One tester got the cables right, and most ended up attributing the cheap Rat Shack cable as the more expensive and higher quality silver cables. Audio Quality is very finicky, and even more so when you have bias and such working against you.

Finally, AudioTStation is no longer an Sony/MD exclusive board. ATRACLife is to a degree, but many of us do own and use other brands. Doesn't mean we can't enjoy offerings from Sony along with other brands now does it?

[DSP]

well well,

another ´´who´s the best´´ discussion.......

like I said: It´s all about personal preference. period.

every decent DAP (not those cheap china ones, you´ll get my point) is good enough.

wich DAP is best for you is very personal. Every DAP has it´s strong points and weak points.

based on those points, and your preferences, one buys it´s DAP or entertainment device:

- want ease of use, don´t care about the rest? ipod.

- want to share your music everywhere you go? zune, MiniDisc, CD, samsung YP-K5.

- want absolute killing video performance? archos, creative zen vision W, PSP

- want abolute soundquality? sony. (but thats my opinion, soundquality is subjective. period.)

like I said, soundquality is very subjective, so no-one can say wich DAP sounds best.

everyone likes it´s sound in a different way.

I like sony SQ the most. And yes, I heard other DAP´s. I´ve heard creative, philips, samsung, archos, ipod, iriver and many more, but I just like the warm, rich and full colored sony sound. But I can easily live with the fact that half the world is very happy with their ipod. Or that people can live with the soundquality from thei samsung D600 cell phone.

so stop these endless and pointless discussions about who´s better, and just enjoy you´re DAP, and enjoy the fun some-one else is having with his (other) DAP.

So that, in the end, we all can enjoy our music, together.

greetz

[ender325_]

Well I have the NW-E507 (chrome) and it's more than a year old. I use it everyday and I must say it still impresses me sound wise and battery wise. I left it alone for the whole month of June (because I was using the PSP at that moment, was testing battery life) and when I turned it on it still had 3/4 of battery which is impressive. I have listened to the Nano's sound and it is not impressive in my opinion, I agree it sounds flat. I use Sony MDR-Q55, those are my headphones. My battery usually lasts around 43 hours and I use MP3s and ATRAC at different bit rates (no I don't use 48kbps bit rate that's horrible). I'm on my way to buy the NW-S705FBLACK and I know it won't disappoint. I'm just curious at the NC, Clear Stereo, Clear Bass and VPT functions and I've always dreamed of a color OLED display on my DAP. SonicStage is pretty cool and very functional imho, version 4.2 has never failed me. I also use iTunes to listen to my tracks because it has an EQ and yeah that program is cool...it's just that it sometimes, although rarely, slows down. Thanks for your attention.

[giki]

Hi ender325, no matter what you say,apple fanboys always place the somy lower in sound quality and just for the record minidisc had gapless 15 years ago,took apple 5 years and 5.5 generations to build it.

Reckon there is a thing besides audio chips which is known as engineering and quality which some apple fanboys just dont know cause they never saw any in their Ipods.We sony guys have felt it since we first got a Sony.

Wat do u reckon about SQ between ipods and walkmans irrespective of chips.My EX90s sound shit on an ipod but smooth and rich on my R909 and i give a fat rats clackers about chips.

Wat is your personal opinion and yes do go for the NW-S706F.Disappointment is an emotion you will never experience with it.

And yeah put the clearbass to the max,it cleared my head about all nonsense regarding other players..

[DSP]

I totally agree with giki.

SQ is not only dependant on the chip, but also of the buildquality. I´ve even heard that the type of display you put in a DAP influences the SQ.

greetz