NWZ-A829 - what a nightmare! some advice please...

[fugusushi]

OK, so i picked up an NWZ-A829.

Now, SonicStage is/was a piece o'**** - but at least i'd got used to it - had all my playlists set up etc.

Now this 829 isn't even recognised by SS!

And now Sony supply 'Media Manager for Walkman' - good grief - you wouldn't believe Sony would offer up an even worse piece of trash than SS, but here it is! And WMP doesn't seem to offer any meaningful transfer options...

So, I'm at a loss and would certainly value some advice....

I wanna transfer my playlists using the best recommended lossless for the best music quality i can get. I store all my music is WAV format - so 'I should' be able to achieve this - some way.

any comments and suggestions would be MUCH APPRECIATED!

[Old Skool P]

you wanna know the what to do?................re-rip your entire library from scratch. believe me it's probably the simplest option.

[prankz]

1. WMP is easy if you know how. You just need to get use to it.

2. If you still dont like WMP, then try MediaMonkey.

[fugusushi]

MediaMonkey does look good - thanks - but... what lossless is recommended for 'best' quality playback (if i'm starting with WAV files)?

I don't see much on offer in MM??

[lamewing]

OK, so i picked up an NWZ-A829.

Now, SonicStage is/was a piece o'**** - but at least i'd got used to it - had all my playlists set up etc.

Now this 829 isn't even recognised by SS!

And now Sony supply 'Media Manager for Walkman' - good grief - you wouldn't believe Sony would offer up an even worse piece of trash than SS, but here it is! And WMP doesn't seem to offer any meaningful transfer options...

So, I'm at a loss and would certainly value some advice....

I wanna transfer my playlists using the best recommended lossless for the best music quality i can get. I store all my music is WAV format - so 'I should' be able to achieve this - some way.

any comments and suggestions would be MUCH APPRECIATED!

You can always do what I did....sell it all off. I got tired of the NWZ series nonsense. Why do I need to use multiple programs to just load songs and video onto my player? Use WMP = no AAC. Drag/drop = no cover art. etc etc.

There are many other players out there.

[lamewing]

you wanna know the what to do?................re-rip your entire library from scratch. believe me it's probably the simplest option.

Rerip an entire collection? Riiiiiight. I have over 800CDs. There is no way I would rerip all of my music just to get them on a particular player...I would rather just get an iPod....oh, wait, that is exactly what I "settled" for.

[pata2001]

you wanna know the what to do?................re-rip your entire library from scratch. believe me it's probably the simplest option.

Err, his library is in WAV already. So the simplest thing he could do is simply encode the WAV files into MP3 or something. No need to re-rip from scratch.

[fugusushi]

yeah, i can see that it's 'straight forward' to just transfer them in MP3 or AAC (after ****in' around reentering track details and no cover art) - however, in ATRAC (SS) i was able to put them accross with 352kbps - my options now don't seem to go past 256 - not the end of the world, but could do better, surely...

i can put them on as PCM @ 1411 - great, but 110 tracks are coming in @ 8GBs.

Hense my original question; given the situation, what is the best lossless codec i can use to achieve best sound quality - and how do i do this???

any further suggestions much appreciated...

[kino170878]

Just store all your 800 or so CDs at WAV capacity, leave it like that, and from time to time copy things over and be more selective in your listening. I wouldn't bother obsessing over which lossless format is superior to whatever else is out there, it's far easier to keep WAV as the standard because it is universal. Then whatever compression format seems to be the flavour of the month you now have the freedom to try it out and experiment.

I don't care for tags and ratings and all that needless detail. I prefer to actually sit down, listen to my tracks and just enjoy them.

[fugusushi]

Just store all your 800 or so CDs at WAV capacity, leave it like that, and from time to time copy things over and be more selective in your listening. I wouldn't bother obsessing over which lossless format is superior to whatever else is out there, it's far easier to keep WAV as the standard because it is universal. Then whatever compression format seems to be the flavour of the month you now have the freedom to try it out and experiment.

I don't care for tags and ratings and all that needless detail. I prefer to actually sit down, listen to my tracks and just enjoy them.

you make a good point (although someone else mentioned '800 CDs') - and i'm not interested in much of that stuff either. but the main issue is since this new walkman with no ATRAC support, it seems you can choose between AAC at about 250 or mp3 at something less than that or PCM at 1400 - and no space on your player - i was used to ATRAC at 352 and why am i buying Sony players and Shure earphones if i'm effectively back to 250 or something... I don't like compromise and Sony seems to be 'forcing' me in to it!

Sony have really screwed the pooch on this one!

[prankz]

You can understand why Sony did this though. The majority hated SonicStage & ATRAC so Sony dumped it. For Sony to support ATRAC in their players, they would have to support SonicStage. But since the majority wont use it, its waste of money for Sony.

[fugusushi]

Sony wasting money?! yes - what you say is 100% correct - or at least i agree with you. But given that Sony had their lunch eaten by Apple - gave the world SS in the first place (don't mention Connect!) - then didn't bother to develop it properly - then dumped their proprietory music codec - how much money did they loose??!! they 'invented' the Walkman - lest we forget...

Whilst Sony's move has some eventuality about it, believe me, i'm sure when you yourself pick up one of these 'new' Walkmans you're gonna be cursing Sony too. WMP is a piece of trash and the least Sony could have done is supply M$ some Sony Walkman specific plugins, or something.

WMP is offering 192kbps - on the highest 'quality' setting vs. 352kbps i've got on my 818 (Media Manager for Walkman - Sony's new piece of god awful trash is offering 256, but it's unusable!!) - this is not a step forward for Sony, this is v.deffinately a step back and i would not have bought it had i known this beforehand...

seriously, anyone considering one of these has to really think hard - aside from bluetooth, extra space, bigger screen - well, that's all the pros - the cons are far more!!! unless you consider iPod level music quality a pro!!!!

I'm sure this forum is gonna fill up with folks and their 829 'gripes' once they start pickin' 'em up...

[prankz]

I've got a 'new' Walkman (A818) and I find it brilliant. I wouldnt say WMP is trash, it works when you know how. I havent had any problems so far. If you want to rip your music at high quality, then I suggest third-party software, either Easy CD-DA Extractor or dBpoweramp Music Converter.

[fugusushi]

yeah, the 818 is great - i've been testing different encoders on this 829 using Winamp and then benchmarking against the 818 - so far the 818 is noticably on top! Winamp is letting me get up to 320kbps with certain encoders - i can't figure out what the difference between them is though... on the player they're all saying 'AAC' even though via winamp i'm putting them accross in different formats - perhaps the player is only accepting AAC up to 320?...

one reason i sure don't like WMP is once i've imported all my stored files (WAV) it won't let me access file info to update track info...fine if you rip the cd via it, but not it seems for pre-existing files. plus it was only giving me 192 or someth. on file transfers...

anyway, if you've got an 818, i'd recommend sticking with it - i think i've been taken for a sap buying this 829!!!

[ceres]

yeah, the 818 is great - i've been testing different encoders on this 829 using Winamp and then benchmarking against the 818 - so far the 818 is noticably on top! Winamp is letting me get up to 320kbps with certain encoders - i can't figure out what the difference between them is though... on the player they're all saying 'AAC' even though via winamp i'm putting them accross in different formats - perhaps the player is only accepting AAC up to 320?...

one reason i sure don't like WMP is once i've imported all my stored files (WAV) it won't let me access file info to update track info...fine if you rip the cd via it, but not it seems for pre-existing files. plus it was only giving me 192 or someth. on file transfers...

anyway, if you've got an 818, i'd recommend sticking with it - i think i've been taken for a sap buying this 829!!!

Well, I don´t like the 829´s sound signature either. It´s certainly more processed than the 818s which isn´t exactly neutral either. The new 829 is in my opinion unusable with darker, more powerful IEMS such as Shure Se530, UM2 and such. You really need something like TF 10s or other very neutral phones. Problem is TF 10s hiss too much with the 829; in fact just as much as on the 818. I figured Sony would improve on the hiss performance but apparently didn´t bother to. As it stands the 829 is an overpriced (where I live) hybrid of the S7 and A8 series inheriting deficiencies such as Album Art not showing up on roughly 10% of all cases despite proper tags. Playlisting does work in Winamp but due to still crappy transfer speeds (insulting) the programm crashes often while updating the player. (Smart)Playlisting has become vital for me and as such I rely on ratings which Sony has removed from its recent offerings. Why? The same holds true for OTG playlists. Why are those gone? Creative, Cowon and such still got them.

For encoding purposes I would get dbpoweramp in conjunction with the lame codec for mp3 and the aac plugin from nero. You can create >300kbit/s encodings but imho there is no benefit in going past 200 kbit/s.

In order to properly tag and embed cover art go for mp3tag. You can import the results into wmp and take it from there.

Really, I am far from impressed with Sony´s efforts the last past 6 months. In fact I am reluctant to call it an effort at all as all shortcomings of the NWZ8xx were duplicated and crammed into the shell of the A9 Player MINUS the TV function.

IMO, Sony needs to drop the Price by as much as 33-50% to make people buy this player. Even then biggest buying incentive would probably be the included In-Ears which are very good for pack-ins.

If one was to get a NANO these days, I wouldn´t want to call it "settling" as many functions work flawlessly and you get great managment software with iTunes and a lot more.

The rolled-off bass is not that bad with SE530s or the likes. Sure there is no (real) EQ but in return you get very little hiss even with very sensitive IEMs. The Clickwheel is braindead and imprecise but when used with the radio remote you can cope just fine.

[juli_]

The new 829 is in my opinion unusable with darker, more powerful IEMS such as Shure Se530, UM2 and such.

You really need something like TF 10s or other very neutral phones. Problem is TF 10s hiss too much with the 829; in fact just as much as on the 818. I figured Sony would improve on the hiss performance but apparently didn´t bother to.

I have the Triple.Fi's and they sound excellent with the 829. I can't hear any hiss, or if there is any, it's negligible.

I think the 829 is more neutral than the 808. I found the Triples/808 combo to be too warm, and more balanced with the 829. It still has 'punch', and I don't hear any 'processed' sound whatsoever. That's with absolutely no EQ or any effects applied at all. They sounded a little too bright with the Zune though.

As for the E500, I didn't like them at all with the 808.

[gotthat]

u should have done some research about NWZ walkman before ur purchase man, cause that way u wouldn't be feeling pissed like this. why would anyone want to buy discomfort and anger? u can just keep using whatever u were using previously or switch the brand camp, i mean this NWZ-A820 thing is considered to be a great product by people who need 2.4 screen, bt, drag and drop, majority of the consumers are not hardcore walkman atracfans, that's why they are happy just with the NWZ walkmans, how many people really have the time to care and know about sq, atrac, or whatever technical stuff, though it's a shame for atracfans. I haven't heard any processed sound on NWZ or NW-A820 so far myself.....i like it better than NW-A800, i think NW-910 should be the most impressive atrac walkman around in terms of design, sq and it has the best feel in ur hands, however it's only sold in japan.

Edited May 11, 2008 by gotthat

[Old Skool P]

Rerip an entire collection? Riiiiiight. I have over 800CDs. There is no way I would rerip all of my music just to get them on a particular player...I would rather just get an iPod....oh, wait, that is exactly what I "settled" for.

There is only one "I" in the word "Right"

IMHO I still think it's better to re-rip from scratch.

[fugusushi]

In order to properly tag and embed cover art go for mp3tag. You can import the results into wmp and take it from there.

i think i agree completely - that's a good assessment of the situ. fact is Sony can't do software - the only exception is the Playstation division which to my understanding is a completely autonomous div. - it's widely believed that without this div. Sony would have died or been bought long ago - at one point they were supplying almost all Sony's profits!!

on the above cover art point, i don't quite follow what you're getting at. i'm keen to try and use mp3tag to sort out my cover art, but it doesn't recognise WAV files (can't find a tag editor that does), which is what my tracks are stored in.

what's you're point about using WMP too? (WMP right now gives me 'no' track editing options!! (I hate to accept it, but Old Skool P's suggestion of re-ripping everything is not looking so crazy - only catch is i've got many converted tracks from iTunes which wouldn't be covered by such drastic action!!)

thanks

[prankz]

Dont know why you lot are not impressed with the latest Walkman series. So far I'm loving my A818. Sony is doing a great job turning round its Walkman brand.

Anyway, on to album art, havent you lot figured out yet how to update tag data using WMP?

[mmp64]

I agree that Sony has created a mess from a software perspective. Media Manager is wretched. Basically I'm using 2-3 different apps to manage the player, and still not getting ratings or on-the-fly playlists. I understand what they are doing though - as someone pointed out, they are trying to go for mass appeal. Most "normal" people (which we are not, or we wouldn't be reading this) probably don't take advantage of most of the more advanced features of something like iTunes. They just want to put music on their player and listen to it. But when you get into hundreds, or thousands of CDs of music, you really need some of these features. I guess the only answer for Sony at this point is a deeper integration w/ WMP (including video), though I am not a big fan of that app. Sony certainly should not waste any more time trying to create software.

[prankz]

I agree that Sony has created a mess from a software perspective. Media Manager is wretched. Basically I'm using 2-3 different apps to manage the player, and still not getting ratings or on-the-fly playlists. I understand what they are doing though - as someone pointed out, they are trying to go for mass appeal. Most "normal" people (which we are not, or we wouldn't be reading this) probably don't take advantage of most of the more advanced features of something like iTunes. They just want to put music on their player and listen to it. But when you get into hundreds, or thousands of CDs of music, you really need some of these features. I guess the only answer for Sony at this point is a deeper integration w/ WMP (including video), though I am not a big fan of that app. Sony certainly should not waste any more time trying to create software.

Seriously? What apps?

[mmp64]

WMP, Winamp, Sony Media Manager (for Video).

[ceres]

i think i agree completely - that's a good assessment of the situ. fact is Sony can't do software - the only exception is the Playstation division which to my understanding is a completely autonomous div. - it's widely believed that without this div. Sony would have died or been bought long ago - at one point they were supplying almost all Sony's profits!!

on the above cover art point, i don't quite follow what you're getting at. i'm keen to try and use mp3tag to sort out my cover art, but it doesn't recognise WAV files (can't find a tag editor that does), which is what my tracks are stored in.

what's you're point about using WMP too? (WMP right now gives me 'no' track editing options!! (I hate to accept it, but Old Skool P's suggestion of re-ripping everything is not looking so crazy - only catch is i've got many converted tracks from iTunes which wouldn't be covered by such drastic action!!)

thanks

I brought WMP into play because by and large it does a better job of not losing tag information, especially year and album art, than Explorer.exe

You cannot add album art to WAV files because the format simply doesn´t allow for album art afaik. You´ll have to convert first.

[fugusushi]

hmm, i didn't know that!

so how did SonicStage, iTunes etc. manage to add cover art? I mean i don't care if the 'tag' 'holds' the cover art, or what ever, just so long as it gets on to my player... Winamp has some unfathomable way of treating cover art, MediaMonkey seems to do it the same as SS, but the transfer options are poor...

i asked this in another thread too, but how come the Japanese versions of these models are still supporting ATRAC - in fact more options under ATRAC - ? and why would it have been such a big deal for Sony to offer that option to EU too?!

[Old skool D]

Sony wasting money?! yes - what you say is 100% correct - or at least i agree with you. But given that Sony had their lunch eaten by Apple - gave the world SS in the first place (don't mention Connect!) - then didn't bother to develop it properly - then dumped their proprietory music codec - how much money did they loose??!! they 'invented' the Walkman - lest we forget...

Whilst Sony's move has some eventuality about it, believe me, i'm sure when you yourself pick up one of these 'new' Walkmans you're gonna be cursing Sony too. WMP is a piece of trash and the least Sony could have done is supply M$ some Sony Walkman specific plugins, or something.

WMP is offering 192kbps - on the highest 'quality' setting vs. 352kbps i've got on my 818 (Media Manager for Walkman - Sony's new piece of god awful trash is offering 256, but it's unusable!!) - this is not a step forward for Sony, this is v.deffinately a step back and i would not have bought it had i known this beforehand...

seriously, anyone considering one of these has to really think hard - aside from bluetooth, extra space, bigger screen - well, that's all the pros - the cons are far more!!! unless you consider iPod level music quality a pro!!!!

I'm sure this forum is gonna fill up with folks and their 829 'gripes' once they start pickin' 'em up...

/quote]

I had the A829 for a while. Whilst I found WMP ok, I must admit that I prefer SS. This could be down to being more familar with SS. I too found that WMP highest setting was 192 KBP. Is there no way of increasing this?

[ceres]

/quote]

I had the A829 for a while. Whilst I found WMP ok, I must admit that I prefer SS. This could be down to being more familar with SS. I too found that WMP highest setting was 192 KBP. Is there no way of increasing this?

[bigbrother]

this is one interesting thread, I am not sure whether "normal" or "average" users would get lost in this or not, cause they may just want to load their music and listen to it on the go.......but what's really another complaint floating on the internet is that some users say that it gives you such a cheap feel when you touch it, but there are users who defend and say that this walkman is not made to be a cheap thing, it feels like you are touching a dell XPS or high end laptop material....so many things revolve around NWZ-A820 wherever you look

[juli_]

but what's really another complaint floating on the internet is that some users say that it gives you such a cheap feel when you touch it, but there are users who defend and say that this walkman is not made to be a cheap thing, it feels like you are touching a dell XPS or high end laptop material.

I would say I prefer the feel of my 808, but the 829 doesn't feel cheap to me at all.

Anyway, I just got a clear hard case for it so now it doesn't matter

[fugusushi]

I would say I prefer the feel of my 808, but the 829 doesn't feel cheap to me at all.

Anyway, I just got a clear hard case for it so now it doesn't matter

Hey! where'd you get your case! I got one of those clear cases for my 818 and it was/is great. I wanted to get one when i got my 829 and AdvancedMP3/Sony/Amazon didn't have 'em - i 'assumed' it was 'cause it was such a new player --- but... let me know your resource! (thanks)

[fugusushi]

/quote]

I had the A829 for a while. Whilst I found WMP ok, I must admit that I prefer SS. This could be down to being more familar with SS. I too found that WMP highest setting was 192 KBP. Is there no way of increasing this?

yeah, i'm kinda puzzled... WMA it seems is quite a broad ranging potentially high quality encoder - and yet M$ have not included these options within their media player and i'm not aware of any plugins - at least i checked and couldn't find any... i means, would it really be a big deal for M$ to have given a broader range of transfer options? At least to include their own proprietary encoder!

ceres

''You only have to deactivate automatic re-encoding for your Walkman device. (hidden somewhere in the clunky menus).''

dude, if you can point me towards this, that would be great! but i've searched my menus and there ain't such an option.

Right now this 829 - or at least Sony's set up of it - is proving a real pain in my ***!

So, whilst i know the player can handle at least 320kbps on ACC - 'cause i've transferred tracks at that rate already - if i set transfer to WMA (accepted by the player) @ 320 Constant - it won't accept it. If I choose 320 Variable, wait for it... I get 4689kbps (according to > 'Detailed Information' for each track)! WTF is going on here!!??

[juli_]

Hey! where'd you get your case! I got one of those clear cases for my 818 and it was/is great. I wanted to get one when i got my 829 and AdvancedMP3/Sony/Amazon didn't have 'em - i 'assumed' it was 'cause it was such a new player --- but... let me know your resource! (thanks)

I got it from eBay, it was a complete rip off, working out to £25 inclusive of shipping, but I got it anyway since I didn't want to take any risks with my new player!

There only seems to be one place selling it in the whole world

It's different to the 808 hard case, in that the 4-way pad and home/options aren't covered by rubberised buttons. It looks nice anyway.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SONY-clear-case-CKH-...Q2em118Q2el1247

[fugusushi]

when you say 'you got it' you mean it's arrived - or you've bought it? in other words, this seller is OK? (seems so from the ratings) - i don't like shopping on ebay - avoid it as much as possible - but i might have to go for one of these.... (right now i've got a 'rubber' cover - it's not bad - but these plastic ones are good)

thanks

[juli_]

when you say 'you got it' you mean it's arrived - or you've bought it? in other words, this seller is OK? (seems so from the ratings) - i don't like shopping on ebay thanks

I ordered it last Tuesday, the seller dispatched it on Thursday (together with an e-mail to let me know it had been sent) and it arrived in the UK today Monday (or yesterday since it's just turned Tuesday!). I checked his feedback thoroughly and it seemed fine - plus the 829 looks really cute in the case

When you say 'rubber cover', do you mean the silicon ones that you have to use a screen protector with? I don't like those stick-on protectors, they might protect the screen from scratches but they don't protect it if it drops!

[mmp64]

When you talk about WMP "only going to 192" - is that not because there is no higher bitrate for WMA? If you want to rip to MP3, I guess you'll have to use something else like Easy CD DA Extractor. WMA is a pretty nice codec - I would say 192 WMA is pretty close to transparent for portable music, especially on one of these new Sony units.

[fugusushi]

When you talk about WMP "only going to 192" - is that not because there is no higher bitrate for WMA? If you want to rip to MP3, I guess you'll have to use something else like Easy CD DA Extractor. WMA is a pretty nice codec - I would say 192 WMA is pretty close to transparent for portable music, especially on one of these new Sony units.

you can certainly take WMA past 192. Plus there are variants to WMA too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Audio

[fugusushi]

When you say 'rubber cover', do you mean the silicon ones that you have to use a screen protector with? I don't like those stick-on protectors, they might protect the screen from scratches but they don't protect it if it drops!

yeah, 'silicon', that's the word...nice case (Sony) but sure, no real protection... but i just ordered a plastic one - thanks for the tip...

[barney]

I'm down to two apps to manage the music on my A829, iTunes to rip music in AAC format and sort out tags/artwork. Explorer to drag and drop the albums onto the player.

I'm no fan of itunes but not many other apps rip aac from my research.

As for video that's next weeks fun and games.

As for screen protection I put a PDA overlay on but it's coming off as the screen isn't recessed like the A80x/A81x series.

[fugusushi]

that's a neat idea - using iTunes like that...

someone on here recommended MediaMonkey and after also checking out Winamp, I went with MM, taking my WAV and putting them accross in MP3 320 - although my preference was for WMA, i couldn't get it to work at 320...

don't much bother with vids on these things...

[barney]

It works well (i'm no apple fan, but it does what it says on the tin), although I have a few grips with itunes:

1, album art doesn't appear on the walkman unless you manually add it (ie get album cover art option doesn't save it in to the file).

2, ripped folder arrangement, although I've become savvy to it now and make sure the album/artist names are identical for each track before ripping.

3, all the extra software installed, apple update, quicktime, bonjour. I must have a look to see how to slim down itunes to the bear essentials.

Outstanding issues:

playlists- my missus has a A81x and complains she can't have play lists

video- a definitive conversion guide.

When the missus is away next week I'll write up an iTunes guide, I think it could help some ex ipod owners transfer to sony!

On the A82x front, i think it sounds fuller than the previous A8xx series. Just my humble opinion though!

[juli_]

On the A82x front, i think it sounds fuller than the previous A8xx series. Just my humble opinion though!

I agree. It also has a bigger soundstage (to my ears) which is quite noticeable.