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Sony D-NE511 Silver ATRAC/MP3 CD Walkman
Sony (
24 March, 2003 )
Electronics |
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£
39.99 |
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This item is not in stock or has been discontinued. |
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Good stuff, and great value!  |
The Walkman comes with:- Very basic in-ear headphones - theyre OK, but they could have at least had a volume control or something.
- Two instruction manuals - one for the Walkman and one for the ATRAC CD burning software, which I thought was very nice of them as PC software rarely come with PRINTED manuals these days.
- An AC mains adapter (4.5V) - one of those new really lightweight ones. I assume it can be used for recharging batteries (which would explain the extra 1.5V) somehow but I didnt see anything in the manual about it. Its got a pretty long wire too (about 3m?), which I find very useful for playing in bed :D The Walkman itself is pretty slim, but is a big longer than most with the big display and stuff. The battery compartment is INSIDE the CD tray, which is strange but a very good idea because the usual battery doors always break or get lost with these kinds of things. Build quality is adequate - nice buttons and everything, pretty metallic finish , but the CD door does look a *bit* flimsy. It has buttons for everything you need, and the jog dial is very useful for easy track access, especially with big MP3/ATRAC CDs. It plays normal audio CDs well enough, and displays track names and whatnot with the few CD Text CDs. I burned an ATRAC (which, by the way is the standard format used to fit so much onto MiniDiscs) CD at 48x speed using the highest (132kbps) ATRAC3 encoding, and I fit 9 albums on with about 50MB to spare. The CD played perfectly, but did take a while to load because I made it in 9 different sessions. Personally, I think the sound quality is much better than the average 128kbps MP3, as it retains really bassy low frequency sounds better than MP3s. I havent really tried any other bitrates yet, but I heard ATRAC3plus recordings dont actually sound too bad for such low bitrates. The ATRAC recording software is very easy to use, and it can recieve CD track titles from CDDB databases on the web. I tried making an MP3 CD using Nero Express (the Walkman isnt supplied with MP3 CD-burning software) at 48x speed. I fit 176 tracks (mostly 128kbps) on the CD with a bit of space left. Its mostly OK but a few of the traks burned at the beginning of the CD occasionally skip a bit. The Walkman seems to be a bit more "picky" with MP3 CDs than ATRAC CDs. Maybe the CD burner just had a bad day - Im not sure exactly. I recommend burning MP3 CDs at low speeds (24x or lower) for error-free playback, and try to burn a CD all in one session as it really cuts down on loading time when the Walkman searches for track names when first inserted. All you need to do is make a normal ISO/Joliet CD and just stick MP3 files on it (you can use folders too) - its so simple! I havent tried CD-RWs yet but its supposed to be compatible with them unlike most cheaper and older CD players. The G-Protection system works very well - even on mode 1 (theres a switch inside) you can walk around and even shake the hell out of it with your hand and it refuses to skip! Dodgy MP3 CDs *seem* to skip less on mode 2, too! Other things I liked:
- Resume function: You can stop playback, leave it as long as you want, and as long as you leave the CD and the batteries/adaptor in it will start playing exactly where you left off when you press play!
- Multiple playback modes: Normal, single folder, one track repeat, shuffle and single folder shuffle.
- ID3 tag (incl. version 2) support.
- Folder select buttons.
- No having to put up with any copy protection or Microsoft stuff. Things I didnt like:
- The sound level is adequate for headphones, but as others have said it is a bit quiet when connected to speakers or a hi-fi.
- Lack of remote support. I know at this price it wont come with a remote but they could have at least had a socket for one.
- Lack of support for other audio formats like OGG Vorbis (which I personally think is superior to MP3) and AAC.
- ATRAC CDs can ONLY be played on ATRAC Walkmans, and theres no software to play them on your PC. You never know though - future Sony DVD players may be able to play ATRAC CDs if the format takes off. Still, you dont expect EVERYTHING at this price and its still GREAT for an entry-level early model of a new system. I dont know if ATRAC CDs will ever be popular but that doesnt stop them from sounding great. Anyway, its still superb for MP3 and audio CD playback!
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Sony Atrac CD Player - very reliable............... |
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Only had this CD player from Amazon for two days now, but very pleased with it.Very good sound quality, even with supplied basic earphones. Been listening to MP3 Christian preaching disc on my post-round, and played flawlessly. I tried converting some of my CDs with the supplied software, and that worked perfectly, sounding just as good as the original, even with the default 64 kbits conversion, had loads of spare room on the disc, after several albums. The volume could be a bit higher, but not as bad as some reviewers have said, perfectly loud enough when I used it at work, walking on my post-round!
The machine hasnt skipped at all, even when playing normal CDs and has worked perfectly with the cheap Benq CDs I purchased from Amazon. The lid could have been made from stronger plastic, such as the plastic used on the underside of the machine, and its a shame the lid is not flush with the machine when closed. A bargain at £40, much better than other MP3 CD walkmans, as it plays ATRAC CDs which are better quality compression than the older MP3 technology, and take up less room on the CD. I would suggest going no lower than 64 kbits for ATRAC recording, as you still get heaps of CDs onto a CDR, and quality sounds as good as original. Battery life also very good, other brands have short battery life, Sony always have good battery saving technology. You cannot go wrong with this machine, now even cheaper than what I paid for it, and you get 5 CDRs that amounts to about 140 albums in ATRAC! Forget about Apple Ipod, this is far more flexible and cheaper to run, and cheaper if you ever drop it! and CDs only 15p each at Amazon if you buy 100 Benq CDRs ....... HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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Great hardware - Dire software  |
This player is a first-rate piece of desirable kit, well up to Sonys usual high standard of build quality. It plays CDs and MP3 or ATRAC-3-encoded CDs very well. Routing the sound through a stereo system makes it clear that sound quality is very good, and probably better than youll realise when using the supplied earphones.Unfortunately the software ("SonicStage") provided is dire. You can write MP3-encoded CDs with any number of rippers and writers availble on the Net, and this machine will play them, however if you try to write an MP3 CD using SonicStage, it will re-encode your MP3s into some proprietary format which then becomes unusable on your PC. In a similar fashion, it encodes ATRAC-3 files into a format incompatible with other ATRAC players (eg. Minidiscs), and you cannot simply dump minidisc-encoded ATRAC-3 files onto a CD: this player will not recognise them. This is a pity, since ATRAC encoding (along with Windows WMA - not supported here) seems to be a better sounding compression format than MP3. However Sonys efforts to implement what seems to be a kind of Digital Rights Management on this, and other players, seems certain to ensure that ATRAC-3 will never take off in the way that MP3 has.
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