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How Sony's HD Audio Player Falls Short
Mr_Silver writes "Sony's new MP3 based HD player (the snappily titled NW-HD3) is reviewed over at head-fi.org. Unfortunately it can't remember where you last were located when browsing, you can't list all the songs by an artist, 1.5 hours to transfer 2100 songs (instead of the iPod's 15 minutes) and a wall of noise in the output. Final conclusion? 'If there was a way I could return this thing, I'd do it in a second.' So close, yet so far." Update: 12/14 00:35 GMT by T : Not quite so fast: As
forums.minidisc.org Administrator Christopher MacManus writes, it turns out that (as the threads below this review reveal), "The reviewer
discovers that the unit he had is defective as someone else employs one
and there is no hiss issue. Furthermore, the software woes he
experienced are related to him employing JAPANESE software on an English
operating system. Sonicstage 2.3, which he needs to use the unit, is now
available in English."
Here I was thinking Sony had some kind of "high definition" MP3 player, but no, it's HDD as in "hard disk drive."
Breakfast served all day!
honestly - how do people turn out such a faulty product? it seems the hardware would be the hard part - why is the software so shoddy?
Well, maybe not quite :-(
MP3 based HD player
Damn two letter acronyms in article summaries.... I was wondering what MP3 had to do with high definition.
HD == hard disk, in this context
I'm glad newspaper reporters don't write this poorly yet.
NOT !!!
slow down cowboy, enough of the quick karma.
...A special kind of sadistic bastard to make a portable music player that doesn't play MP3 files (as most previous Sony products did). Sadistic bastards generally don't make stellar products when their main concerns are pushing file formats.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I often wonder how companies don't notice things like what's listed for how it falls short... I guess companies just rush it out the door instead of spending at least a week having random people use it an list complaints... shame.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
What? You don't have the returns address? Drop me an email and I'll give you one. :)
The only advantage I can see to getting this is that it charges off usb. I hate the fact that my 4th gen iPod will only charge off of a firewire port (although the included wall adapter is a really cool feature). Also, does anyone know if the SONY product can be used as a harddrive? The review said that you had to use their software to transfer songs, but it said nothing about how you could transfer files and things.
I'm guessing they made the MP3 sound bad so that people would think ATRAC would be the better sounding format.
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People actually buy Sony MP3 players? lol
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
Now I've done it; I've doomed the thing to be wildly successful!
The CB App. What's your 20?
modpoints (838575) :
So your email is thezero@gmail.com correct?
How about simply "So far"? =P
Keep your eyes to the sky.
No wonder that Sony is able to 'lose' $250 for each PSP unit sold. They simply cut back on the mp3 player ;-)
On one page I see an advert for a 40GB IPOD that can hold 15000 tracks for only $399
On the adjacent page I see that these tracks only cost me $0.99/each
My math says that's $14,850 to fill the thing up.
I've only got a hundred or so albums and it would be nice to carry them around with me, but getting them into the IPOD or SONY HD3 or whatever and indexing, is a royal PIT@. Going out and finding all that music and buying it AGAIN at the 99 cent music store is also a PITW (pain in the wallet).
Why the hell can't I just take my CD or vinyl recording and easily stuff it into the portable player? Until this is 'fast and easy' the radio or listening at home is more attractive (granted there are some good stations in my two home towns).
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
Um, if it's /.'ed, that doesn't help.
this is a prime example of how a product fails because of it trying to control the consumer.
I just can't believe how this got past the door isn't market research meant to prevent really stupid products like this
sony can make awesome electronic gear its just the donuts in head office and other depts shoot them selves in the foot
Wow!! Copy and paste with no paragraph breaks. How insightful! Maybe you could have taken out the spaces too to make it even more readable.
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Hmm. The iPod puts out fairly accurate low end when its hooked up to a stereo. Sounds to me like mavis had a problem with the headphones and decided to fix it in a rather too drastic manner. Ah, the curse of the early adopter who is influenced by the lure of the shiny new toy.
The poster does mention trying new headphones with the iPod (near the end of the "review"), but fails to say if they made a difference. The implication is that they didn't. Maybe this is because the iPod is missing a simple "bass boost" button (something which is far from lacking, between equalization and the desire for many people to listen to music without significant alterations)? Then again, this was written by a self-proclaimed bass-head non-audiophile...
Hmm. Sounds like a pretty solid vote for "not recommended" to me...
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Kumquats are delicious.
Has Sony invented anything that is original AND decent since Trinitron?
Sounds like a real ipod killer there. I can just see the legions of fans marching through the streets, screaming at the top of their lungs, I want my NW-HD3, I want my NW-HD3!
I can't wait to get one and throw my Ipod in the trash. Listing songs by Artist was overrated anyway.
sarcasm is deadly
read more rants: thunt.net
So my original story sent over a week ago about this new player wasn't good enough? Had to wait for a post that made Sony sound like it sucks, eh? Seems like the typical /. way... oh well. FWIW, someone else on that thread got the HD3 and didn't notice and hiss issues with the device. I'm still looking forward to its release here in the states.
Granted, the 2100 song transfer was all mp3's, which is likely being wrapped in some DRM on the device and not the native ATRAC3plus format. Regardless, I agree that it's still slow. But then again, how often does one swap out that many songs on and off a DAP?
In the meantime, I'll wait for the "SONY SUCKS! APPLE RULES!" posts to suck up more internet bandwidth and database server space.
But it's Sony... it has to be good.
If you read the comments at the bottom of the review page, you will notice that the reviewer has determined that he has a defective unit, which would account for the bad output quality.
Of course this still doesn't excuse sony's production of such an obviously crippled device. It has great potential, but will never work so long as sony is also a record company.
You are a dirty karma whore with a bleeding anus.
I want to get one but it's just expensive enough that I don't want to go in blind. Haven't seen any real reviews (resellers own doesn't count).
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I wonder if the reviewer made an honest mistake and actually received a genuine Sorny product. Anyway, I would have went with a Panaphonics.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
I originally acquired a minidisc for one main reason: Battery Life. It would last around 50 hours on a single AA and that was the only thing I cared a year ago. Eventually I discovered all the issues with the technologies involved into this portable media.
Minidiscs (Net-MD and HI-MD) do have many issues such as:
- ATRAC only.
Compress your compressed mp3s into Atrac. Noticable Quality Loss. If you want to preserve the quality, then record LIVE (SP-Mode) like a cassette but do we really have time to do that?
Compress = lose time = quality loss = why?!?
- Cheap built quality.
Sony tends to make the higher-priced models built to last longer using material like magnesium unlike plastic of the lower-end models. It makes some sense I guess since it costs more but for a company like Sony, the company who ruled in the era of Walkmans (god those things were solid), I find it sad how the tables have turned. Walkmans used to take major beatings and they'd still function.
- slow transfer.
because of conversion and because it doesn't mearly use the potential of usb 2.0. Very abysmal on NET-Md's. On HI-Md's, they try to impress you with "100X" when in fact that's 500kb/s of burning speed.
I'm glad that Sony at least understood that it will take mp3 playback capability to at least compete in the market of portable audio players but they are already behind, way behind in the western countries and have a long way. They have to improve the software these players use (SonicStage has a horrible interface and barely enough features) and built quality of these players.
I'l sum this up by saying that I just wish Sony could build their future players like they used to with the Walkmans: Built to last.
I am an active member of Head-fi, and I was expecting a private message on a purchase this evening. Not going to happen now *g*. On the other hand, I'm glad that Head-fi is getting exposure, as too many people use crappy headphones with their expensive players. Shure E5 for life! West Side!
He'd give Marge a good dickin'. And then Lisa, too. And then, for good measure, he'd give Santa's Little Helper a taste of the ol' Home-Bone right up the crapper.
The post mortems of this and other so-called "iPod Killers" are beginning to expose the difficulty of creating:
1) a sleek, feature rich MP3 player;
2) sleek, intuitive software to run on the player; and
3) sleek, intuitive software to interface with it.
(and optionally a sleek music store to interface with it)
For those who belittle Apple's achievement or dismiss their market success as "clever marketing," the failure of Sony and others to basically get their engineering shit in order should be more than telling: apparently, creating a great MP3 player really is hard.
heaven help you if you need customer support due to defective merchandise. I have had so much trouble with Sony's shitty ass customer service that I vowed never to buy Sony again. I smile every time I hear tales of misfortune with there products.
Stop spamming slashdot.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
I want to be über-pimp and get an iPod, but I want to be avant-garde, so I bought a Sony, which sucks, compared to the iPod. Did I mention that my wife is Japanese? That gets me gadget-geek points, doesn't it?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
A few players such as this Sony and perhaps the Creative Muvo2 look good on paper, but specs aren't everything. A lot of it also comes down to the UI and how easy it is to use. If I have to scroll through 5G of songs with only a one line display (ala Muvo2) to find one song, you can forget that!
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So basically.. we should hail Apple because Sony sucks?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No, it will charge off USB, just not as fast....
Just be sure you dismount the thing or it will continue to run and suck juice.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
his email is: thezero@gmail.com
and thats: thezero@gmail.com
which is also: thezero@gmail.com
and can also be thezero@gmail.com
Thank you so much!
Instead, a lot of people end up getting frustrated and the product gets a bad reputation that it never recovers from.
"Oh, here is another over priced piece of Apple crap", I thought. And that time, I might have been right. I am not an Apple fan by nature.
I bought a 20 GB player from another company, and liked it well enough.
Earlier this year, I had the chance to get $100 off one of the new 4th gneration iPods. I decided on the 20 Gb to replace the brick that was my MP3 player.
I have never looked back.
My iPod is easily the best gadget (or maybe even technology item, period) that I have ever purchased. I love it. My life is now filled with music and audio books.
What I really don't get is how a company like Sony can fall on its face over, and over, and over. Seriously, can't Sony, f@cking Sony, figure out how to make a cool gadget to compete with iPod? Seriously, nothing I have tickered with at WorstBuy (tm) or CircuitCrapy (tm) from Sony even comes close to the ease of use and pure coolness that I have with my iPod.
As a software developer, I really don't get how a company that is often on or ahead of the curve like Sony and continue to f@ck it up!
Apple is in strange territory. Many times the first to market is also to far ahead of the market that they fail. This is not the case with the iPod, and Sony needs a huge shift in engineering and attitude if they want to even attempt to catch up.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
I personally believe that Sony's dual role of hardware manufacturer and record lable are at odds with one another. (Indeed, you have to wonder if the famed Betamax case would have ever been filed in today's world.)
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Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
someone up the chain said "no" for whatever reason?
The reason is usually ego. It effects everyone no mater how smart they are, usually the smartest one have the biggest ego. So when the request goes to the guy who came with the unpopular design his ego gets in the way he will naturally get defensive towards the change. It happens every where things like vi vs Emacs, Linux vs xBSD. People don't want to show that they made a mistake and will hide the mistake.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Ahh Sony. how far you have fallen. I remember the days when I could enjoy the knowledge that my Trinitron CRT was the best TV out there. Now Sony is home to crappy proprietary audio formats and junky audio players too... Whats Happened?
So close, yet so far. To what? From what?
Ah, the NW-HD3; so easy to remember. I can hear it now:
"Mom and Dad, I really really want a Sony NW-HD3 this holiday season!"
Never mind sending Mom and Dad to the mall with that kind of information just invites holiday disappointment. The real problem is that Sony makes ten trillion different pieces of consumer electronics, all of which are named just as idiotically. KD-36XS955, HDR-FX1, DSC-F828 -- these are all real products I pulled off the Sony website. Do you have any clue what they are?
Contrast this with the branding Apple pulled off after Jobs returned: they went from having a confusing line of Performa 5200s, Performa 6300s, PowerMac 7200s, Powermac 8500s, PowerBook 1800s (etc. etc. the list goes on) to having three easily explainable product lines: iMacs, PowerMacs and PowerBooks and now iBooks and iPods. Easy. "Mom and Dad, I want an iPod". Done.
Granted this creates another set of problems (for tech support and repair shops especially) but overall the effect dramatically reduces consumer confusion dramatically. Why can't Sony and other electronics manufacturers learn from this lesson?
~jeff
For example the output of the Archos Jukebox 6000 had overly small capacitors which limited bass. There is a mod that fixes this.
No wireless + slower than an iPod = LAME.
I actually prefered the original Xbox controller. All others are too small and give my hands real crampiness.
Am I the only one that thought a controller thats actually bigger than your hand was a good idea?
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Sony's hardware has fallen short of claims so much that when I see this I just think 'here they go again'
It's always the software portion. First it was the customized software drivers on their PCs which did less than the generic drivers. Then there was the net MD crap they forgot to tell you they had to convert all the files to atrac on your HD first and that up to 64X speed meant everyone got around 1.3X speed. Then their memorystick format didn't support sizes over 256mb - hence the 'pro' version. Funny NO OTHER flash format needed any upgrades from the first 8MB card to the 4GB cards.
His device was defective. There is no background hiss with this device, but unfortunately, most people will not see my comment and believe the aforementioned review. It's truly idiotic how the internet can be at times..
Use Minidisc? Join the Minidisc.org forums.
Oh, PC Mag has stated it likes the Zen sound quality? Thanks, I'll be sure to stay away from that product.
Seriously, PC Mag is a joke. Slip a little cash under the table and you can get them to write whatever you want.
BBS in Japan has already stopped comparing iPod with NW-HD3, as latter is so laughable. It's recoginized as a kind of joke from SONY.
What is at discussion right now is whether Sony's PSP is more attractive or not.
Pros
1) less expensive(about 20,000yen)
2) able to play motion pitcure
3) of course games.
Cons
1) storage support is limited to memory stick Duo(upto 512 mb?)
2) initial quality problem( http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cf6y-oot/)
I personaly have iPod Photo 60GB, however it's maybe nice to have PSP after quality problem are resolved.
"The reviewer discovers that the unit he had is defective as someone else employs one and there is no hiss issue. Furthermore, the software woes he experienced are related to him employing JAPANESE software on an English operating system. Sonicstage 2.3, which he needs to use the unit, is now available in English."
so...when did the reviewer discover that it's more effective for a horse to pull a cart than to push it?
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
It was pretty obivious a "wall of noise" would have to be a hardware defect, Sony would not send out a product like that - and lots of people seem to be picking up on this so you can renew your faith in ther internet.
However - is it accurate you cannot browse by artist? That to me would be enough to disregard it. I use all of the browsing modes on the iPod and wouldn't be happy to loose any of them - to produce a new product without this feature seems insane to me.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No. I also prefer the larger controller. Especially after buying RF controllers that were not only smaller, but had radically different sensitivities for the joysticks -- screwed up all my fine motor control habits. Now where I used to rule, I get creamed. :(
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
While I agree with your theory, I don't agree with your examples. With things like vi vs. emacs, or Linux vs. BSD, there's more at work besides just ego. For one thing, followers of these items tend to be pretty passionate about them, but they didn't actually design them. They merely selected them. But more importantly I think, the competing items simply have different qualities that attract different people. vi is a much smaller and simpler editor than emacs, and works in a completely different way. The two really aren't similar at all, except for the fact that they are usually used in text-mode. Similarly, Linux and xBSD fill different niches, and there are different varieties of BSDs which are fairly different. OpenBSD is widely considered to be more secure than any of the others, and for this reason is popular for things like routers. People interested in the latest OSS desktop applications would rightly be interested in something else, probably Linux, where development is much faster but doesn't have such a focus on security. It's not that anyone made a "mistake" with any of these items, it's just that they had different needs/wants and a different method of doing things.
All that said, I do believe you're right about ego. I see it a lot in my job. For instance, someone comes up with an internal software tool, and somehow snowballs management into adopting it as the standard for use on a project. But then, everyone who's now forced to use it finds out that they hate it, it doesn't let them do things they could do before, etc., but the guy (or team) that developed the tool gets defensive and doesn't want to fix or replace the tool. If there's enough complaining, eventually a new tool will be made, but it takes a lot of complaining and energy and time to do so, and the people who made the old tool don't like it even though it's obvious their tool sucks. Meanwhile, some older tool could have been easily adapted to the new project and made everyone's life easier (except the guy trying to justify his promotion by creating the crappy new tool).
The new Sony audio player was not accompanied by a suitcase full of $100 bills. Therefore, I find that it falls short. I hope Sony rectifies this error in short order. Thank you.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Don't forget, it doesn't run Linux. That's -5 right there.
Oh wait...
http://www.ipodlinux.org/index.php/Main_Page
...genuine Sorny when I see one!"
Reinventing the wheel since 1979
actually thats a bad comparison. The muvo wasn't designed to take on the ipod mini at all http://www.creative.com/zenmicro/ the zen micro is what's meant to take it on. pretty close specwise and the only thing i find that is a problem with the creative MP3 players is the lack of support for any non windows OS outta the box(well there is a 3rd party driver but still...).. oh and the /. crouwd will certainly complain about the lack of ogg vorbis :)
as for sony? they basically lost track of the game and are playing catchup.You could prolly build a better MP3 player yourself
...and everyone else in the thread down, because this guy is actually /right/. The ipod[1] has a distinct bass roll-off _when being used with headphones from the headphone jack_.
[1] Or at least one generation of.
fatcking Sony.
% mkdir
% ls -dF
I mean come on... I HATE 'lol' as a damn abbreviation. I can't help but say it in my head when I read it and MAN it's annoying when it's used in writings...
So can I ask for a ban for any review that even thinks about containing 'lol' within it? This one does, has been shown to be a bad review of a defective product, and I think that speaks volumes of someone who would use 'lol' within a piece.
I am getting SO sick of that word. It's like the only word people can use to describe things with these days.
Here's a suggestion:
http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=sleek
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
his email is: thezero@gmail.com [mailto]
and thats: thezero@gmail.com [mailto]
which is also: thezero@gmail.com [mailto]
and can also be thezero@gmail.com
Thank you for your cooperation!
thezero@gmail.com
This blows my mind continually. I hate the Apple marketing, I hate the stupid white headphones, and I hate the iTunes music store.
However, as an EE, I think the iPod is a god-damn miracle. It's incredibly well-designed, tightly engineered, and not really much more expensive than any of its competitors these days. It is, simply put, a triumph of user-centered design, at least in regards to the interface.
Is it the only interface out there? No.
Is it the only great interface that's possible? No!
Is it the only great interface out there? Yes.
The only thing that's even come close, in my book, was the Archos running Rockbox -- generally speaking, when manufacturers fuck up the UI, they do it in the firmware or with those CRAP joystick input devices. Since basically no one has clued in to the fact that open firmware for an otherwise impossible-to-copy device poses no threat to sales, firmware on otherwise well-designed devices (iRiver, etc) languishes in shittiness. When someone develops a good open firmware standard for portable audio devices, we'll really be getting somewhere.
It's not even that Apple has the best hardware engineers or the best platform -- the iPod uses the PortalPlayer architecture, and so have a number of other companies' entries. They've just all sucked.
IAAPDESE(I Am A Product Design Embedded Systems Engineer), and I work for a company that does MP3 players, among other things. We worked on one of the most recent entrants in 5GB HDD space.
I watched this product be crippled by the client's overwhelming urges to satisfy their industrial design (read: aesthetics) people, who knew precisely dick about what makes a really good interface. Unsurprisingly, it has bombed in the market despite good media coverage, and has been discontinued indefinitely.
Apple, on the other hand, generally pays attention to that stuff. It's not that they're the only ones who can. It's that they're the only ones who do -- everyone else is clawing at the market with money-losing bullshit products instead of regrouping, taking a year off, and designing a *really* well-though-out device.
Personally, I use an iRiver iHP140 -- I need record capability -- but I lust after the new one with the non-joystick controls...
Apparently you haven't seen their latest vaio products yet.
c d.hed
http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5209917.html?tag=
I recently had the chance to try one out...I'm sold. The vaio pocket:
1) Supports most major media formats
2) Touch pad (navigation) feels great.
3) Great sounding bass
4) 20 hour battery life
5) Remote control on the headphones
6) Nice screen
7) Aluminum casing
The NW-HD3 really does look like a joke, but the vaio pocket is just plain cool.
Look! I have an iPOD, this thing is equally faulty. It's been 1 year since I had it, and the battery keeps saying it's dying even though it is fully charged. I have to charge this thing at will, it then shuts off at random.
There you have it... the most expensive player in the market from Apple isn't that much better than Sony's player. I am waiting another year before investing in a new replacement. Probably not iPod again.
"The reviewer discovers that the unit he had is defective as someone else employs one and there is no hiss issue. Furthermore, the software woes he experienced are related to him employing JAPANESE software on an English operating system. Sonicstage 2.3, which he needs to use the unit, is now available in English."
The original reviewer is employing much higher quality headphones (Shure) than the person who states that he encounters no hiss at all. As well the person in the headfi thread who responds that he has no issues has a different model.
This can mean several things:
1) That the model is particularly sensitive to power line noise.
2) That the better headphones are more sensitive to noise within unit than the lower quality headphones employed within by the other individual.
3) That the model is actually defective.
It does not mean the model 'isn't defective. But the reasons presented within the thread to not 'prove' the model is defective.
This is somewhat obvious, but: iTunes is definitely better than copying files manually.
/artist/album/ folder structure. One click. I then take the new songs and drag them onto the device where they are similarly organized. One drag.
This is especially true if you stay in iTunes-land: You rip your CDs with iTunes or buy songs from the ITMS and it automatically adds all the correct ID3 name tags. iTunes doesn't deal well with missing ID3 tags - it will just plop everything in the "unknown artist" category.
Why is iTunes better? iTunes provides a database of music and keeps the files organized on the disk in the background for you. I would naturally assume that any geek would understand how a database is better than a file system, but here are some examples: Searching is easier, re-organizing is easier, you have meta-data (like rating: 1 to 5 stars). You can create smart playlists, like "all 5 star songs in my library". And so on.
And you can conveniently move albums from iTunes to your portable mp3 player. If songs are already there, it will do nothing, not annoy you with an "are you sure you want to overwrite?" dialog. You can also set it to auto-sync all music if you have a big enough player.
A real-life example: I have a Bob Marley album on both the computer and the portable device. Now i just bought another Bop Marley album. On iTunes, i click "import" and it will go to the CDDB and get track names, import all files and put them in the correct place on the HDD, naming the files like the song titles, and putting it in a
If i am HDD based, i need to first tell my importing program where to put them on the HDD, "Save As: Bob Marley/Album..". Then, i open Explorer on the HDD, navigate to the the album (many clicks), hit "copy" on the album folder, navigate to the portable player to the correct album (many clicks) and hit paste. No gain, but a whole lot more work.
As far as crappy MP3 software is concerned, i know what you mean. Back when i had a Creative Nomad with MusicMatch JB (PC), i just could not use it. Like, at all. It was total crap. I had to resort to using the Nomad only on the mac, with the iTunes plugin (there was no iTunes for windows at the time).
Fingers slipped on the keyboard and accidentally submitted the post before I was done, so I'll rewrite it here. :-p
"KD-36XS955, HDR-FX1, DSC-F828..."
Those are all just model numbers, just as any manufacturer uses to identify specific product releases. Sony's actual lines are named no differently from how Apple or other companies do it: Cybershot, Clie, VAIO, etc. If you listed the full product name -- like CyberShot DSC-F828 -- it would be blatantly obvious what they were.
"Contrast this with the branding Apple pulled off after Jobs returned...iMacs, PowerMacs and PowerBooks and now iBooks and iPods. Easy."
Only easy if you never have to find need to find info about a specific model within those lines. Speaking from experience, Googling just "Powerbook" brings up a ton irrelevant pages, so you have to add in the speed, screen size, etc. -- even then, you get inaccurate results. Easier to have the model name and get the right answers immediately.
Also, while fans might intuitively know the difference between an iMac and a PowerMac and a PowerBook, the rest of us don't. *Far* less intuitive than just having ONE name for the whole computer line (with listed model numbers) like Sony does.
I bought a 40 gb IAudio M3 from Cowon Systems and haven't looked back since. Drag and Drog/Copy and Paste work it wonderfully. This proves it's better to research player reviews with an open mind toward companies entering the market [which usually have the best products available, as Iriver cd players once were] before spending hundreds of dollars on them.
Is you have to convert into sony's crappy format; hence the long transfer times
Sony's formats suck and they have yet to realize that (see: memory stick)
If he's gonna bang the dog, might as well rape Bart, too.
I received my ipod from Amazon on Friday and eversince I have been infatuated. A few years back I thought the whole IPod thing was just a lot of hype so I bought a Creative Jukebox. I wish I hadn't wasted the money on the Creative Jukebox, soon after the warenty ran up the headphone jack died and I had to listen to it through an external amplifier or if I did use headphones it was very quiet.
Apple hit gold with their design of the IPod. It shows you that a little hardwork on an intuitive design can pay off.
I can operate my ipod with one hand
It looks beatiful
Its small (I can throw it in my pocket)
A little hardwork went a long way. I wonder how much analysis they conducted on what consumers want in a portable music player / how many hours of brainstorming went into the 1st generation.
That comment sucked lol.
- Sony does not like using other people's formats. They would rather use memory sticks instead of SD data in their cameras; they hung on to the betamax format for years before finally caving in and making a VHS VCR; and they would rather have music compressed with their own Atarc instead of Mp3.
- Sony is also a member of the RIAA. This makes them view Mp3 as an advesary, instead of something that can generate revenue.
I'm not surprised that Sony didn't put more effort in to making this mp3 player a reality.don't you mean "That comment suxxors!!!!! LOL!!!!"?
If Sony's quality control is so poor that the reviewer received a defective unit, tough shit for Sony. They deserve a poor review. Too many companies ship significant numbers of defective products to end users because they don't have adequate quality control.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Apple outsourced most of the hardware and firmware design, (aside from the iTunes components) and they don't even manufacture them.
see here
and here.
It wasn't even Apple's idea to unify the player and the store.
As time progresses, Apple will become more of a software company and a brand. That may not be a bad thing, but credit where credit is due: Apple knows how to _identify_ a good product.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
... is non-existent in the same general way
as the publicly known apple/ibm & apple/microsoft
patent cross-license arrangements.
so, because apple has patented the saddle point
(er, "sweet spot") for a song selection
control wheel, other companies must choose a
different way, usually suboptimal.
as well, the sony ATRAC codec is a non-starter since it's really
now just a subset of the dolby/fraunhofer/bell labs/philips/sony
(yes, sony is in the Via licensing/AAC patent pool)
audio standard. like many companies offering older
formats which have better licensing terms for them,
they try to milk the obsolete stuff as long as they can.
as well, sony & philips have longstanding differences which
eventually get papered over by joint venture.
time for apple/sony to do the same thing, now
that they play in the same markets and both have
the shared experience of microsoft treachery.
otherwise, pride comes before the fall.
That would be gay.
I've owned about 10 portable CD players and a MiniDisc player and the iPod kicks all their asses for sound quality. Even the top of the line Sony Discmans over the years can't compare. Also, in terms of the output, I think it's probably higher than the average which makes it great for better headphones. I have some excellent Beyerdynamic DT531s which it drives wonderfully. In fact, a number of hi-fi reviewers have taken to using the iPod in show demos.
According to The translator :
TAHT COM3NT SUK3D1!11111! OMG WTF LOL
LOL, that's too funny dude. :)
I'd love to know what iPod transfers 2100 songs in 15 minutes... because it sure as hell isn't my brand new 20GB iPod.
2100 songs in 15 minutes? I don't think so...
Acronym Finder Has Hard Drive as Number 1 on it's list. Hi Definition comes in at a 4th Place.
HD Hard Drive
HD Harley-Davidson
HD Heavy Duty
HD High Definition
HD High Density
HD Half Day
HD Half Sized Diazo Non-Reproducible Drawing
HD Half-Duplex
HD Harbor Defense
HD Hard Disk
HD Harmonic Distortion
HD Harmonization Document
HD Hazel Dell ( town in SW Washington)
HD Head
HD Health Division
HD Heart Disease
HD Heat Detector
HD Heavy Decoy
HD Heavy Defense (gaming)
HD Heavy Drop
HD Heidelberg
HD Helicopter Director
HD Helm's Deep (JRR Tolkien's The Two Towers)
HD Help Desk
HD Helsingborgs Dagblad (Swedish newspaper)
HD Hemodialysis
HD Hemodynamically (Stable)
HD Henry Draper (star catalog)
HD Hidden Desire
HD High Dispersion
HD High-Drag
HD Higher Diploma
HD Highly Dispersed
HD Highway Department
HD Hilary Duff
HD Hip Dysplasia
HD Hip-Disarticulation (amputation)
HD Historic District
HD Hit Dice (role-playing games)
HD Hodgkin's Disease
HD Hoe Down (party)
HD Högsta Domstolen (Swedish supreme court of justice)
HD Hold
HD Home Delivery
HD Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE symbol)
HD Honorable Discharge
HD Honorary Degree
HD Horizontal Distance
HD Hot Date (The Sims expansion pack)
HD Hot Desk
HD Hot Dog
HD House Document (USACE)
HD Household Drivers
HD Humanitarian Demining (US Government unexploded ordnance mission areas)
HD Humidity Detector
HD Hundred
HD Huntington's Disease
HD Hurricane Days
HD Hydraulic Fluid, Diving
HD Hydrodynamic
HD Hyperactive Disorder
Egg, meet Face. Face, Egg. :)
iPod's design "is so sleek" vs. the poor device on review "doesn't come even close to iPod design"
iPod's interface "is so sleek" vs. the poor device on review "which has some interface problems when compared to iPod"
I have an IRiver myself and I like it's metallic design. Still, I read every now and then reviews like 'the design is nothing like iPod's' - and always from people who should bring in a neutral point of view. Give me a break on this!
You don't have to try to simply find a better device than iPod, but nice alternatives for people who want and need different things from their player.
-el
Update: 12/14 00:35 GMT by T: Not quite so fast: As forums.minidisc.org Administrator Christopher MacManus writes, it turns out that (as the threads below this review reveal), "The reviewer discovers that the unit he had is defective as someone else employs one and there is no hiss issue. Furthermore, the software woes he experienced are related to him employing JAPANESE software on an English operating system. Sonicstage 2.3, which he needs to use the unit, is now available in English."
Seriously, these big updates show how half-cocked of an author this guy is. The simple fact that he did not simple do a Google search for the problems before writing up a crappy review.
Here is a bit of common sense for you: If you pay big money for an "HD" media center and it has so much static coming out of the audio ports, YOU HAVE A DEFECT.
Please Slashdot, never put another one of this author's articles on the front page. Bumps for support.
They had other, great, intersting (remember the electronic picture frame?) and innovative products. But that's quite some time ago.
Since Sony purchased CBS and Columbia pictures this company went apeshit.
It nowadys seems to be run by a bunch of paranoid, MBA'd marketing droids with neither a knack for innovation, nor a clue what the customer wants.*)
What a shame!
*) I mean: releasing a portable music player in the year 2004 without native MP3 support? Yeah I know, they finally provided (or promised to provide) a firmware upgrade. But how frigging dim can you actually be to even get such ideas...
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Betamax was also better then VHS. I would still never get a Betamax VCR.
This paranoid, little island solution called ATRAC will be Sonys downfall in the portable music business.
They once where the main innovator in this field.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
And you didn't return it to Apple to be fixed during that first year? Fuck off.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I do a lot of audio production (analog and digital) so I have a lineup of various brands/models of headphones that I use during final mixdown processes. From my experience, some devices do seem to have a little bit of extra "edge eq" similar to techniques used by commercial radio stations trying to get "that signature sound" type of an effect. IMO the iPod is bright on my whole range of headphones, from my wonderful Audio-Technica M40fs' (a great deal at $69-$99US for studio headphones that also sound great on everything) to shitty panasonics and almost-brandless Sony rip-offs I spend $7 to $15 on almost weekly. My PowerBook puts out colorless sound and (with eq off in iTunes and my mixes how they played out through the board, as CD size/format uncompressed AIFFs) has beautifully distinguished bass. I've noticed similar effects on some sony players, enhanced when sony's headphones are used, but muddy through the AT monitors and dry and harsh through iPod earbuds. These are my own mixdowns of stuff I'm working on in production and were transferred in that same uncompressed AIFF format to all the devices, and on CD as CD audio to play in car stereos, etc. Just my experience, but it's been something I've had to actually thinking about when closing up a mix recently. I've never heard a hiss, though, on any non-powered headphones (noise-canceling ones are really noisy, it's a bitch) on any of the devices I use, with any of my headphones, the hiss could be result of interference, crappy modem(DAC), crappy electrical in your house, no ground, or a million other things. Oh, and if this guy is driving 'audiophile-quality' headphones to the point of hearing hiss because they are sensitive (ohmage? s/n ratio? frequency response pattern?) he may well have already blown a crossover or otherwise damaged the drivers on his phones. Also the SPLs this would be pushing are close to ear-damaging and also cause the brain's very own distortion channel of pain to kick in on the signal, so he might be hearing the his from aural compression, so to speak. Stuff sounds better when you turn it down.
A friend has the american H120 (black, magnesium case) and got a it scratched, and now the paint is flaking off from that part of the player. It's fairly minor, but something you may want to keep in mind. The other model (plastic casing) doesn't have this problem (I've got one). He also got it wet, which seems to have screwed with it somehow. The only problem I've ever had was when I crushed the remote cable (I think...) which messed up the remote. Highly recommended.
-ReK
md5sum -c reality.md5
reality: FAILED
md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
I have over 1,000 CD's, and over time I have messed with a lot of different methods of ripping.
So far the best (by far!) is to use KDE/Konqueror. You just put the CD in, start Konqueror, and type audiocd:/ in the URL bar.
KDE then presents different "views" of your CD (raw tracks, the whole CD as one raw track, MP3, the whole CD as MP3, OGG, etc., etc.). It even reads CDDB and does the whole tagging thing.
Then you just drag and drop the "files" that are presented in the view to where you want them, and the encoding and stuff is done on the fly. Very simple, very well integrated.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
mp3splt is your friend. You can either set the breakpoints or just let it autodetect (all thresholds, etc. are adjustable).
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I just helped a friend who does interviews for NPR. Attempting to transfer digital files off her minidisc player was a complete failure. After reading up on the net it seems that their money was invested in the 'digital rights firewall' component instead of the user facing parts, effectively locking your audio files away.
Finally I just resampled via good ol' analog output to my soundcard.
Why is it that Sony has consistently provided the ultimate combination of proprietary and shoddy software I've ever seen. If your going to only support a single proprietary platform, then *at least* do a half ass job!
It's well known that the ipod has a problem with its battery (nonreplacable and with a limited shelf life).
Not as bad as their distribution problems... the ipod is *waaay* too expensive for the mass market (it's dirt cheap in the US, expensive everywhere else), and the ipod minis aren't likely to be available in this country before christmas, according to the local stores... they're missing hugely as people are coming in every couple of minutes asking for minis and walking out with other brands of MP3 player because the apples aren't available (I saw 4 go like that in the 10 minutes I was talking to the store owner).
You know, these comments are rather amusing.
...
... ;)
;) (sorry, I do use lol from time to time)
First of all, when I bought the HD3, SonicStage 2.3 was NOT available in English, except for an Asian-Pacific version, which did not support the HD3. If you bothered reading my review, you would have seen this. The correct version 2.3 might be available NOW, but it wasn't available last Friday when I spent several hours online searching for it. Nor was anyone at Sony able to give me any kind of direct answer as to its future availabillity (in fact, as I mentioned in the review, the guy I spoke to at Sony offered to call the store to arrange for a refund - that's right, HE suggested this as a course of action because in his words 'it might never work, due to having different firmware').
As for the background noise issue, I bought the ONLY unit that the store received on Friday. It wasn't possible to exchange the unit (to see if it was indeed defective) and quite frankly, after the many hours I wasted Friday night trying to get it to work, coupled with the incredibly long transfer times and the clunky AI, I really didn't care to exchange it for another one. In any case, if the unit I got was defective, that doesn't say much for Sony's QA, IMHO.
As for the bass-head remarks, yes I like bass. The iPod's bass is rather weak with certain low impedance phones, there's a sharp bass rolloff at about 50-60Hz, which means that that really low frequnecy bass is just NOT THERE with those phones. For example, MY phones, the Shure E5c's, which are have very low impedance (at 20-100Hz IIRC). Incidentally, this is part of the reason that the iPod usually sounds great through an external amp - the impedance is much higher, therefore there's no rolloff below 50-60Hz. THAT'S why I disliked my iPod's sound, but it's something I've decided to remedy with the purchase of an external amp (it's either that, or different phones, but the E5c's are just too great to let go of)
As for comparing the HD3 to the iPod, what else would I compare it to? My MD player? The iPod I own is a 20GB HDD player, as is the Sony. It's an apples-to-apples comparison, and just because I felt the Sony couldn't even hold a candle to certain aspects of the iPod - well, it was a review, MY OPINION of the product. And that's exactly what I gave. MY OPINION. My opinion is based, in part, on my two week experience with the iPod. Sorry if that rubs the anti-Apple fanboys the wrong way
Finally, the review I posted was 100% factual, and it outlined MY EXPERIENCE with the HD3. I bought the unit on Friday afternoon, the day it was launched, and I wrote about everything that happened TO ME. If I received a defective unit, then unfortunately THAT is what my review was based on. I'd recommend contacting Sony about that directly, it's not something I chose or had any control over. The background noise was the main reason I returned the unit, but there were enough other reasons to convince me that the HD3 was not for me. I'm not sure what you expect out of an informal review, other than a truthful account of the reviewer's experience, but that's what I gave.
lol
Sony still makes really good monitors. And their TV's a right decent. They also make pretty good headphones.
That's...that's about it these days. Sony should by Toyota; Toyota still pulls some really good engineering feats these days.
lol darkies
"the ipod is *waaay* too expensive for the mass market (it's dirt cheap in the US, expensive everywhere else)"
How much is the iPod everywhere else? I wouldn't exactly describe the US price as "dirt cheap." Compared to the rest of the HD mp3 players available, the iPod is on the expensive side.
Sinch
I agree that the ear buds shipped with the iPod fail to deliver good bass. However, if you replace those with a set of in-the-ear 'phones, like the Fontopia model from Sony, for less than thirty bucks, you'll be very pleased with the bass, I think.
Ed Uthman, MD
Pathologist, Houston/Richmond, TX, USA
When did Sony start making beer?
1.- It is nice to see Apple catching up with the competition regarding battery life, pity of the suckers that went for the initial versions of the gadget.
/. type of guy (compulsive gadget consumer) the companies producing these devices would have one chance in hell to make a buck. Many of us are demanding Ogg Vorbis for different reasons (ethical ones amongst them, but many people around here are "pragmatists") and are putting our not so small stacks of cash where our mouths are (cough-IRiver-cough). Sony, Apple or any other big player ignores the technoelite at their peril.
2.- If it was not for the
4.- I care, and many other people care, because in other places we actually have FM radio worth listening. Voice recorder: lame solution. Why should I buy yet another gadget if the one I have with me all the time can do that function cough* IRiver*cough.
5.- UI is a relative, subjective term. There is no kick ass UI, I know as many people that love the ipodean way of doing things as the ones that hate it.
Marketing dear sir. Apple won the marketing battle. They lack enough features to left any sane person wondering what the fuss is all about.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.