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."

Comments

HD = hard disk

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Sony, can't even get MP3 right!

[badmammajamma]

ATRAC is better but not when you are converting from a lossy format like MP3 to ATRAC.

Re:In case it's /.'ed -- ugh ugly

[Laebshade]

If you're going to paste the article you should leave some paragraph formatting. Of course, you can always view the google cache or the Coral cache.

After using MDs for the past five years or so, I finally decided to purchase a HDD MP3 player a few weeks ago. I was tired of carrying around a half dozen MDs with me, and thought it would be nice to have access to my entire music library when I'm on the go. One thing I really did like about my MD player was its size - since I wear a suit to work every day, it was nice to be able to slip my MD player into my suit pocket - it was thin and small, therefore unnoticable (no bulge, etc) ... With unit size/weight in mind, I narrowed my choice of HDD players down to the 4G 20GB iPod, the Sony NW-HD2, and the iAudio M3. I quickly scratched the NW-HD2 off my list due to its lack of MP3 support, followed by the M3, because I didn't want to be tied to a remote - I wanted the OPTION of an LCD remote, but I didn't want to be FORCED to use it - I wanted something with an LCD display on the unit itself. That left the iPod, which I ended up buying about three weeks ago.

The thing I like best about the iPod is the UI - the interface is great. I found it very easy to navigate through my music using the iPod's touch wheel, and it was kind of fun to use! lol ... But one thing that really bothered me about the iPod was the lack of bass - so when I saw on head-fi that Sony was due to release the NW-HD3 on December 10th, and that they were FINALLY adding MP3 support, I decided to pick one up. From my past experience with Sony, I figured the HD3 would have much better low-end than the iPod.

Well, today is December 10th, and I just bought the NW-HD3 about eight hours ago. Here are my initial impressions.



packaging
The HD3 came in a very simple package. The front of the box is entirely in English, which was reassuring for me (I had concerns about the unit/software being completely compatible with an English OS, for example, so it was nice to see Sony using English on the box itself).

CLICK TO ENLARGE




Opening it up reveals the unit securely lodged in place, protected by some bubble wrap and underneath that, some foam-paper. The accessories just kind of hang out in the lower section of the box, but they were in fine shape when I took them out. No worries.

CLICK TO ENLARGE






the unit
The unit is rather small - compared to the 4G 20GB, it is noticeably thinner and shorter. It feels very solid, and does not make any noises when you twist it - overall I'd have to say it is a well put together device.



The display is a bit smaller than that of the iPod, it's about as wide as the iPod's is tall - so, it can seem kind of cluttered at times. Also, the backlight isn't as bright as on the iPod, making it a little harder to read. In fact, even with the backlight off, the screen on the HD3 is still much darker than the iPod's. However, the HD3 allows you to reverse the display, which is a cool little feature - if you don't mind the screen being even harder to read with the backlight off, it looks very cool reversed.



interface
As I mentioned earlier, I'm a big fan of the iPod's UI - it was very easy to learn, in fact I never bothered reading any instructions for it, just picke

Re:Only Advantage

[JohnGalt00]

it is possible to charge a 4G ipod off USB, I did it last night. It's likely a problem with your USB port.

Reason for purchase?

[rjstanford]

Quoth the article:

The thing I like best about the iPod is the UI ... the thing that really bothered me about the iPod was the lack of bass

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...

I'm not really sure how to end this, in terms of recommending the HD3 or not - I guess you can come to your own conclusion based (in part) on what my experience has been. I will say this though - if there was a way I could return this thing, I'd do it in a second ... I feel like I wasted my money

Hmm. Sounds like a pretty solid vote for "not recommended" to me...

Not mentioned in review or post...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Here is the bit I don't quite get...

[FooWho]

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@.

The iTunes software will automatically index it for you. Ripping "100 or so" CDs isn't that big of a deal. Do 10 here, 10 there. In a few days they are all ripped.

minidisc much worse than sony's hdds.

[Man in Spandex]

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.

Re:That's HDD, not HD

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, as most people call it, a "hard drive."

Re:Here is the bit I don't quite get...

[taylortbb]

Its not exactly easy, but you can hook a record player up to the line-in port on the back of a computer. There are lots of noise removal programs out there so it will sound even better than it does on the record player.

As for CDs, I've got 1.6 days of music on my iPod without giving the iTunes music store a cent.

4th gen charging

[nurb432]

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.

Re:Here is the bit I don't quite get...

[Propagandhi]

I've managed to rip my entire (along with a few samplings from buddies, but don't tell the RIAA) music collection of about 300ish albums. It's much less time consuming than you apparently think.

Cdex or EAC are the two apps I'm most familiar with (stay away from MusicMatch, it's bloated beyond belief) and I'm sure someone else can offer even more options. Both of these programs will rip/encode (into FLAC, LAME MP3, or Ogg Vorbis)/tag in a single click of the mouse. As long as you've got a web connection they'll look up the tag information via CDDB and even set up your ripped files into a directory structure (artist/album/ or year/artist/album or ... well.. pretty much anything) to keep all those MP3's organized. Heck, even if that fails there are programs like The Godfather that can help you mass edit and identify those tags you forgot to get the first time..

I don't know if it's any harder to transfer these files to an iPod than the AAC's you get off iTunes, but I haven't heard any complaints about it so I'm sure it's intuitive enough. Personally, I prefer my Rio Karma for its vorbis/flac support as well as gapless playback (even on MP3's, which don't natively support gapless playback).

Heck, most players (not my Karma, but I digress) are recognized as external USB hard drives (via MSC, so they should even work on Linux) nowadays. All you have to do is drag and drop your MP3's onto the disk (possibly a specific directory, but still no big deal).

Anyway, I'm rambling.. Bottom line is, ripping your CD collection is terribly easy, and with hard drive prices what they are, you really have no reason NOT to back up your collection (FLAC is best for archiving purposes, once again keeping in mind that storage is dirt cheap these days).

How could this biased article be posted?

[cmacmanus]

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..

Re:How could this biased article be posted?

[cmacmanus]

If you actually READ the linked thread within the forum [head-fi], you'll see that another HD3 user discovers this. Additionally, he's using Japanese software on a English operating system! And you expect a real review? I can't believe this horrid review is being spread on the internet.

Re:How could this biased article be posted?

[Calroth]

His device was defective. There is no background hiss with this device...

What kind of headphones do you have?

In my experience, the more sensitive your headphones, the more you'll pick up the background hiss. Standard earbuds won't get it at all. I have a set of Sony in-ear headphones, the same as the reviewer had, and get slight hiss from the electronics on my Dell. I also have a set of Audio-Technica headphones (one step up from consumer-grade), and on the same output, the hiss from my Dell drives me nuts.

Reviewer was using Shure E5c headphones, which are sensitive. So it's possible that he hears things you don't.

Or maybe he got a dodgy device.

Re:what were these guys thinking?

[gad_zuki!]

Used it, its simpler but its just as slow and because its case sensitive when it comes to ID3 its even more annoying. After using NDBM I had the following artists when I had one before:

the Beatles
the beatles
The beatles
The Beatles

Re:That's HDD, not HD

[Osty]

I have always thought that the HDD acronym is stupid. What's wrong with HD as in Hard Disk and/or Hard Drive?

HDD, or Hard Disk Drive, tells you what kind of drive it is. It's a "Hard Disk" drive, as opposed to a "Floppy Disk" drive, or a "Tape" drive, or "CD-ROM" drive.

HDD is like Internet Web or PC Computer.

But the "World Wide Web" typically refers to HTTP(S) traffic, while "Internet" refers to the network on which the WWW is built. Therefore it does make some sort of sense to say "Internet Web", as opposed to "Internet2 Web" or "My Private Network Web". You'll still sound funny saying it, but it makes sense.

PC Computer is as bad as ATM Machine or NIC card, though.

Re:what were these guys thinking?

[skiflyer]

Have you checked out the iRiver HDD players? I can't speak for the 300 series, but I have the 140... and well let's go through the list...

1,2,3,4,8 it satisfies.

5 I spose you can do, but it's not a standard HD.
6 Not by ethernet, but if you connect via USB it just shows up as a normal harddrive, so you can do what you want from there
7 No, but it has standard mini out (obviouslly, plus optical out... so really you're all set there)

That's all you could come up with?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Sony? Rush?

[CountBrass]

And you didn't return it to Apple to be fixed during that first year? Fuck off.

Re:what were these guys thinking?

[tchae]

iRivers are great! My daughter has an H-140, and I have an H-340. With mine I can dump my camera to it, have ALL my music with me, keep some family photos. Sound is excellent (with better headphones than supplied), and I just use the file-tree organisation as ripping does not get genre, album and artist correct all the time. Charges from USB, attaches as a hard drive, needs NO special software.

Re:The addendum may not be correct...

[ranmachan]

There is absolutely no problem in using Japanese Soft on non-Japanese Windows as long as it's Windows 2000 or greater and either using the native unicode API or the legacy API is set to use Japanese encoding (Somewhere in the Language settings you can set the default for non-unicode applications).