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

what were these guys thinking?

[Poleris]

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?

Re:what were these guys thinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the people in charge are more worried about DRM than user interface, and because they design software by committee.

-- A Sony Employee

Re:what were these guys thinking?

[gad_zuki!]

I think the MP3 player industry is just crazy. Seriously, its just run by loons. My original Archos 6 gig was a very simple device. I would *gasp* make folders and put songs in them. Every other device I've owned had some special client software with some fancy synch crap.

It blows my mind that mp3 player developers think the user is so stupid that a simple copy and paste is beyond them, thus they must help them will these badly done client apps.

The worst is the Neuros. If an mp3 doesnt have an ID3 tag, it wont even show it in the damn "mp3 browser" part of the client software. Its exactly like the file doesnt exist. You have to find that file and manually edit the ID3. There's not even a n "unknown songs" category so I can do this in the client by looking at the filename. Not to mention, the only way to add songs is to use the client. If you copy a file over via USB, the device can't see it until the client updates its little database.

I hear people complain about their client software all the time. Crashes, too slow, etc. Do they even still make devices that act like hard drives?

Re:what were these guys thinking?

[Grishnakh]

I'd really like to get a portable MP3 player for use at work, on airplanes, etc. But I just haven't seen anything that even meets my bare minimum requirements:

1) Must play Oggs
2) Must work with Linux
3) Must be durable and reliable
4) Must have at least 20GB

Ideally, I'd like to have a player that has the following features:

5) Can upgrade hard drive to larger capacity, using a standard (laptop probably) hard drive, not an overpriced special-order one from the manufacturer
6) Can connect to home network by ethernet
7) Can connect to stereo with SPDIF and RCA jacks
8) Doesn't require funky, annoying software to transfer new files (though optional software for extra functionality is ok, as long as it runs on Linux). As an addendum to this, can be used as generic HDD storage device when connected via USB.

Most players fail miserably on requirement #1. The Rio Karma seems to come the closest to meeting most of my requirements, and actually inspired several of them with its innovative dock which has ethernet and RCA jacks. However, a simple google search will show that it has an absolutely terrible reputation for reliability; I've never seen an item with so many people complaining about it breaking. Apparently, it has a problem with the hard drive dying, and its ultra-short warranty period doesn't help here. So for all its nifty features, it fails to meet basic requirement #3.

Maybe I should design my own MP3 player and market it, much like the guys at SlimDevices did with their very successful SliMP3. However, since there are already established players in the market, it's unlikely I'd be able to compete effectively against them, especially when so few people actually care about getting products that are durable and reliable these days, and would rather buy something with a fancy brand name.

I predict this Sony MP3 player will be very successful, even though it doesn't work worth a damn. There's millions of consumers out there who would happily shell out big bucks for a piece of moldy bread if it just had a Sony emblem on it.

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)

Re:what were these guys thinking?

[bonzoesc]

Yeah, it provided me a good incentive to clean up my MP3 tags.

It takes....

[dj245]

...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.

How do things like this make it past q&a?

[chroot_james]

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.

Uh-oh

[bennomatic]

Too slow to load, can't list songs by artist, wall of noise. Lame.

Now I've done it; I've doomed the thing to be wildly successful!

control

[ezekiel683]

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

Re:control

[ScrewMaster]

this is a prime example of how a product fails because of it trying to control the consumer.

I might add that your comment also applies to music industry in general. The RIAA can point fingers in various directions as to why they aren't making the growth numbers to which they've become accustomed. But it's the same story ... they tried to tell their customer base what they can't do. You can't have decent playlists on radio stations anymore, you can't buy singles anymore, you can't copy discs ... you get the picture. That's not the way to make sales, you make sales by empowering your customers and giving them what they need or want, and you do it for the right price. That's just good business. Sony is making the same mistake here: you, the customer, will do what we tell you, play the files we tell you, and because we're Sony you will obey. Phooey on them. If they keep that up all they'll have left is their media business and Playstations. Maybe that's all they want.

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...

Re:Reason for purchase?

[greg1104]

The guy running this site is going to hate me for doing this, but: you can see frequency response graphs of the various iPod EQ settings at:

http://www.modeemi.fi/~vesas/iPod_Audio.pdf

iPod settings like "Bass Booster" increase the level at 20Hz by up to 6dB relative to the midrange. In practice, with even remotely accurate headphones this amount of EQ makes for incredibly overblown bass. I question whether anyone who finds this insufficient is qualified to make an audio quality judgement about anything.

I personally find the "Electronic" setting on the iPod to be the only useful one that boosts the low bass a bit without totally destroying the music you're listening to. It's about a +/-1.5dB countouring emphasising low frequencies while cutting back around 300Hz and 7KHz where a lot of headphones (and MP3 files!) are a bit rough anyway.

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.

Did he actually get...

[gordgekko]

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."

I wonder if the reviewer made an honest mistake and actually received a genuine Sorny product. Anyway, I would have went with a Panaphonics.

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:minidisc much worse than sony's hdds.

[stratjakt]

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 had a really nifty Walkman my old man got straight from Sony in Japan when he toured their facility for some big B2B deal.

It was no bigger than a cassette tape holder, had built in retractable headphones, one touch fforward and rewind.. Really really slick and packed with features. As high-end a portable product as Sony made at the time.

And it broke into a million pieces when it fell out of my hand into my lap. My lap, not the hard floor, it fell about 8 inches and landed in my lap and fell apart.

Built to last my ass. The two dollar knockoff walkman I got at radio shack ran circles around that high-end piece of shit.

Apple's Edge

[saddino]

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.

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

[cuteseal]

I 2nd the comment regarding the iPod and the UI. I just recently got an iPod Mini (blue!) It's amazing how one thumb can control everything through the click wheel and how natural it feels after you get used to 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!

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:Sigh...

[Elwood P Dowd]

But then again, how often does one swap out that many songs on and off a DAP?

Every time I go to a friend's house.

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).

An iPod Convert

[Omega1045]

When the first iPod came out, I was not a fan.

"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.

Re:An iPod Convert

[ickoonite]

My thoughts exactly.

Seriously, can it really be that hard? Elsewhere some people have so suggested, but honestly? Really? Are Apple that clever?

It staggers me that Sony have taken this long to come out with something, and when they do, it is virtually insulting. This product is, quite frankly, turd. (I speak from experience - I had the misfortune of tryin to use one in Japan in a shop - I failed dismally.)

Sony rocked the world with the Walkman. Now they're getting their asses whipped by the likes of Creative, iRiver and so on.

It truly is absurd.

iqu 8s

(To the parent: next, get an Apple laptop. You can get more of that warm fuzzy feeling - that completeness - that your iPod gives you. I bought an iPod, then made the switch, and have never looked back.)

it's the naming convention, stupid

[jeffehobbs]

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

Re:it's the naming convention, stupid

[angle_slam]

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?

Without looking, I know the DSC-F828 is a camera. I would guess that the KD-36XS955 is a TV (with the 36 indicating screen size.)

With cars, the opposite of what you noted is true. Honda used to name its Acura line of cars with names (Integra, Legend, Vigor, etc.). Their marketing experts didn't like that. They realized that buyers of high-end autos refer to the cars by brand, not by model, because the model was a series of numbers. I.e., a person buys a BMW or a Mercedes, not a 540iL or a E320 4Matic. But Acuras buyers refer to their cars as an Integra or a Legend, not as an Acura. To build brand identity, they changed the naming to initials (RSX, TSX, etc.). The goal is to get people to say they bought an "Acura," instead of a Legend, without reference to the manufacturer.

Chevrolet has the opposite problem with the Corvette. Chevrolet is known as a budget brand, but the Corvette is a $40+k sports car. So they minimize use of the name Chevrolet with the word Corvette.

I dont know

[Kanasta]

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.

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?

[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:How could this biased article be posted?

[sahonen]

The E5 earbuds he was using are extremely sensitive, 122 dB SPL/mW. Most headphones are down in the 80 range. As a result, any noise in the electronics will be audible.

Who cares about hiss, can you browse by artist?

[SuperKendall]

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.

Re:That's HDD, not HD

[techsoldaten]

HDD - That's hard disk drive, which is a useful and important feature the Sony device possesses over some of it's competitors. Oher devices make use of more primitive, potentially dangerous playback and storage mechanisms, including:

1. Copper wire connecting 2 tin cans, which is limited by geographic proximity to external broadcasting device (approximately 5 feet) and subject to external interference
2. Flintstones-style singing miniature Pterodactyl, which is known to develop an attitude over time and make gut-busting wisecracks in place of music
3. 'Space-Time Continuum' abnormality actually linking listeners with original performance, which occasionally disintegrates the listener
4. Shrunken city whose sole purpose is to exactly recreate tracks on penalty of death, which is limited by lifespan and extremely sensitive to shaking and tapping on the device
5. Ghosts of the band, which have a penchant for telekinetically elevating the listener during emotionally charged tracks and sometimes becoming visible to young children
6. Specially trained M&M Minis forced to sing, which are hard to keep housed within the device and nearly impossible to reinsert when the device's housing is breached

M