keoni808's Full Review: Sony Net MD Walkman MZ-N510 Personal MiniDisc Play...
This is the second MD player that I have purchased in two years. My first one did not have the NetMD technology and so I found it a chore to record and edit a minidisc. Now that I have this player, creating a disc is much easier. However, it is still not as quick as I would have liked it to be. I want to focus more on the NetMD side of things in this review, since I don't believe that there are any big differences between a high-priced and low-priced Sony MD player, aside from the extras and accessories.
My initial reaction to NetMD was that it would completely solve the real-time recording "problem" of MD recorders. I had hopes that all I needed to do was drag my mp3 files to my MD player via software and my disc would be created in no time. I guess I was hoping for NetMD to turn MD into a harddrive type MP3 player (ie - iPod). This is not the case. While NetMD does make recording a disc 100 times easier (or should I say 32 times?) than before, the software that it uses (SonicStage) is too clunky and restrictive. The software limits you to three "checkouts" of a song at one time. After that, you will not be able to record that song onto another disc until you check it back in. It's Sony's way of trying to prevent music piracy I guess. In my opinion I think it just makes things more inconvenient. Anyway, when you do check out a song to your MD player, the software proceeds to convert your MP3 to the Sony ATRAC3™ format, and then it transfers the song over. What happened to 32X? That's the slowest 32X I have ever seen! In NetMD theory, shouldn't a song that is 3 minutes long take less than 6 seconds to transfer? (180 seconds / 30X [less than NetMD speed] = 6 seconds) Instead, it takes about 20+ seconds total to do the conversion and transfer. That may still seem acceptable to you, but when you want to transfer a lot of songs, it can add up.
I continued to play with the other software that came with the MD player, NetMD Simple Burner. What this program does is records songs directly from a CD to your MD player without having to deal with the checkout/checking thing. It's a competent program, but again, the recording speed was slower than I had hoped. As I was recording my disc, I wanted to add songs from my hard drive as well as from CD. I had to close NetMD Simple Burner to use SonicStage and vice-versa. What a work flow killer! By the time I was finally done creating my disc, 3 hours had passed. That was much longer than I had anticipated.
After all this, I plugged my headphones into the device and started listening to the music...ahhh...this is what made the whole ordeal worth it. Everything sounded great! I was finally happy. I just don't want to create another disc again...but I will of course.
Why did I buy this product?
Price point ($129), battery life, Sony quality, cheap media.
What do I love about this product?
Size, looks, sound quality
What do I hate about this product?
SOFTWARE! Creating a disc takes up too much time.
Final thoughts:
I wanted an iPod, but not for $299 - $499. Plus, the battery life on the iPod is way too short for me with a built-in battery that is not easily replaceable. The Sony MD player is small, light, durable, stylish, and lasts over 40 hours on one AA battery. I have dropped my first MD player many times at the gym and it is still going without a glitch...I am assuming that this MD player is no different. Aside from the daunting task of creating a disc, the player itself is a fine product.
Stores more than five hours of music on an 80-minute minidisc; speedy USB connection minimizes recording time Compatible with MP3, WMA, and WAV music ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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