Long playback. Good looks. Great functionality. The D-NE300BLUE delivers over 85 hours of continuous playback for ATRACplus using just two "AA" batteries. The full circle design is tight, slim and cool; the player weighs less than 7 ounces, and it's not much bigger than the CD itself. The D-NE300BLUE features 18 playback modes, Skip-Free G-Protection Technology, customizable equalizer, and auto ranking playback. It supports ATRAC3plus, ATRAC3, MP3 and CD-R/RW format playback, giving you lots of options on importing various music formats. Includes SonicStage Software and MDR-027LP stereo headphones.
The Sony D-NE300 is a stylish, compact portable CD player with a robust set of features. If you're in the market for a durable companion that will let you enjoy CD, MP3 and ATRAC3plus tracks on the go, The D-NE300 is the ticket. We found much to like and little to complain about in this capable unit.
Features
The D-NE300's simple controls allowed us to find our way around the unit's features with little fuss. The two-line dot matrix display was especially handy for viewing the names of our MP3 and ATRAC3plus tracks. Sony's G-Protection feature can be programmed to offer two levels of protection from stutters and skips when the unit is jarred or shaken. Even on the lowest level of protection, we found that only the hardest knocks could make our music miss a stride. We also liked the intelligently designed equalization features of the D-NE300. Equalizer presets called "soft," "active" and "heavy" are built in, or you can set your own levels in the low, mid and high ranges via a nifty graphical interface.
Sound Quality
In short, we were impressed. We popped in an MP3 CD and within 10 seconds the unit recognized the playlists and song titles we'd burned onto the disc. The unit delivered rich bass and clear highs, especially when we used the "heavy" equalization setting. We noticed some degradation in sound quality when listening via the included headphones at high volumes. We found the Sennheiser PX 100 Headphones to be a worthwhile upgrade.
Battery Life
It would be nice if the D-NE300 shipped with rechargeable batteries, but Sony claims that the D-NE300 can squeeze up to 85 hours of battery life out of two standard AA batteries (not included). If accurate, this is an amazing feat, and although we didn't test the unit for 85 hours, we did note that battery strength was still full after a full day of testing. According to Sony, the D-NE300 is equipped with advanced digital signal processing that helps it pull a lot less juice than its predecessors. The unit's display has no backlight and it sleeps after a period of inactivity, further contributing to battery life.
ATRAC3plus, MP3 and SonicStage
The D-NE300 ships with Sony's own SonicStage software, which is designed to convert your MP3s and audio CDs to Sony's proprietary ATRAC3plus music format. There are advantages and disadvantages to using SonicStage and ATRAC3plus encoding. On the plus side, ATRAC3plus offers a very good compression ratio of approximately 1/20, meaning it can compress CD-quality audio to a twentieth of its original size. This allows you to encode up to 490 songs, burn them to CD and then play them in your D-NE300. MP3 encoding, on the other hand offers about half as much compression, which means your CDs won't be able to hold as many songs when encoded in this format.
The downside to ATRAC3plus is that once your music is encoded in this format, your CDs must be played on an ATRAC3plus-compatible device, which means you are stuck with Sony branded CD players with ATRAC3plus support. MP3 formats, on the other hand, offer complete compatibility with all CD players that support MP3 CD playback. Adding to our grumbles, we found the SonicStage software somewhat lacking. The user interface was confusing and encoding both our audio CDs and MP3s to ATRAC3plus was slower than we would have liked.
Fortunately, the D-NE300 supports ATRAC3plus and MP3 formats, so if you want to cram a ton of songs onto one CD you can use SonicStage and burn ATRAC3plus CDs. Meanwhile, if you want to enjoy the universality of MP3 CDs, you can use third-party MP3 encoding and burning utilities. The D-NE300 makes it easy to listen to the music you want, whenever you want it. --Joshua Gunn
Pros
- Compact, simple design is very user-friendly
- Sound is clear and crisp
- Support for CD audio, MP3 and ATRAC3plus
- Long battery life
Cons - No rechargeable batteries included
- Included software difficult to use
1 Good Product for Price
About 3 months ago I got really excited about purchasing this product. I mainly decided to buy this product because of its ability to store 400+ songs on one CD. I searched multiple sources and finally found it for $49. For about the first 2 months this product worked great. I went on multiple long trips and one vacation with this thing. The problems I've experienced were skipping of tracks (and yes, cd is not scratched, and lens is not dirty), buttons wearing out, and no ATRAC support. The ATRAC support I was really disappointed about. If you are planning to buy this product because of ATRAC support, I suggest that you don't. I have friends who bought it for the same reason, and were disappointed too, all with different computers. For the buttons problem though, I can't blame the buttons. I've must have pressed the volume buttons at least 500 times. Also, if you're looking for deep bass, with this CD player, don't buy it; the equilizer is crap! My durabrand CD player had better bass than this unit. To conclude, I wouldn't purchase this product, because you'll be able to find much nicer CD cheaper. Don't be fooled by the price, I know I was.
2 broke down after 2 months
This player has stopped working after 2 months of light use even though I have taken perfectly good care of it. I don't recommend buying it.
3 Well thought out design
I just recently got this player, and it is wonderful. I agree with many of the positive and negative points that many reviewers have already stated. I figured I would add my own list of likes and dislikes, to help future shoppers.
What I was looking for when I was looking for a player was mainly an MP3 audio book player. I have CDs with several tracks, each running between 1 and 2 hours long. Here are the features I likes: ability to stop, and then resume where is left off; playlist support (up to two); and ID3 tag display. I also like the built in functions for browsing the songs you have on the CD. You can even browse while a track is playing. All in all, the design of the player feels well thought out. I got this very cheap cassette player, and it implements all the features it says it has, but just barely. There are all sorts of quirks that make it difficult to use. Not this player; there are all sorts of quirks which make this player to use.
There is one weakpoint, for me, with this player, and that is the speed of the fastforward. It's a perfect speed for regular music playing (5 min songs), but if you want to fast forward in a 2 hour talk, its slow. O well, can't have eveything.
4 Great player
This player is easy to use, has great sound and a terrific set of features. Battery life is unbelievable, when playing MP3's.
The only negative is Sony's proprietary ATRAC format. The software is a dog, conversion is extremely slow, and it's essentially pointless if you already have software to rip MP3's.
5 Great CD player
This is the best CD player I have ever had. The sound is incredibally clear and I have not experienced any problems so far. Sony definetly makes the best quality products out there. I would highly reccommend investing in this CD player, it's really worth it!
6 good sound, bad features
I'd like to start off by letting you know that this is a really good mp3 player for the price you pay.
Major pros :
- Light. It doesn't weigh a lot, and you can easily put it in the packet of your gym shorts, and not feel a thing
- Rugged. I've dropped it twice so far, and it still works fine. This is a great plus for people who intend to take this player all around.
- Looks OK. The blue padding looks good, but I wish they hadn't put in those shiny silver buttons which look totally out-of-place in an otherwise muted style
- Sound is really good, and improves with better headphones. The bass response was a notable improvement over my previous player.
- Really fast response. It read most of my mp3 cds in 10-15 seconds. Really good seek time too.
- Resumes songs from exactly the second you paused even if you turn it off for days. Awesome feature.
- Reads most of the tags correctly.
- Powerful controls. If you want to invest the time and effort, you can make it do most of the things an ipod does (play only favourites etc) across upto 5 different CDs. Downside is all the changes you make last only as long as your battery.
Now for the cons :
- The asinine Beep feature. Makes an annoying beep sound everytime you press a button. I don't know which moron thought of this feature. It needs to be turned off everytime you change batteries. Major hassle.
- The bundled headphones are bad. They make this cool player sound like a radio.
- The battery life doesn't reach anywhere near the promised 85 hrs. The only way you can get 85 hours out of this baby is if you put it in a vibration damping table, and listened at the (ridiculously) low preset volume with headphones that deliver no bass I guess.
- Over sensitive controls. I like to put the player in my jacket pockets while I listen. If I so much a tap it lightly when its INSIDE my jacket, it immediately pauses. The hold button is so hard to reach, that it might just as well not be there.
To summarize, this is a good buy if you want to invest a little more money to get good headphones (a good investment in any case) and are tolerant to some minor hassles.
7 Good product, save battery energy
I don't know if this issue work with Stamina components but the Duracell alka battery work for months. Good quality. Nice product at good price.
8 I'll keep mine.
I am very pleased with this unit so far.As for volume,I think this player sounds louder when using the custom sound feature with the low,medium and high frequencies set to the highest level.Also,I think there is less distortion of bass with the equalizer on this unit as compared to the bass boost on some other Sonys.Long battery life is a real plus,especially when using ATRAC formatted CDs.
I wasn't pleased at all with the included SonicStage 2.0 software
as I found it nearly useless. I downloaded the 2.3 version and found it to be much better. I burned two CDs;one that holds 20 CDs and the other 23 CDs. I used Atrac3Plus at 64 kbps and can't hear a difference between my recordings and a regular CD. I would recommend trying the new version of SonicStage to anyone
interested in burning a good sounding,highly compressed CD. Player highly recommended too.
9 great value
I got this player for Christmas and couldn't be happier. I have burned CD's with Windows media player and with Music Match Jukebox and both work perfectly, it even plays wma files! I have not tried the bundled software, mostly because other reviewers rated it so poorly. Size and weight are good and the headphones are serviceable, unless you are a teenager.
10 Excelent, but...
It's very good, it's the best cd player I've had, but the custom sound programming is a little difficult to understand. I've had mine 2 days, and I read, and read the manual, but I can't program it ok.
Also it needs a little more volume, and it's a little fragile. But It's still excellent.
11 I like it.
I'll try and put this review in for both of Amazon's NE300 models, since they are just different colours afterall. Further to what's already been said, here is some extra info on the player that I was unable to find elsewhere prior to buying it, so this may be of help:
- if an MP3 song lack's ID3 tags, the player's LCD screen will show the filename as you'd see it in windows. Long filenames will scroll automatically
- manually going from mp3 track to track (ie, just hitting forward) there is around a 3 sec delay. If you let a song finish by itself, however, it will go immediately to the next
- load time on a full mp3 disc is 20 seconds (I timed it). Load time on a disc with a single mp3 was 16 seconds. Load time on an audio cd with one track was 10-11 seconds
- this player does not play .wma (windows media audio) files, even though the guy at sony I asked said it does (admittedly the player does not advertise that it plays wma)
- the cd-rw disc I tried worked fine, and that's all I'll be using
- stock headphones seem decent, and in fact with them this player does go very loud
- music order: I had no problems with it. Whether files were in the root directory, or within sub folders everything seemed to play in order as it was burned
- adtrack I did not test. I have no intention of converting all of my mp3s, so no idea on how well it works
- I experienced no "missing end pieces" on songs, as one reviewer said that he did
- I'm confirming that there is no backlight for this
- note that the NE300 blue and gray, on amazon, are slightly different pictures. I bought the gray one from another source and it looked as the blue one on amazon does (it was gray, obviously, but the physical shape of it, I mean). The gray on amazon has a little indicator below the LCD (which mine does not have). I wonder if there are slightly different versions, and the newer ones possibly solve some old issues like track order? I bought mine yesterday BTW.
- I experienced no skipping issues, but I only tried the player in the car and shaking it for maybe 10 seconds. I think technology is such these days that if you're experiencing mp3 skipping on an mp3 discman, it's probably a very poor player; I'd expect no skipping (except maybe running, and supposedly this can handle that)
I give this a 5-star, because it does everything that it claims to do, and it does it well. The player feels reasonably solid. It is, afterall, a $50 player with a lot built into it, so don't expect something you can use as a frisbee. It's quite small with little wasted room.
I do wish it had a backlight, and I'd have no problem losing some battery life (especially since it's awesome with this player), but I knew I was not getting that when I bought it.
EDIT: I should mention something else. When you're scanning from song to song, you will see it exactly as you'd see it in windows explorer, ie. no ID3 tagging; just the file name. It's not until you play the song that you'll see the ID3 tag details, like album, artist, etc.
12 Very Fragile
While this seems like a great MP3-CD player don't drop it. I dropped mine about 14 inches unto a carpeted floor and it's never worked since!!!
13 No Frills Just good design
I usually don't like Sony CD players... because the majority of them are huge and bulky. (Except for the Japanese made and designed ones...) Not this CD player... it's compact, lightweight... and it plays CD and MP3. You can browse the files then press enter to listen to a song... it's got a descent song shuffle and the batteries are inside the CD player not outside. Also the design makes it gripable... and when it falls it doesn't break. This must be one of the best low cost mp3CD players in the market right now... I'm very happy with my purchase.
14 It just works!
I do not listen to music on my MP3 player. Rather, I use it to practice my German. I have a set of 150 German lessons in MP3 that I downloaded from Deutsche Welle. I also have the entire 1964 edition of Luther's German Bible in MP3 that my daughter downloaded for me from another site. Early in 2002 I purchased a Philips Expanium 203 CD/MP3 player. It has always clipped the final milliseconds from the end of each track. That was no problem with the German lessons because they end with a stock credit and musical interlude. But, it is disconcerting to miss the last five or six words read from a chapter of the Bible. This Sony player does everything I want it to do for my needs. It is very nicely light in weight. I like the complete title information given for each track in the display. I can also switch from an AC converter power supply to battery power and back again without losing my place. I could not do that with the Philips unit.
15 My First MP3/CD Player
This is my first mp3 player, but I'm no stranger to electronics and standard CD players. I bought this player last night at Target so there are probably features and annoyances I have yet to discover. I just thought I'd share my first impression.
The D-NE300 comes with software for compressing audio files (Atrac3) but the software required updates and made my computer crash. I gave up on that for now, mp3s work just fine for me.
PROS:
**This little player is very customizable!
**LCD screen shows ID3 information, which has a customizable display - you can cycle through title, artist, and album with the push of a button. ID3 tags can be created and edited using the free program Winamp. If you don't have winamp yet and you're buying an MP3 player, something is probably wrong with you.
**There are 3 equalizer presets and a custom style that can be set in one of 21 different combinations.
**The large center button has the play button and menu buttons. The small buttons on either side of the large button are for moving through directories. I have a CD with 8 different albums, with one click I can move from one album to the next. The other two buttons on the face of the player are stop and menu.
**There are several different listening options.. you can listen to one song repeated, all the music on the disc, all shuffled, one directory, one directory shuffled, playlists, playlists shuffled, your most-played songs, your most-played songs shuffled. So many options!
**Battery life is 85 hours! This is in part because the LCD powers down when you push stop. When you push any button, the LCD pops back on and displays the last song you were playing. There's no power button! There's also a timer option, so you can go to sleep listening to music and not worry about the batteries.
**The sound is very nice, plenty of volume, and the bass is sufficient. I'm using my own Sony MDR-Q22LP headphones. The sound quality was a big improvement over my Philips Magnavox CD player using the same headphones. I've tried both music and audio books, the sound is crisp and loud. (see CONS below).
**I've heard complaints with mp3 players about a delay between songs. I have not experienced this. The jump from one song to the next is instant. I use NTI CD Maker for burning.
**The case is sleek and stylish. If appearance is important to you, this player is not lacking. The blue color does have a questionably purple tint to it. If you're a guy or buying it for a guy who would be offended, you may want to consider the grey case.
CONS:
**There is no backlight on the display. That doesnt bother me, I usually know what I'm listening to or I don't care to look at every song title as it's playing.
**The player has a loading time of about 15 seconds. MP3 players are not instant like standard CD players... at least this one isn't. Also, the loading sounds can be a little noisy. Probably not louder than the sound of a phone on vibrate, but louder than I expected.
**The headphones that come with the player are crappy and very quiet. Suprise suprise. I'm using my Sony MDR-Q22LP headphones ($15).
**The volume control consists of two buttons on the side, up and down. A bar appears on the LCD when adjusting the volume. I would've liked some sort of numerical indication of the volume. This is just me being nit-picky.
16 good features & sound
I like the AVLS because my kids will use this. The sound is pretty good, and the price is fairly good since I can make MP3's for this player.
It is not perfect, but I like the weight. I wish it had a clip though. I do not like the headphones either, but overall, it is good.
17 Good sound, good features
I bought one of these last month on recommendations and am very pleased with it. I have an NE510 I purchased last year, which was nice, but I needed a second player. This one has better features and better sound. The battery life is as good or better than indicated on the package.
Instead of just presets and bass boost, it has a parametric equalizer. Bass, mid, and treble can each be adjusted up or down three, each in high, mid, or low positions, for a total of 21 possible adjustments in each range. Bass may not boom, but it isn't boomy or muddy, either. The setting is saved as custom. There are also presets (I have used "Heavy" for some rock, but off otherwise).
Although I have used SonicStage software, I don't recommend it (not because I dislike Atrac3, but because I don't like the program). MP3s made by any program, burned to cd by any program, can be used on this player. I have used CDs with LAME MP3s (VBR) burned by MusicMatch and Nero with no problem. Nested directories also weren't a problem. MP3 CDs do take longer to load up when they are first put in (less than 30 seconds for a 700MB CD with 7 directories, 81 tracks, 625MB; less than 15 for commercial audio CD). Titles scroll and you can change the display options.
There are several playback options, including 10 most frequently played (also shuffle), and by group and m3u playlists on MP3 CDs among others.
The one problem with this player is the physical feel. The plastic is very light and thin so it seems a bit flimsy. The hold button on the bottom doesn't have as solid a feel as the ones on my Sony MD player or Clie, but the same as the NE510 so maybe that is just the CD player style. For the price, this isn't unexpected therefore I did not give it 4 stars.
18 Loud enough
Some reviewers complain about the D-NE511 and D-NE300 models not being loud enough. I thought heck, at least it's gonna save the kid's ears. After I bought it I tried it with four different headphones and now I know what they meant. With two headphones the volume was indeed faint and way too weak to enjoy the music. But with the other two the volume was loud enough, actually too loud (but not distorted) to listen to it for any longer period. And yes, this model was made for the European market (1.5 mV output instead of 5.0 mV for Japan and America). So if you want this model just keep looking for the right earphones/headphones.
Telling the truth I'm not some techno fan and would like to hear also in forty years from now so I don't really mind. But I play the tuba which is also loud sometimes.
Another complaint was there is no bass boost button on it - there is a programmable equaliser instead (called parametric sound setting or something like that). You can define your own style for bass, mid and high using 7 levels for each, which offers 21 choices. Some of these are pre-programmed and are called Soft, Active and Heavy + Off + Custom. Good enough for me while on the road. At least the tuba comes through very well.
One thing I heard in the shop but haven't found in the manual, thus cannot really confirm. The guy said the shock protection system is based on a new approach than in the case of the older D-NE511 model. In that the music was read into memory and played from there. But what if you go out for jogging. Start the player, memory gets full, you start jogging. Memory starts to get emptied and if you don't stop jogging after a couple of minutes it won't be refilled as the laser beam cannot position accurately enough. With the D-NE300 this is different. Sony is said to have analysed jogging with the outcome that we spend 0.2 sec on average in the air and for the D-NE300 this short while is enough to reposition the laser beam and fill memory to the extent that when you arrive back on your feet the music is played from the memory. I tried to shake the thing to have it screwed up but failed - I got tired sooner than I could do the trick. Even if this story with the 0.2 sec beam positioning is a good candidate for an urban legend, at least we can tell it to others by some beer.
I have not yet tried the ATRAC-disk creating software, but I know in advance that (1) it is not perfect (neither am I) (2) if I want and ATRAC disk, with some effort I will be able to create one so this is not an issue. If you don't like to fiddle around with computers or you buy this thing for someone who is afraid of
them then probably the ATRAC compression stuff is not a big bonus.
Otherwise, I think this is an excellent model. With good earphones the sound is very good, indeed. I would recommend it for anyone.
19 Not that great...
I got this cd player a week ago and it's not all that it's cracked up to be. I suppose if I DIDN'T have a Mac, I could take advantage of the mp3 player. The features are cool, but I absolutely hate the sound. There no bass boost on it, so it sounds flat. And I have good headphones! So, I can't say that I would recommend this cd player.
20 Great little CD player worth much more than the price
Bought this CD player recently to replace a regular CD player. Not only can you play a CD full of MP3s, it plays ATRAC3 format files (1/2 the size of standard MP3s). Included is the software to convert mp3s to ATRAC3. Being able to have one CD that holds about 500 songs is amazing. I can listen to one CD all day and not hear the same song twice. But, the most amazing thing is that the CD player, when listening to ATRAC3 CDs, uses very little power, saving a bundle in batteries. Also, when you press stop, the player automatically shuts off and remember where you were, so, when you come back, you can pick up right where you left off, even in the middle of a song. Great product that lives up to the quality that I have grown to appreciate with Sony.
