More music, better quality and easier CD burning are the reasons you need a new Sony CD Walkman portable player with ATRAC3plus. With Simple Burner software and ATRAC3plus compression technology, you can get up to 490 songs on a CDR/RW with sound quality that will amaze you. Add to that an attractive package, easy-to-use jog control, bookmark playback function and an affordable price tag and you have all the ingredients that make the D-NE510 a winner.
Get the most from digital music with Sony's DNE510 portable CD player, which includes SonicStage CD Simple Burner software so you can take advantage of ATRAC3plus, Sony's proprietary music-compression technology when making custom MP3 CDs on a computer. The player includes Sony's popular Jog Dial control for easy folder navigation, a two-line dot-matrix display, and achieves up to 40 hours of continuous playback on two "AA" type batteries (not included).
ATRAC3plus is a high-quality audio-compression technology that reduces the size of digital audio files while preserving much of a track's original sound quality (similar in concept to MP3 or Dolby Digital sound formats). With ATRAC3plus, music can be burned and compressed at 132, 105, 66, 64, or even 48 kbps (kilobits per second), letting you select the right balance between fidelity and storage space (you'll get around 490 songs per disc at 48 kbps). The player comes bundled with Sony's SonicStage CD Simple Burner software. Compatible with ID3 tagging and most CD burners, this application transfers songs from CDs or MP3 music files from a PC's hard drive and burns them to a CD using ATRAC3plus compression.
Skip-Free G-Protection technology boosts the laser pickup's shock protection to minimize read errors that would otherwise interrupt your music, providing quick recovery from both horizontal and vertical shocks. Bookmark playback lets you program favorite songs from multiple CDs and play them back at the touch of a button, and CD Text support displays artist and title information with compatible commercial audio CDs.
1 great music
This is my favorite walkman. I am very lucky that this won has a radio to it some walkmans don't. I got it to were I can hear my favortie stations with out having to always press the fastfoward or rewind buttons. The cds play really good. Sometimes the head phones go out like one speaker will not play unless you move the cord around.
2 Great player, especially for the amateur to MP3s
This Sony CD player is the first MP3 CD player I have ever owned, and it has suited me very well for the last six weeks.
PROS
- AWESOME battery life - 60-70 hours
- NO Skipping
- Jog Dial is excellent when it works
- Good sound quality
- Display shows useful information, you can edit this info in Musicmatch
- Burning just MP3s is extremely simple
CONS
- Feels sort of flimsy
- No backlight on display
- My jog dial worked well for a few weeks, but it started malfunctioning to the point of uselessness, and sometimes even became a hindrance when using the normal track selecting buttons. This was my biggest problem
- Fairly unattractive design
- You can't fast forward/rewind quickly through a track
- ATRAC burning software is terribly designed and slow, and you lose some sound quality with that compression
Because of the loss of sound quality and overall bad design of the burning suite, I only burned MP3 CDs, which still hold 150+ songs and don't lose sound quality. It was not a problem to me to carry around a few CDs, which could hold my whole collection; however, it would probably be an annoyance to those with larger amounts of songs. To people who have over 1000 songs that they would like to carry around with them, I would suggest that they invest in a MP3 player. To everyone else, I reccomend this very good bargain CD player.
3 The best. That's all there is to it.
I can go just about nowhere without this CD player with me. Music is my life.
This CD player's sound quality, efficiency, volume range, and very wide range of playing capabilities is more than impressive...it's messianic.
If you like music as much as I do, and want the perfect portable vehicle for the art, then get this CD player.
4 Bang for the buck in the Sony tradition
Before my last vacation, I was looking for a less expensive device than the iPod to bring my mp3 collection with me. My research led me to the Sony D-NE510. With only some minor complaints, I've been very happy with my purchase.
This Walkman allows you to listen to standard audio CDs, MP3 CDs, or ATRAC3 CDs (which can be created using the bundled software, SonicStage Simple Burner). Being a bit of an audiophile, I always use the highest sampling rate (132 Kbps) when creating ATRAC CDs. Though this consumes more disk space, I can still get well over 100 songs onto a CD! Even at 132 Kbps, I was able to put most of my MP3 library onto 5 CDs - more than enough for my trip.
The design is sleek but not the most ergonomic; some of the buttons are slightly difficult to view and/or access (particulary the volume and bass booster). The bass boost button is called simply "Sound" - why? Some have noted that the unit beeps when paused, a minor complaint (although there are instructions for disabling the beep). Finally, note that this particular Walkman might not be conducive to listening to audio books; I haven't tried it, so check the other reviews here if that's a consideration for you.
The included headphones are actually pretty good. The unit is lightweight and portable. It uses batteries (2 AA) very efficiently.
If you're looking for a nice Walkman to play audio and mp3 CDs, I recommend the Sony D-NE510. It give you bang for the buck and upholds Sony's place as a leader in consumer audio products.
5 pretty good, probably not the best
I decided to buy an mp3 cd player instead of other options (like a flash player or big hard drive player) because the storage medium of the CD is very cheap so if you ever need more space you just have to buy a $10 spindle of CDRs. If you agree with this line of reasoning you should consider an mp3 cd player, but maybe not this one.
DESIGN
This CD player is not designed too well. There is the navigation button that combines play, rewind, fast forward, and stop, and it is too easy to press the wrong one. Also, rewinding and fast forwarding do not work that well. The jog dial is a cool idea for navigating through long lists of files, but after a while it starts acting funny and getting confused. Sometimes it is hard to press the dial in without the selection getting changed. Also, since it's on the front of the unit, it can get moved unintentionally.
FEATURES
This player comes with Sonic Stage Simple Burner Software which converts your mp3s to atrac3s and burns them on cds. Atrac3s are a lot smaller than mp3s and don't sound too bad. The problem is it takes this program forever to convert a whole cd worth of mp3s to atrac format. Then sometimes it leaves out songs or messes them up. The program is easy to use but it is pretty bare bones; it offers as few features as possible.
The player features bass boost, which is usually unnecessary, and all the standard shuffle and repeat options. Notice that to get mp3s to play in track order according to album, each album must be in a separate folder and all the filenames must begin with a two digit track number (08,09,10...). Also, sometimes, small scratches on cds that normally wouldn't make a difference on standard audio cds may mess up large portions of songs on mp3 cds. It can also take a very long time to load CD-RWs, and sometimes won't load them at all.
All in all, the player is pretty good. It's very durable (I've dropped mine a few times and it's okay) and the batteries last forever. The sound is pretty good and it gets almost loud enough. The atrac3 is very good for fitting more songs on your cds but it doesn't work with anything else. There may be better designed Sony players to check out...
6 awesome sound and......
addition on December 04
going on pretty smooth and trouble free .. no problem + very long battery life..
review written on May 11
i bought this mp3 player after searching through a large number of mp3 players ...ranging from panasonic and rca to iriver etc... there are some important things that i came to know about the product only after buying and listening to it...i am listing some pros and cons for this awesome product by sony
PROS
1. sound quality very good
2. great bass
3. intelligent search for folders and within folders using the jog dial ....its one of the features that is missing in some models of panasonic and others .... u can search for folders and songs without playing them ...and once u find them, u can either play or skip them (with a different song still playing) ...
4. good battery life
5. very light weight headphones
6. resumes from the very next second of the song at which u have paused / stopped completely ...
7. player slim and light weight
CONS
1. takes longer time to load mp3s than panasonic ...i have tried both with same battries and with the same cd, compared to the panasonic sl-mp-70 and found sony taking longer time to load ...not only for 1 cd but for all the cds that i have
2. wire length too short for the headphones ...its about 1 metre only.
2. headphones supplied are the ones that come for $6 (from Sony at Walmart) .....if u use some other good noise cancellation headphones u can easily notice the difference ..but the sound is alright with this too ...
3. wires for the headphone separate in front of you (for your ears). This is irrittating at work.....
4. u have to compromise on the sound quality for compressing more songs on a single cd with altrac technology(quilte obvious).
5. play/pause, stop, forward, rewind; all are on a single button. pressing the wrong one accidentally is quite frequent even after long use.
6. i got a carrying bag free with these...but the design of that is is too compact and u can't increase/decrease the volume easily because the headphones get into the set from another slit provided in the bag ..and the volume control remain inside the bag ...so if u want to change the volume u have to detach the headphone, take the player out, change the vol, place it back and attach the headphones ...but its not a problem if u do not use the carrying bag
overall the sound quality is very good and that is why i gave it a 5 star ... i have listened to RCA, PANASONIC, DURABRAND, and IRIVIER of the same price range ...but this sounds the best among those...lets see how long it goes trouble free..
7 Great Idea, but Not Very Reliable
I bought this CD player when looking for a way to play radio programs I burn to a CD as MP3's. It would be perfect for that, but for some strange reason, the first one of these I bought began losing power. It would just shut off for no reason, and it was definitely some kind of power loss because I had to reset the volume and navigate back to the track after hitting Play again. I contacted customer support and I would have to send the unit in for diagnosis. There are costs involved in all that and I figured that since the price I originally paid for this model ($99) had dropped to $59, I might as well just replace it. So I bought a new one of the same model and the power fails on it, too! This is with fresh batteries or even with a power adapter. I cannot figure it out. I even replaced the cassette adapter I use in my car and the power still dies. When you're listening to a talk MP3 that's 40 minutes long, having the power fail at 36 minutes is very annoying because the fast-forward function doesn't work well at all. You have to hold down the fast-forward for about 20 seconds just to advance one minute. A time skip feature would be more useful. Hit the Skip button and jump ahead one minute. Hold it down and jump ahead three minutes per second.
I've decided to return the D-NE510 and I'm going to pay more for the NE710 model. If that oen also fails, I'm going to abandon the Sony brand altogether.
8 wonderful MP3/ATRAC3-CD player!
I recently bought this Sony D-NE510 player to replace an older Panasonic SL-SX460 that I've had for a number of years, and I've not been disappointed by my purchase. This player has a slew of really awesome features that make it worthwhile, especially its support for ATRAC3+.
The sound quality of the player is fairly good, although not quite as clear as my old Panasonic (the difference is quite negligible). The first bass boost option is okay, but the second option distorts the sound too much. No bass boost at all sounds a little thin though. The headphones that come with the player are pretty much junk, so I've been using a pair of Sony earphones that I bought a while back, and the quality is much better.
MP3 navigation is extremely easy with the jog-dial, especially if you organize songs into folders. When I tried to play an MP3 disc without folders, it took me forever to find the songs that I wanted, but now that I have everything organized into folders for each album, I can almost instantaneously find the songs that I want to hear. There is a slightly annoying pause between each song, maybe about 1-2 seconds but enough to break the flow of a mix CD, although for regular CDs with individual songs, this is less of an issue.
I used the bundled software to compress 28 albums worth of songs onto a CD in ATRAC3plus format at 64 kps, and now carry around 50+ albums on just two discs. Each disc took me about 2 hours to make, without a hitch, although I did not attempt to use the MP3 conversion feature. I figured it would be useless to convert from one compression format to another...and burning an MP3 disc is faster than converting it to ATRAC anyway.
ATRAC quality is much clearer than MP3 at 64 kps or even 96 kps and is certainly very listenable, but isn't quite on-par with CD quality. When you turn up the volume and listen closely, you can hear the limitations of the lower bitrate. However, I usually listen to music at low and "regular" volumes, so the quality isn't that big of an issue with me (it's easier on my hearing too). Besides, I figured that being able to carry around that many songs (approximately 350) on a CD makes up for the slight decrease in sound quality.
The player also has incredible battery life-Sony claims 80 hours with ATRAC discs, and 50 hours with regular CDs when using alkaline batteries. I have been using the unit with Rayovac rechargeable NiMH batteries (more environmentally friendly) and these give me about 45 hours of play time (MP3 CD) per charge, which is usually enough for 3-4 weeks of regular use for me. And I used to think that the 12 hour rechargeables for my Panasonic were long-lasting!
The D-NE510 is also fairly stylish. It's rather large but has an attractive gray exterior and clean design. The plastic shell is cheap and fragile feeling, but seems durable enough. I've actually dropped the CD player from my desk a number of times (onto hardwood floor) and it was not yet skipped or had any problems.
Overall, Sony has made a wonderful product. Some would probably complain that the ATRAC software has problems but keep in mind that even if you don't use this feature, the player is still a great deal. The Sony reliability, the excellent MP3 support, the jog dial and the incredible battery life make for a pleasurable and convenient music listening experience. True, you can buy a cheaper MP3 CD player, but if you consider long term reliability and battery costs, then the Sony D-NE510 is really a wonderful buy.
9 The Best Portable Audio Player For Your Money
You cannot make this thing skip without breaking it, and that's not an easy feat either. It's a tough, skip-free, stylish, great sounding, battery efficient, feature-packed and, to top it off, AFFORDABLE CD player.
Just imagine, having 450 of your favorite songs, 25 to 30 of your favorite albums, all on a single CD, and have the ability to organize them by album, play them in random order, play the ones you chose to bookmark, pause, fast forward, or rewind in mid-song (rare in non-Sony Mp3 CD players), and be using next to no batteries as you do so. Atrac 3 is a must have, it's so nice to be able to put your favorite books, nearly 25 hours of stand-up comedy, or just all your favorite music, on 1 CD, and have it sound as good as high bitrate Mp3s. If you don't get this model, get the $99 model with the 3-line display. Though really, so long as you organize your tracks by folder, 2-line is plenty.
I bought this for a vacation to Orlando, a 15 hour ride. After using it the entire trip there, entire trip back, 30 hours, I still have all 4 bars left on the battery meter, it's amazing. This is one of the best purchases I've -ever- made, of any kind, and the only one I felt deserving enough of a positive online review.
10 400 MP3 Limit. Look
The D-NE510 and 518 have impressive features like resume within the middle of an MP3, and fast forward within MP3s, as well as support for 16 to 320 kbps, Variable Bit Rate (VBR), and sampling frequencies of 32, 44.1, and 48 kHz -- all features any audio book listener would want -- however, even though it supports 16 to 24kbps, it only supports 400 mp3s per CD. If you encode at 16kbps mono, only good for audio books or speech, you end up with well over 400 MP3s. Some of my audio book CDs have 900 MP3s on them, and all of them have over 400 MP3s. I find it odd that they will let you have 999 ATRAC3 files, and claim that you can fit 490 ATRAC3 songs on a CD, yet even if you wanted to compress your mp3s small enough to fit over 490 songs on a CD, sony won't let you.
Let us say that you have audio books on CD with tracks every 3 minutes. You extract and compress them to MP3s at 16 or 24kbps, even 32kbps. You are left with over 20 files that are about 700KB. We already know that a CD can hold 650 to 700 megabytes, that gives us 1000 MP3s per disc. Sony only lets you have 400 MP3s per disc.
This means that you can only fit 20 audio-book CDs worth of mp3s on to a CDR. The rest of the CD is wasted.
This gives sony's ATRAC3 an unfair advantage over MP3. I would not have purchased this if I had known because none of my audio book CDs has less than 400 tracks.
11 Met my expectations
I have to admit to being a little gun-shy about this product after reading other reviews on this page. However, I have found that it met my initial expectations, and isn't as bad as some other folks apparently think it is. The sound isn't bad at all and the display is legible. It plays MP3's flawlessly. I suppose they could have done a better job with the headphones, but for the money you can't go wrong with this unit. The ATRAC feature is interesting. But if you know how to rip CDs WAV files and convert them to MP3s OR simply download MP3s from the Web, you don't even need to use the ATRAC software that comes with the unit.
12 Good, but not perfect
I bought this player about a month ago, and sure it works well - unless your pc is filled with WMA files! Another gripe is the play/skip/stop button... I usually end up hitting stop instead of skip. It seems to be built reasonably well, especially for the price. Another note is you can get it in different colours - check this out if you're thinking of buying one - I found out they done a cool blue and red one just after I bought one (in plain old silver). :o(
The software provided is poor however, I just stick to Nero - it also plays musicmatch playlists, which is handy if you use that program.
The BEST feature of this player, however, is that it never skips! I'm very active, often listen to it while mountain biking downhill, and it's excellent at playing, and playing, and not skipping. Never used it with a regular CD, just mp3 ones, so not sure about normal cd skipping (as these discs spin all the time, whereas an MP3 one stops every now and then)
All in, buy it if you want a cheap and cheerful player, that gives you a little more than you expect at this price.
13 I Have To Refute These People Before Me!
I normally don't review electronics, but so many people before me have knocked this great player down and I have to correct the myths. First of all, this is NOT a MP3 player. It's a CD player that plays MP3 cd's that you burn yourself. It also plays ATRAC and ATRAC+ cd's which is Sony's version of MP3 that compresses files to 1/2 the size of MP3's and retains the quality. Most of these people before this review are not well versed in MP3/CD players as evidenced by the one that thinks this is an simply a MP3 player and doesn't know how to hook it up to "get music" (why do these people bother posting and skewing the reviews is beyond my imagination). I'm reasoning that most of these people never bother to read directions and simply jump to a negative conclusion when they can't figure something out. Let's face it, technology today is complicated and learning how to read is the first step so READ THE INSTRUCTIONS IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!!
This is a great cd player for the money. The sound is loud and crisp (when you use the first bass setting) and I'm really picky about bass. However, buy a good pair of headphones. Sony "mega-bass" is the best. As with all players, the ear-wear is always poor quality and the player WILL sound poor no matter what. The software is so completely fool-proof that the people complaining about it probably aren't running a system that's up to date and don't understand the problems with Windows 98 or never defragmented their system. It's simple to use and runs EXACTLY like the software that came with the Intel MP3 player from a few years back. I used the ATRAC+ conversion at 64 kbps (equivalent to 128 kbps for MP3) and was able to get over 300 songs (26 cd's) at an average of 4-5 minutes each. If I used ATRAC (not the + one), I'd probably get 50 less. The sound was not compromised at all. I WAS SHOCKED! Keep in mind I have a $20 pair of headphones and I haven't listened to it in my car or home stereo (or with the cheap headphones that came with). The file compressions to ATRAC+ did take a while but only a fraction longer than regular MP3 converting. There is one problem though, when you already have a MP3 file to convert to ATRAC or ATRAC+, the software doesn't allow you to cancel and you need to control+alt+delete to abort if you change your mind. SONY should patch this problem and I intend on letting them know about it on their support page (which is very good by the way!).
The buttons are easy to use and I have no complaints except for the fact that you can't shuffle play the first track in each file you create on the CD. The player will only randomly select so you may get up to 2 tracks from the same file played after each other (a very minor issue and I never had more than 2 songs from the same file play together). The instruction manual is a little vague in some spots but I was able to easily figure things out by simply play around with it.
I wanted a player to bring to work that had all my favorites songs on one disc. I was able to achieve this with ATRAC+ technology. This way I can bring double the amount of music with me. I cannot recommend this player enough!! I usually buy small electronics made by Phillips because I've had good luck with them. This is not the first Sony cd player I own. I've not been happy with other Sony items I've bought (5 disc cd player, portable cd player a few years back and an amplifier) so I hesitated when buying. I have a SONY Vaio PC and have had no trouble with it. I also like my Sony Cybershot camera so I thought I'd give them another try. I'm glad I did!
14 ...was that noise there before?
I was excited at finding this cd/mp3 player, at the price it is. It's very cute, and I love the jog dial fro easy song access. I do have quite a few gripes, though. First off, I could only fit 380 songs on my mp3 cd (not that I'm really complaining about this), but the cd took literally 3 hours to burn. Why, I have no clue. Many mp3s won't play off the disk now, which is disappointing. In the end, the disk only plays 270 songs. The sound quality is horrible, too. There's an odd, rather metallic clicking noise in the background with the bass, now. It's really irritating, and I recognize it from other cheap mp3 players I've owned before. I'm considering returning it and spending more on a better mp3/cd player. I'm really disappointed with this product, I mistrusted the Sony label, evidently.
15 Awsome but.........
OK Well i just got this thing for Christams and its great. But it is sooo totally confusing!!! i've been tying to figure it out for liek hours on end. I read the manual twice but nothing. All these thoings keep popping up on my computer and i have no clue why. I have a question IS THIS AN MP3 PLAYER OR NOT???? I hope it is becouse thats why i bought it. If it is then how on earth do you work it. I called my friends and family but they're stuck in the dark ages. I reallly need to figure it out! I have such a variety in music and so many CD's that an MP3 player would make my life simpler. HELP!
16 Bad Sound Quality
The sound quality is just bad. I have a dying, 9-year old-sony discman that I used as comparison (w/same cd and headphones) and the dying, grinding, gasping discman still had much better sound quality than the NE510. I'm returning it.
17 pretty spiffy
Very great cd/mp3 player. took me a couple trys to get the hang of the included software, but it is superb once you understand it. the cd player itself is very nice looking and easy to use. sound quality is great for both mp3 disks and cds, although it doesnt go as loud as i wish it could, but that is a pretty high demand. the headphones included are crap, so you need new ones. THIS THING IS IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE SKIP. i love that. buy this if you want an affordable, nice looking, quality, easy to use, skip free cd/mp3 player, just make sure you get new headphones.
18 Response
In response to another review, I used an old MP3 CD from my other MP3 CD player and it worked. I created that CD with Roxio and didn't need to change the files using the software that came with this product.
So far I have had no trouble with it and it has much better skip protection then my old MP3 player. Overall I would say it gives you all you need in an MP3/CD player.
19 Decent MP3 Player, Poor Design
This CD Walkman plays audio CDs, and MP3 CDs just fine. The biggest complaint I have about it is that the controls are designed such that when you intend to hit play, you can accidently hit next track. On the whole it has good sound reproduction and is fairly easy to use.
20 Just what I wanted...
I wanna address the sound quality of MP3 files first off. It isn't the player itself that affects the sound, it's the file. So unless you don't know how to make a GOOD MP3 file of course it's going to sound bad.
Second, this IS AN MP3 player. If you have a program like Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum you can make an MP3 CD that is playable on your computer and/or portable MP3 Player or a DVD player that supports MP3 CD's. I'm not too worried about what it looks like or if it's a good size. It's what's on the inside that counts and this product does a fairly good job, and at that price I'm happy about it. I'm not sure about the other MP3 players but this one is really nice. So all in all, learn how to make a GOOD MP3 file and look over your CD burning program to see if they make MP3 CD's and try it out. You won't know if it'll work unless you try it out first.
21 Plays MP3 - NO CONVERSION REQUIRED
I almost didn't buy this unit because I read another review which stated "Sony's ATRAC3 CD players ... require the user to convert MP3s to their proprietary ATRAC3 format". I am glad to report that this unit DOES PLAY MP3 with NO CONVERSION REQUIRED. This is the second MP3/CD player I have tried. I find it to be much better that the Audiophase Sports unit that I returned. I am also happy to find out that "ID-3 tagging" actually displays/scrolls the directory/file names from my CD created by Musicmatch on my PC.
22 It's good, I guess
This mp3 player is not bad. It haven't been able to install the disk that came with the cd player since my pc is opperating on a windows 98. You can still make mp3 cd's with other softwares like nero. It just takes more time. The sound quality for the mp3 are good but you will only hold around 200 songs if you want it that way. The design is terrible and the buttons don't work well. Still, if you want an mp3 player, this isn't that bad of a choice since it is not that expensive.
23 24 hours of music
I got this cd player a week ago and have barely stopped listening to it. The batterie symble that shows how full the batteries are hasnt even gone down yet either which is definitally a good thing. The skip protection is great, ive been walking, skateboarding, running, and even jumping on my trampoline without it skipping. The ATRAC3 format is my favorite thing about this cd player. The night i got it i transfered all of my 46 cds and over 80 mp3s to a cd using the software that came with it. It was really easy and only took about an hour to finish (including the time spent loading my cds onto the computer, the actual burning only took about 5 minutes). Now i carry 422 songs with me everywhere i go (thats exactly 24 hours, 12 minutes and 24 seconds by the way). I no longer have to carry my favorite 5 or 6 cds with me on long car rides because all of my cds and mp3s are right there. The sound quality is excelent for me, although i havnt even tried the headphones that came with it...I suggest this cd player to anyone who has lots of cds and hate carrying them all around with them or just anyone who want to have their whole music collection with them in one small package.
24 Good enough for me
I tried out a few different cd/mp3 players and didn't find any one that was completely satisfactory. However this one was better than the RCA RP2450 and Panasonic MP70 I tried in terms of sound. However, in order to get that sound, I had to get just the right headphones. The ones that came with it, like many players, are worthless. Sometimes the bass boosting can sound distorted, but the headphones I bought have more than enough bass for my liking. The MP3 capabilities are good, and it doesn't take too long for it to load an MP3 disc up.
The battery life is also good, I have had it for a few weeks and haven't had to change the batteries.
It's not the best one out there, but for what I want, which is to occassionally listen to it on the bus or while reading on the bed, it is more than sufficient.
25 ONE OF THE BEST CD/MP3 CD PLAYER'S OUT THERE!!!
I was looking for a cheap CD player with good quality, and this is it. I can store almost 25 HOURS of music on one CD, or up to 490 songs. It is AWESOME!!! I am in the school band, so I travel a lot, and I bring my CD player and a lot of CD's with me on the bus.. It can be a hassle changing all of my CD's all of the time, but not with the Atrac 3 plus. I put 65 of my favorite songs on one CD, and it fits FIVE HOURS of music, more than an MP3 CD can fit. The quality of music is also great. The headphones it came with are very good, but not excellent. (What do you expect?). The program it came with to put all of the songs on one CD is very simple to use, you just select which songs you want to put on the CD, and it burns them. When I burned my CD, which had 5 hours of music on it, it was done in ten minutes. This CD player also looks good and is rather small. Believe me: looks ARE important. You don't want to walk around with some ugly CD player, do ya? It is also small and lightweight, and very portable. Another cool feature is, when you are listening to a CD, you can see through the CD player in a small, clear space. For about 30 seconds, you see the CD spinning around, but then it stops spinning. I think that it takes all of the data it needs off the CD and plays it from a type of hard drive. This prevents skipping (There is none at all!). Another cool thing: I love to download music on Kazaa. If you do too, then you know that sometimes the songs get cut off when you put them on the normal CD's. For example, I downloaded Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith, and it got cut off 30 seconds into the song. But when I put it on my Atrac CD player, it played the entire song! This made me very happy. It did this with every other song I had downloaded and had gotten cut off. This is VERy COOL!!!This CD player is Well worth your money, and I reccommend it to anyone who is looking for a good, quality CD player for cheap. AWESOME!!!
OVERALL SCORE:
Quality of Sound: 9
Ease of Use: 9.5
Program Ease of Use: 9.7
Looks: 9.4
26 Hundreds of hours per CD
A decent unit with good, clear sound. The ATRAC is great. Don't know if I've put 490+ (as advertised) songs on a CD but it certainly is close. On a trip I can take most of my favorite CD's boiled down to 2-3 ATRAC CD's. ATRAC burning program is easy to use.
27 Huge Disapointment
I upgraded to this model as a replacement for my Sony Psyc that stopped working 3 weeks after I bought it. My primary use is for listening to standard CDs and CDRs but I thought it would be nice to have MP3 capability. When I got this out of the blister pack and put in my first CD is was hugely disappointed with the sound quality. Compared to the Sony Discmans I have had before (and even the recent Sony Psyc) the sound was very noticeably inferior. The tonality was extremely flat sounding. Additionally I listened to a number of different CDs (if you are curious they were: Radiohead "Kid A", Radiohead "OK Computer", Various Artists "Chicago: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack", Fugu "Fugu" and The Who "Sings My Generation (Remastered)") and I noticed that the bass would start distorting if I used the bass boost feature on any volume level more than 50 percent. Also, if you have the volume almost all of the way up there is no noticeable difference when using the two bass boost presets - it just seems to blast more midrange.
I tried better headphones and it did improve the sound but not to the degree that it should have.
In terms of ergonomics, I think that it is insane design to put the volume button right next to the open and close button. You have to look every time you do adjust volume, not something you really want to do.
I am sorry that this review is not going to address the MP3 features (although I will say that the Atrac3 proprietary system seems like a non-starter - but this unit can play standard MP3s which is a good thing.) I took this back to the store for a refund the very next day and I am going to do some more research on finding a better sounding portable.
Bottom line: If you don't mind sacrificing sound quality on your standard CDs so that you can hear MP3s this might be for you. If you do care about sound and are on a budget and MP3s are not essential, look elsewhere (again the Sony Psyc sounded better and is $20 cheaper.)
Update: I just bought a Panasonic SL-MP70 and am really happy - great full sound (even on MP3 files) with great lows and highs and clear seperation (even on the supplied "cheapo" headphones it sounds pretty good.) I paid $10 less than I did for the Sony and have what I want. I had made the mistake of buying the D-NE510 based largely on the Sony name and I think Sony knows other people will do the same so they aren't as concerened with quality as they should be.
