Sony MZNH600D Hi-MD MiniDisc Walkman
by Sony
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List Price: Our Price: $145.00 You Save: $104.99 (42%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sony MZNH600D Hi-MD MiniDisc Walkman
Customer Review: I like it!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was initially cautious about buying any device that compressed the music because a friend who is an audiophile said that there was a dreadfully discernable difference in the sound of the CD or from other sources it was taken from. He was also very obstinate and insisted that it sounded horrible and I would not be able to listen to it because my ears would bleed from the horrendous sound. I went ahead and purchased the basic $99 one anyway and was very pleased (and extremely surprised) with the sound and had no problems with the way it sounded. My ears didn't bleed by the way. About 2 months ago I purchased the Sony MZNH600D Hi-MD MiniDisc Walkman and was again, extremely gratified with what I had purchased at the incredibly low price of $74 (plus tax) from Tweeters but had some bad luck. Not with the player but what happened to it. I normally took it to work with me because the database I work with on a daily basis doesn't allow me the use of the CD player on the computer because it causes the computer to crash. I had been placing it in the cabinet above my desk and locking it during the day when I was out of the office to prevent theft but due to my own absentmindedness (and stupidity) several days ago before leaving work, I forgot to check and put it in my backpack and it was stolen by the housekeeping staff because I forgot to lock the cabinet. Even though it was only 2 days or so ago, I have already purchased another Sony MZNH600D Hi-MD MiniDisc Walkman. I got the same model because I was extremely satisfied with it. I still use the $99 unit as a backup and as a second unit for my partner to use and listen to while doing odd jobs around the house or in the backyard. It seemed very awkward to use at first but that was due to not being familiar with it. That and the fact that I hadn't read the manual that came with it. After reading the manual, I realized that the Simple MD Burner really was as simple as it sounded and I haven't used any other way of transferring CDs to the mini-discs. I would urge the purchase of this model to anyone that is interested in high capacity music storage at a low price. I gave it 5 stars because it is well worth the money I spent for it. BTW, if you can't find any place to purchase the 1GB Hi-MD blank discs - go to http://www.minidiscaccess.com for them and anything else related to mini-discs (storage, cases, etc). I highly recommend them because I previously purchased a number of things from them and was awarded with quick, efficient and extremely friendly service.Customer Review: Don't get a Flash MP3 Player get this !
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this player after spending loads of time choosing between the Creative N200 and Iriver flash 7XX series. I have many CDs and only a few MP3s (30) the "obvious thing" I thought was to buy a MP3 player and rip all of my CDs to MP3. Then I came across HI-MD and thought again.
If you have loads of MP3s that have been downloaded recently and they have DRM protection then this player is NOT for you BUT if you like me have lots of CDs and a few older non protected MP3s and you want portable music "Non Skip" music on the move then read on.
Ok let's deal with the biggest negative's first, this model has no MP3 encoder or radio but I wanted something that plays MY favourite songs not a radio DJ's. The software supplied SonicStage v2 isn't the best either (download v3.0 its better)and the Sony control system is a bit fiddly but just like an Iriver player, once you get used to it, it's fine.
One thing to note is that this is a MiniDisk player and so it only plays Sony Atrac files. Mainly the sound quality is better than expected and it's brilliant if you convert CDs directly to Sony's Atrac3plus 64K rate. This gives you an amazing 45hrs of "CD quality" music. Ignore most of what you've read about converting MP3s to Atrac. All music has to be converted to this format prior to playing so your old MP3s and WAVs are turned into Atracs. If you had a decent MP3 file (192Kbps or higher) then for the most part the sound quality is fine.
Compared to the aforementioned MP3 players above, I got my player for £50 plus £5 for a 1Gb HI-MD. This is a lot cheaper than the equivalent MP3 model of 128K. On the Iriver and Creative players I transferred 22 MP3 songs at most and they were both full. This times 8 equals 1GB so we can say that we can get roughly 176 songs onto a 1GB model of the same players. Now onto HI-MD, you can get around 500 songs of around the same quality onto 1 HI-MD disc. Don't worry too much about HI-MD discs you can get them easily on Amazon or Ebay and you'll only ever need a few. Most MP3 players have
In short, the sound quality is great, HI-MD holds about 500 songs plus you have folders and playlist support. Furthermore if you don't mind using SonicStage, manual podcasting MAY also be possible.
Its not a perfect solution to portable music (there isn't one) but in my view when comparing it to a flash based MP3 player its well worth the money.
Customer Review: Great Sound, Perfect Alternative to iPod
Summary: 5 Stars
OK, right off the bat I have to wonder how the earlier reviewer took 12 hours to download 1GB of music to the MZNH600. It took me about 1 hour! While that may still seem like a long time, considering how much music you're transfering, I don't think it's a problem.
I was seriously considering the Apple iPod. The Sony Hi-MD won me over as a great alternative - it uses a standard single AA battery which last an incredable 25 hours. There's no hard drive to worry about - excellent shock resistance. It doesn't hold as much on a single disk but it's not that big a deal to change disks. Besides, 1GB on the Sony is about equivalent to 35 CDs... it works for me. Took it on a 800 mile car trip to Oregon and back and it was flawless.
Some have complained about the SonicStage software but I've found it to be just fine. I've used iTunes and I'm annoyed at how iTunes takes over the CD-ROM functions to the point that it disables other CD software! At least the Sony SonicStage doesn't do that!
Sound quality is excellent at the Atrac3 64kbps rate. This is the next to highest compression which allows about 35 hours of music to fit on 1GB. At the highest compression, I noticed that voices started to sound a bit odd. Still, at 64kbps, I can fit more music on 1GB than a typical mp3 player - I estimate about 50% more. So compared to other mp3 players, the Hi-MD is really equivalent to 1.5GB to 2GB.
If I have a gripe, its the tiny display. It actually works fine but it's not backlit and navagating the menus takes a little practice. The controls, while small, actually work quite well, though.
I also considered some of the solid state mp3 players but to get the same amount of music on a Rio Chiba for example, would raise the price way beyond that of the Sony. This little Hi-MD player is an excellent value - Oh yeah, and did I mention that it doubles as a 1GB plug and play portable USB data drive... I highly recommend it.
Customer Review: excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
I owned a minidisc player a while back (specifically, the Sony MZ-N510CK NetMD Walkman) and I had mixed feelings about it. First, the storage on the minidiscs wasn't the greatest - one could fit maybe two hours of music on it with the 150-megabyte discs. Second, I always found it odd you couldn't write other media to the discs, like documents and pictures. And I was disapointed that there wasn't a wider range in bit rates you could rip music from using Sony's Sonicstage. While the atrac compression format gives excellent sound - better, in my opinion, than any mp3 - I wished they would give more options. All in all, I didn't feel that the player was worth it. But then I found that Sony was relasing a new line of minidisc players, so I thought I'd give it a shot.
It was worth it.
First, the new discs hold an incredible one gigabyte of information. I have fit almost 240 songs onto a disc at the 132 bit rate. Also, you can now use the players to back up your information. The old minidiscs that only held 150 megabytes, in the new players, are reformatted to hold 300 megabytes. I use my old ones to back up my documents and pictures - I haven't touched my CD burner in months! And there are new bit rates to choose from. It isn't as wide a selection as with mp3 rippers, but the extra choice is nice. The transfer of info using my USB 2.0 is quick and easy.
Sadly, as other reviewers have mentioned, the new Sonicstage software is a pain to use. I never had any problems with the old Sonicstage program, but for some reason the new version is extremely buggy and irritating. Additionally, don't be fooled by the packaging - while sonicstage does recognize mp3 and wma format, when you try to transfer the songs to your discman it will convert them to atrac format beforehand.
All in all, if you're leary of investing your money in a hardrive-based mp3 player, as I was, this is an excellent alternative. I am very satisfied with the product.
Customer Review: A worthy successor of net MD line
Summary: 5 Stars
This player is sweet in every single way:
->The 6 band equalizer is very flexible. I can customize it by mimicking windows media player setting to create a pleasant listening experience to almost any music genre.
->The navigation is very friendly and fast. The jog-dial is very convenient when browsing a massive list of song on 1GByte disc.
->Atrac3 plus and 1GByte disc are a killer combo. I can put as much at 36 hour of high quality music (encoded at 64kbps) on one 1Gbyte disc.
->The quality of Atrac3 plus encoded at 64kbps is pretty identical to mp3 at 192kbps. If it is not because of the copyright hassle, it might have made a revolution in music archiving.
->The player is pretty durable itself. I have dropped it 3 times from about 2-3 feets height but it has never died on me. During 6 month of ownership, there isn't any problem I can think of.
->One fully rechargeable battery can last for the whole week with 4-5 listerning hour per day. If it is out of battery, I can always swap in a new AA battery to increase listening time. Its ability to use AA battery makes it very friendly. Unlike Ipod and other hard drive base mp3 player, there is no hidden cost in the battery replacement. AA battery is dirt cheap: 1 Energizer rechargeable battery costs only 1-2 bucks and can be recharged up to 500 times.
->About the software, unlike lots of people's opinion, I found it very friendly and easy to use. I 've learned that you can make it more stable by disable auto launching whenever the player is connected and CDDB function (go to tool/Option and disable CDDB or auto launching function). This can fix the memory leak in SonicStage 3.1 and make it more stable.