Sony D-NE1 Review

Overall Rating

Design,battery capacity,sound quality on original cd's,compability with formats and equipment,noise

headphone outlet volume,rem.control design,versatility of the burn-prog.

When you buy a Sony D-NE1d-ne1, you get the cd player(in fact:))a couple of bad ear-plugs,a smart charge-station,a burning program for the atrac system, an extra battery-supply case,and a small bag for carrying...

well... to start with the worst: the burning program! here,sony has a lot to learn from both roxio and ahead,with their easy cd-creator,and nero burning rom. its not that it is a bad user interface,its just that the program consumes cpu-power faster than you can say "banana". on a p111 450 mhz(not a fast cpu,but anyway)it will take you six hours to convert mp3s to atracs, and burn a full cd of music... i've not tested the cd to atrac feature yet,so i cant stand in for it at this moment. the problem is the faults this program makes with the converting too... its just like adding a little extra beat line to all of the songs...it sounds awful!! further to the mp3section... this has to be done in another program,as the sonicstage simpleburner cannot handle this kind of files(poor,sony). once complied,and burned out a full cd,you have music the whole day through! the player recognises the files immideatly,and gives you several hours of pleasure. the sound quality of mp3 is fare too,so its a nice feature. when it comes to playing original redbook-standard cds,this player is a piece of gold. raw sound quality! i was really impressed of this players abilities when it came to stereo-perspective,holography,transients and depth! another smart thing with this player is that it isnt sensitive for noise(like cellphones and other communication stuff.)probably caused by the use of metal in the construction,the player has an overall better shield against those things. and then we have the remote. its ok at the most. the only problem is the volume button,that causes irritation by the way its operated. an ordinairy two way switch would probably have done things much easier. then the last issue... the volume.. i wonder if i shuld buy a separate headphone amp from koss,cos the level you will get from the system all by itself isnt enough in noisy places like on the bus and stuff.... i probably would have sacrificed a bit battery for a better built in amp!