Customer Reviews

Sony MZ-DN430PSBLK Psyc MiniDisc Network Walkman (Black)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The best thing about these players? The battery life! You'll get 45-55 hours on a single Alkaline battery-and this is TRUE battery life folks. Because this little guy operates on alkaline batteries, it will truly last up to 50 hours of usage, unlike Li-ion or regular rechargeable players (like the ipod, Zen, etc). Those devices advertise 12 to 20 hours, HOWEVER, if you don't use it for a week, the battery will be dead. Rechargeables have a horrible discharge rate, and regular flash or hd based mp3 players use those stupid "instant-on" features that make the problem worse, after "power off" they go into a power-trickling sleep mode. How stupid. I can't tell you how often I tried to listen to my fully charged ipod only to find that the battery drained itself because it sat for a week after I charged it, GRRR! That problem does not exist with these players, which makes a HUGE difference. If you listen to it for an hour one night, and pick it up 3 months later, you'll have 44 hours to go! Just excellent.

Also, be sure to download the new SonicStage software from Sony (v3.3). It no longer imposes transfer restrictions. That's right, you can transfer your MP3s, waves, wma's, etc until the cows come home. And when you want to delete the tracks from the player, just delete. No more of that "check-in, check-out" crap from the early days of SonicStage. Plus the interface has been much cleaned up and is actually a joy to use (wow, I can't believe I just said that about SonicStage).

MiniDiscs are cheap folks, You can get them for about a buck-fifty a piece.

Be aware that this thing only plays ATRAC3 encoded files, which means that when you transfer songs to it, it will automatically transcode everything to ATRAC3 (regardless of your source: CD, WAV, MP3, WMA, etc-but luckily it DOES support just about every popular music format). You will get to choose the quality of the transcode/transfer (132kbps LP2 or 64kbps LP4). On average, I fit about 3 albums using LP2 mode. Sometimes I'll have to prioritize which albums I want LP2, then make the 3rd album LP4. LP2 sounds as good or better as a 128kpbs MP3.

Any bummers? Sure, there is one: The player's only power source is the alkaline battery. It does not get power from the USB port (if it did, this thing would be flawless IMHO). Unlike normal playback, recording uses mucho amperage from the battery. I recommend that for recording you stick a NiMH rechargeable in it. This will negate the problem. If you don't do that, expect to toss out your Duracell after 2 or 3 discs worth of recordings (I'm serious). Save your precious disposable Alkalines for the sweet 50 hours or so of playback.

I wrote a review more than a year ago and gave it 4 stars then, however today, a year later, I'm giving it 5. That's gotta mean something...

As little as you're likely to spend on one of these original MD (not Hi-MD), I doubt you'll be disappointed, just don't forget to download the latest sonic stage (don't even bother with the disc that comes with it, the v3.3 download will be all you need).

Later dudes-
RMaldonado

I've been contemplating for quite sometime, getting an MP3 player for my 30-40 mile bike rides. I had grown tired of having the portable cd player strapped to my side, so I figured it was time for a change. While looking at MP3 players at Target, I came across this little gem. At the time, these were selling for around a hundred dollars compared to the 1gb players for one-hundred and twenty. Now you can buy these online for around fifty bucks. I was so interested, that I talked myself into getting the Sony Psyc MiniDisk walkman. The player has very clear and good sound, and the disk don't skip when you hit the potholes. Even when I occassionally jog, I've only had it skip one time, and that's when I tripped and fell. It's light and small and you barely notice it strapped on your arm. I have a arm strap where you can carry an extra minidisk too. The battery life is very long, even for the cheap Dollar General brand of batteries I use. As stated in other post, you drain more of the batteries transfering the music from your computer to the minidisk. Example: I had to change out the batteries after making 4 disk. So just keep a few batteries on hand, while you make them, or get recharge ones. Making the disk are very simple, and you can choose different bit rates for the music. The higher the bit rate, the fewer songs on the minidisk. So you can get anywhere from 2 hours to 5 hours of music on the disk, depending on the rate. The sound quality is noticeble, so I use the 3 hour rate. So I have a large selection on songs, without giving up all sound quality. Then only two drawbacks are it can't play video or podcast, and audiobooks take two or three disk. So for those this isn't practical at all. Now that Mp3 players are cheaper, most stores don't carry this now. So for less than a hundred you can get a 2gb mp3 player that does music and video. That being said I luv mine and will continue to use it, until it conks out. Its light, easy to use, and have very good sound. You will be very happy with this purchase.

Let's start out by saying that I like the device, It's a better sounding player than any of the others I've used recently. With that said, let me detail why I think it's an average product and will be getting something to take it's place.

First there is no Mp3 support. None. All Mp3s have to be converted in order to get them on the disks. This takes a LONG time. Even longer than dragging and dropping my directory trees onto the more expensive hard-drive players.

Speaking of Drag and Drop... there is none. Any music you put on this player must be done so with the crappy software that is included.

I say the software is crappy because every CD I've ever owned has been ripped to my hard drive by artist with directory brances for each album title. The software that I'm supposed to use to transfer my music to the player only regognizes about half of those ablums (even though every album falls into catagory trees under the artists' name) and lists them as "misc" albums. The result of importing your files into the software is a directory folder by the name of Metallica, which contains sub folders for the albums "Kill 'em All," "Ride the Lightning," "Master of Puppets," "And Justice for All," and "Metallica" suddenly becomes "Artist: Metalica, Albums: And "Justice for all" and "Metallica" and the Misc. Artists area of the software suddenly contains the rest of the albums. This is rediculous, especially given that I've done all the work in arragning all my artists and albums for the software. You would think it could simply look at my organization of the files in question and import them as it sees them. Instead it basically does it's own thing.

With my old Archos Jukebox player, all I had to do was plug it into my computer and drag the directory tree over to the new USB drive and wait about an hour.

With the NetMD player, I have to select the tunes I want (because there is much less room on an MD than say a 1 gig flash drive) and wait while the song is converted from mp3 to the propriatary format and then wait for the song to be transered over the USB 1.0 cable. In other words it's slow. In the time it took me to burn a 66 song MD, I could have transered about 5 gigs of my mp3 collection to a hard disk player.

Also annoying is the fact that FEW of my settings carry over from one disk to the other. So when I throw in a mix disk and set it to play in shuffle mode, it works fine until I hit stop and remove the MD to replace it with a new one. Then I have to navigate the menu to set the player pack to shuffle mode. The sound settings and display settings are carried over regardless of the disk being played, but the other settings are not.

One last gripe is that in order to carry a full working day's worth of music, I have to carry several mini-disks. Meaning that my pocket is packed with a five pack of recorded Mini-disks and the player as well as an extra battery just in case. There's just not that much storage capacity in a Mini Disk. I can get about 60 to 70 songs on a single Mini-disk, but the average 256mb flash drive player does the same and is easier to use (and cheaper too).

Honestly though, the positives outweigh the negatives (saving this device from a 2 star rating in my book). The Sound quality is AMAZING. Seriously, I've not heard an mp3 player sound like this before. Of course, the NetMD player isn't exactly an mp3 player and I suspect that has something to do with the sound quality. My guess is that the format that the mp3s are converted to restore some of the peaks and valleys in the music that the mp3 format ignores. Even the lp4 recorded disks actaully sound better than more other Mp3 players I've used.

The interface is good, with simple clicks sets everything up and running. The software, while nothing but annoying, is easy to install and figure out and does it's job. The battery life is AWESOME! For a single AA battery you get a LOT of play time.

It's a great player, but I think most people who buy this would be better served by a 256mb, 512mb or 1 gig flash drive for a few dollars more. You would get more music in a smaller package and you wouldn't have to use clunky and annoying software to get your music onto your player or from your player to another computer or player.

In the end, the Sony mz-dn430 is not a bad little device, but it could be a whole heck of a lot better and simple 256mb and 512mb flash drives are in about the same price range, store more music and are much easier to use.

Unfortunately for Sony, this is just another format that has seen no appreciable success in the US. We purchased this device to listen to professional voice work done for our company in Europe and Australia. This format seems to be much more popular in those areas of the world, but in the US, it is nearly impossible to find MiniDisc equipment and supplies anywhere but online.

I would say that the biggest challenge with MiniDisc, is that there is no digital audio extraction capability, even for unprotected content. Also, the device has moving parts, and spins just like a CD. Besides using more power, this makes the medium prone to possible skipping, and increased failure with the motor. Compared to modern music players like the iPod, the MiniDisc weighs more, is bulkier and holds a miniscule amount of data or music.

If you really need a MiniDisc player, this one will work quite well. If you are buying a device to hold your digital music, pictures or videos, skip this and move on to a more modern technology.

First off, let me say how excited I was to get this product. Many people have said things like how bad the software is, but I thought it went quick! The place where I bought it from (J & R) shipped it really fast. It came earlier than expected! The sound on the player is great, and the music won't ever skip. Battery life is amazing, and the ammount of songs per minidisc is about 70. Combining all of this together, I think that it is a great player!

First, I was amazed at the speed it was shipped, so when I saw the package in front of my door a few days ahead of schedule, I was ecstatic. But when I opened the package and muddled through the contents I wasn't let down. From first appearances, this md player was better than I had imagined.

I flipped through the manual, not really reading it, and popped in the software, the entire procedure (of setting everything up to working order) was easy and relatively uncomplicated.

As far as the md player itself, the little display has a lot going on. Because of the size, it can only show the track OR the artist OR the disc name, but the switch between the three is fairly easy, only two or three clicks. Without consulting the manual much, I could figure out pretty much every feature.

After burning the songs straight from a cd (it was a snap!) all I had to do was push the play button and I was blown away with the quality that it played. I burned it on LP4, and I was trying to figure out if it would affect the sound some, but it really doesn't degrade the song at all. It doesn't skip at all, even after I threw it up and down a few times just to check, not a single blip.

Overall, this was one of the best buys and for less then $100, it's one of the best portable players out there. I would DEFINITELY choose this over an iPod.

Great item. I was a little hesitant in buying one because of all the hype behind the Apple iPod, but it seems I made a pretty good choice. Very easy to use, the software (SonicStage) copies files real fast. The Minidiscs can carry up to 5 hours of music at minimumbit rate mode, in which the quality of the songs have no apparent change. It's durable too, I dropped it once real hard and it only got a small scratch (I hear iPods break real easily). The only drawback to this product is the organization of the music. You can't make seperate playlists or select a song to start with, you'll have to search for it, and you'd have to keep changing mini-discs when you want different songs. Those are minimal flaws however that most people could live with, and I recommed this over any MP3 players.

FOr a while I was thinking about buying an Apple Ipod, but hten I saw those on a website. 5 hours of music to one MiniDIsc really caught my attention. This player is acually more frugal than the APlle Ipod. FOr 300 dollars you get 5000 songs (Ipod) For 200 dollars in Mini Discs (The SOny Multi-color ones) you can get more than 7000 songs. That, to me, was a major sellling point. Then, I bought it and got it home. This product amazed me even more. The software is so easy to use, and works really quickly. You can make custom folders withcertain songs in them, and yuo can even record in different quality modes. (LP2-Best LP4-2nd Best) Truthfully, I can't tell the difference between them. I would reccomend this player to anyone who is looking for a way to store lots of music on something very small. I would also buy this over any Mp3 player. Yet again, Sony has come through!

very easy to use piece of machinery. Easy to record from CD to walkman. The sound is great and the earplugs are very comfortable. Great for traveling on planes and working out in. Small enough to fit in a pocket and does not skip.

I needed a portable player to listen to the music I had recorded on minidiscs using my Sony JE-330 and JE-630 minidisc decks and I didn't want to spend a whole lot of money so I took a chance and ordered the DN430 which I found to be an excellent recorder and player. I also like the software - however I would recommend going to Sony's website and downloading (for free)the latest version of Sonic Stage. I found Sonic Stage to be very easy to use and navigate - in addition to recording to the minidisc player it also allows you to convert MP3 files to regular audio CD files and vice - versa and record either an MP3 CD or regular audio CD. Also the software provided with the DN430 contains an MD Simple Burner program for quick transfer of music to the minidisc player from regular audio CD's. Overall the DN430 minidisc player is a great alternative to IPODs and other flash memory player/ recorders. When a minidisc player breaks you can always buy a new one without loosing all of your recorded music, whereas with the flash memory players you can loose all your music should they break or seriously malfuntion. Another thing I like about the DN430 is the long battery life - up to 56 hours on a single AA battery!