Sony NAS-CZ1 Network Audio Player and Shelf System

by Sony

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 16 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000CGZQRY
• Item model number: NASCZ1
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #145,693 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Network Music Player

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Looks Good, Great Sound, Ok Software, April 14, 2006

By 

R. Louie "software collector" (Palo Alto, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sony NAS-CZ1 Network Audio Player and Shelf System (Electronics)

This Network Audio Player has outstanding sound, and easily fits on my bookshelf. The black and silver case design is a huge improvement over the cheap plastic look of many bookshelf systems sold today.

One of the best features is the ability of the unit to play music stored on your computer hard drive. From my existing music library that I created using Windows Media Player, the NAS-CZ1 plays the music one song after another, album by album. You can also create playlists if you want selected songs.

The challenge is to get the software and the NAS-CZ1 configured. I would say that this is a project for someone with some hands-on home networking skills, as I wanted a wireless setup. Since the NAS-CZ1 requires an Ethernet cable, I used a Linksys wap54 wireless access point to connect to my home wireless network.

All the internet features are provided through the Sony software called m-crew server. There is very little documentation on this software, even when I looked using Google. It is also version 1.0 and there apparently are no updates to the software that comes on the cd with the unit. M-Crew server is a very straightforward, no-frills solution to broadcasting music to the NAS-CZ1. There are a few things about it though. First, you need to use some version of Windows XP. Windows 2000,2003, 98, etc. will not work and the installer on the cd will stop you from proceeding. So you must have an XP computer that is on whenever you want to listen to music stored on your hard disk. This means that when I want to fall asleep to the music, I need to leave my computer running.

You need to remember that the account you installed the m-crew server software needs to be logged in. This is because the software runs background processes that won't be started until the account user logs in. Not a problem if you have a single user account login on the computer and the computer is re-booted for some reason, but I will have to look at setting up the computer to automatically startup the software background services when the computer re-boots. I found this out when Microsoft rebooted my pc for one of their automatic software updates. The connection from my NAS-CZ1 just stopped working until I re-logged into the account again.

One other problem with the m-crew server software or possibly the NAS-CZ1 is that you cannot have songs with titles using Asian characters. So any Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. songs will not play on the NAS-CZ1. In fact, the m-crew server software will let you store a say, Chinese titled song just fine. The problem arises when the NAS-CZ1 tries to play it. It will error out and you need to skip the song and restart the player manually. To delete the song, you need to (and they don't tell you this in the documentation) edit the m-crew server content database table using MS Access to delete the row containing the song, or edit out the Asian characters and you can then play the song. It seems that the NAS-CZ1 only has the ability to display english characters and that is why it errors on non-english titles. You would think that an international company like Sony would release product that accommodates languages other than english character based items.

If all else fails with the m-crew server software, uninstall and install it again.

Internet radio is another interesting feature that, if you can get running, sounds really nice. First, choose internet radio stations with a bit rate of no less than 32k, for decent sound. Second, forget about any radio stations that use their own radio player (do not use Windows media player), or require Real Player. If the radio station url does not end with an "aspx", then you can be pretty sure it won't work on the NAS-CZ1. Sony provides about 10 sample stations for the NAS-CZ1, but does not tell you how to find more radio stations. So the problems is finding internet radio sations and testing them to see if they work on the NAS-CZ1. Time consuming at best, and I have not tried searching for more stations outside of my initial setup effort of the NAS-CZ1.

At this time, I am impressed with the technology that Sony put into this unit, but I can also see a lot of buyers looking for a quick and easy way of listening to music on their computer hard dirve returning this unit due to the complicated setup and troubleshooting needed. I bought my NAS-CZ1 at Fry's for $189 and it was their last boxed unit, that was a return.

Personally, I like the unit and now that I have figured out the limitations and quirks, I'm considering a second unit for my home office. It is a real delight to be able to have my entire music collection available without having to manually change cds.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's Nice, but Now Discontinued, October 30, 2006

By 

Spinner "Casual Propellerhead" (Burlington, VT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony NAS-CZ1 Network Audio Player and Shelf System (Electronics)

I purchased an NAS-CZ1 as part of a liquidation sale for the product. I was looking to replace a plain-old bookshelf stereo and wanted to be able to access my wide variety of MP3s. The other systems on the market were either very expensive or were just components that hooked up to an existing stereo system. I wanted all-in-one and this model hit the bill. It has a CD player, AM/FM, and a network interface to the Sony M-Crew Server software, which only works with Window XP.

Plug it in out-of-the-box and you have a pretty good bookshelf stereo. When matched to an Internet connected PC, a whole new world arrived. The M-Crew software is a bit challenging and I had to spend a few hours rebuilding playlists that I had set up to run with MusicMatch. It took me a couple of tries to get the computer and the stereo to recognize each other, but finally they did. The ability to play internet radio is a big plus. It only supports Windows Media compatible radio streams, which fortunately for me included my two favorite local stations as well as WFUV in NY, the best radio station in the world. I was in heaven, since I live about 300 miles from their radio reach!

I wish I had bought several at the price that I paid. Sony has a new model coming out at the same price point, the Sony CPF-IX001. The added support for 802.11 b/g in the box, but removed the CD player. I'm glad that it uses the same server software as mine so maybe Sony will improve that it a bit. I'm going to wait until this new model gets a bit more time in the market. Maybe I'll be able to get one for dirt cheap if it doesn't take off!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sony NAS-CZ1 MP3/Radio/CD shelf system, December 26, 2006

By 

Kim B. Herring (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sony NAS-CZ1 Network Audio Player and Shelf System (Electronics)

Just got this unit from Best-Buy during Christmas, and really like the way it looks and sounds. I give it an "A" on these categories.

But like others who have reviewed this product, I'd give it a "D" for ease of use, especially for the m-Crew server software that is required to use any of the online features (such as MP3 and WebRadio), which is why I bought it.

The mCrew software has an interface that is very hard to understand and very un-intuitive for a typical windows user. Sony should hire a few good windows application developers... As others mentioned, the album and playlist features are difficult to figure out and seem to require alot of time to build (like its making a copy of each file you load, instead of just referencing it). One thing I immediately noticed is that it can only play MP3s stored on the machine where the mCrew server is installed, and not on a network'ed computer (via a shared drive). This isn't going to work well for me...

I don't mind having it run on a computer that stays up all the time (because I have that sort of setup anyway), but when I tried to install mCrew on my "server" computer (which is fortunately an XP Pro machine - or otherwise mCrew wouldn't have worked), it fails to run. I tried everything, but can't figure out what is wrong. The software creates no log files or other helpful output to debug this problem. The service just starts and then immediately fails. Maybe it's because I have a dual CPU system? A real pain. I'll have to run this on another computer if I decide to keep it, which I probably won't.

This could have been a great solution to the combo-MP3/CD/Radio/shelf system, esp when compared to other more expensive alternatives, but the software turns this potentially great product into (basically) a very expensive FM radio.