Sony MZ-N420D Psyc Net MD Walkman Digital Music Player

Other products by Sony

Product Details

Product Manual [1.88mb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0001M3MUC
• Item model number: MZN420DPSGRAY
• Batteries: 1 AA batteries required.
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #59,530 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #19 in	Electronics > Portable Audio & Video > Minidisc Players
  #29 in	Electronics > Home Audio & Theater > Minidisc Players & Recorders

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 1, 2004

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

This stylish player lets you store up to 5 hours of digital music and bring it with you on a single, skip-free MiniDisc for about the price of a large coffee. The Psyc Net is compatible with MP3, WMA, WAV, and ATRAC3 audio formats, and it even comes with a MiniDisc so you can start recording right away. Its USB connection delivers burn rates at up to 32x for your MP3s and CDs. A handy Jog Dial provides easy navigation, and SonicStage and MD Simple Burner Application software let you group your tunes and customize your playing environment.

The player's 3-line LCD display provides album, artist and song title information on a clean, single screen. This player includes a headphone jack and headphones, but the single AA battery, which you'll need to take the device away from your computer, is not included. The Psyc Net comes in one color: Spark Gray.

NOTE: The Psyc Net's recording features and bundled software are not compatible with the Mac OS operating system.

What's in the Box:
Sony Psyc Net MD Walkman Digital Music Player, headphones, SonicStage software CD-ROM with MD simple burner application, USB cable

Product Description

The new Psyc Net MD recorder is a marriage of function and form. Cool gray tones mingle with orange and silver, adding sex appeal to the one of the most popular digital music formats. The MZ-N420DPSGRAY model offers high-speed music transfer from a PC via a direct USB connection. It can record more than five hours of music on one 80-minute disc in LP4 mode.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Mis-Leading, February 14, 2005

By	David M. Nabinger "Tech Head" (US Army Europe (Germany)) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First I am a huge Sony Minidisc fan and have used md's for a long time. Entering the mp3 and wma time, I decided to get a net md to play these files. Unfortunetly Sony forgot to give their users an easy way to transfer their files to the net md. Here's why;

First even though the package says it plays mp3's and wma's, it actually means it will convert them to Atrac then store it to the player. Taking too much of your time.

Second it doesn't even convert all wma's or mp's. Most of my files are wma and it didn't even convert 75% of them.

Third the device soemtimes thinks it's full when not and heres the kicker, you must use batteries to to do any tranfers. Most mp3 player uses the power of your computer to do that.

Honestly I have never been so mad at sony. I do still love most of their products but they should have put more effort into this.
Sorry customers, but if you want an easy to use and better quality mp3 player look at anything other than net md. If Sony was smart they would have made the Net MD like a mass storage device and let the customer decide if they want to convert their music to atrac.

I ended up buying a 40gb Creative Labs Zen. Very easy and also lets me store files other than music too.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wondermus, September 13, 2004

By	A. J Springer "tekende" (Guthrie, OK United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I just bought this about a week ago, so take that in stock when you read this review. I plan to update it after I've owned it for longer. BUT here are my thoughts so far.

PROs:

--Over 5 hours of music on one MD
--Sound is very good, even at the highest compression rate it's just barely below CD-quality
--MDs are relatively inexpensive (about $2 apiece)
--Low price compared to most mp3 players
--Bass and treble are adustable
--Transferring music to MD is fairly simple and fast
--MDs can store track information (album name, song name, etc) and display it on the player
--Unit is very small (it fits quite comfortably in my pocket WITH my cell phone)
--HUGE battery life when playing music
--MDs are very easily rewritable

CONS:
--MD has limited memory for storing track information (normally not a problem but if you go much beyond about 80-90 songs it may not store names for all the tracks or albums)
--Actual transferring of songs to MD takes up quite a bit of battery power
--"Shuffle" setting does not shuffle among different groups (albums), but only in one group at a time (probably not a big deal to most people)
--No voice recorder (I don't care, but some people probably do)
--Very small display screen (but I got used to it pretty fast)
--Headphones are crap--use another pair

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good value., June 25, 2004

By	D. Mende "dfmusic" (Northern NJ, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A good value. The battery life (1 AA) is incredible. All files (MP3 etc.) must be converted to the Sony file format but the included software does this. There are two programs. "MD Simple Burner" is the easiest and fastest way to get music from your audio CD's burned on a MD(3 to 5 minutes per CD.) "Sonic Stage" will convert various file types (mp3, wav, wma) to the Sony format and transfer it to the MD. There are 3 different transfer modes, SP, LP2 and LP4. SP provides the best quality while LP4 the smallest file. I don't download music from the internet so I can't verify this feature. The Good: It is cheap (mine was $100,) reliable, small, each disk holds 70-80 songs (5 hours of music) in LP4 form, good sound quality, disks cost less than $2, good battery life and has good anti-skip protection. The Bad: Sonic Stage is slow, awkward and unstable, tiny display, confusing manual, other than headphones and a MD, no other accessories are included.

It is smaller and much cheaper than an IPOD and has much longer battery life. I use an inexpensive rechargeable NiMH battery. I use it in my car (a Miata) with a wireless FM transmitter. It is small enough to lock in the console and plays through the radio well.