87 of 87 people found the following review helpful:
A superb Walkman--but with a few minor disappointments
This Walkman by Sony offers serious music lovers the opportunity to listen to MP3 files stored on a CD, a regular CD (of course); AM and FM radio and seven TV stations. It even sports a weather digital tuner! The remote comes in handy if you don't want to carry the actual player in your hands as you walk about town. Moreover, it only uses a single AA battery at a time and...
45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
Worked for less than a minute: Updated review
I'd planned to simply return this thing since it worked for less than a minute yesterday -- date of purchase. I turned it on, it seemed fine. I turned it off so I could finish reading the manual. It would not turn on again.
After reading the reviews here, I'll exchange it and try again. I've never had one of these things, of any brand, fail so quickly. So,...
This review is from: Sony DNF430 MP3/ATRAC CD Walkman Portable Compact Disc Player with AM/FM/TV/Weather Digital Tuner (Electronics)
This Walkman by Sony offers serious music lovers the opportunity to listen to MP3 files stored on a CD, a regular CD (of course); AM and FM radio and seven TV stations. It even sports a weather digital tuner! The remote comes in handy if you don't want to carry the actual player in your hands as you walk about town. Moreover, it only uses a single AA battery at a time and you get lots of play time out of that single battery. Even better still, this portable CD player weighs in at only one pound--this very lightweight machine poses no hindrance if you use it as you walk through the streets. Great!
At first glance the controls on the Walkman itself appear intimidating but after about ten minutes tops you learn all the important and most commonly used functions. The controls also make it easy to adjust the levels of bass and change equalizer settings. Other functions, including listening to a TV station, require more concentration and time to learn. However, the instruction manual is fairly clear and if you have questions you can always contact Sony customer support by phone or Internet.
The product description on this page indicates that software for making "ATRAC" CDs comes packaged with this player. However, when I bought this just last week there was no such bundled software. Instead, the product manual indicates that I need to download the relevant software from the Sony website. However, there remains no extra charge to download the relevant software to make an "ATRAC" CD. The advantage of making an "ATRAC" CD is that you can fit much, much more music onto an "ATRAC" CD than you ever could otherwise when making your own CDs. Indeed, the owner's manual for this Walkman states that you can fit about 30 CDs' worth of sound onto one "ATRAC" CD. Excellent!
However, I noticed some disappointments. First, Sony advertises this Walkman as being for the music enthusiast--and they are right. This means that the average layperson like me will have to spend a couple of hours learning how to use ALL the functions of this Walkman. The capabilities of this little machine impress me greatly; but there will be a learning curve for persons like myself. I did not anticipate that. In addition, the buttons are rather small so you need to be careful of how you touch them with your fingers. Finally, the earbuds hurt my ears almost from the very start of listening to a CD on this Walkman. I strongly suggest you purchase a better quality headset or earphones that will be more comfortable.
Overall, music enthusiasts will be thrilled with this Walkman. The abundant features amaze me and I believe you will be impressed, too. The quality of the sound is excellent; you can even make the sound constant at a certain level at which the product manual indicates that you won't hurt your hearing as you listen to music or talk on this CD. The shockproof memory and "skip-free G protection" impress me, too. I highly recommend this portable CD player for music lovers everywhere. In addition, if you have the time to learn how to use this machine to its greatest potential, any layperson like me will also come to cherish this Walkman.
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This review is from: Sony DNF430 MP3/ATRAC CD Walkman Portable Compact Disc Player with AM/FM/TV/Weather Digital Tuner (Electronics)
Bought this from Amazon and I am very, very pleased! Why? (First, I have owned and still do the 420 model Atrac). I bought this model because of the ONE AA battery, remote, TV, AM FM, Weather and resume. Here are the wonderful reasons I love this:
1) Only uses ONE AA battery! And it will last a long time(I have had it last over 40 hours on MP3! (Suggestion: Go with re-chargable batteries when at home, however on the go, then keep an extra AA battery handy).
2) Receives, TV, AM, FM, Weather, and CD, MP3 all just perfectly. This is the only model that I found with FM, AM, TV and Weather.
3) Resume feature--I listen to a lot of CD Audio books and MP3 Audio books and love the fact that I can turn the player off and a few hours or days later, just turn it on and pick up just where I left off! This is one of the few players with RESUME.
4) Does not skip! I walk around a lot with this in my purse or in a waist pack and it does not skip!
Great earphones!
5) Remote is easy to use!
6) Love the easy to use ON button in the center.
7) This is one of the few CD players that the AM works, I love my TALK NET RADIO!
7) The sound quality is so much better than the other MP3/CD cheap models that I had before. (I hear bass and treble sounds on my CD's and MP3's that I did not hear on the cheap models).
8) I also own the DNF420 MP3/ATRAC CD Walkman Portable Compact Disc Player with AM/FM/TV/Weather Digital Tuner, which is the older model and love it as well. (This model does not have a a remote). And since I have loved and still do, my DNF420 Sony Atrac, I knew I would love this model. In fact, I give it a 5 because I love it even more than my Sony Blue Atrac Psyc with AM, FM, Weather, TV. Note that to listen to weather if you are far from a weather station as I am, go outside or near a window and then you can hear it. All in all, I am just thrilled so far with this model. I highly recommend this to anyone who is active, travels or listens to alot of Audio books. To me, this is the very BEST of ALL the CD/MP3 made. I wish I would have bought this first. (Before I wasted my money on 8 cheapie MP3/CD players that did not have resume and had a not that good sound).
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This review is from: Sony DNF430 MP3/ATRAC CD Walkman Portable Compact Disc Player with AM/FM/TV/Weather Digital Tuner (Electronics)
This is a very elegant appearing player. The large center section is pearl-white, and the outer ring is silver-grey. There are many ways to play (all, group/folder, 1 track, shuffle (all), group/folder shuffle, bookmark, playlist, program (up to 64 tracks), intro (first 10 seconds of each track), repeat on/off).
It works well for audiobooks; resumes mid-track and can fast forward or fast reverse within a track (although it really isn't very "fast"). You can also place multiple bookmarks over several CDs, however, when you return to a bookmarked track it starts at the beginning of the track, rather than mid-track.
There is an optional remote included, but it has no display. It is handy to set the "hold" button on the player (so no buttons are accidentally pushed) and use the remote to play, pause, skip forward or backward a track, or within a track, or to a group/folder, adjust the volume or stop (if you use the player in a pocket, purse, pack, etc.). There is also a hold button on the remote.
In additon to standard CDs, it will play a CD of MP3s, or you can compress your CDs or MP3s with Sony's proprietary Atrac format, using Sony's Sonic Stage software. Oddly, the Sonic Stage software did not come with the player, as it has with previous models. MP3 format is more universal and I would imagine that most people use that format rather than converting to Atrac.
Another thing I noticed about this latest Sony player, is that it uses one AA battery rather than two, as it did in previous models. I wish they had stuck with two (up to 80 hours of play time vs 31 hours with one).
The preset stations are maintained after a battery change, however bookmarks are lost as well as "resume". I guess you can get a 3V (+ tip) charger to plug into when changing the battery, in order to prevent this.
Is this player perfect? No...but what is? It is a GREAT value! It is a very good choice unless you need something small, like when exercising...then a flash player would be your best bet. I use rechargeable batteries and 32X Verbatim CD-RW discs (650MB). I can get 2-3 audiobooks plus some music on each CD. It takes less than 5 minutes to quick-erase, then burn a CD.
My wishlist for the next version:
Bookmark w/i a track, not at the beginning
Maintain bookmarks and resume when changing batteries
A larger display screen which is backlit
Two AA batteries rather than one, for longer playing time
Charger, for internal battery charging
The manual can be viewed/printed from the Sony website.
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This review is from: Sony DNF430 MP3/ATRAC CD Walkman Portable Compact Disc Player with AM/FM/TV/Weather Digital Tuner (Electronics)
I've had mine for two months so far and couldn't have been happier. I chose this over any solid state MP3 player in the market mainly due to this having AM radio which i listen to often.
I use it for jogging after work and it performs well with nearby stations. I keep an mp3 disc full of mp3s in case i get bored of radio, which performs perfectly for me. I even dropped it twice on tile flooring and it miraculously turns back on. Its probably, to date, the best cd player I've owned (and i've had 5) A definate thumbs up.
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This review is from: Sony DNF430 MP3/ATRAC CD Walkman Portable Compact Disc Player with AM/FM/TV/Weather Digital Tuner (Electronics)
Before getting the DNF430, I owned the DNF420 version and was very happy with its performance. But, there were four different issues with the SONY ATRAC CD player: 1) the player 2) the sonicstage software 3) headphones 4) recording in atrac. The CD player was excellent - it displayed songs, allowed jump from song to song, or album to album. Also, the FM tuning allowed reception inside gyms that broadcast tv shows on FM stations, like CNN and ESPN. Every once in a while, I would watch a CNN breaking story on the gym TV monitor, and to hear the sound, I just flip to the FM pre-set dial, and presto. But, the headphones needed to be replaced with Noise Reduction, over the ear headphones. At the beginning, I was not prepared for the headphone fuss. In the gym, with all the exercising and sweating, the standard headphones did not withstand the daily wear and tear, I am sorry to say. Yet, I was able to overcome this issue. I have dropped the CD player a number of times at the gym, on the treadmill, yet it continues to perform quite well. My critical issues was the sonicstage software. Unknown to me - until purchased and started to use stonicstage, this software was delicate and took a while to learn. "RIPPING" a CD and "BURINING" a CD was relatively new to me. So, I was not prepared to "tolerate" with the learning curve issues surrounding the software. It took me time, and it was frustrating in the begining. When all the tweaking was done, the learning understood - the software, the library, the burning, and the performance worked like a charm. I was able to store over 250 songs onto a single CD. Yet at times, I was skeptical about reaching the quoted 400 songs SONY talks about. Anyway, I also backed-up my music using the sonicstage software, and later restored it. This worked like a charm, too. I was very lucky to have this backup, since my PC system crashes at least once a year. My library and the selections were recovered nicely, thanks to Sony and the restore feature! The ATRAC system featured a slightly different recording than MP3. MP3 was transferable format, while ATRAC was not. I don't thik the MP3 playback also had the descriptive and navigating features during playback mode. So, I stayed with the ATRAC recordings. I am very happy with my CD player, because it performs well, has great sound, and can be stored in my gym bag, and left in my car overnight. The CD player was able handle the COLD and HOT weather temperatures of Northeastern USA. I use the CD player at least three times a week, at the gym, and so far - no problems.
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This review is from: Sony DNF430 MP3/ATRAC CD Walkman Portable Compact Disc Player with AM/FM/TV/Weather Digital Tuner (Electronics)
I owned a Sony DNF420 with almost identical features for almost a year. I was quite happy with it. I wound up giving it to a relative (it's surprising how few people under 25 own a dedicated CD player today) and buying this model.
I was surprised to find Sony improved an already great product. The buttons were easier to operate and more intuitive, the sound seemed better, and battery life (already astounding -- over 20 hours on a single AA) was better. On top of that the radio was improved -- reception was better on all bands.
Sony also included a remote control with this unit. I didn't realize how handy that would be, but I use it all the time. The Walkman can stay in your jacket pocket while the much lighter and smaller remote stays in your hand.
CD players may be fading away as mp3 players replace them, so this Sony CD Walkman might be regarded one of the peaks of personal CD player technology before personal CD players go the way of 8-tracks. A few more years and units like this may be hard to find.
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This review is from: Sony DNF430 MP3/ATRAC CD Walkman Portable Compact Disc Player with AM/FM/TV/Weather Digital Tuner (Electronics)
I'd planned to simply return this thing since it worked for less than a minute yesterday -- date of purchase. I turned it on, it seemed fine. I turned it off so I could finish reading the manual. It would not turn on again.
After reading the reviews here, I'll exchange it and try again. I've never had one of these things, of any brand, fail so quickly. So, after carefully reading the manual and changing the battery 3 times, I had to give up.
To be fair to Sony, I'll update this following the exchange.
I did exchange this the next day and the replacement works very well. I see that I can't adjust the star rating with this edit function, I'd give it 4 stars if I could. As good as the player sounds, I don't like the configuration of the buttons on the unit itself. But the in-line remote is an improvement over older models.
One feature this has that's important to me is the ability to remember exactly where it was playing when I turned it off. I listen to audio books on CD, and this is a good feature that cheaper CD players lack.
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This review is from: Sony DNF430 MP3/ATRAC CD Walkman Portable Compact Disc Player with AM/FM/TV/Weather Digital Tuner (Electronics)
I purchased these as a replacement for a failed older Sony, and was astounded at the improvement in sound quality. Cleaner highs, deeper bass, and better detail in the midrange. It has sufficient power to drive my hifi headphones (Grado SR60, highly recommended) loud and clear (the earbuds that come with the player I found useless).
Single battery life is very good. I get about 12 hours out of a single battery playing cds. The "up to 40 hours" spec refers to MP3 play. My Grados use a bit more power than most cans, so you'll should get close to the 20 hour CD spec with small headphones run at a modest volume. The parametric equalizer and other tone controls are very flexible, enabling one to compensate for cheap headsets, although I run flat with the Grados. Listening with this unit has taught me how poor a lot of European jazz recordings from secondary sources really are and has broken me of the foolish habit of going for "bargain" CDs.
The controls can be a bit twitchy, but they are very intuitive and I find it easy to control in the dark or in my pocket. Setting options and features (tone controls, playing sequence, etc.) is unusually easy. The first thing you're going to want to do is disable the annoying beep that otherwise accompanies the use of transport functions. For portable use, the controls are easy to accidently trigger, especially the off button. Use the hold switch underneath the unit to disable the buttons on the body when listening while physically active.
Makes a great skip free car unit. If you are replacing a Sony for car use as I was, you will be pleased to know that their old style car remote control works with this unit. Don't use the car power adaptor from an old Sony though, as the old units were 4.5V and this one uses 3V DC power. Same precaution with any AC adaptor you might have (none included with the player).
The included mini remote is unusual in that it has a volume control, not just transport functions. Nice for personal use, not so useful for the car.
The radio reception was modest, at best. Since the headphone wires are the FM antenna, you can improve reception with headphones with a long cord. There is a nifty scan and set feature that makes setting and resetting the radio station preset buttons a breeze. Personally, I consider the radio a nice bonus, but the sound quality and battery life make it well worth the price even if there were no radio.
Despite the many features (don't lose the manual), size and weight are similar to most pocket CD players. The protrusion-free circular case slides easily in and out of pocket. Display is easy to read, and I like the feature that displays remaining CD playing time. While I have not gotten great longevity from Sony CD players in the past (2-3 years), this one seems better built than its predecessors. Looks handsome too.
Tip: if you buy this unit, be careful not to accidently hit the radio button while not in use. If you accidentally fire up a CD, you will only lose an hour of battery life, but the radio ...
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This review is from: Sony DNF430 MP3/ATRAC CD Walkman Portable Compact Disc Player with AM/FM/TV/Weather Digital Tuner (Electronics)
I don't know how to write this review. First of all, I think you need to order this cd player in a PHYSICAL STORE just in case it breakdowns in a day or two, and you can return/exchange w/o hassle.
This cd player provides audiophil-like sound, even with provided cheap-looking earphone. You get thick, rich sound stage with good transparency, clear but comfortable highs, clean and solid bass. It's way better than the panasonic 590 that I've tried. The earphone looks cheap but has very good sound quality, its very sensitive, easy to push. In other words, with it, I can use volume level 20, with Koss KSC-75, I have to raise the volume level to 30 to reach the same loudness.
Only 2 drawbacks, 1. the roller button is a very lousy design, and the operating menu did not give clear instruction either. 2. I wish it would last. Many other reviews mentioned the same problem. That's why I decided buying it from Bestbuy. Mine lasted for about an hour then it would not even power up. I'm going to best today and try my luck again. The excellent sound quality of 430 made me want to give it a 5 stars review, however, if it won't even work, what good does it do? --that is 4 stars.
update: I got my second one and it has been working for 3 days so far, however, this one has very loud motor sound. About every 15 seconds of playing the cd motor will give a quite loud motor squeezing sound,I mean, every 15 seconds. It gets annoying at night when everything is quiet. Also , this cd player reads a lot slower than the last one--it takes about 5-10 seconds to read a cd then start to play. I guess I need to make another trip to bestbuy and change my rating from 4 stars to 3 stars.
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This review is from: Sony DNF430 MP3/ATRAC CD Walkman Portable Compact Disc Player with AM/FM/TV/Weather Digital Tuner (Electronics)
i went through 3 mp3 players and 1 cd player before i stumbled upon this one, and its finally the keeper.
pros:
-quite erogonomic; buttons are easy to use "blind" in your pocket or whatnot.
-you can fastforward thru mp3 tracks (not the case with panasonic players)
-great sound
-good screen with very coherent ways to manuvre thru the menus and play what you want
-great battery life
cons: -a bit slow booting up and starting tracks
- the stop button is in too easy to hit while your reaching for it in your pocket kind of spot, although im sure i will get used to it (just got it very recently)
if you are serious about your music, this is loaded, looks nice and is functional. best thing going as far as cd players right now.
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