Sony MZ-N1 Silver Net MiniDisc Walkman with 5 Free Blank MiniDiscs
Average Customer Rating
(4.5 out of 5)
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(5 out of 5)BEST OF MINIDISCS
At last Sony has got it right. They bring out a minidisc that has the capability to download songs from your computer whether they be MP3's or Wav files. The download time is amazing for a 80 min disc it will take around 2-3 mins. Not bad comsidering the size of the thing. Included is a cardle to put ur minidisc on which by the way is a charging cradle and also hosts the USB connector. Need I go on. This by far is the best minidisc on sale at present.
(5 out of 5)Portable MP3 watch out - there is competition!
Ok - so you want a portable music player.
You can toy with MP3 in it's various guises - music sticks, memory cards, hard disks to name a few incarnations. So complicated, with high ongoing costs (memory sticks are upwards of £50 typically for 4 hours worth of music storage). So what do you do??!
Hmm let me think - NET MD - that's what and mini disc..
here's the deal - you get a mini disc player that has been fine tuned over previous generations - a mature product, along with a handful of cheap discs (£1 a throw) and each disc can store more that 5 hours of music!!!
The quality is top notch, the player small, but feels well made with a whole host of editing options. The battery lasts an eternity (upto 110 hours)...
I wanted a music player for running - did a 10km run the night I got it and not a skip!
Highly recommended - especially over the lower spec models - this model oozes class and build quality.
(4 out of 5)Full Of Good Surprises! (Shawmtloaf@aol.com)
I spent many months trying to decide how much longer I could wait for a really decent and sensibly priced MP3 player to hit the market. I had my heart set on the Sony NW-11 MP3 player, but with only 128Mbs of memory, it just wasn't enough. At first I didn't even consider a Mini Disk player for the simple reason that I wanted a portable player without any internal 'moving parts'. Truthfully, I only bought the Sony MZ-N1 Mini Disk player because I was desperate to have something - anything! to play my music on.
Two months down the line, and I can honestly say that I am glad I chose this Mini Disk player over any other Mini Disk or MP3 player that was on the market! The Mini Disk medium is fantastic and you will not find any other medium that is more versatile and cost efficient. Mini Disks are so cheap to buy, which means you can carry stacks of them with you on the road and swap them around as you please - I could never have been able to afford to do this with an MP3 player.
The MZ-N1 lets you copy Mini Disks from your PC in 4 different quality modes - ranging from standard CD quality, allowing 80 minutes of music onto a disk, to LP4 mode, with allows around 320 minutes of music onto a disk! Even on LP4 mode there is very little compromise on the sound quality. The capacity of these little disks really is awesome!
Sony's eye for durability on this particular model is evident all over and I still can not believe that this unit can stay powered up for well over 100 hours of continuous playback!!! (That's about 40 hours with Sony's rechargeable internal battery and another 60 hours with the external power pack, which uses a standard sized AA battery! - that's really extraordinary if you ask me!) It's a shame that Sony didn't think to include the wizardry that stops you from over charging the unit and tell you the charging status of the battery.
The player really doesn't weigh enough to go into weights. The body design is hardly attractive with its square design and the button on the front of the player, which can be pushed in all directions, is ugly and awkward to use. However, thanks to the neat remote control attached to the headphones, you are able to ignore the button on the player itself. The remote control is really well designed - although, sometimes I wish that there was a 'twisty button' on either end of the stick - one for controlling the volume and the other for skipping tracks. As it is, there is only one single 'twisty button' that you pull outwards to adjust the volume and push back to skip tracks. If you are trying to use the remote through your jacket (as I do when its raining) it is hard to tell whether or not the 'twisty button' is pushed in or pulled out and you end up skipping your favourite track instead of turning the volume up. The illumination of the remote control in the dark is really something! - it could perhaps also be used as a flashlight!
I have never once had music skip while playing in the MZ-N1, and I do often run with it. Overall, the build quality is superb and everything that you would expect from Sony. Unfortunately, the unit has been dropped a number of times from height onto hard surfaces - but on each instance, I have simply plugged the headphones back in and found that the unit has already started to play the song from where it left off before it dropped! - that says it all really about the great build quality of the MZ-N1. The reason the player has been dropping is due to the useless carry pouch that you get with it. Don't use it! Go to Argos and buy a proper Mini Disk carry bag by CASE LOGIC which will actually go through your belt - unlike the worthless one supplied which will not stay clipped onto anything. Given the value of the unit, I would have expected something much better to have been supplied. The headphones are far from comfortable. I have never understood the idea behind making one length of cable longer just so that you can put it around the back of your neck? - all this does is cause the shorter side to dance around and frequently fall out of my ear.
Its worth noting that you can attach an external microphone to the unit and record anything you want! And furthermore, the MZ-N1 is even smart enough to automatically adjust all the recording balances for you depending upon the source so you always get the optimum sound quality! I have also used the unit to record audio from a variety of other sources, such as a video source through my hi fi or television. Basically, it'll plug into and record from almost any other device and does so with really impressive results! Be warned! I wrongly assumed that if you can drag and drop files from your PC onto Mini Disk then you should be able to drag and drop any tracks that you have recorded from external sources directly onto your PC from Mini Disk - but no - unless it is an audio track that originated from you PC, you need to play the audio on your Mini Disk back through your soundcard and manually record it using other software. I guess this is just another flaw of the Open MG software.
Every bad thing that anybody has ever told you about the Open MG software is true. When its good, it fine - but I learned straight away that you can not depend upon it to copy music from your PC onto Mini Disk. It frequently displays a cocktail of unknown errors - to the point that made me pick up the phone and call Sony for help. They didn't know off-hand what the problem was and would have to get a technician to call me back. No one ever did call me back. Open MG is out to make your life hell! All Open MG will do is ensure that you make no more than 3 illegal copies of any one audio file from your PC onto Mini Disk. The process means additional files being made on your PC - thus slowly munching away at any free hard drive space. I appreciate that the problem of audio piracy needs to be tackled, but surely there are friendlier and less messy ways of doing it than the Open MG way? This software really, really does spoil the package.
I cant understand why Mini Disk hasn't really taken off in a big way? I would recommend the Sony MZ-N1 to anyone! - you'll be surprised by what you get!
(5 out of 5)The MN-N1 ROCKS!!!!
Okay, here is the low down. I read the good and 'bad' reviews and having bought the unit I cannot understand ANY of the criticisms. So lets go through them one by one.
1. The software sucks - ??? I simply dont get this one. Installed without a glitch and I didnt even bother to read the manual, which for me is a test of how good any product (software or hardware - if you have to read the manual its not intuitive enough)Anycase going back to the software, the user interface is easy to use and has some cracking features like the ability to Title songs, group tracks according to genre etc (the list is too long). As far as stability goes I've had no problems, crashes freezes or the like.
2. Headphones are crap - doh, whats up with people. I have got a pair of £30 headphones that I bought for another MD player and they dont sound as good as the ones that come with the player. The bass, treble and tones are all up there. Sound is crisp and clear. Nice one Sony!!
3. Slow transfer times - This is what one reviewer in particular complained about and said that Sony's claims were a con. Get real. Admittedly the transfer times quoted (you've seen them - 3 minute song in 3 seconds and the like)should state for ATRAC3 format and for this format the quoted times are true. What you do have to take into account is the conversion from say an MP3 format to an ATRAC3 format. This normally takes about 25-30% of the play time of the original track. But compared to my previous struggles of converting audio to play on MD's at this speed I feel like Michael Shumaccer giving it large.
Conclusion
Forget ANY of the -ve's about this player. It rocks BIG time. I dont know what some people expect for [the money]. For me I dont want heaven and earth, the Sony MZ-N1 will do. Nuff said.
(5 out of 5)MP3 players are history
This is without a doubt the best way to take your music collection with you. At 75 mins CD quality sound per MD (or 150 mins (LP2) extremely close to CD quality sound or 340mins FM radio quality sound (LP4) per MD) it carries more music than all hardward MP3 players, and you can always take a handful of MD's with you to increase capacity.
NetMD works. OK the copy protection thing is a bit of a pain (each CD track from a Hard drive can be copied 3 times before you have to reload it from the CD) and the software's filing system takes some getting used to but making compilations is pretty much like any MP3 player - being a simple drag and drop system. Downloading to MD is fast (approx 10-20 mins per 150 min LP2 MD).
NetMD really should be the future - this system really does deserve to succeed. If you're considering a hardward MP player, don't. This is better, has more capacity, sounds better (ATRAC definitely sounds better than MP3), looks good, has great battery life (and a facility to use a AA battery), and links with a PC and can convert wave (CD) files, MP3 and windows media quickly to ATRAC for the MD.
Only irritating thing is that you have to remove the unit from the stand to get the MD out. This is irritating as it breaks the USB connection.