Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony D-NE715 Blue ATRAC/MP3 CD Walkman

In brief.....

Good points:
+ 330 tracks on one ATRAC CD
+ Accesses ATRAC and MP3 tracks quickly
+ HUGE battery life
+ Bombproof G-Protection (you cannot make it skip)
+ Looks cool
+ JOG dial and ID3 tags

Bad points:
- Low(ish) headphone volume
- In ear headphones
- Small noise from unit inbetween MP3/ATRAC tracks

This is a great little player. Open the box and you'll be pleased to see it looks so much better than the picture. I'll skip over the fact it's a CD player and move onto MP3 and ATRAC which is why you would buy it.

MP3 discs can be made up easily using Nero or any other writer software. You can put around 150 MP3 tracks onto one CD. The ATRAC discs can be made using the SonicStage software supplied. An incredible 330 tracks can be put on one disc using ATRAC (60kbps). The quality is very good. Ever so slightly lacking in the very top end of the treble, but it's still very good. The ATRAC CDs can be made up from audio CDs or MP3 files on your PC. The compression does take some time though. My poor old 500MHz PC takes around 9 hours (yes HOURS!) to compress and write one ATRAC CD of 330 tracks from MP3s.

Once made up though the use of the discs is great. 75 albums on three discs. Navigate through the albums and tracks using Jog dial, even while the player is still playing. There's a three line display that shows all the track information.

G-Protection - I've had the player one week, it's not skipped once. This includes 6 hours driving a minibus around country roads. The player loads the MP3/ATRAC track into the memory and then plays it from there. The CD stops spinning. So there's nothing moving that can skip.

Battery life - Very good. The player comes with two AA 700mAh NiMH rechargable batteries, a power supply and a built in recharge circuit. The batteries last for ages. I've (rather needlessly) replaced them with 2100mAh batteries that should last 3 times longer.

There are only three small negatives. First of all the volume. It's not going to blow your head off, but it is okay. Second, the headphones. I've never been a fan of in ear headphones. The sound quality is good, but I find they hurt my ears and fall out if I'm moving around. I can't imagine why a player that would be great for jogging would come with these. I'm going to replace them ASAP. The stick remote is useful though. Finally, There is a slight noise from the unit in between MP3/ATRAC tracks as the CD spins up to speed and the lens moves to read the track. Not a big problem, but a little irritating when listening to quiet tracks.

Overall this is a great wee player and I would certainly recommend it.

I looked at a lot of CD players before buying the Sony D-NE715 and it takes alot of beating for looks, all round quality and value for money.
It came packaged very safely within two days with everything you need including a mains adapter/charger, ear phones, rechargable batteries and the software for ATRAC3/ATRAC3PLUS.
The ATRAC system is fantastic and very easy to use, i was able to put 22 audio CD's onto one CDR/RW which saves me carrying loads of CD's around and the quality of the ATRAC files are excellent.
The only negative points about the D-NE715 are the ear phones which are not the best shape i have ever used so its worth investing in a set of new ones.
Also the display on the main unit is not backlit so pretty tricky to read at night and there is no display on the remote controls which would have just given it that bit extra.
All in all the best CD/MP3 player in this price bracket !

This is purely a spectacular little gadget from Sony! Came before it's estimated delivery date..looking more than great. It looks a lot better than in the picture, a darker blue rim. The stick remote control was a slight disappointment with no LCD display, but is still slim, and light.
Make an MP3 cd with about 200 songs on it, and use the scroll function to browse through your favourite bands (CD TEXT), and in the band folders to browse their songs.
NO SKIPPING THROUGH SONGS OR JUMPING TRACKS!

Only bad point in the world - no carry pouch- easy come easy go - buy a cheap one which will probably be better quality than sony's recent thin, garbagey cd pouches.

I have used this machine extensively now for over three weeks and my battery life is still showing as full! The batterys go on and on. Sound quality is excellent with the options of normal, added bass and MORE added bass.
The unit is quite robust and the lid has quite a chunky feel to it. The flimsiness of others made me choose this model.
The jog dial is absolutely wonderful - allowing you to quickly and effortlessly navigate through your files - All players should have one!
The read times on MP3 discs is negligible and takes only a few seconds at most - unlike some others which can take up to 2 minutes.
Overall a great quality, well built, good sounding machine.
Only 1 little niggle - a backlit LCD remote would make this the absolute business - with the possibility of so many songs on one CD you really need to be able to navigate whilst in bed!

Sony Atrac3plus seems to work very well at the default 64Kb/sec data rate.
The SonicStage "Simpleburner" software is very easy to use and can convert from audio cd's or your MP3 files to CD-R or CD-RW(MP3 to atrac3plus is a very slow process, run it overnight).

It's a shame the in-line remote has no LCD display, only buttons.

Only one thing I really don't like is the inter-track gaps.

Smart MP3 players read into memory the next track prior to the end of the last track e.g the Rio Volt SP250. This player waits for the track to end before the disc spins up to read in the next track leading to longer than normal pauses between tracks. Plus of course some tracks lead straight into the next track - not with this player.

Never the less, for the price is really cool.