Rating: 
Summary: Poor Quality CD Playback
Review: When playing audio CDs on this unit, especially in a quiet home environment, there is a continuous (albeit relatively subtle) noisy cackling primarily in the left channel that significantly reduces the sound quality of the material being played. For some odd reason, there is no way to turn off this audio artifact of the antiskip algorithm, as the G-Protection switch only has positions 1 and 2 (no OFF), which can seriously diminish the listening experience, especially for quieter pieces of music. If you have access to an audio test CD, play a track with all output bits set to zero, and you'll notice that the noisy cackling is gone, suggesting that this audible artifact is the result of an engineering defect in the anti-skip implementation. Cranking up the volume of your music to try to drown out the static cackling is not a good alternative.This unit's more expensive cousin, the D-NS921F, suffers from a similar G-Protection artifact, although in that case the problem is an audible electronic chirp that occurs every fifteen seconds during audio CD playback. Both units were promptly returned, as neither unit's unique antiskip circuitry artifact is something that the listener should have to endure. A four-year-old Sony Discman D-T405 sounds MUCH better than either unit and has no such CD playback problem, whether the Electronic Skip Protection is on or off. The headphones used to test this unit were the rather nice sounding Sony MDR-E888 earbuds, which have a rather wide frequency response. Other headphones also allowed the noisy cackling problem to be heard, although cheaper ones with less frequency response might not reveal the problem quite as well. Pros:
- The specs on paper are GREAT! This _should_ have been one awesome piece of hardware!
- Includes AM/FM/TV/WB tuner, which is highly desirable to avoid having to carry two separate units
- Relatively thin and lightweight
- A compatible belt strap / carrying case is available from Sony Cons:
- Overall sound quality for the CD player is rather poor, given that there is no way to turn off the annoying antiskip audio artifacting.
- Although the specs state that MP3 files up to 320Kbps can be played, in practice this is very much hit and miss. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. 256Kbps is better, but also very unreliable. Presumably that's why the manual highly recommends that MP3 files be recorded at 128Kbps. Yes, the lower bit rate seems to work fine, but the sound quality is obviously compromised, although not as badly as one might think.
- No AC adaptor included; optional separate purchase
- No backlit display
- Most definitely not for audiophiles who expect decent quality sound Other: At the time of this writing, if you call the toll-free Sony Network Portable Audio Support Line and enter the model number for this unit, your call will be disconnected. In order to speak to an agent, answer "I don't know" when prompted for the model number by the automated voice response system. Neither Tier I nor II technical support were aware of the sound quality problems of this unit, but that may be because of its recent arrival on the market. Sony - Please fix this antiskip audio artifacting, and you'll have a much better product!
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