Rating: 
Summary: Great little CD player worth much more than the price
Review: Bought this CD player recently to replace a regular CD player. Not only can you play a CD full of MP3s, it plays ATRAC3 format files (1/2 the size of standard MP3s). Included is the software to convert mp3s to ATRAC3. Being able to have one CD that holds about 500 songs is amazing. I can listen to one CD all day and not hear the same song twice. But, the most amazing thing is that the CD player, when listening to ATRAC3 CDs, uses very little power, saving a bundle in batteries. Also, when you press stop, the player automatically shuts off and remember where you were, so, when you come back, you can pick up right where you left off, even in the middle of a song. Great product that lives up to the quality that I have grown to appreciate with Sony.
Rating:
Summary: I'll keep mine.
Review: I am very pleased with this unit so far.As for volume,I think this player sounds louder when using the custom sound feature.Also,I think there is less distortion of bass with the equalizer on this unit as compared to the bass boost on some other Sonys.Long battery life is a real plus,especially when using ATRAC formatted CD's.
I wasn't pleased at all with the included SonicStage 2.0 software
as I found it nearly useless. I downloaded the 2.3 version and found it to be much better. I burned two CD's;one that holds 20 CD's and the other 23 CD's. I used Atrac3Plus at 64 kbps and can't hear a difference between my recordings and a regular CD. I would recommend trying the new version of SonicStage to anyone
interested in burning a good sounding,highly compressed CD. Player highly recommended too.
Rating:
Summary: Good sound, good features
Review: I bought one of these last month on recommendations and am very pleased with it. I have an NE510 I purchased last year, which was nice, but I needed a second player. This one has better features and better sound. The battery life is as good or better than indicated on the package. Instead of just presets and bass boost, it has a parametric equalizer. Bass, mid, and treble can each be adjusted up or down three, each in high, mid, or low positions, for a total of 21 possible adjustments in each range. Bass may not boom, but it isn't boomy or muddy, either. The setting is saved as custom. There are also presets (I have used "Heavy" for some rock, but off otherwise). Although I have used SonicStage software, I don't recommend it (not because I dislike Atrac3, but because I don't like the program). MP3s made by any program, burned to cd by any program, can be used on this player. I have used CDs with LAME MP3s (VBR) burned by MusicMatch and Nero with no problem. Nested directories also weren't a problem. MP3 CDs do take longer to load up when they are first put in (less than 30 seconds for a 700MB CD with 7 directories, 81 tracks, 625MB; less than 15 for commercial audio CD). Titles scroll and you can change the display options. There are several playback options, including 10 most frequently played (also shuffle), and by group and m3u playlists on MP3 CDs among others. The one problem with this player is the physical feel. The plastic is very light and thin so it seems a bit flimsy. The hold button on the bottom doesn't have as solid a feel as the ones on my Sony MD player or Clie, but the same as the NE510 so maybe that is just the CD player style. For the price, this isn't unexpected therefore I did not give it 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: It just works!
Review: I do not listen to music on my MP3 player. Rather, I use it to practice my German. I have a set of 150 German lessons in MP3 that I downloaded from Deutsche Welle. I also have the entire 1964 edition of Luther's German Bible in MP3 that my daughter downloaded for me from another site. Early in 2002 I purchased a Philips Expanium 203 CD/MP3 player. It has always clipped the final milliseconds from the end of each track. That was no problem with the German lessons because they end with a stock credit and musical interlude. But, it is disconcerting to miss the last five or six words read from a chapter of the Bible. This Sony player does everything I want it to do for my needs. It is very nicely light in weight. I like the complete title information given for each track in the display. I can also switch from an AC converter power supply to battery power and back again without losing my place. I could not do that with the Philips unit.
Rating: 
Summary: Not that great...
Review: I got this cd player a week ago and it's not all that it's cracked up to be. I suppose if I DIDN'T have a Mac, I could take advantage of the mp3 player. The features are cool, but I absolutely hate the sound. There no bass boost on it, so it sounds flat. And I have good headphones! So, I can't say that I would recommend this cd player.
Rating:
Summary: great value
Review: I got this player for Christmas and couldn't be happier. I have burned CD's with Windows media player and with Music Match Jukebox and both work perfectly, it even plays wma files! I have not tried the bundled software, mostly because other reviewers rated it so poorly. Size and weight are good and the headphones are serviceable, unless you are a teenager.
Rating: 
Summary: good features & sound
Review: I like the AVLS because my kids will use this. The sound is pretty good, and the price is fairly good since I can make MP3's for this player. It is not perfect, but I like the weight. I wish it had a clip though.
Rating:
Summary: No Frills Just good design
Review: I usually don't like Sony CD players... because the majority of them are huge and bulky. (Except for the Japanese made and designed ones...) Not this CD player... it's compact, lightweight... and it plays CD and MP3. You can browse the files then press enter to listen to a song... it's got a descent song shuffle and the batteries are inside the CD player not outside. Also the design makes it gripable... and when it falls it doesn't break. This must be one of the best low cost mp3CD players in the market right now... I'm very happy with my purchase.
Rating:
Summary: I like it.
Review: I'll try and put this review in for both of Amazon's NE300 models, since they are just different colours afterall. Further to what's already been said, here is some extra info on the player that I was unable to find elsewhere prior to buying it, so this may be of help:
- if an MP3 song lack's ID3 tags, the player's LCD screen will show the filename as you'd see it in windows. Long filenames will scroll automatically
- manually going from mp3 track to track (ie, just hitting forward) there is around a 3 sec delay. If you let a song finish by itself, however, it will go immediately to the next
- load time on a full mp3 disc is 20 seconds (I timed it). Load time on a disc with a single mp3 was 16 seconds. Load time on an audio cd with one track was 10-11 seconds
- this player does not play .wma (windows media audio) files, even though the guy at sony I asked said it does (admittedly the player does not advertise that it plays wma)
- the cd-rw disc I tried worked fine, and that's all I'll be using
- stock headphones seem decent, and in fact with them this player does go very loud
- music order: I had no problems with it. Whether files were in the root directory, or within sub folders everything seemed to play in order as it was burned
- adtrack I did not test. I have no intention of converting all of my mp3s, so no idea on how well it works
- I experienced no "missing end pieces" on songs, as one reviewer said that he did
- I'm confirming that there is no backlight for this
- note that the NE300 blue and gray, on amazon, are slightly different pictures. I bought the gray one from another source and it looked as the blue one on amazon does (it was gray, obviously, but the physical shape of it, I mean). The gray on amazon has a little indicator below the LCD (which mine does not have). I wonder if there are slightly different versions, and the newer ones possibly solve some old issues like track order? I bought mine yesterday BTW.
- I experienced no skipping issues, but I only tried the player in the car and shaking it for maybe 10 seconds. I think technology is such these days that if you're experiencing mp3 skipping on an mp3 discman, it's probably a very poor player; I'd expect no skipping (except maybe running, and supposedly this can handle that)
I give this a 5-star, because it does everything that it claims to do, and it does it well. The player feels reasonably solid. It is, afterall, a $50 player with a lot built into it, so don't expect something you can use as a frisbee. It's quite small with little wasted room.
I do wish it had a backlight, and I'd have no problem losing some battery life (especially since it's awesome with this player), but I knew I was not getting that when I bought it.
EDIT: I should mention something else. When you're scanning from song to song, you will see it exactly as you'd see it in windows explorer, ie. no ID3 tagging; just the file name. It's not until you play the song that you'll see the ID3 tag details, like album, artist, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Excelent, but...
Review: It's very good, it's the best cd player I've had, but the custom sound programming is a little difficult to understand. I've had mine 2 days, and I read, and read the manual, but I can't program it ok.
Also it needs a little more volume, and it's a little fragile. But It's still excellent.
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