I had the A1000 for a couple days, its really amazing; cell phone style menus, removable battery, 6 band EQ, gapless playback using ATRAC, 20 hour battery life, and the best sound quality of any portable mp3 player, without a doubt.Even better, its not an iPod.

Sales of the A1000 start on monday in australia, so assuming that the WMA update comes a few days later, it could occur sometime during the week of 12-16 or the following week, 19-23.The Vaio pocket’s firmware update for WMA last year came out one day before christmas.

wow…what happens to the people who bought it before the WMA update? anyway…i’m sort of stuck – i don’t know whether to buy the A1000 or the A3000…i mean, the A1000 already has four thousand songs, but for fifty dollars (CDN) more, you can get 14GB more. but the A3000 is also bigger…easier to scratch. and does anyone know whether the A1000 as 8GB will be available Canada at all?

I really hope the HD5 recieves a new firmware update, they seem to be very similar in design…so i dont see why not…I love my HD5, so I am not upset about the new release…

I’ve just bought a NW-A3000 here in the UK. Whilst it’s a lovely object, I’m already loathing the encrypted approach to the music library, and the Sony Connect (aka SonicStage or whatever it’s called). This ‘big brother’ mentality of Sonys ATRAC/DRM crap (which also destroys my neatly organised MP3 folders during transfer) is tempting me seriously to take it back to the shop. I bought it 3 hours ago….

Aeioux:If you want your DAP to playback, organize, and display your music collection in folders (like on your computer) try the iAudio X5L. It doesnt need any software at all to transfer mp3s, and has file tree navigation.

Thanks Kamil, it looks very tempting indeed! Perfect for my needs… and i think they do a 40GB model

so which one does the A1000/3000 use – sony CONNECT or sonicstage…(apparently CONNECT is the new program that they’re introducing)? and does anyone know whether the A1200 (8GB in japan) will be available in Canada AT ALL at any time?

Fuzz, my A3000 uses CONNECT (I had to be informed that it was Sonicstage V4 or something). I believe its an improvement on SStage… but my god SStage must have been bad to have created CONNECT :-

Sonic Stage 3.3 is actually pretty good, not as advanced as some other applications, but it works quite well.Connect is still in its early stages, there have been updates made to it, I wouldnt return it though, id update first at least.

I own a NW-HD5 and the Sonicstage software works quite well with my pc. The file stucturing works well once you get your music collection organised. I found that the software doesnt crash as much as it did on my other computer…I do admit it uses a bit too much resources. Improvements will always be necessary, but SS3.3 works just fine for me…

For me I think both iTunes and SStage/CONNECT force a user into THEIR music organisation ; admittedly using CDDB/ID3 tags BUT for someone who has an extensive and carefully FOLDER-organised MP3 collection prior to using these softwares – its a total no-go.Incidentally, I did update CONNECT to the latest version, but still found the software recalcitrant, uncommunicative (had it finished uploading files to my A3000? couldn’t tell..) and generally too bigbrothery for my liking. I despise being advertised at – and both iTunes and CONNECT do this, as well as unnecessarily complicating something as simple as copying MP3′s. So they can both kiss my shiny metal A**.An iAudio X5 or similiar is beckoning.RegardsAeioux

aeioux:The A3000 is compatible with SonicStage, try it!

Kamil – thanks, too late as I returned the A3000 today. Even if SStage is better, it will still take away my organisational control on my own bespoke, MP3 folder organisation (I’m an interface designer, so I’m going to be hard to please anyway).The final nail in my A3000′s coffin was the unit squeaking in the bottom right-hand corner when pressing the option/back buttons – this was after ONLY 1 hours gentle use… thats not the Sony I usually love. After Christmas I’ll be looking at the iAudio X5. Regards all.

The Sony NW-A1000 is quite possibly the best piece of hardware that the software engineers SCREWED OVER BADLY.

I will be returning mine tomorrow. SonicStage and CONNECT rank up there with the 7 most stupid creations of man. I have spent the last 3 days trying to get the NW-A1000 to play wma/mp3 or anything else natively.

No matter what it requires SonicStage to build the database for the player. I would like to point out that each of these little machines has about 100 – 200 times the processing power present in the Apolo lunar program, why on earth do we need other software to put our music where we really dont want it to be, and in a format that is unusable by most machines?

This “mp3″ player was the last nail in the coffine from sony for me. I have had nothing but bad experiences with everything from their cammeras to players.

I even tried the firmware update released today, it still is the most unusable (albeit, some of the best sounding audio) piece of equipment.

Why cant they simply get it right? Make it easy! Drag and drop, with SonicStage as an extra for the non-power user.

Any way, I will be lining up with the mindless hords for an ipod nano tommor after I return this thing.

-Garth

I received a NW-A1000 for Christmas.Yes, the software is a right mess, but after some time messing with it, working it out etc. it started to seem ‘usable’ and transfers were very quick (once I had disabled the software from converting any music format into ATRAC). The software still temporarily hangs, and throws me an error upon starting Connect.I think you can also stop Connect from tampering with your PC’s MP3 collection… turn off the full sync option?OK, so the software is still bugging me but I think the final nail in the coffin and the main reason I think I will be sending it back for is the lack of volume. I’ve tried Sennheiser PX-1000 headphones (which are excellent BTW) and some big, old Sony ‘MDR-V2′ headphones. If MP3′s are normalised at a standard 89 / 90dB, at max volume (30) they are way too quiet. I gave up trying to hear the thing when travelling in the back of my brother’s car yesterday. I’ve owned Sony cassette walkmans, discmans etc. and they at least gave me the option to blow my ears out! Are all MP3 Players this quiet?Does anyone else think the NW-A1000 doesn’t have enough volume on max?What does the firmware update do, apart from accept WMA’s?Whoever mentioned that this player should allow basic drag-and-drop in Windows Explorer / My Computer, and offer an optional, more in-depth software OPTION for advanced users is bang on!Sony, you must be losing money on this product as I suspect many consumers are returning the NW-A1000 / 3000 and demanding their money back due to the unnecessarily complicated, intrusive Connect software. Apart from the volume issue I have, the player is fantastic!

OK, great!!! I found a volume hack and the player is no longer going back to the shop! Joy! I was reluctant to send back my NW-A1000 for having a low maximum volume as it’s a great little MP3 player!There’s a link to the hack instructions below. The test menu was a bit fiddly and made me sweat a little (I have no intentions to fiddle with the many other hidden options) but I guess resetting back to the factory default settings would also undo any unintentional changes / mistakes and revert the volume limiter back to on.http://www.techlounge.co.uk/96/sony-nwa3000-volume-limiter-hack.htmlThe volume limiter is reversable. If I ever need to return the unit under warranty, I’ll switch it back or just reset back to factory settings.The volume boost I’ve gained from removing the volume limiter is just about right (not a huge amount more though). I read elsewhere that the volume limiter (I’m not on about the AVLS ‘feature’ (!) found in the options menu) is to comply with a European law, therefore, as standard the unit must not be capable of more than 100dB. The problem before was that with more quiet tracks, the player didn’t have that extra oomph to compensate… but it just about does now!I’m using Sennheiser PX-100′s which at maximum volume, sound a fair bit more quiet than my brother’s Sony ‘in-ear’ headphones – I haven’t tried the supplied ‘in-ears’ and I don’t intend to! =DI wonder how many slightly disappointed customers are returning their NW-A1000 / NW-A3000 due to the factory settings limiting the maximum volume…?Sorry if this post is encouraging people to tamper with their players. I think anyone in the same boat as I was deserves to at least know about the volume limit hack.

Ive tried the volume hack on the Sony NW A 1000 as published. Like others, I cannot get into the test mode. Have things changed recently?Andrew

I dont know of any changes. Users have reported that it is working just fine.Here is our volume hack post on ABi

Thanks EnzzoTen. This hack worked fine. Lots of noise now!

Is anyone else finding that their player will only play one album at a time rather than move onto the next one. (I realise that if you select eg: ‘All Beatles’ then it will go through all the albums of that artist)but with differnt artists and albums this doesnt appear to be the case.

sony could do with altering the playback controls, i use the remote off my old 1 gig HD mini disc player, but i cant use the album forward button. no doubt it’s to do with the way the files are organised and their or so clever artist link controls.drag and drop and folder based would be superb.

i chose my a1000 at christmas and haven’t had one problem since. the software is relatively simple and easy to use but it doesn’t get on brilliantly with my pc. i was shown the volume hack by a sony centre staff member today and i cant wait to perforate my eardrums. i wouldnt change it for anything, much less an i pod. 5 stars from me.

Hey. Iv’ve just bought a sony nwa1000 and am waiting for it to arrive. I decided to buy it in spite of having read reviews criticizing the connect software included with the mp3, I just fell in love with it’s sleek design! I have also read that sonicstage 3.3 software is compatible and may be better than connect. Which software should i download for my mp3? Should i try connect and risk messing the mp3 player up? Can anybody help me?? thanks

Sara, try Connect by all means, but I too had horrendous problems just getting it to recognise cd drives! Suggest if you have a problem, use SonicStage 3.4. Works okay, althought you lose some features (trash bin, artist link, intelligent shuffle). 8gb version out in May/June is supposed to have new software and I understand free downloads to ensure SonicStage can use all features will be made available. We’ll see! Mine will go back if this doesn’t materialise! But a great little player.

Sara, ps, as far as I know you won’t damage player by trying Connect first. Software just may not work as it should!!! If you try Connect, then decide to use SonicStage instead, just initialize player first ….. press and hold ‘BACK’, HOME menu appears, select SETTINGS, select ‘INITIALISE DISK’, select ‘YES’, confirn ‘YES’. Good luck!

I have a Sony Psyc 512mb mp3 player… I acadentaly unpluged it from the USB cord without properly removing the hardware now every time i try to add music to it it asks me to initilize it.. and im having a little bit of trouble trying to find out how to do this.If anyone knows how to do this please e-mail me at im_bobby3@hotmail.comOver all i think its a great mp3 player (:

hey. I bought my NW-A1000 at christmas. Im very happy with it and have recently learned the volume hack, but I am still having trouble using the favourite 100 and intelligent shuffle. If i see that connect compliant software sign one more time i think im going to drown it.can anyone tell me what the software is.email me at joshhepworth@hotmail.comthanks.

I have had it with this crappy piece of s**t! I bought my NW-A1000 because I didnt want to get an “ipod” like everyone else and not only is it slow but why is it so hard to delete songs..SonicStage is the most useless piece of software I have ever used!I recently upgraded to version 4? and for some stupid reason when I choose artist or album etc, it doesn’t list them alphabetically anymore!! They are all categorised under “ETC” and I have to scroll through my entire list of artists to find what I want! Is anyone else getting this problem..!!!!

DS,You are 100% correct, SonicStage is the most useless peice of software i have ever used. It is a real shame because Sony makes some nice players.Check out this post for Alternatives to SonicStage. Also read through the comments others are recommended as well.http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2006/04/sonicstage-alternatives.php

Hello,Sorry for gatecrashing this thread, but I have encountered a problem with my new Sony NW-A1000.I have transferred about 20 albums, which is a total of around 250 songs or so, and the connect software is saying that I only have around 400 mb of space left out of 6GB!! I know this can’t be right. Am I doing something wrong, is the player faulty???Any suggestions would be appreciated.Thanks

hi does anyone know how to remove the stram connector from the nw-a1000? ive looked everywhere and cant find out how to do it!!! all i can find are some instructions that tell you to do it but not how! please please helpthanks

My brother was putting music on the MP3 player, and went to delete a song. When he did that, it actaully delted some of the files he needs to run it, and now it just says ‘System error’ or something like that when he turns it on and tries to play it. If the MP3 player came with a CD we can’t find it, and we can’t find the files anywhere.If anyone could send me a copy of the files from their player I’d be forevr greatful.Theraconteurs@hotmail.com

i am on my 4th A1000 mp3 player now… i have had the software on the actual player stuff up twice one time its even put over 300 blank song type files which had no name no artist and no genra or anything like that and i had one that worked PERFECTLY for about 4 months until it was dropped and caught by the headphones which broke the players connection to the headphones..but my latest one i have had trouble with also its working at the moment however everytime i plug it into my computer it comes up saying tinyhttp error and tells me to run a check disk utility (chkdsk) i have done this which marks parts of my mp3 player ‘unusable’ and are then skipped when i transfer songs… i am worried that this will give me less space on my mp3 player .has anyone else had the same type of problems with this mp3 player??? if so please post a comment on here about how to fix it.i feel sorry for the ppl at the good guys they have been really good with replacing my mp3 player for me when it breaks however i think if this one breaks i will get a different brand.maybe even an ipod nano

am having trouble with my a3000 keeps telling me to connect compliant software and not able to play any songs at all .tried resetting and rstoring factory settings any ideas ?

got an nwa 1000 just bought a kenwood car stereo with an usb 4 it but it doesnt support well at all hardly plays any of the songs and the songs it does play aint even on the nwa1000 that i hav work that out some1 plz plz help

Anyone know of any hack so that we can drag and drop directly from MYCOMPUTER ? Can we simply use it like a hard drive so that it plays the mp3s directly?

the same also goes for the 100 favourite tracks….the player updates its memory through the software…connectplayer…so if you havent played one hundred tracks between connections with your pc…there is nothng thére…so simply play a few of your favourite tracks for w a while, then connect it to your pc start up connect player and let it load for a while S*** program is so slow…then that feature will run, if you have played enough tracks on it.

I’m having a problem. My player have got a line of “dead pixels” or something like it, across the screen, and it won’t go away. It wasn’t like that when I got it, and I have been very careful when using it.What should I do? Is it hardware or software error?

hey I recently got the A1000 for my birthday but the whenever i listen to it the battery runs out fairly quickly. not even close to 20 hours. anyone know what i should do?

Does anyone know where to get a USB cable for the A1000. I lost mine:(

hi…I have the sony walkman verion NW-A1000 (6GB) ,I have aprobem in my sony…the message is always in my sony is”no data base found ,connect compliant software and transfer songs”…pleaze someone help me to solve this problem…bye…

Hi, I have the exact same problem as Ahmad above. Can anyone help, this is driving me mad. I have approx 100 tracks in my library with ‘no name’ in every field, these are not visible when i connect the player to Connect Player so I can’t remove them! When the player tries to play them it shows the message ‘no database found, connect compliant software’ etc. I also have the NW-A100 (6GB). Please help! E-mail me at hansbeano@hotmail.com.

hi…my NW-A1000 said “connect compliant software and transfer songs”what must i do for solve this problem…please help me and send the answer to my mail”ahmad_btnh@yahoo.com”…thanks…

for the guy that lost his usb cable, i looked everywhere in all the shops when i damaged my usb cable and found that to order from an store i would be looking at paying around £70-£90 for the stupid usb cable but i was lucky and found a guy selling them on Ebay it still cost me £35 but it was a fraction of what the shops where asking:)

Ahmad i have the same problem with my nw-a1000 if you get info on how to correct this problem can you post it here and let me know how to solve this too, i have searched the net for ideas but its all rubbishAngel

DO NOT BUY THIS MP3 PLAYER IT RUBBISH YOU CANNOT REFUND IT SO ONCE ITS BOUGHT YOUR STUCK WITH IT FOR EVER MINE BROKE AND I LOST £150.00 BEACAUSE OF ITAGE 13Michael

hi,i’m having similar problems as ahmad, seems like many of us are. when i am connected to Connect Player it shows whats “on” the device but it’s in faded italics and it won’t let me do anything. what do i do? how do i listen to my music again? how do i put more songs on? how do i take some off? this is driving me crazy. i can’t do anything with it. right now, i just have this awful machine sitting on my desk that doesn’t do anything.

Wow just done the volume hack and it works GREAT! You guys having the problems transferring tracks…have you tried initializing the HD? It will delete everything but may allow you to start transfering stuff again??! Rather than using Connect have you upgraded to Sonic Stage V4 software?I LOVE this little player – sound quality is amazing…fortunately never had any problems and the Sonic Stage software works well on my pc (probably coz its a vaio! lol )Above all its NOT an ipod!

loooooooooolz. i have never seen any mp3 player like the nwa 1000 series…..they are the best….i’ve had like 5 of them and none of them had any problem……you guys must be doing something wrong….anyways gd luck

Hi, did you ever find a way to fix the problem with multiple “no name, no artist etc…” tracks?It reasently appeard for me and it’s driving me CRAZY! I’ve got over 200 “songs” of this kind and everytime one of them comes up on the shuffle the player pauses and then shuts down.Please help if you know how

I’ve bought this little crazy player 3 days ago. We are not getting along so well. Think I’m going to kill it.Apart from converting all my mp3s into ATRAC shit that no computer can read, it seems that the piece of shit connect software tells me that all files have been transfered when actually, maybe 70% have been properly transfered.And about the hack. The option is now OFF but I cant hear any difference. Maybe my bike exhausts fucked my eardrums for good.However, the quality of this player is phenomenal. Way better than iPods. Closer to COWON.

can someone please email me with instructions on how to change my nwa 3000 battery,it is driving me round the bend