Sony MZ-N505 Net MD Walkman Player/Recorder
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend Sony's MZ-N505 Net MD Walkman Recorder has everything you need to create great-sounding music mixes in record time. In addition to transferring your music in up to 32x speed, title and track information created in OpenMG Jukebox is transferred to the MiniDisc. With Easy Skip group folder function, you can arrange songs into groups or "albums" in OpenMG Jukebox and easily transfer them to the MZ-N505 Net MD Recorder. If you record five hours of music, you… Product details and pricing info |
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109 Customer Reviews Posted
- Fantastic, convenient, economical, great sound, bad software
- The Type-R upgrade to ATRAC3 adds better sound and LP modes along with compatibility with your older minidiscs. Power management is better than anything else out there: the minidisc only spins when data is read from it, so most of the time the device is idle while playing music. This achieves enormous battery life of over 50 hours per single AA battery. That's right, a single AA battery powers this unit for over 50 hours. I don't even have portable radios that can last as long.
The sound is pleasant with the in-ear headphones that Sony makes, but not the throw-aways that come with this product. There are two "mega-bass" levels which make up for ambient noises in an office or subway train. Artifacts from the ATRAC3 recording are not as noticeable as they are with MP3, but are more noticeable than Apple iPod's AAC. Even the older ATRAC minidiscs from my older minidisc player sound better on this machine. I'm not sure how Sony managed to do that.
One of my two chief complaints with all the Sony minidiscs is the rather lousy software used to transfer CD, MP3, WAV, and WMA music to the unit, but luckily you can use RealPlayer from www.real.com to record minidiscs.
The second complaint is the use of "folders". In order to listen to your minidisc all the way through, which is how I think most people listen to music, you need to record your songs at the root level. If they are in folders the device requires you to "navigate" out of the sub-folders using, of all things, the "Group/Cancel" button on the front bezel. There is no way to remove the group feature if it's recorded already without re-recording your disc. Again, luckily, the RealPlayer can avoid this silliness.
Transferring songs via USB takes about 5 minutes for an entire 5-hour minidisc. As for the copy-protected rules that control copying data to and from a minidisc, I will leave that to other reviewers; a similar scheme is in place for Sony Magicgate and other Sony portables and I won't discuss it here. See www.minidisc.org for more information on how Sony tries to protect copyrights.
If you want to record 5 hours of music per two-dollar disc, then this product is the right one. Per hour, that cost is a tiny fraction of any portable music player that uses flash memory. If you're really into music but don't enjoy wasting money on players with bad sound and horribly expensive memory storage then you must get a minidisc! - 2005-01-04, 3 of 3 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Good while it lasted
- I have had this player for a little over a year and a half and it has just stopped recording. I called Sony and they said it can be replaced for $109 (not including tax and shipping & Handling) which is clearly not worth it. I tried to search for a fix online and found that a lot of other people have the same problem with the player. Not only that but the problem occurs at around the same time, a year and a half to two years. Before the problem occured the minidisc was a great player. I would buy a five pack of minidisc and be able to record and carry 25 to 30 cd's worth of material in my pocket. The player is so good that after it broke I still thought about going to get another one, but after reading the other people who have had problems with the system I think I'll be moving back to cd's. It was good while it lasted.
- 2004-12-07, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Take great care otherwise endure its flaws
- I've had this net md for a little over a year, and had had no problems what so ever with it (the software on the other hand is a whole different story, useless/buggy is an understatement). The unit had never been dropped, however on one occasion it was moved a little roughly (however not enough in my opinion to warrant its failure) and the sound produced has since been crackly and distorted, often not working at all. We invested in another player, only to have the same issue (an internal circuit board becomes easily dislodged and must be repaired with ultrafine soldering equipment). To have this happen with 2 players in one household is appauling on Sony's behalf, and I can only imagine others have suffered too.
Transfer speeds are average, usb2 stated compliance is a myth, and help from Sony is almost nonexistant.
If you are looking for portable audio, look elsewhere, as netMD simply never took off, for a very good reason. USB players with no moving parts would be the next best option unless you want to find yourself with $100 repair bills for a $150 player... - 2004-11-18, 2 of 2 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Love it!
- I've been using Sony MiniDisc players/recorders since 1997. It's an awesome technology, so I've never understood why it never really caught on. I bought this model a year ago and have been very happy with it. I walk a lot and carry it with me everywhere I go. I've dropped it and jostled it many times and still it endures. In the years that I've been using portable MD players(including this one), I've never, ever heard a skip. One AA battery lasts a long time. It's easy to create playlists/groups, etc. and the song names scroll across the player screen for easy recognition. I've never had any problems with the software as some reviewers mentioned. Originally I was annoyed at the fact that you could only use a song three times, but it has never been a problem for me. I record a lot of mixes and don't have more than one or two copies of each song checked out at once. I recently researched MP3 players to see if they offered any features that the MD player doesn't. I wasn't convinced to buy anything else; five hours of music is enough for me.
- 2004-08-02, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- One of the best buys you will ever make
- When looking into MP3 players trying to decide what to get, I came across minidisc players. There are many advantages of minidisc players over MP3. Battery life with minidiscs are amazing!! You get over 40+ hours of playing time on ONE AA battery. I think the manual says up to 53 hours. Second, it is easy and cheap to buy and load songs onto minidiscs. $2 each beats paying for CF or SD/MMC at much greater prices. You can get five CD worth of music on one minidisc. Plus there is a new technology mindisc on the horizon that holds even more! Third, they sound great and really hold up well. I have taken mine to Afghanistan, and Iraq, and have dropped it several times in the gym, and have even parachuted with it. This is a great system and I cannot recommend them highly enough. I recommend good earbuds for the system. Sony makes some good ones, I'm looking into the Shure 3C model. I just bought some cheap Koss earbuds and they suck. The only drawback is the software that comes with the minidisc. I use the simple burner program mostly or Realplayer for MP3 format music I have downloaded. You won't go wrong getting one of these!
- 2004-07-23, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
