Sony MZ-N1 Net MD Walkman Player/Recorder with USB

I have tried out almost every conceivable large capicity MP3 player out. Hands down, for price, value, look, and durability, the Nomad Zen has it.

Here's my breakdown.

Nomdad Zen

Looks nice and from an American company, Creative Labs. Its easy to use interface, great sound, slightly smaller than the archos and a bit bigger than the Ipod.

Built in battery but dies after 2 years or so. No problem, according to the Creative Labs website. They'll replace it at no charge when it dies. And yes it has shuffle and such an easy to use playlist, including a LCD screen remote -- how cool! Battery life is pretty good too.

I found the Zen to be a superb overall value.

IPod

A great looking player built by an American company, Apple. The Windows interface is *okay*. The ipod is the smallest, and it has a built in battery, which when it dies, the Ipod is useless. Too expensive for a disposable MP3 player. Decent sound.

Archos Jukebox

A lot of features, looks strange, and a bit heavy from the French Company, Archos. Who needs a 1.5 screen to view multimedia -- a useless feature IMO. To change the volume, you have to go through a series of buttons. Why? Ridiculous. However the Windows interface is the best out of them all; just drag and drop in Windows Explorer. Sound is okay, it sounds flat.

Net MD

This is the Sony MiniDisc player from the Japanese giant, Sony. I tried out the N707 and N1. They're small, great battery life, and they look great. Minidiscs are cheap and they hold 80 minutes of music plus data. Minidiscs are about a dollar a piece, but can only hold 169 MB of data -- its major drawback. You have to use Real Player with the Sony MD plugin to bypass the stupid anti-piracy software Sony included. I own over 750 CDs, and it made it impossible to make discs of my favorite songs if one song was on more than one minidisc. To get around it, I used the RealOne player from RealNetworks. Price, a bit expensive for low capacity. But they are by far the smallest and look the coolest.


Magically delicious   February 13, 2003
 11 out of 12 found this review helpful

Sony's top-of-the-line MD recorder for the US market, the MZ-N1 is exactly like the rest of the line, but exceeds its lesser brethren in the following areas:

The remote. It feels good, looks great, and has an integral display. You can't imagine what a convenience this is until you've tried it.

Line out. If you do field recording, it is great to be able to get your audio into a line-level input without having to fiddle with the volume control.

Build quality. It feels a bit sturdier than lesser models. I'm fairly sure the mechanism, DAC, and amp are the same for all models, but the N1 feels extra solid.

If you don't need these additional features, might as well buy one of the cheaper ones... but the N1 remote is incredibly cool and useful.

The N1 has the same great sound as the other Sony MD players - better than any portable CD player you can buy, and at least as good as the best solid-state memory MP3 players available. MP3 quality varies greatly depending on the encoder and bitrate selected. ATRAC, the minidisc compression technology, is more mature than MP3, and it shows in the sound quality. LP2 is virtually indistinguishable from standard play mode, which sounds better than any portable CD player does, and it lets you put 160 minutes of music on a disc.

Last, but not least, like all of the other portable MD units in Sony's North American line-up, it lets you record analog or digital signals, anytime, anywhere. Try that with a portable CD player.


MZ-N1 - very strong effort by Sony   February 11, 2003
 11 out of 13 found this review helpful

I have owned the MZ-N1 since December 2002 and I have to say that, despite a few shortcomings, it is an excellent unit.

Strengths:
The obvious strength of the Minidisc is the sound quality and the compactness of the unit. The unit is a snap to operate, sounds terrific and battery life is certainly well above average.
I particularly love the quickrip software that permits a quick burn from a CD to a minidisc. At the LP2 setting, you can normall fit up to three complete CDs on one minidisc with no audible decrease in sound quality.

Weakenesses:
As has been stated elsewhere the weakness of the minidisc/NetMD world is the openMG software. Despite a simple design and its ease of use, it can get a bit gummy and file-transfers can slow every so often. I certainly wouldn't *not* buy the MZ-N1 because of the software; the overall quality of the unit and the sound quality easily trump the occasional software hiccup.

Another frequently cited complaint about openMG is the check-in/check-out process. The software only permits a user to have three separate copies of each mp3 to be burned to separate minidiscs at a time. Similar to a library with three copies of each book, one cannot check out a book until one of the three copies has been returned.

While this feature has caused a firestorm of complaints about Sony, in truth it is a tempest in a teapot. The likelihood of you having four minidiscs with the same song on it that you are regularly listening to is highly unlikely. While we all have our own opinions on the mp3/RIAA battles, the openMG technology truly straddles the fence in a way that has little or no impact on the normal consumer. I have a ton of mp3s; I've never had a problem listening to them on my terms on my MZ-N1.

I highly recommend it.


THE BEST PLAYER EVER!!!   February 9, 2003
 9 out of 11 found this review helpful

I just got this mini disc for my birth-day, and it's great. I know people say it has slow transfer rates, but it actually doesn't. It may be slow in comparison to an mp3 player, because here it records on a disc. The download will be up before you know it, just minimize the Open Mg program, and go on the internet for a minute, read a short artcle, and it's done!
What is really good about the new Sony MD's is the feature of anti-vibrational system, so you can jump, skip, run, and it wont get stuck as a cd player. On the mini disc it has written it takes up to 80 min of music, but in LP2 mode (really good quality of sound) it takes up to 169 min!

Comparing to mp3: Bigger space to record. (on an mp3, with a 128 mb memory, you record about 16 songs, estimating 5mb per song. Also size is absolutelly small and only weights 77 oz.(according to information at www.sonystyle.com)

Comparing to CD player: Size and weight also are very different. Recording space is less, but wins over quality in LP 2 listening mode.

if you're searching for a music gadget, this is the one!