Sony Walkman D-NF610 Personal CD Player
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Similar in Portable CD Players
- CD-R/CD-RW Playback: CD-R/CD-RW
- Bass Boost: With Bass Boost
- Supported Formats: MP3
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Excellent player for the price
Pros
Great battery life, nice sound quality, plays multisession discs, good ergonomics, displays CD text
Cons
Volume isn't loud enough, playlist won't work, slow loading MP3s when running on batteries
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
If you want a CD-based MP3 player you won't go wrong with this unit. And this is from a guy that typically doesn't care for Sony.
I bought the 'car ready' sibling of this model, the D-NE518CK. I won't comment on the car adapter part since I doesn't come with this model (nor have I had to use it). I've had it since late Dec. 04.
The player itself is internally identical to the D-NF610, but the case is black with a thin red plexiglass insert to see the CD spinning.
I've lived with this unit now for about 4 months, and it's a nicely designed unit that offers a lot at the price point. There are a few items that just plain don't work (typical Sony), and some things that are poorly designed. Overall, it is one of the better MP3 capable players on the market that are reasonably rugged for portable use.
What I like about the unit:
- Plays regular CDs AND MP3s, both variable and fixed bit rate. I've tried 192kbs VBR recordings and the player played them perfectly. I also tried 320kpbs fixed rate MP3s and it played them well too.
- The display can display ID3 tags, and evens shows a countdown timer on the playing track in one display mode. Not many players in this price range do that.
- The shuttle dial control is a very nice feature, but in my particular unit it is a bit balky at times. The issue is the dial design when you depress it (for selecting what is displayed). The dial itself when turned works typically okay, but I have had a few times when it seems overly sensitive.
- You can shuttle forward/back in MP3s. That is not a typical feature for many other CD-based MP3 players at this price.
- It will play multisession CDs with MP3s. I don't always fill up a CD immediately, so I tried creating a multisession CD to see if this unit will play all the sessions. It does! It does take a while to load the CD when you do this, but it's worth the extra time. I haven't tried this with a regular music CD so I just don't know if it will work with them.
- Excellent battery life. I've had at least 30-40 hours of play so far on a single set of AAs (this unit takes 2 of them), and the battery gauge on the display says I've used 1/2 of the life. Sony claims about 80 hours of battery life when playing MP3s. So far, their claim doesn't seem too far off.
- The player also will display CD text on a CD with that information on it. I typically burn my CDs with the text info and this is the first player I've had that displays it. That was a nice touch and I don't think was documented in the owner's manual.
- The unit plays CD-RWs as well as CD-Rs.
- My unit came with a nice power adapter which is NOT a typical AC-DC linear supply. This unit uses a switching supply, which is much more power thrifty compared to a typical 'wall wart' linear supply (especially when not loaded). Again, nice touch.
- I've dropped the unit a few times while seated on the bus with the cover popping open, and no damage to the player. Seems rugged enough for my tastes.
What I dislike about the unit:
- Sony claims this player will play MP3 playlists (.m3u files). It doesn't. I've read other owners on different bulletin boards and some newsgroups complain that it doesn't work for them either. Perhaps newer models have this fixed? My sleazy workaround is I add a number prefix (01, 02, etc) to each of my MP3 files in the order I want to play them.
- Volume doesn't get loud enough on some CDs or MP3s. This is strictly a function of how the CD was mastered. If you are creating your own CD-Rs, you can use some software to maximize the volume on your copy and minimize/eliminate the problem.
- The bass boost is too boomy for my tastes and way overboosted at the lowest level. I would like some bass boost, but what Sony decided on for the minimum level is ridiculous, and the frequency band they decided on is just too high in my opinion.
- Takes a while to go track-to-track with MP3s, but ONLY when on battery power. To conserve power when on batteries, this unit will spool up/down the CD to fill up its memory buffer. When you go to the next track, the wait time to hear it is due to the motor having to spin up and fill up the buffer. When you run off the external power adapter, I noticed the CD spins all the time and of course the transition time between MP3 tracks is short. While this is a bit annoying, its a trade-off to get long battery life and probably worth it.
- This is more a wish, not a dislike. I would have liked to see some kind of treble boost too.
Overall, this is a good unit for the money. It seems rugged enough and I've had no problems with it skipping on either CDs or MP3s. Battery life is amazing.
The player itself is internally identical to the D-NF610, but the case is black with a thin red plexiglass insert to see the CD spinning.
I've lived with this unit now for about 4 months, and it's a nicely designed unit that offers a lot at the price point. There are a few items that just plain don't work (typical Sony), and some things that are poorly designed. Overall, it is one of the better MP3 capable players on the market that are reasonably rugged for portable use.
What I like about the unit:
- Plays regular CDs AND MP3s, both variable and fixed bit rate. I've tried 192kbs VBR recordings and the player played them perfectly. I also tried 320kpbs fixed rate MP3s and it played them well too.
- The display can display ID3 tags, and evens shows a countdown timer on the playing track in one display mode. Not many players in this price range do that.
- The shuttle dial control is a very nice feature, but in my particular unit it is a bit balky at times. The issue is the dial design when you depress it (for selecting what is displayed). The dial itself when turned works typically okay, but I have had a few times when it seems overly sensitive.
- You can shuttle forward/back in MP3s. That is not a typical feature for many other CD-based MP3 players at this price.
- It will play multisession CDs with MP3s. I don't always fill up a CD immediately, so I tried creating a multisession CD to see if this unit will play all the sessions. It does! It does take a while to load the CD when you do this, but it's worth the extra time. I haven't tried this with a regular music CD so I just don't know if it will work with them.
- Excellent battery life. I've had at least 30-40 hours of play so far on a single set of AAs (this unit takes 2 of them), and the battery gauge on the display says I've used 1/2 of the life. Sony claims about 80 hours of battery life when playing MP3s. So far, their claim doesn't seem too far off.
- The player also will display CD text on a CD with that information on it. I typically burn my CDs with the text info and this is the first player I've had that displays it. That was a nice touch and I don't think was documented in the owner's manual.
- The unit plays CD-RWs as well as CD-Rs.
- My unit came with a nice power adapter which is NOT a typical AC-DC linear supply. This unit uses a switching supply, which is much more power thrifty compared to a typical 'wall wart' linear supply (especially when not loaded). Again, nice touch.
- I've dropped the unit a few times while seated on the bus with the cover popping open, and no damage to the player. Seems rugged enough for my tastes.
What I dislike about the unit:
- Sony claims this player will play MP3 playlists (.m3u files). It doesn't. I've read other owners on different bulletin boards and some newsgroups complain that it doesn't work for them either. Perhaps newer models have this fixed? My sleazy workaround is I add a number prefix (01, 02, etc) to each of my MP3 files in the order I want to play them.
- Volume doesn't get loud enough on some CDs or MP3s. This is strictly a function of how the CD was mastered. If you are creating your own CD-Rs, you can use some software to maximize the volume on your copy and minimize/eliminate the problem.
- The bass boost is too boomy for my tastes and way overboosted at the lowest level. I would like some bass boost, but what Sony decided on for the minimum level is ridiculous, and the frequency band they decided on is just too high in my opinion.
- Takes a while to go track-to-track with MP3s, but ONLY when on battery power. To conserve power when on batteries, this unit will spool up/down the CD to fill up its memory buffer. When you go to the next track, the wait time to hear it is due to the motor having to spin up and fill up the buffer. When you run off the external power adapter, I noticed the CD spins all the time and of course the transition time between MP3 tracks is short. While this is a bit annoying, its a trade-off to get long battery life and probably worth it.
- This is more a wish, not a dislike. I would have liked to see some kind of treble boost too.
Overall, this is a good unit for the money. It seems rugged enough and I've had no problems with it skipping on either CDs or MP3s. Battery life is amazing.
