Product Description

Get the most from digital music with Sony's D-NE511 portable CD player, which includes SonicStage CD Simple Burner software to allow you to take advantage of ATRAC3plus, Sony's proprietary music-compression technology when making custom MP3 CDs on a computer. The player includes Sony's popular Jog Dial control for easy folder navigation, a two-line dot-matrix display, and achieves more than 50 hours of continuous playback on two "AA" type batteries (not included).

ATRAC3plus is a high-quality audio-compression technology that reduces the size of digital audio files while preserving much of a track's original sound quality (similar in concept to MP3 or Dolby Digital sound formats). With ATRAC3plus, music can be burned and compressed at 132, 105, 66, 64, or even 48 kbps (kilobits per second), letting you select the right balance between fidelity and storage space (you'll get around 490 songs per disc at 48 kbps). The player comes bundled with Sony's SonicStage CD Simple Burner software. Compatible with ID3 tagging and most CD burners, this application transfers songs from CDs or MP3 music files from a PC's hard drive and burns them to a CD using ATRAC3plus compression.

Skip-Free G-Protection technology boosts the laser pickup's shock protection to minimise read errors that would otherwise interrupt your music, providing quick recovery from both horizontal and vertical shocks. Bookmark playback lets you program favourite songs from multiple CDs and play them back at the touch of a button, and CD Text support displays artist and title information with compatible commercial audio CDs.

Amazon.co.uk Review

Create and play CD-Rs containing up to 30 CDs with Sony's new D-NE511 ATRAC/MP3 CD Walkman. The Sony D-NE511 looks like any other CD player; there are numerous buttons on the front, a two-line LCD screen and the usual d-pad for playing, skipping and stopping the tracks. Although in reality this is far from the truth as the CD player has the ability to play both standard audio CDs and specifically burned CDR/RWs. Using Sony's proprietary PC software, SonicStage Simple Burner and a CD writer on your PC, tracks can be burned on a CD-R/RW using either Sony's ATRAC3plus or ATRAC3 formats.

Taking either CD or MP3 files, tracks can be compressed by up to 1/20th of there original size depending on the quality setting you chose. Music can be burned and compressed to 132, 105, 66, 64 or 48 kbps (kilobits per second) and compressing at 48 kbps, will allow you to record up to 490 songs (about 30 CDs) on a single 700 MB disc. Track information is provided via an Internet connection to Gracenote CDDB before burning and this information will then appear on the LCD display when you play the track.

Sound obviously varies according to the level at which you record it. CD-quality MP3s are normally recorded at 128 kbps and at this ratio you are still able to get some 170/180 tracks per CD--slightly more than the 13 or 14 you normally find. The unit is powered by two "AA" type batteries and will run for around 50 hours. And for the fashion-coconscious the player comes in three different colours: blue, red and silver.

While the device's reliance on Sony will be annoying to some, it doesn't take away the fact that you've got a great music player that produces very good music for a very affordable price. --Jason Denwood