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Review: I bought this Sony MZ-N510 S Net MiniDisc Walkman a year ago in favour of the mp3 players etc. since I could record from other live sources. Since the minidisc recorder can be connected via a USB port, i thought that I could copy across the information to my hard drive- wrong! Unfortunately it only works one way since the recording is not in a recognisable format (it needs to be in Atrac format to be recognised). I had to connect to my PC via my sound card and record using Cooledit 2000 which is a bit pointless. My only other gripe is that the remote can be a bit fiddly sometimes as I sometimes find myself knocking the wrong button by mistake. Other than that, I've been fairly happy with the Net walkman. The software that comes with the Net MD is Sonicstage and is now an older version. You can get a free upgrade going to the Sony site. Or you can do a search for Sonicstage Connect and download the installation executable file. Unfortunately, you can only download the installation file and then run it on your pc while connected to the net to install the remainding 35Mb information. Once installed though, it's well worth the upgrade. All the information on any CD's that you want to convert to Atrac to listen on your Net MD can automatically be updated via the net. So once you put in a CD it searches for the titles, album, artist, times etc all automatically! Brilliant. Converting your music couldn't be easier. You can also convert using MDLP which allows you to have more tracks on one disc and the quality is still very good. The MD comes with a decent leather pouch with a belt clip that comes in handy too. Sony are also renowned for their incompatibility with other sources. Music that you downloaded may or maynot be able to be converted to atrac as I found out. You'll really love this if you've mainly got music on CD's that you want to put to minidisc as it's a piece of cake. If you're the type to download stuff regularly i'd get look at an MP3 player or try Sonys Hard drive network walkman if you have a heck of a lot of music (it can store up to short of 20Gb). All in all another good quality item from Sony but a little outdated now though. Check prices Vs what you can get now though | 
Audio HiFi
