Sony D-NE306CK ATRAC Walkman Portable CD Player with Car Kit (Silver) Review

The Sony D-NE306CK works as advertised.
I bought mine to mainly use as a CD\MP3 player in the van.
The car-kit does an admirable job of transfering the music
from the Sony to the vans audio system. There is some noise
from the cassette adapter, but I found lowering the volume on
the van stereo in conjunction w/increasing the volume on the Sony
pretty much much eliminates the noise. The skip protection works
great. The city driving I do has plenty of rough roads, and so far there has been no skipping in G-Pro 1 mode.
The 2-line dot-matrix display shows all the ID3 tag info except
the Year. That is probably a minor loss. Mp3 songs recorded at 192kbps sound quite good. Can get around 90-100 songs at that rate on 1 cd-r. This unit does shuffle play for both single song
recorded cd-r's and cd-r's recorded with folders. The folder names are shown on the diplay. The parametric equalizer has some
default settings, and also one Custom setting for individually
adjusting low-mid-high with the menu button. If using the Sony
with headphones or portable speakers, this is a nice ability to have. But I found using the Sound settings to adversely affect
the van's sound output, so it's best to keep Sound adj. off in there. The battery life so far has been excellent. Not sure yet
what it will be, since I have had it only 1-1/2 weeks, but I have
over 20 hours on it using 2200 nimh batteries and the Batt indicator on the display is still at full.
I am also using the player at my job with the Panasonic RP-SPT70
portable speakers and the sound is 1st rate! The 306 get's as loud as you want, and the Pany speakers are impressive for their
size.All in all, the Sony is a good buy for just $69, maybe even a great buy! This player works as advertised, and has plenty of fine features. Recommended.

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Product Description:
Sony's full-circle D-NE306CK Walkman portable CD player includes not only a complete car-listening kit with an in-car remote, but SonicStage software. SonicStage lets you take full advantage of ATRAC3plus (Sony's proprietary music-compression technology) when making custom MP3 CDs on your computer. Playback options include 32-track programming, repeat (track, disc, or program), random play, and--thanks to Sony's great work in DSP efficiency--more than 85 hours of ATRAC3plus CD or up to 50 hours of audio CD playback from 2 AA batteries (not included).
The player includes a 2-line dot-matrix display, full ID3 tag recognition, and bookmark playback (which lets you program your favorite songs from multiple CDs and play them back at the touch of a button). CD Text support displays artist and title information with compatible commercial audio CDs.
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). MP3 compatibility extends from 16 to 320 kbps files.
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 your PC's hard drive and burns them to recordable CDs using ATRAC3plus compression.
Skip-Free G-Protection technology boosts the laser pickup's shock protection to minimize read errors that would otherwise interrupt your music, providing quick recovery from both horizontal and vertical shocks. The D-NE306CK's heat-resistant lid helps protect the player against high-temperature build up, especially when you're using it outdoors or in a vehicle.
Digital Mega Bass Sound boost your music's low end without high clarity and low distortion, and there's also a built-in equalizer with 3 preset curves and 1 customizable setting. Sony's automatic volume limiter system (AVLS) conserves batteries--and guards your hearing--by capping your listening level at either of two settings. Using the player at home? Save batteries by powering the unit from the supplied AC/DC power adapter.
What's in the Box
CD player, MDR-027LP stereo headphones, CD-ROM (SonicStage software), an AC power adapter, a car kit (including cassette-shell audio adapter, DC power adapter, car remote control, and Velcro adhesive tape), a user's manual, and warranty information.

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