Sony MZ-S1 S2 Sports Net MD Walkman ReviewMay 31, 2002
Pros: MDLP quadruples recording time; affordable; durable, dashing design; exceptional battery life.
Cons: Clumsy software; no remote; lacks treble, bass adjustments.
Verdict: The S2 MZ-S1 gives you a glimpse at what the new Net MD line offers, but it sacrifices too much to cut down the price.
Sony S2 Sports line now extends to MD player with the introduction of the MZ-S1 Net MD Walkman. Following the tradition of the product line, Sony is outfitting the new portable audio player with a steely white, water-resistant casing with brushed black and scorching orange accents. While the MZ-S1’s dashing design might appeal to people leading an active lifestyle, the rest of us might find other feature-rich models more functional.
Durable; Simple Controls The MZ-S1 is significantly bulkier than most other MD players, but its durable door for protecting both MD slot and the battery compartment is able to withstand strong impact. We also have no doubt that the body can survive a 4-feet drop. Most basic controls are concentrated into the joystick on top of the unit. It is best to hold the player with your left hand and to select volume and tracks with your thumb. Depending on you usage, the joystick may not suit your taste. The accompanying headphones are so terrible that the output sounds like AM radio.
The MZ-S1 also skips the remote, rechargeable battery and microphone, not huge surprises since the street price is at $150. In front of the unit, a tiny backlit LCD panel displays the battery status, the name of the song or group, and etc. Sound option is limited to MegaBass adjustment. Bookmark is missing as well, but the player can resume where you left off as long as the MiniDisc isn't removed. The S2 MZ-S1 lasted approximately over 40 hours of playback with a single AA battery. However, your mileage will vary if you don’t use AC power when recording.
More Tones on the MiniDisc While durability is the strength of the MZ-S1, the highlights of this player are MiniDisc Long Play (MDLP) and Net MD. MDLP works by compressing audio into ATRAC3 codec, which is employed by Sony MP3 players. It offers 2 modes: LP2 and LP4. With LP2 mode, you get up to 160 minutes of tones on a 80-minute MiniDisc; on LP4 mode, you can even double the playback time to 320 minutes. SP mode, which is based on the original ATRAC codec, is also available on this player, but it offers only a maximum 80 minutes of recording. LP2, LP4 and SP have an equivalent bit-rates of 132kbps, 66kbps and 292kbps respectively. In terms of sound quality, SP mode delivers the closest to CD-quality whereas LP2 is what most people will find acceptable. LP4 compression is probably best for audio books.
NetMD is essentially the bridge between the player and your MP3 collections. It works along with Sony’s OpenMG software to transfer compressed music at high speed to your MiniDisc on a USB connection. Since MZ-S1 cannot read MP3 directly, you must convert your files to encrypted ATRAC3 format before synchronizing music to the media.
Somewhat Restrictive Software The OpenMG 2.2 also raises some concerns. Firstly, the encoding procedure doubles the time needed to copy the music to the MD player. A single track requires about 50 seconds to 1 minute to complete the transfer on LP2 mode. Files encoded in LP4 mode will take less time to travel to the MiniDisc as their file sizes are smaller in general. The Windows-only software is a resource hog.
Duplicates of the songs in ATRAC3 format will also be created after each successful conversion. While this may seem obvious for creating a music library, some of you might find these ‘clones’ cluttering up your hard drive. Furthermore, you are limited to 3 ‘check-outs’ to the different MiniDisc for each encrypted song. To get back some ‘check-out’ credits, you either have to delete the songs on the MiniDisc or to import the same files again. This system is in place to limit illegal distribution of the digital music.
Beside the OpenMG Jukebox, the MZ-S1 ships with Net MD Simple Burner for those who want to rip CD directly into the MiniDisc. Unfortunately, OpenMG Jukebox does not permit these rips to be imported back into the computer as these songs haven't gone through the proper check-out procedures. Should you want leave the software alone, the MZ-S1 Net MD can record from any audio sources from its optical input, but the process only happens in real-time. So, one hour of music takes one hour to transfer.
The Bottom Line Despite its affordable $150 price tag, the Sony S2 MZ-S1 is plagued by cumbersome software, limited sound options and subpar earphones. Nevertheless, the Net MD player's ability to record more than 5 hours of music on a $2 MiniDisc clearly has the advantage over flash-based MP3 player. If you are not constrained by budget, then Sony MZ-N1 Net MD Walkman will make a even better choice.
Where to buy Sony MZ-S1 S2 Sports Net MD Walkman?
User Review(s)
"Highly durable; easy to learn" Plus: water-resistant, easy to learn, record from anything..ANYTHING! Highly Durable. I wil never buy another outdated, money wasting, scratchable, delicate Compact disk product.
Minus: volume limited by source, cant import music recorded from a non-Sony jukebox recorded by software.
Could use another hoeadphone jack? From kc, February 29, 2004
"works for a year then stops" Well i bought one and in two months it broke i didnt do anything to it so i went back and they gave me a brandnew one. But now one year later the new one won't transfer music from the computer. It shows that it is there but no sound at all. I would recamand getting an ipod if you are looking for a portable music device. From Derek, January 29, 2004
"Nice, but lacking some stuff" The one major downfall on this product is definately the lack of remote. I use it skiing so the water resistance and impact proofing is a definite pro, however its clumsy if you want to change track, remote would help. Also the software is a bit wack but u can use real one. i used to have a rio and overall definetaly go with minidisc over MP3, wether its this MD player or another.. From Paulio, January 14, 2004
"No More CD-R or Flash Memory" Couple this puppy with an FM transmitter, and a box loaded with MD's, and you're totally portable. Yeah, the software is cumbersome, the headphones suck, but my CD-R software used to crap out in the middle of a burn, and I had to start all over.MD records song-at-a-time not disc-at-once, so if the software craps on the tenth song, you still have nine good ones. From JayBird, November 04, 2003
"This product rocks" i got this player a few days ago and was suprised to see how easy it was to use in no time i was downloading music. I really like the style of this player and the music quality is amazing. If you want to buy an MD player but were weary have no doubts its easy some what affordable and a lot of fun
From Matt, October 24, 2003
"Love everything except the door won't close" I got this for my birthday 6 months ago, and absolutely love it. The only problem I have with it is that a few days ago it broke. It wont close properly or stay closed. I didn't do anything to break it, so am pretty fed up. Apart from it breaking itself, this is a great product, and I love the joystick, it makes everything easier! From Serena, September 28, 2003
"simple, great sound, well worth the price" high capacity, excellent sound, relatively simple software to learn and understand...I'm not a fan of having to convert file formats, but the software does it so simply that it's only a minor annoyance after you've done it for the first time. I can play several hours of music with one disk and one AA battery...and I take the player jogging without any skipping at all. From brent, October 02, 2002
"Stick to mp3 players" I had an older model that was replaced freely with this one because of an extended warranty. But read the review, conversion to attrac...duplicate files...etc...makes netMD not cool. Cd mp3 players and flashmem mp3 players are better, cheaper, and more standardized (no extra conversion). Sony won't win any market share with this netMD stuff From mojojojo331, August 27, 2002
"OpenMG tries to take over my music library..." I also bought this player... after playing with it for a while, I have come to the same conclusion as the reviewer. To add my own observations, I feel like the OpenMG software is trying to restrict you with its own rules on how you can play your own music. From Zoom, August 27, 2002
We're currently upgrading our user review system; so we won't be accepting new reviews for now. MZ-S1 S2 Sports Net MD Walkman Specs
Interface(s)
Original USB
Released date
April 2002
Platforms
Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP
