Talk:SonicStage

Encyclopedia article or review?
This article reads like a (quite harsh) magazine review of the software, and it definitely is not NPOV.

I'll sit down with my Vaio notebook this weekend and explore SonicStage to get a better feel for the program and see if this can be cleaned up. LarryMac 19:11, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

What a biased article
this software is the worst program ever, it wasn't even created by sony, it was created by a company called sonic. the software is unbelievably terrible, from messing your mp3's to very high cpu usage.

Alternatives for Sonicstage
I shurly hope there will be more alternatives soon for this crappy software. Sony released a somewhat better tool: MP3 File Manager Version 2.0 for Network Walkman This software is 'installed' on the device itself and lets you update the carried music library from more than one computer, something that is forbidden with the Sonicstage software. ( unless re-initializing the device every time you use a new Sonicstage installation is an option for you ) The tool lacks a lot of features, but being a winamp user, I do not care.

I would like to ask the open source programmers to see if the device format can be de-coded and recoded in f.i. winamp modules.

Marcel Heijkoop

Does anyone know if the NW-E00x Walkmans work with MP3 File Manager? -A

Pathetic Sonicstage
Although this artical reads like a harsh review, it is actually very accurate. The inability of the software to encode in mp3 format means that many sensible users (anticipating future non-sony products) will want to encode using itunes or WMP, and then import their library into the Sonicstage software to transfer the music to their sony device. Otherwise they will have to encode in proprietary ATRAC format, which is not supported by the majority of products.

However, Sonicstage has a critical flaw which makes it unable to properly fulfill the role of a even a simple shell product which imports the list of mp3s on your computer and transfers desired songs to your device: when importing songs, the software assumes that songs with the *same* album title but different artists are indeed different albums. So if artist X collaborates with Y on a song, the songs will appear as different albums. And you must manually tell sonic stage, track by track (!!) that each song is in fact part of the same album. And of course, the order of songs is jumbled and must next be corrected.

A woefully inadequate and poorly executed product! If I had known, I would have voted with my pocketbook by refusing to buy a Sony network walkman. abc

Sonicstage alternatiuve article covering gym the winamp plugine.. MP3FM and the GPL Mp3FM "implementation" needs to bew written.. check atrac life for more details .. alterion

Wikipedia is not a reviews site
Whether it is 'accurate' or not is immaterial - Wikipedia articles are supposed to represent a Neutral Point of View and the article doesn't include any balanced information or the positive aspects of SonicStage's sound format (such as the good sound quality in comparison to an equivalent-bitrate MP3)

However, as with most other articles, a criticism section may be appropriate. Leaving out the very numerous and nearly unanimously agreed upon criticisms would be to limit the accuracy of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.181.42.112 (talk) 03:50, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Definetly a review
While the article does contain a very well thought out biased review of the software, an acceptable article would only explain the use of the software, and what it's limited functions are. It should not discuss what the software's abitlites aren't, or suggest changes to make it better.

the correct way to do it, imo, would be to have factual and neutral page with a 'criticisms' section at the end --Neon white 16:51, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

About security flaws on SonicStage
Sony has a nice line of portable music players. From its first tape walkmans to the latest flash memory mp3 players. However, in a world where computer useage is turning into something almost ubuquitous, they have decided to create a player that will only run in Windows, and, not only that, they decided to impose the use of _their_ software of choice, instead of the _users_ software of choice, Sonic Stage.

However, the point is not on the choice of software, instead, on the security flaws created by the SonicStage player. In the connected context that we are living into, security is turning into a big concern, that can be seen on the amount of efforts applied to it. Take for instance the new Windows version, Vista, that implements a new feature called UAP - User Account Protection, that, simply put, enforces the useage of a restricted access rights for daily useage and administrator access rights only for out of ordinary tasks.

So, what is the problem? Simply put, Sony's SonicStage won't allow you to run the software as a restricted user. Only with super-user privileges. Altough not a flaw as serious as Sony's latest approach to DRM, the installation of rootkits through music cd's, but a serious flaw none the less, that indulges most users to use their software as an administrator, what definitely is not a reasonable approach. Taken that the "Least Privilege Principle" is well know in computer security, where the user is to be given the required access rights to be able to do his tasks, no more, no less.


 * Version 4.3 runs under a limited user account with no problem. 109.153.242.10 (talk) 17:53, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

No such thing as neutrality
As much as Wikipedia is supposed to present to an objective view, what positive comments can you give about this software? It is utterly dire. Wikipedia is supposed to present the truth (uncertain as this may be) and in my opinion the article is pretty sound. It could have been a lot more negative.

Made some revisions.
I made some revisions and got rid of some of the biased/non-neutral writings. 06 January 2006.

Impossible task.
While some here complain of the lack of positive coments about SonicStage, they havent stoped to consider that the cause of such an absence, is the simple fact that there IS NO positive aspect of this terrible software. It is so terrible that the only way you could say something good of SonicStage is by telling untruths. I have been a keen user of the MiniDisc-format and tried to convert friends to it and they were detered by SS. The only reason anybody would use this software is the lack of any alternative, when you have minidiscs. An alternative to use when dealing with HardDisc based MP3 players is readily available: the hardware of just about ANY other vendor.

This is a very exasperating piece of software.

Removed NPOV (Jan 8th, 2006)
The NPOV has been attached to the article for 6 months, and the article is considerably different than the article to which the NPOV was attached.

Having a NPOV attached to the article is very distracting. New readers assume that the NPOV was attached to the current article, and have tried to "improve" the article by removing comments that may be construed as being biased against Sony.

Without the distraction of the NPOV, people may pay more attention to the actual quality of the article, and feel more free to add to its content, whatever form that may take.

PSP and omg
Loads of music, mangled by OMG and maybe, just maybe, play on PSP. No joy.

42 hours lost? Not relevant
The guy who keeps reposting his 42 hours of lost information site is very much biased and doing self-promotion for his own needs. He should create an article about his website instead.


 * Yes, I am very biased -- at least, I am as biased as a Sony employee who is promoting Sonicstage -- so why should I be any different? Is there one rule for Sony marketers and another for frustrated customers?


 * I have created a website about it -- it is very relevant to a Sonicstage wiki -- therefore, I'll keep on putting it back.

The web site maintainer is an idiot. He keeps making the assumption that I'm a Sony employee, which is incorrect. Running a simple nslookup would indicate that I post from a university computer. (For the record, I work exclusively for a university and not in a field relating to musical equipment or musical software.)


 * The reason I think you are a Sony employee is that you are 1) so persistent in your criticism when you shouldn't really care all that much, and 2) you are constantly insulting me. Nearly every time you post/e-mail on this subject, you refer to me as an idiot, or worse. So what is your problem? You are either 1) a Sony employee or connected to Sony somehow, 2) you have an ideological objection to consumer complaints, 3) you're just a busy body who enjoys sticking his nose into places it's not welcome. Which is it?

Admittedly, that doesn't prove a thing but it's not proof that I work for Sony either. He even ignored my criticisms of Sony when I posted to his site which would indicate that I have a more open mind than him. Wikipedia is not a Sonicstage Wiki.


 * I suggest you READ my site. Your criticism are covered on the home page and on the background page. I believe your criticisms are invalid, which is my right to do so.

Yes, but information about SonicStage being unreliable would be relevant (this is the SonicStage article after all) if it wasn't original research. Cynical 14:45, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I did read it. I'm sure everyone thinks you're a moron for deleting your master copies and not transferring the recordings to plain WAV files.


 * Again you have to call me a moron!!! What is it with you?


 * What master copies are you talking about? The ones on the disc itself? If so, sorry but older versions of SS would only transfer recordings from discs ONCE, so it is utterly irrelevant to complain that I deleted the disc copies.


 * Basically, I think you are being nasty and pointless. If you don't agree with my dispute, that is your problem, not mine. I find your attitude to be disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself for carrying on like this over something in which you are not involved, doesn't affect you whatsoever, and you cannot influence.

42 hours lost? Very relevant!
I find the 42hours.org very informative. I have had similar difficulties with SonicStage and so have others.


 * I am wondering where the 42 hours deleter is coming from. Perhaps he could be more explicit about his opinions. There is, for me, an interesting issue here as to what "knowledge" is. The person who created the 42 hours site "knows" something about SonicStage in a way that the person who keeps deleting the reference to that site does not. If the deleter keeps deleting the reference because of preconceived opinions as to what wikipedia should or should not contain, or what the 42 hours creator "should" know, then I have my doubts as to whether the deletion is justified. If the site creator "should" know something, but doesn't, then it seems to me that such knowledge is precisely what "should" be incorporated in wikipedia. What's the point of the article if not to provide _useful_ ( as opposed to theoretical and factual) information? I very much support the reference to the 42 hours site.

_________________________

The 42-hours website saved me from disaster; and just in time too. To me, it was by far the most relevant piece of information I found about sonicstage on the web. I totally agree with your questioning the motives of the person who deleted the reference.

Though the main article is not bad at all, I think the use of the MD as a live sound recording device is underexposed. Contrary to most people, who have a choice of comparable programs, the people who record with an MD are fully dependent on Sonic Stage. And many will, like, me, have wrestled with SS and the "wav-conversion-tool" which, for instance, would not install under SS v. 2 since it needed "version 1 or higher" etc.etc. hm

Comments on Version 4 Changes. Do they belong, or not?
I noticed that someone deleted some comments about Version 4. There may be some useable stuff in what was deleted:

- Sonic Stage CP is an improvement over the previous version, though in look and feel it is very similar to version 3. One major addition is the ability to import AAC music files (used by Apple for the Ipod) with extensions *.3gp, *.mp4, *.m4a as well as continued wav, mp3, and wma support. The program is a bit trick to use, with some non-obvious learning curve issues. The power to sort and edit groups of files doesn't become apparent until you set it to show all tracks. Then clicking on any headers will sort and allow you to modify the properties of groups of tracks (for example marking the tracks in a compilation album so the different artists don't show them as different albums) or deleting a group of files you've manually moved on your hard drive.

- The gracenote cddb music database worked oddly when importing wav files, but seemed to work well if your converting your cd library to one of Sony's ATRAC format. The ATRACPlus LossLess is well supported, and you can go through the awkward process of converting to wav and mp3 if necessary. -   - Unless you are using a Sony portable digital walkman, I don't see why you would use SonicStage. If you have one, then this version is actually useable if still limited compared to many other systems (such as Yahoo's new music engine). Unfortunately, converting files back and forth loses most of the album and track data, and it is an extra step that you have to go through wav to convert anything.

- The databases are using microsoft's jet database package, and can back up and restore to another computer if needed. That's handy, but once again, using some kind of file that other programs could read (such as id3 tags or Yahoo's xml based system) would be a real plus. If the program crashes, or otherwise fails to work properly (I had some problems with it accessing cd-rom and dvd drives on two computers) theres doesn't seem to be any way to report the error to Sony.


 * There is some useful information in there, but it needs to be written in a more appropriate style. It's full of opinion and original research.  --LarryMac 14:34, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Choice of Bitrate
The edit of July 9th changed this section, I believe incorrectly. The suggested text was:
 * As a simple rule of thumb: ATRAC3Plus at 128 kbit/s gives CD quality. ATRAC3Plus at 96 gives near CD quality. ATRAC3Plus at 64 kbit/s gives generally acceptable quality. ATRAC3Plus at 48 kbit/s gives better than FM quality. For more information see [ATRAC]].

Unfortunately Atrac doesn't give CD quality at 128 kbs - that's why Sony provides an ATRAC bit rate of 256kbs. Not even Sony are claiming CD quality at 128kbs. I also believe this text overrates the quality of the sound compared to FM - a lot.

Is there any evidence to support these changes? mtj 9th July 2006

That's no excuse to blank the section.B|Cube 21:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

NPOV?
Reading this article on 7/19/06, it seems as though, in the interest of maintaining a NPOV, the article has been stripped of nearly all evidence of criticism of the software. Perhaps the article is in need of a criticisms/controversy section, so that the various criticisms of the software are at least documented on this page. It would still be neutral to at least state that these criticisms exist. It is equally non-neutral to deny/ignore the software's infamy as it is to argue for it.

In regards to 42hours.org, perhaps this would be more relevant were it (42 hours) a website dedicated to documenting the list of criticisms of the software, rather than a blog of a single user's complaints. Maybe even the author of the website can agree that it would be more appropriate for an encyclopedia to list links to articles regarding the criticisms, (such as the engadget article listed in his links section) rather than to his personal blog.

ATRAC'S Quality ( was "Final comment")
I know that the crash was introduced by some VBR mp3s, which is potentially a problem of mp3 codec that also inference many other jukebox like iTunes. However, partly of this problem is solved in latest version SonicStage 4 CP.

Frankly speaking, the SonicStage interface received a lot of good commends in Aisa Pacific market and meanwhile those users think iTunes is a crappie thing.

For ATRAC's quality, I can say I conducted a serious test with a top quality Krell audio system (which cost more than 20 thousand US dollars) against same record encoded with WMA9, iTune6 and FGH's mp3. I am pretty sure that a carefully encoded 64kbps ATRAC3plus is superiour over 128kbps mp3 and 96kbps WMA9. The only rival against ATARC3plus is HE-AAC, which I can't notice too much different between HE-AAC and ATRAC3plus when both are encoding at or beyond 96kbps.

To sum up, SonicStage is a good jukebox for people who owned a lot of CDs, and willing to copy them to their HDD one by one. Not those who just download mp3 from the web.

I think this commend will end the long waiting arguement on ATRAC's quality, as I don't believe too many people can afford a 20 thousand US dollars for an audio system for just a lossy audio codec testing.

No longer needed
You can copy music to and from newer players without drivers or additional software (USB mass storage device class plug-and-play). SonicStage was the one reason I stayed away from Sony players before, but my new one plays nice with Ubuntu. --78.149.120.106 (talk) 23:21, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

So suddenly, old players become irrelevant? I for one still have nw-e003, and I think alternative software is important. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.101.100.60 (talk) 16:57, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, I still have an MZ-N710 which doesn't support Mass Storage, only SS. At least SS works under XP in a VM with USB passthrough. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.23.50.220 (talk) 02:53, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Criticism section
While I agree that this article shouldn't read like a bad magazine review, I think that there does at least need to be a 'Criticism' section in it, seeing as there is certainly plenty of it going around. Yes/no? Fairweather01 (talk) 03:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

about the flash memory in the walkman
i had formatted the device in the computer, now when i try to transfer songs from the software sonicstage it ask me to empty the harddisk of the device as well as initialise the harddisk now what should i do as the model no. is NW-E003F —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.70.78.12 (talk) 11:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

CP/4.3 no longer avialable
I've just added that SonicStage 4.3 is not avialable for download from the Sony site. It's the first ref I've added & don't know how to add any comments to it. The download page is still there. It has a Sony Asia address (http://www.sony-asia.com/support/download/60444). It's the only one I found when I looked for the download the other year, and is English. Even though Sony have localised sites (song.co.uk, sony-europe.com etc.) this appears to be The download page. Dannman (talk) 12:02, 16 September 2013 (UTC)


 * This is exactly why I intensely dislike software that is totally dependant on being downloaded from the internet. Should one ever need to rebuild a Windows system disc (a not unlikely requirement given its inherent instability), it becomes impossible to reinstall such software when this is necessary.  It is (in my view) always a bad idea when you cannot download the software itself, but only download an installer which is still totally dependant on finding the software itself on the internet and thus remains totally dependant on the supplier maintaining its availabilty.  86.145.151.250 (talk) 16:41, 6 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry to disappoint you (or anyone else seeking Sonicstage 4.3), but all the linked site allows you to actually download is a message basically telling you, "hard luck, Sonicstage ain't here any more". 86.149.79.140 (talk) 16:29, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on SonicStage. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080424045859/http://ipastudio.com:80/forums/showthread.php?t=1385 to http://ipastudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1385

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 02:06, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

SonicStage Digital Archive external link
Hello, I am Nicolas Bahamondes, I was doing some freelance research during this quarantine season. Criticisms aside, I created a compilation of major versions of SonicStage at Internet Archive. This archive will be kept updated as soon as I find more versions of this program. Even if this program has bad reputation on the internet, it is important to keep track of its files for the posterity.

The external link of the archive has been added at the External Links section of the wiki. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.160.142.89 (talk) 05:04, 1 April 2020 (UTC)