Sony Connect (SonicStage) 3.0

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• Price: Free
• Operating system: Windows Me/2000/XP
• Date added: March 21, 2005
• Total Downloads: 753,276
• Downloads last week: 4,204
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• Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 138 votes
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User reviews of Sony Connect (SonicStage) 3.0

• Average user rating: 2.1 stars out of 138 votes
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• Showing 5 of 6 user reviewsSee all 6 user reviews

• 2 stars

  3 out of 3 people found this review helpful

  Version: Sony Connect (SonicStage) 3.0

  "A necessary evil"

  by richmatthews on June 10, 2005

  Pros: I have one of the new Hi-MD units from Sony which is a fantastic piece of kit and for myself, way better than any portable MP3 player you could get (wipes the floor with the Ipod). I have to use SonicStage to transfer music to the MD walkman. Sonicstage has a nice clean interface, library management, CD and MD burning capabilities and is nicely integrated with Sony's Connect music store.

  Cons: Unfortunately the software is so badly written that it's not much of a pleasure to use. It's the slowest and most cumbersome piece of software I have ever had the displeasure of. I don't know what language it was programmed in but it could certainly do with some optimisation because there is no reason that a modern piece of software being run on a high spec PC should run at such a snails pace. Each time you perform an operation in either the library or with your CD or MD, the screen can take a couple of seconds to refresh. Its incredibly frustrating.

  I have transferred all of my CD collection to my hard drive (around 6000 songs) and each time I add new music I have to tell Sonicstage to import the new files into it's library. Even if you only have a small number of new files, this process is painfully slow, I generally go off and have a coffee while this is being performed.

  I also have to disagree with the last review that stated there is no loss of quality at the 48kbps transfer to MD mode. There is a huge loss of quality. I never use this mode unless it is for audiobooks, it's just not suitable for music. With the new 1GB Hi-MD discs I can transfer about 12 albums at the highest quality, it sounds fantastic and I see no reason to have 45 hours of poor quality audio. If you want more music, just get more discs.

  Unfortunately, if you own a Hi-MD machine and to a lesser extent a Net-MD machine, you're pretty much restricted to using SonicStage exclusively. If there had been a choice, SonicStage would have been removed from my machine long ago and I would have gone for an alternative, so I cannot possibly recommend it to anyone.

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• 4 stars

  2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

  Version: Sony Connect (SonicStage) 3.0

  "Great Update for sonicstage users who miss windows media player"

  by fantaboy00 on June 7, 2005

  Pros: ive been using sonic stage 2.3 for a few months now and it took some gettin used to, with version 3.0, in my opinion its closer to windows media player than before which is what i used to sync my mp3 player, you can search for songs in your library, on the interent, and just click the transfer arrow, it arranges nicely on the player whic ever way you have saved the music file ie. artist name, genre, etc

  Cons: its a bit slow sometimes making me feel like its crashed but so far it always seems to catch up after a few minutes, not recomended as your default player because of the previous reason, it takes a while to boot up too

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• 5 stars

  2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

  Version: Sony Connect (SonicStage) 3.0

  "Good Resource to Store and Play Music Especially for Connect Downloads"

  by rbader on April 20, 2005

  Pros: Nice user interface. Loaded with features such as the ability to transfer my music library to any number of devices. Allows me to organize my music: upload my CD's, create play lists and replay them from on my computer (or MP3 player.)

  Cons: Would like to see more formats supported (such as MP3 and .wms)

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• 1 stars

  2 out of 3 people found this review helpful

  Version: Sony Connect (SonicStage) 3.0

  "DONT DO IT!!!!!"

  by RedDragon100 on March 30, 2005

  Pros: has quite a nice user interface and simple and easy to use buttons and pointers

  Cons: usually i love sony programs - (dvd to mobile in particular) but this has a VERY poor installer which locked serveral times and then crashed my pc twice!!! Dosent like win xp pro - lots of securtiy issues under service pack 2!!!! long download times for program even on a 4 mb ADSL connection. Be warned if you like windows media player - will strip your library and the only way to get the songs back in is to open every one individually - Overall - a poor product that shouldnt be touched with a barge pole. just realised its corrpted most of my media - what a crap program!!!!

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• 4 stars

  0 out of 1 people found this review helpful

  Version: Sony Connect (SonicStage) 3.0

  "Good Product - worth a spin"

  by Mnemers on May 4, 2005

  Pros: first time i've used a combo cd burner downloader. ez to use, gets the jb done. Burns disks, download music - supports MP3's. like the interface. looks for music organizes it - don't know what the fuss is about - it worx. think I'll buy a walkman now...

  Cons: took a while download. had a couple snags on install, but worked it out.

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