Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-10 of 10 | | « PREV | | |
 Compatability January 17, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
In about 20 phone calls to Sony I was only able to find one person who knew whether the Sony VAIO VGF-WA1/W is able to receive streaming from Rhapsody and he gave me the wrong answer: he incorrectly stated that it can stream Rhapsody. It's a fine item but don't try to get information from Sony.
 Solid first effort January 14, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
One week in, I'm satisfied with my Vaio digital music streamer. I was intrigued by the product when it first came out but scared away by the cost; recent price reductions made me snap it up as the perfect sound system for the bedroom and this summer's outdoor entertaining. Setup was simple enough; had it up and running within a half hour through my 2Wire router/Windows XP SP2 setup playing nothing but MP3s that I've ripped or downloaded myself. Sound is more than adequate; very nice to have the EQ, bass boost and other options. The radio through Live 365 and onboard storage capability are both more like toys than robust features, but I didn't buy this unit for these abilities. Biggest negative for me is the inability to scroll through folders more rapidly; would be nice to have a "skip 10/skip 100" feature or something along those lines so I wouldn't feel limited to playing music from playlists or artists that begin with an "A." But in all, this unit does what I want it to do -- play my music anywhere in my home or yard, without leaving me paranoid that my precious iPod will get misplaced or broken while we're entertaining. Hope to see Sony refine this product in a future iteration.
 Hard to set-up - still haven't got it working. December 28, 2007
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
We bought this item thinking it'd be easy to set-up but that was far from the truth. After installing the server software I have been unable to get the Sony box to connect to anything on my network. I have pulled my hair out looking at Windows Vista (our OSes on our PCs) networking, WLAN security (802.1x WEP) and more and have yet to find a solution. I tried Sony help for 45 minutes but they also failed to assist me so I have been redirected to another phone # that I have to call. Ugh!!!!
Worth a little effort October 6, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I was a little wary about purchasing since it is expensive and my wife tends to be techologically adverse. The interface set up was easier than I expected and the sound quality is excellent. My wife is moving the player from room to room without any serious difficulties. I did encounter some problems with file formats and DRM's associated with music downloaded by SonicStage that required a lenghty process to convert files to MP3 formats but once our musics files were in the correct format the system works great. For us it was worth the effort. Read and keep the instruction manual handy.
Streaming music where you want it. September 20, 2007
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
I have the WA1 and find it a pleasure to use this unit daily. The setup is fairly straight forward but expect to spend 30- 60 min's to set up depending on your existing system. The WA1 comes in a nicely configured black or white package that has a backlit touch panel on the top of the unit which goes into a sleep mode after one minute but wakes up when you approach the WA1. This is to save power when it is operated in the battery mode. In the battery mode you will get somewhere around 4-5 hours although I have never run it to that point. It does not have a battery gauge per se but it does have a flashing LED that begines to flash faster as the battery runs close to depletion. At that point you can always plug it in to recharge the battery or continue listening to music as the battery charges.
The two big features are the WA1's abilty to stream your playlists or folders from any computer in your house to the WA1 which has two speakers with remarkable sound quality. The second feature allows you to listen to Live365 web radio which is also streamed from a supplied wireless USB adapter or thru an existing 802.11 WiFi.
With the web radio you have the option of 100 comercial free stations from Live365 at no charge for a limited trial period. But for as little as $5.95 a month you can join the VIP membership and have access to thousands of radio stations from around the world. This also gives you the option of setting up your own favorites list on their website that you then can access from the WA1. The stations are shown on a display allowing you to scroll to your favorites,artist or by genres using the touch panel or the supplied IR remote control to surf thru them.
One of the best features is that the WA1 has RCA and optical outputs allowing you to feed a stereo system when stationary or take it to go anywhere within an average sized house and yard area. The WA1 has many adjustments and modes for the sounds and functionality to suit your own taste as well as a clock and an alarm clock feature if you want use it in the bedroom. All in all, I really like the WA1 and listen to the web radio nonstop as there is so much content to explore such as 50 - 60 stations per genre (with the VIP membership).
The cons: The only web radio the WA1 can access is Live365. The capabilty of the streaming music is dependent on your ISP and you could experience interuptions in your streaming web radio music if you are on a dial-up connection. There is no USB inputs to listen to music on flash drives but you can input MP3 and Ipod players. There is a 128Mb internal memory which allows you to capture songs that are streamed from your library/playlists but not from the web radio. Unfortunately there is no way to expand the internal memory size. Tech support is nearly non-existent as this product is too new to have a knowledge base for the tech support people to search thru. This unit is considered part of Sony's VAIO computer product line and therefore you end up speaking to a computer technical person.
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