Sony offers an earful of music

From...

By Martyn Williams

(IDG) -- Sony's latest digital music player promises to give users an earful of their favorite songs. The NW-E8P, which will be available in Japan starting April 21, looks something like a hearing aid on steroids -- but with a lot more style.

Designed to clip around the ear, the latest addition to Sony's Network Walkman line of players is based on its ATRAC3 (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding) compression system.

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Sony expects the headphones to retail for about $320.

With the built-in 64MB of memory, users will find enough space for 80 minutes of music in standard mode at 105 kilobits per second, 60 minutes in high-quality 132 kbps, or 120 minutes in 66-kbps low-quality mode, according to Sony.

Support for the MagicGate copy protection system is built into both the player and companion desktop software. It won't support MP3 or any other digital music format, which means audio has to be transferred to ATRAC3 before it can be loaded and played.

The headphones each weigh approximately 1.5 ounces -- light enough that they won't fall off your ears -- and connect to a personal computer via Universal Serial Bus cable. Four alkaline batteries provide enough power for seven hours of use.

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Sony

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