SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

... I was informed that it is only possible to contact Sony via phone, and via their call center in Egypt; and that no office (ie. stone building) for Sony (ie. Customer Relations Team) exists here in Europe.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

Dear Sirs/(agents name),

Thank you very much indeed for completely wasting my whole afternoon by breaking your appointment callback. I really appreciate that, having sat waiting almost 3 hours.

For your information, I purchased a brand new SD card - as you instructed - and also paid Amazon an extra £4.95 to have it couriered 48 hours express delivery, so that I would have it guaranteed this morning ready for your callback. So thanks again for also wasting my money also!

For your information, I shall be filing a formal- complaint about this lack of service, and also the fact that you have been completely unprofessional here!

Please do not contact me now as I shall be raising the situation, in writing, to your Management Team.

To say that I have now spent over £250 on two Sony products within the past fortnight, I feel deeply insulted that you choose to disrespect your loyal customers in this manner. In short, I find it utterly disgraceful on your part.

Thank you.

(my name)

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

Hi GaryG,

Thanks a lot.

Well, there was definitely no data on the Kingston SD-card after it was formatted. In fact I performed 'thorough' format rather than 'fast'; it took 3 hours! I tried copying some FLACs onto it but when I tried to select either GENRE, ARTIST or ALBUM on the Sony Walkman, it kept saying: 'Folder not available"? So the ERROR message was after it was formatted and from within the Walkman itself.

Anyway, things have moved on a bit since then. Needless to say, I waited in purposely for two agents to call me between 2pm and 4pm today only to be let down! I was furious with them and now a case has been opened against the two agents. Where that will get me is anyone's guess, but my comments did seem to be taken very seriously here. I may paste one of my messages here later just for laughs.

The SanDisk arrived this morning from Amazon and so I formatted it inside the Sony Walkman. The rep I spoke to at 5pm today (their call centers are based in Egypt!) said I need to d/l the Sony Music App. with which you are supposed to use to transfer music files from you PC to the Walkman. I opened it but it just looks like it's full of bloatware crap so I have uninstalled it. People on forums confirm it is cumbersome and pointless, and that they chose not to use it. Most agree that it is 'optional'. I have just copied all of my FLACs across using 'Beyond Compare' s/w. In this day and age of drag&drop, you should not have to use a propriety s/w just to transfer your music files over, in my opinion - some may disagree. Anyway, using 'Beyond Compare' it took 2 hours to copy circa 150GB of FLACs from my C-drive to the Walkman.

I ran a PerfTunes scan on the new SanDisk inside the Walkman and it came up with the expected amount of alerts (ie. equal to the amount on my back-up drives) which is: "31 albums have ripping errors." But one album appeared in a category of it's own: "1 track corrupted.":

https://drive.google.com/open?id=16h...VDX1w52S32YBCX

Cheers,

Paul

[GaryG45]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

Paul,
When you said the Kingston SD did not work in the Sony, did you get an error message when trying to format it? If not, did you insert the card in your PC and use File Explorer to determine if the original contents still existed or if something new had been added to the card? It seems odd that the format would have problems with an 8GB card from 2012, unless the adapter has a write protect switch/lock and it is on. I hope you have better luck with the new card you've ordered.

Gary

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

Hi Gary,

Thanks a lot.

Yes, that is the manual PDF which Sony linked me to in their most recent reply - and totally contradicts the fact that I was told you can insert any Windows formatted SD-card into the player, and the player will automatically read it; which is why I flipped out on the guy the second time I spoke to him.

I tried the reformatting procedure (as suggested by Schmidj) yesterday with an 8GB 'Kingston' SD-card. Whether or not these are any good is not something I have really considered as it only had some photos and Word documents from old; so nothing important as such. But anyway, the Kingston did not work in the Sony despite me following all of the steps. I bought it in 2012 so maybe it's classed as 'dated' in terms of it's functionally?

Cheers,

Paul

[GaryG45]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

Hi Paul,
Sorry to hear you are having all of these problems with the SD card. I went to the website that schmidj had a link to in post 20. At the top of that page is the word Support, which provides three options with Support being one of them. I clicked on Support, and it opened a page that said Welcome to Sony Support. I entered your model in the box for the model, and on the next page you will see Downloads, Manuals, Q&A, etc. I clicked on Manuals, and it brought me to a page displaying a link to an online Help Guide, two Operating Instructions PDFs, and a Startup Guide PDF. Looking at the smaller Operating Instructions PDF at the beginning in bold text is Formatting a microSd card. This section refers to the Help Guide for instructions on microSD cards. One of the first things the Help Guide mentions is that you must format the microSD card on the Walkman and provides instructions on how to perform the format. I would suggest that you download the PDFs and bookmark the Help Guide. Lately I've started to go to product support sites and obtain manuals before I purchase the product in order to see if it will do what I want.

I agree with everything garym has said about help desk people. I've found a few that have been helpful, but I don't expect it. It is sad that they cannot use their own support site and check the manuals to help answer your questions.

Once you get the SD card formatted I hope you don't have any further issues.

Gary

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

The card you linked should be fine, direct from San-disk. You might want to first buy or use (if you have a spare one) a smaller, presumably inexpensive card and format it in the device and make sure that you can load music into it. You don't want to spend money on an expensive card and then find out the player is defective in some way...

Sandisk announced a 1 TB full sized SD card a while ago, but they never appeared for sale.

Hi schmidj,

I have just spoken to Amazon. I will buy a SanDisk and, because I purchased the Walkman from Amazon and am a Prime member, I can return it for an exchange or refund if deemed incompatible.

Yes, I heard about the SanDisk 1TB rumor myself last year!

Paul

[schmidj]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

Hi again,

The card you linked should be fine, direct from San-disk. You might want to first buy or use (if you have a spare one) a smaller, presumably inexpensive card and format it in the device and make sure that you can load music into it. You don't want to spend money on an expensive card and then find out the player is defective in some way...

There are no actual working 2TB micro SD cards or even 1TB, they are all fakes, as described before. There are a couple of companies claiming to make a 512 GB card One is British, a company called Integrel. PNYhas also announced one but it is apparently made of unobtanium! San Disk has several versions of a 400 GB card, and a 256 GB card (There are other makes of legitimate 256 GB cards, including PNY and Samsung).

Sandisk announced a 1 TB full sized SD card a while ago, but they never appeared for sale.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

And you know from experience that when these so-called higher ups promise to get back to you with details, they never call back or contact you. As soon as you hang up the phone, you're dead to them. Sadly, I wouldn't believe anything I learned from a call-center person.

Exactly, a qualified and conscientious Manager would honour a customer call-back!

[garym]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

Do such companies actually have members of staff operating on a 'managerial' level anymore? I only ever seem to hear the title 'supervisor' these days.

No. And "supervisor" is mostly non-existent too (when they transfer you to the "supervisor" it is often just another worker than doesn't know anything different. They have learned that the customer doesn't know the difference, but at least feels like their issue has been elevated). And you know from experience that when these so-called higher ups promise to get back to you with details, they never call back or contact you. As soon as you hang up the phone, you're dead to them. Sadly, I wouldn't believe anything I learned from a call-center person.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

Again, this would be the SD-card I would preferably purchase. It's very promising in it's price, size, and brand:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...KL5A1OLE&psc=1

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

I wasn't suggesting you buy a Sony card at this point, or even limit to 128gb. I like schmidt's idea about formatting a card (even larger than 128gb) for the sony then copying files over.

That's probably the best way to go I think. I, personally, cannot really see how a Sony SD is any better than a SanDisk in terms of functionality and specs? The only real significant difference is the fact that the Sony is £25 more expensive and 70GB smaller! Also, I have never heard anyone complain of SanDisk before.

And is there REALLY going to be a compatibility issue between to different brands of device? If there is, then surely it's on Sony's part.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

The so-called "managers" at call centers are typically just a different low-level no-nothing person.

Do such companies actually have members of staff operating on a 'managerial' level anymore? I only ever seem to hear the title 'supervisor' these days.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

From Sony's support page:

https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/s...icles/00171492

he maximum capacity for micro SD cards for use with the NW-A3x/A4x series Walkman players is 2TB.

All Sony micro-SD cards currently available on the market are confirmed to be compatible.

NOTE: Sony cannot guarantee full compatibility with cards from other brands.

They won't guarantee compatibility woth all SD cards, because they couldn't possibly test every make and size, and there are so many fakes out there, but you notice it certainly didn't say the device only works with Sony cards.

Reading further in the online instructions, it appears that the file structure for the device is quite specific, and you in all likelihood have to format the card and then load files using their app and dragging and dropping. Not uncommon on various products of different manufacturers. You could probably take a (smaller) SD card, format it, and load some music onto it using the Sony software on your PC, with the card in the player. Then you could quite possibly insert the card (with an adapter if necessary) in your computer and using the properties function determine what file system is used (FAT32, etc) and using Windows Explorer, see how the file and directory structure is organized, which might (MIGHT) allow you to copy files to the card in your PC without using Sony's software.

It is pretty evident that any size SD card will work.

Thanks a lot,

That was what the agent was telling me for 10 mins: "Buy a SONY 2TB SD-card" (yet it soon came to light that they do not even exist!). But there are other 2TB brands (although there is no way on earth I need this huge size). Despite me telling him may times that my FLACs amount to circa 150GB, he kept recommending a 2TB size - I think most people, like myself, would also have been annoyed with him. Such a ridiculous hard-sales-pitch.

Cheers for confirming that ALL Sony SDs are Walkman compatible. I had looked online but it can be easy to miss things. Sony would do much better including a user-manual (stuff the environment or whatever their excuse) with their devices (instead of cut&paste email responses directing customers to join their Forum/Community [which is pretty crap in terms of the responses I have read to date]).

Yes, you are correct about the procedures regarding formatting the SD with the Walkman. I remember this from last year (when I bought their Sony A-35 model). However, I was assured (now I know I should never trust an agent!) that you can simply plug-in-and-play with their newer A-35 Walkman (which is clearly not the case). In this respect, I think garym is correct in that you are, annoyingly, basically dealing with a dork at the other end of the line!

Paul

[garym]

Re: SD-card vs. SD-card (help?)

Not tried a Sony card yet. I wanted to seek advice here first on that matter. I have only tried 200GB and 32GB SD-cards in the Sony to date. I only own two SDs!

I don't actually have any objection to buying a Sony product (I mean, my headphones and Walkman are Sony). I just hate it when a company tries to fleece you out of more money by giving you preposterous 'progressive-sale' talk!

Again, I could buy the Sony from Amazon and return it for a full refund within a certain period of time.

I wasn't suggesting you buy a Sony card at this point, or even limit to 128gb. I like schmidt's idea about formatting a card (even larger than 128gb) for the sony then copying files over.