I don't believe we're getting a lot of experience with the Sony codec. At least I don't see any discussion on it here in these pages. So thanks for bringing it up, apparently there's a big difference depending on the settings. According to reviews, at 990kbps it's pretty close to redbook playback, which should be good enough for most portable uses. I don't know the practicality of using the different quality settings, if there's downsides to using the higher settings, dropouts, studdering, etc. Perhaps with your post someone will weigh in.