I wish they would come up with (and adopt!) an extended USB connector. One side has the normal USB connections, and the other has, say, 24 pins. The USB side only is USB for power and/or data transfer as allowed by drivers and the other is used as the equipment manufacturer wants.
You plug in an iPod and the computer uses it as an iPod. Plug in a Sansa and the same machine using the same cable sees a Sansa. Zune...Zune. You get the idea.
Never going to happen simple from licensing profits. Bleh.

$7 at ebay. They kill their own revenues.

There are things ebay is good for and there are things ebay isn't good for. This is one of the things ebay is good for.

so I have an A728...anyone in Norway want my cable for 95$? :D

You gotta be kidding me!
For $105 you can get a very decent fair capacity player! (like an 8GB Sansa Fuze).

Go to e-bay! Get a generic!

Next time don't buy Sony. They stand for proprietary and for DRM thanks to them taking over Columbia.

I hate proprietary cables as much as the next guy, but Sony isn't the only one guilty of this. Samsung, MS, Apple and Sandisk also uses proprietary port on their devices.

well if it's a small country, it can't be that hard to find. :D

"If you live in a small country, don't ever lose the USB cable."
It has nothing to do with the size of the country, rather than the population. Japan is a small country in size, but not in number of inhabitants. However I don't see how the price could be that high. If they sell the product they should sell common accessories as well. Especially a big company like Sony. Stupid Sony, don't they realize that they will loose customers that way.

Stupid me. I forgot that it's also very easy to lose your stuff in a mosh pit.

I bought a NW-S706F from Japan in 2007 (I was holidaying there and it was significantly cheaper than it was in Australia), and wanted an additional USB cable for work. The item wasn't listed on Sony Australia's website at the time, and when I asked support about purchasing it, they said that they weren't going to bring it out in Australia...

I would just like to point out that since this was from the OEM, you can't really blame sony for much of this other than for using a proprietary cable, which you can blame lots of companies for.

I agree that the price is steep and an unfortunate problem.

Sony should return to a normal standard usb cable as they used on their HD-5.

As well I would be careful from who you order the cable from on ebay. Since some of the cables are fakes and replicas and might have issues when working with the walkman, such as speed issues, failure to charge, etc. If a price is too good to be true, it probably isn't a good idea to get it.

Tell your friend he can egt it much cheaper on ebay, Andreas.

http://shop.ebay.com/items/_W0QQ_fromZR46?_nkw=sony+usb+cable+a828&_fromfsb=0&_trksid=m270.l1313

That is the kind of cable I was talking about, 6-8 bucks a bit more with shipping, not sure why it says Quantity in the description, maybe they waned to write quality. It seems to be the same user selling a large batch, so be careful buying that specific cable. I have bought such cables off ebay myself and most were not originals and didn't perform like the original cable.

email sony and ask the product number for the cable, then email the ebay seller and do they same, if they give you no number or a fake one, it probably means it is not oem, or at least of any decent quality.

as they say buy at your own risk.

@TactcialPenguin: The cable is available off Sonystyle in other countries, the fact that only the players are available off the norwegian sonystyle IS sony's fault.

@gregzx: eyah i know, i already gave him an ebay link well before i posted this. point is that the official way of getting a replacement cable in this country is by paying $105, not everyone wants to or have the means to get stuff off ebay

Ascariss, those bad performance USB cable are a real pest.

My advice: only and really only buy those with oxygen-free copper wires. You will definitely hear a difference after retransfering all your mp3 files through those cables.

If you want to spend some time and archive a better result it can help to copy the files multiple times. The cable needs to adapt to the data and the transfer of audio data. Doing this will help to get best results!

EVERTBODY ..CALM DOWN., here it is right here. Get you head outta your ass. http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665234500

If you read the article Andreas was talking about acquiring the cable in Norway. We know its available here, just very expensive to get it in Norway.

H: This is nonsense. The cables used cannot possibly affect the quality of your DIGITAL music. Digital music is ones and zeroes; do better quality cables assure rounder zeroes and pointier ones? Ridiculous.

I hate to belabor the point, but the comment about copying the file multiple times because "The cable needs to adapt to the data and the transfer of audio data" is perhaps the funniest piece of misinformation I have EVER come across.

For the clueless, these are FILES we are talking about. A long list of numbers in a certain order. There is NO WAY ON EARTH the quality of the cables can change those numbers! As long as there is an electrical connection AT ALL the quality will be equal to the most expensive latest Monster neodymium-doped antimatter surge-flux cold fusion cables.

I personally never mentioned they would not transfer files, but the non OEM cables (depends how they are made and with what materials and care) may not even function at all. I had a situation for my nokia phone, cable didn't always work with the phone, I later found out the cable was a cheap knockoff from ebay. here is a link to the canadian sony style site with the cable

http://www.sonystyle.ca/commerce/servlet/ProductDetailDisplay?storeId=10001&langId=-1&catalogId=10001&productId=1003960&navigationPath=n46881n32260n100219

btw I am sure there are european sites that carry the cable, probably in germany that will ship to parts of europe.

@sundog you need to send your sarcasm detector in for repair, or get a new one

Hehe, I fell for that cable sarcasm too. Very well written. I thought "h" was just a complete nutjob =D

Funny thing is, Norway's government probably get's 25% sales tax from that. Then they got another chunk of that profit Sony made from income taxes. Sony is probably left iwth $10 when all is said done.

Who is robbing who now?

Wow, sony will amaze me at that. Granted, I am a huge 360 fan, but that is just ridiculous. Hopefully ms will not make the same mistake.

Dont forget!

Stores that sell cables are having a field day when it comes to pricing "cables and other accessories". I know, as i work in norways biggest brand, and get to check prices, what employees have to pay and normal customers.

Example: Wanted to get an extension cord 3,5mm jack male>female. This was priced at 60,- NOK, about 11 dollars. When i got to the checkout, we deducted the store's earnings on it, and i ended up paying a total of 12,- NOK. About 1.5 US dollars.