Its physical attributes are quite stunning. After hearing reports on how it is "much larger and thicker" than the E50, I have to say that, in terms of realistic everyday usage, its size is still tiny compared to most portable music players in the market and its footprint is not much larger than the E50's. The EP-11 is (if you dislike numerical measurements) the exact width of a MD sleeve, the length of a 90-min cassette tape (without the box), which is about 1.33x the length of a MD. It is as high as one and a half CD-jewel cases. In some pictures I took of it (which I have availible should anyone email me), the EP-11 has about the same footprint as my computer's Logitech mouse. In other words, this player easily fits in any pocket and is definitely a joy to carry around.

Furthermore, I would say that this EP-11 is an improvement from the E50. It is definitely very solidly built; in fact, the player is very tough and inflexible in its feel. It is not heavy, and shows quality construction from Sony. The "head-loading" mechanism is completely a spring-mounted mechanical device -- it does not compromise the EP-11's thickness and bulk with electric motors found in other MD players. The front loading door does open if one pushes it open; however, this makes it quite easy as well to just push a minidisc directly at the player and have it load. Once the minidisc is pushed all the way into the machine, then there is a solid click and the door will close (when your finger is moved out). The door can not be opened once the MD is inserted, and the MD is ejected by a full-action slide of the eject lever on the side of the EP-11, which literally "ejects" the MD back out. It is pretty much identical to a PC (note the emphasis on PC and not the Mac's software-driven disk drives) 3.5" floppy drive in its headloading mechanism.

The sound quality is quite amazing; I would believe this machine incorporates ATRAC4.0 (why would Sony use anything less?), and with digital megabass turned on, I would say this EP-11's earphone output FAR exceeds my CD-player's DAC, and perhaps is more vibrant and dynamically more active than the MDS-JE510's headphone output. After recording several discs on my JE510 (analogue signal recordings close to the 0db mark), the EP-11's playback was very loud. I have heard from Nic Boyde in Japan that with his experience the EP-11 is louder than the E30/50, and I have to say that using the earphones supplied with the EP-11, I do NOT have to turn the EP-11 to the max even when walking around the rather loud environments of New York City. I do not believe I could get a better sounding portable of this size.