My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#1

Post by Tomte » Sat, Jul 02, 2022, 4:57 AM UTC

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#2

Post by csdvrx » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 2:15 AM UTC

As the happy owner of a NW-Z507 (and matching Sony 1000XM4 earbuds and a more traditional WH-XB900N over-the-ear headset), the Sony Walkman lineup is worth every single dollar!

It's helped me rediscover some of my classics!

The 507 is Android, which was both a pro (more apps) and con (battery life) especially since the Sony default player is a bit special. I didn't need Android as I don't use streaming, but I wanted USB-C, and that excluded previous models like the A55.

The battery life is less of a problem than I thought it would be, as my earbuds are drained first.

However, I'm still not a fan of the Sony music player. If you want to try Sony newest Android lineup, I recommend installing the foobar music player.

If you use wired headsets and the limited battery life is a problem for you, check the 1ZM2: https://musicphotolife.com/2022/05/sony-wm1zm2-review-digita...

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#3

Post by kixiQu » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 2:33 AM UTC

A. User CSS changing the font was maybe not a good idea here -- definitely misread that product number...

B. I resent that this is so expensive. I'm not saying you shouldn't pay it, but it feels too expensive by half.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#4

Post by mkoryak » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 2:33 AM UTC

One thing no "new" mp3 player has done correctly is audio books. None of them do bookmarking as well as rockbox. Also, new mp3 players usually have terrible battery life. Because of these reasons, I bought myself about 7 sandisk sansa players on ebay and have gotten very good at fixing their shitty headphone jack problem.

With a rockboxed sansa I get about 60 hours of battery life and bookmarking on stop with a list of recent bookmarks per file.

Can this sony do any of that? Hardware music player have gone down hill.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#5

Post by moralestapia » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 2:38 AM UTC

I loved the iPod Nano and these players are fairly similar, might give one of them a try, thanks for sharing.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#6

Post by MarkG509 » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 2:46 AM UTC

csdvrx wrote: post #2

As the happy owner of a NW-Z507 (and matching Sony 1000XM4 earbuds and a more traditional WH-XB900N over-the-ear headset), the Sony Walkman lineup is worth every single dollar! It's helped me rediscover some of my classics! The 507 is Android, which was both a pro (more apps) and con (battery life) especially since the Sony default player is a bit special. I didn't need Android as I don't use streaming, but I wanted…

I'd love to A-B these to my trusty old FiiO X5 with Sennheiser HD-650's (at home) or IE8i's (when exercising). Hearing the sound-stage and subtle do-dads buried by lesser set-ups is a pet-peeve of mine.

A very important, perhaps dominant, factor in all of this is how the music was ripped/encoded. Except in my car, for which I did separate rips, I don't bother with MP3-320. For the X5, having 200 CDs ripped via WMA9 locks me in, until I can find a week or two to re-rip to a more modern lossless format.

I grew up on vinyl via my (crazy/rich) older brother's Class A/B stereo. I'm spoiled, and feel sorry for the people today that think MP3-120 is "good enough".

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#7

Post by pcmoney » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 2:47 AM UTC

Somebody help me understand this?

If the audio quality isn’t better why is it so much better than the “bad” subscription services?

I understand critiques of how little they pay artists but I mean from a customer perspective, why is spotify et al bad?

I assume you have to buy download organize and sync the music for this system?

Is it just nostalgia? Just a single purpose device that cant text you etc?

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#8

Post by erwincoumans » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 2:47 AM UTC

>> But the audio quality is a noticeable upgrade from my iPhone 8

Is this still true with latest iPhone? I would expect that iPhone hardware is not a limiting factor for audio quality (assuming a wired adaptor for HiFi headphones)

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#9

Post by bpye » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 2:50 AM UTC

mkoryak wrote: post #4

One thing no "new" mp3 player has done correctly is audio books. None of them do bookmarking as well as rockbox. Also, new mp3 players usually have terrible battery life. Because of these reasons, I bought myself about 7 sandisk sansa players on ebay and have gotten very good at fixing their shitty headphone jack problem. With a rockboxed sansa I get about 60 hours of battery life and bookmarking on stop with a list…

I'm surprised there hasn't been a successful open hardware project for a portable music player. Rockbox, a low power SoC, some decent DAC, a basic display - epaper would be kind of neat - and preferably a standard battery - something like the Nokia BL-5C.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#10

Post by capitalsigma » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 2:51 AM UTC

erwincoumans wrote: post #8

>> But the audio quality is a noticeable upgrade from my iPhone 8 Is this still true with latest iPhone? I would expect that iPhone hardware is not a limiting factor for audio quality (assuming a wired adaptor for HiFi headphones)

Yeah, it's really hard to believe that... compute power is the limiting factor on audio? In 2022? On a $1k piece of hardware? Over Bluetooth, in both cases?