My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman • Hacker News Board

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#21

Post by stonith » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 3:20 AM UTC

pcmoney wrote: post #7

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?

I have a similar device and use it daily.

I don't have to worry about my music being removed because the licensing changed at the streaming provider. I tried various streaming services and all of them removed music from me at some point. This isn't something that's particularly negotiable for me.

I can trivially add songs that aren't on a streaming service using youtube-dl or similar.

I can change songs by pressing a physical button on the side of the player, meaning it doesn't have to leave my pocket and I don't have to look at it. This is particularly useful while exercising.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#22

Post by JohnJamesRambo » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 3:22 AM UTC

hug wrote: post #19

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)

> Is this still true with latest iPhone? The latest iPhone doesn't have a DAC in it for headphones. The little 3.5mm-to-lightning dongle is active -- it contains a tiny DAC/amp powered by the lightning port. Is the tiny lightning dongle a good DAC? The answer is largely "it's fine". Anyone who isn't on the cork-sniffing side of audiophile trends will find it acceptable, assuming the amp is capable of driving the load…

The dongle always impresses me as slaying so many specialized DACs.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r...

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#23

Post by erwincoumans » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 3:27 AM UTC

don-code wrote: post #14

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)

While I can't speak to either the iPhone or the Walkman, the quality of the digital-to-analog converter is significantly more important than raw horsepower or other capabilities. Where they're analog devices, there's much less to be said about the "it's just zeroes and ones" argument. Some older devices I've owned had good-quality DACs - a Palm Treo being the best. My current ThinkPad has a downright awful DAC, to th…

Interesting. There are indeed small external DAC's that can be plugged into the USB adapter, for example DragonFly Red or Cobalt DAC.

[EDIT: looks like the Apple 3.5 mm headphone dongle has a good DAC, see other comments by hug/JohnJamesRambo below]

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#24

Post by dangus » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 3:30 AM UTC

bpye wrote: post #9

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.

I don’t find it surprising. It’s a solved problem. Every phone has a music player built-in, you can even choose which one to use from hundreds of options. Offline, streaming, self-hosted cloud, the options are nearly infinite.

Even if you don’t love the lack of headphone jack in the typical phone [1], the solution is an adapter that costs less than $10. What open hardware project can compete with that?

[1] Non-audiophiles are perfectly happy with AAC/AptX codecs over Bluetooth, the bottleneck is still the quality of your headphones, IMO, and the convenience of never tangling a cable greatly outweighs missing out on the audiophile ghost whispering that they supposedly hear

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#25

Post by Arn_Thor » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 3:33 AM UTC

13of40 wrote: post #12

Probably over a decade ago my wife bought me a Sony Walkman MP3 player for Christmas, and even though I ended up going with something that was Audible.com friendly, I was so impressed with the earbuds' quality I've sourced them a couple of times so I have a lifetime supply at this point. (If interested, I think the model number was MDR-EX082)

Those Sony earbuds are absolutely fantastic. Excellent audio quality for the price, solid build quality and cables that seem to last longer than most.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#26

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 3:35 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)

[deleted]

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#27

Post by dangus » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 3:41 AM UTC

stonith wrote: post #21

pcmoney wrote: post #7

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?

I have a similar device and use it daily. I don't have to worry about my music being removed because the licensing changed at the streaming provider. I tried various streaming services and all of them removed music from me at some point. This isn't something that's particularly negotiable for me. I can trivially add songs that aren't on a streaming service using youtube-dl or similar. I can change songs by pressing a…

You can do all of this with a smartphone, though. There are plenty of offline music apps for smartphones. There are plenty of phones (and headphones) with physical buttons to control music.

My main criticism is that this is all redundant hardware with basically no unique capabilities.

Even if the DAC is extra special, that’s something you can get on a phone via USB.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#28

Post by dangus » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 3:42 AM UTC

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #16

pcmoney wrote: post #7

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?

> why is spotify et al bad Because Spotify et al doesn't give you a big directory full of MP3s. On top of that, the physical interface and features of a small dedicated player is a better user experience.

What’s better about a small dedicated player compared to using an offline media jukebox app?

Smartphones can play offline media. They can play media hosted on a private server. Nobody’s forcing any smartphone user to use Spotify in particular. There’s always alternatives like VLC and countless others that offer that same functionality.

To me, a dedicated player is redundant hardware with less processing power and refinement than a typical smartphone.

Even Apple, king of the locked down proprietary experience, has a Music app with the option to completely disable and hide their streaming service from even being visible. You can sync music via a USB cable or WiFi from local files just like it was an original iPod.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#29

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 3:43 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 miss these little buggers but they were a little too fragile (battery, or lcd, or audio jack). Time to make an esp32 clone I guess.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#30

Post by gbraad » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 3:53 AM UTC

Got a Fiio. Never trust Sony anymore after the forced Atrac-nonsense in almost every device: it would only play MP3 after being converted to an Atrac-file. After they blocked my Sony PSN account it is Never again Sony.