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My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

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Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#81

Post by blep-arsh »

cm2187 wrote: post #74

It's crazy that we have come there, but reading this I am actually entertaining buying one. It is shocking how bad the experience of listening to my own music has become on iphones. Dongles (different for ipads and iphone of course), itunes for windows is barely usable, there is a bug they never fixed where the music player on iOS randomly mismatch the album artwork, and there are so many conflicting gestures that I…

Sony specifically might not be the best option for a modern audio player. I've tried using A55 but exchanged it for a Shanling M0 eventually.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#82

Post by cm2187 »

ozzythecat wrote: post #79
cm2187 wrote: post #74

It's crazy that we have come there, but reading this I am actually entertaining buying one. It is shocking how bad the experience of listening to my own music has become on iphones. Dongles (different for ipads and iphone of course), itunes for windows is barely usable, there is a bug they never fixed where the music player on iOS randomly mismatch the album artwork, and there are so many conflicting gestures that I…

I religiously use Spotify for music on my iPhone. Are you against the subscription payment model, or are you considering this device because it’s better than Spotify on an iPhone? If it is better, how so? Genuinely curious if there are better music options than my current “setup”.

Subscription model doesn't work for the stuff I listen to. I want specific interpretations of specific operas, I want playlists by composer (no two album uses the same spelling for a classical music composer). I want playlists that skip the recitatives, etc.

And I already own the music, legally purchased on itunes and amazon. Why would I rent it?

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#83

Post by cm2187 »

blep-arsh wrote: post #81
cm2187 wrote: post #74

It's crazy that we have come there, but reading this I am actually entertaining buying one. It is shocking how bad the experience of listening to my own music has become on iphones. Dongles (different for ipads and iphone of course), itunes for windows is barely usable, there is a bug they never fixed where the music player on iOS randomly mismatch the album artwork, and there are so many conflicting gestures that I…

Sony specifically might not be the best option for a modern audio player. I've tried using A55 but exchanged it for a Shanling M0 eventually.

Why is that? The thing that terrifies me with less known brands is the quality of the DAC. I had so many shitty mp3 players before settling on ipods in 2003. Even today most laptops motherboard DAC are useless.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#84

Post by rob74 »

> ...you can pocket the player and use its physical side controls for play/pause, stop, back, forward, and hold...

Many Bluetooth headphones have physical controls for that. E.g. my Marshall headphones have a nifty little "joystick": up/down for volume, left/right for skip, press for pause/accept call, long press to turn on/off. Elegant, minimalistic, easy to remember.

> It’s also nice having a dedicated player that isn’t inundated with notifications and other modern distractions. Separating out ebooks to a dedicated tablet worked the same wonders for my anxiety.

YMMV - I for one would be ridden by the anxiety of missing an important call on my phone while listening to a dedicated music player...

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#87

Post by gyulai »

waiseristy wrote: post #78

Hottest of takes : A shitty music app on my phone like Spotify is 1000x more convenient than a dedicated music device will ever be. As a society we already processed and answered this question in the late 00's. PMP's (heh, remember that term?) suck. All-in-one devices are better Hot-take over.

> As a society we already processed and answered

It's difficult to disentangle this from the switch to streaming and regarding the latter it is very much unclear whether this was a consumer preference or just something that one-sidedly benefitted an oligopolistic music industry and consumers just had to live with it. Even if a preference for streaming apps reflects an uncoerced choice that a majority of consumers made back then or would make today, it's still a hallmark of a well-functioning market and a free society if the needs/preferences of the minority don't go entirely unserved by the market.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#88

Post by thirdsun »

cm2187 wrote: post #74

It's crazy that we have come there, but reading this I am actually entertaining buying one. It is shocking how bad the experience of listening to my own music has become on iphones. Dongles (different for ipads and iphone of course), itunes for windows is barely usable, there is a bug they never fixed where the music player on iOS randomly mismatch the album artwork, and there are so many conflicting gestures that I…

You might already be aware but there is a range of alternative music players on iOS that focus on listening to a local music library. Doesn't help with dongles - but may fix your software issues.

Here's a very in-depth showcase of your options: https://barrowclift.me/post/fourth-annual-ios-music-player-s...

For me the killer feature of the desktop music.app is still the option to transcode to a lower bitrate during sync. My lossless music library spans close to 2 TB (and growing) these days. SD cards are very expensive at that kidn of storage - so in contrast to the article sd cards certainly don't provide limitless space.

Anyway. To meet mobile storage requirements I need to transcode it to 256 kbps AAC and I don't want to handle this manually or manage a second lossy library. music.app / iTunes easily does this on the fly during sync.

I'm sure other software / hardare players can do that too - but if it's the same process why would I carry an additional device around? The iPhone is just very convenient for that purpose. Otherwise I really like Sony's Walkman range.

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