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My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

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Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#121

Post by em500 »

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)

I really doubt that the Walkman's audio quality is "better" than the iPhone 8's in any objective sense.

> I’m not an audiophile, and I’m sure said people would blanch if they read about the files I play. But the audio quality is a noticeable upgrade from my iPhone 8. It sounds so much clearer, especially in the midrange. Its EQ settings also add extra sparkle and pop, for want of better words! It’s the biggest uplift in sound I’ve experienced since I bought AKG monitors for home.

According to gsmarena measurements, the output of the iPhone 8 is extremely accurate across the entire spectrum[1]. Sampling a few gsmarena reviews, this is also true for a typical modern Samsung or Xiaomi phone, or even an ancient iPhone 4s.

I believe accurate audio quality is indeed a solved problem, and what the author's describe as an upgrade in quality is just more pleasantly tuned (though distorted) EQ settings (c.f. the "warm" sound of vinyl vs accurate redbook CD-audio).

[1] https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_8-review-1664p7.php#

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#122

Post by amelius »

SECProto wrote: post #44
NikolaNovak wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I don't disagree with your main point, but I hundred percent disagree with the notion audiophiles are the ones missing the 3.5mm jack. I miss it awfully and it's due to sheer convenience. Every one of my headphones used to work seemlessly with every one of my devices. I had cheap headphones (and later headsets) in each car, at the office, in the backpack, at home, and nice headphones at home, and they each an…

Yup. I am definitely wouldnt call myself an audiophile, but I like my over ear headphones. I switch them easily between my desktop, my laptop, and my cell phone. They never die. Then I take my phone to my ten year old car and plug an aux cable in (it has Bluetooth but it is garbage - slow to connect, bad quality for music (regular skipping etc). Then when I travel to family's houses and want to play something over th…

There are still times when you want Bluetooth. For example when you want to pair with someone else's Bluetooth speaker at a party.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#123

Post by nicoburns »

csdvrx wrote: post #60
aquova wrote: post #20

I too assumed that dedicated MP3 players were relegated to very low-budget devices, and I didn't realize that Sony was still producing the Walkman line. I decided to take a look at their line up to what was happening in the space - https://electronics.sony.com/audio/walkman-digital-recorders... Boy... what a massive range of prices. There's a touchscreen-less device for $75, one resembling the one described by the au…

> I was vaguely interested in such a product but even $350 seemed too much, let alone the other ranges of products with, for the general audience, not much in the way of obvious differing benefits. I was also skeptical, but after hearing the difference, I'm not coming back. I'm rediscovering my favorite tracks! I'm hearing instruments in the background that I couldn't hear before!! > even $3600 (!!!) which is apparen…

> 40h battery life

You’ll be happy to hear that you also get that on the cheap low-end devices!

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#124

Post by binbag »

I enjoy high quality audio, but I use my phone. If you get a Quboz or Tidal 24/96 subscription then as long as you take care of the DAC and speakers/headphones you've got a great chain. Rather then buying a Sony digital audio player, you could spend that money on a good set of Sony headphones - assuming you already own the requisite phone. And in the house, you can build a very high performance audio setup for about £200 via hifiberry, avoiding the bonkers price of hires hi-fis.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#125

Post by cush »

jstummbillig wrote: post #114

I am mostly confused by what the author thinks the selling point is. > I can’t describe what a breath of fresh air this is compared to how bad modern smartphone music and streaming apps have become. Well, I was hoping they would try to describe it, because personally, I would have to wear my most deeply shaded nostalgia glasses to think that MP3 player UX has ever been comparable to what Spotify offers nowadays. And…

In terms of UX, it's really hard to beat high fidelity audio and hardware buttons. Spotify is just an app. The real experience is the playback.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#126

Post by gyulai »

waiseristy wrote: post #101
gyulai wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 mad…

You know what was an oligopoly? The original music services we used in the early aughts. The *vast majority* of music being bought and downloaded in the wild west days of PMP's was from iTunes. And I think you would be surprised to see that Amazon and iTunes account for a significant amount of music sales still to this day It's plain to see that the needs and preferences of minority users are being served too. This N…

We seem to be in perfect agreement then. It's a good thing that these devices are still getting made. Your initial comment made it sound like you took a different view, but maybe I misunderstood.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#127

Post by jwong_ »

marlor wrote: post #37
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 both a Walkman (for music) and an upgraded/rebuilt iPod (for audiobooks) and prefer them for a few reasons: - They don’t use any mobile data, and work when in a mobile-phone black spot (e.g. the national parks I go to most weekends). This is the main one. - I can store all my music on there, without needing to use any storage space on my phone. - They last forever with some basic maintenance. My iPod was made…

What Walkman and iPod do you use?

I’ve started using my old iPod video again, and enjoying it for music, but curious on your use case for it as deviated audiobooks. How did you rebuild it specifically for audiobooks? Just toss RockBox on it?

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#128

Post by zasdffaa »

porcoda wrote: post #120

I got one of the NW-A45 Walkmans a few years ago - it's pretty nice and similar to the A55. Good audio quality, but most of all, it lets me focus on music without temptation to do things I would do on a phone. My biggest gripes are the interface. - It takes forever to rebuild its database when I add new music to the SD card. No matter how much I searched, I couldn't figure out how to build this myself on the computer…

Yep; see my other post. Let me add one to this, perhaps it affects you?

I'm fussy about what I like, I buy a CD, rip, and listen. Usually I want to throw that track away after a few listens. You can't delete the track you are listening to (you can sort of, depending on how you found it via the UI, but usually you can't) so you must remember to delete it at home on your main computer. That's a major feature for me and it messes that up.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#129

Post by chanc3e »

thirdsun wrote: post #95
ozzythecat wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

While Spotify covers most popular stuff there's a huge amount of music that isn't available on any streaming service. Plus, your content might disappear any day. I use Spotify for previewing, exploring and making some buying decisions but my actual collection is mine . It's lossless, DRM-free and I plan to have it for ages to come.

This is it for me, I used Apple Music for a few years and eventually I noticed that some of my playlists would have tracks missing - sometimes a listing would be ghosted, sometimes it would straight up vanish. I called time, brought a A50 and haven't looked back: https://chanc.ee/posts/20200830-abandon-stream.html

Granted my music tastes are esoteric but silently modifying my playlists felt grievous. Now I make sure that subscription money goes on supporting artists directly.

Re: My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman

#130

Post by atoav »

jstummbillig wrote: post #114

I am mostly confused by what the author thinks the selling point is. > I can’t describe what a breath of fresh air this is compared to how bad modern smartphone music and streaming apps have become. Well, I was hoping they would try to describe it, because personally, I would have to wear my most deeply shaded nostalgia glasses to think that MP3 player UX has ever been comparable to what Spotify offers nowadays. And…

> but probably not applicable in general and likely worse than the market solution.

Worse, for which usecase?

I as a musician like to listen to full albums (as opposed to single songs) I like to manually read up on music and then listen to that specific music from that specific world region and era. Spotify can be neat to discover some starting points for that search, but it is arguably shit at the listening experience I am looking for. For people who don't care so much about what is playing in the background it is certainly doing a good job tho.

I need to listen a lot to mixes and recordings as well, and an MP3 player certainly has an easier UX for that, than the typical phone - plug it in and copy over. How would you do that on spotify? I use a nextcloud sync setup, which works — but setting that up to work flawlessly with your audio-player app (e.g. poweramp) can be a bit tricky at times.

So yeah, Spotify ftw. if you convinced yourself of that peculiar diet, to use your words.

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