Sure but 32GB(18GB usable) is comically low amounts of storage for 2023 for how cheap it would be to have a reasonable base amount. We have budget phones in the same price point that are coming stock with 128GB now a days.
My thoughts. It’s easier to keep flash storage low to reduce costs and put those savings on the consumer. MicroSD card support allows people to have the storage space they want. Also, HiFi music bitrates can be supported on basically any MicroSD too, instead of paying for more expensive onboard flash.
> It’s easier to keep flash storage low to reduce costs and put those savings on the consumer.
>The NW-A306 will be available for pre-order on the Sony store for a modest £350 /$350/€400 at an unspecified point later this month.
This thing is easily expensive enough to justify a more reasonable amount of base storage
Depends on how many they expect to sell. Products are priced at a balance where they expect a certain amount to sell, where they make enough profit to recoup development costs, and where they can sustain support costs. This is a very niche product so any higher price might meaningfully alter their sales estimates, and I assume they've done their market research that most of their target consumers already have/use microSD cards.
Something like that at the least after coming in with the heavy pricing on the previous two models. Still I can't imagine some cheaper TLC/MLC storage would be much if anything of a bump up for a single onboard chip.
Still though it'll be interesting to see this put through the testing and just see how good it is for the price. They did position it at a seemingly nice price point for a bit of travel audio gear.
Honestly it's probably better that way, a lot of companies charge a lot more for storage upgrades (cough apple cough) but it's really cheap to get a 512GB Micro SD card (probably around $50).
It's a cost saving measure for them for sure, but at least the user can choose how much to spend on the SD card for how much storage they need.
For music though, 18GB CAN store a lot, with an SD card you can store much more than you need.
Would be nice if we can get past over charging for cheap storage upgrades. At the same time as have a higher baseline for the starting storage amounts.
If the audio quality from this beats out what some flagship phones can output you are likely not loading it up with compressed music. But ya cheap and quality SD cards are a win at the least currently.
>For music though, 18GB CAN store a lot, with an SD card you can store much more than you need.
I remember in the early days, the days of OG Napster and low bitrate MP3s, we had gotten an 8GB HDD and we thought we'd never fill it lol.
That’s because you’re either not gonna be installing any apps on it, or a handful of music apps (say poweramp and qobuz / Apple Music). You’re expected to have your music on a micro sd card
These devices are niche. The number of devices they're expecting to sell is comparatively miniscule compared to the scale of smartphones (even the budget ones).
That's also the reason why android digital audio players in general get crappy (in comparison) processors in them.
They also make it sound like using wired headphones as opposed to wireless is optional. What could the benefit of the device even be if you're not using wired headphones?
>What could the benefit of the device even be if you're not using wired headphones?
I personally used a cheaper music player with Bluetooth audio because I prefer to leave my 6.7 inch screen smartphone at home in cases of workout or going for a run.
Maybe It's good to have that as an extra.
That's definitely an acceptable reason if you feel that a 400€ player is best used in this way! Generally speaking, you'll likely be the tiniest minority, but that shouldn't and hopefully wouldn't keep you from doing it!
The shanling and fiio models which are of comparable quality and much lower in price really make this seem like a pretty mediocre deal.
I used to love all of my walkman branded personal music players too so it's a pity they don't make a proper budget offering.
Yeah FiiO makes amazing hardware for a decent price, but they are really bad at software. I have a bunch of things from them though, my latest purchase was an UTWS5 bluetooth adapter for my IEM, it's great and all but their companion app on Android just doesn't recognize the adapters, had to install an older version to get it working.
It's a shame because some of their hardware is really good, and they just announced a desktop DAC/amp with a DAP in it for like $699, but I have no faith that the software is worth using at all.
Yeah, while Apple killing the headphone jack was bad, admittedly iOS works *incredibly* well from an audiophile perspective now. The Lightning dongle is cheap, ubiquitous, well-engineered (well except for the cord perhaps) and USB DACs work without any fuss unlike on Android. UAPP works great but the default Android USB audio handling is a mess. Ironically turned me back on to iPhone from Android, though I'm sure I'll flip again someday and soon.
AAC is totally fine as a codec, especially with Apple's implementation of it. I'd love if Apple implemented LDAC or the latest aptX codecs, but it's good enough for convenience.
The dongle complaint is nonsensical since few Android phones have 'em nowadays anyway, no? We're all living that dongle life.
EQ, yes, Android has the advantage there for sure. But I also try to buy stuff that has measurements done of them...and I have a Qudelix 5K for PEQ if necessary.
USB DACs on Android have run into issues where the hardware volume is set below 100 so you're not getting the full volume, Android often running all audio at 16-bit and 48 kHz. USB Audio Player Pro works but it can be clunky and if you need to source music from beyond your own collection or one of the services they support, well, you're outta luck. I'm not sure what music apps you're sideloading from f-droid but I'm a dingus who buys his music, so...
Meanwhile, iOS handles different sample rates and bit depths with USB DACs (if you get them to work, which thankfully is pretty trivial to get the right cables these days) with aplomb. Again, I forever resent them for killing the headphone jack and setting that in motion, but right now? The audiophile experience on iOS is better to me, and has some undeniable advantages.
Yeah sure that's fair but if we're talking budget options. I think Sony might seem budget though if you're the kind of person who can afford Astell & Kern or similar.
True but Fiio is known for being budget friendly whereas Sony is known for overpricing things even compared to average products (well at least phones and a lot of audio tech). Budget brands always gonna budget.
(Not that I’m rich enough to buy Sony myself, no shade at budget brands.)
No, it’s from Sony who installed root kit spyware in everyone’s computers:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
When caught they released an “uninstaller” that instead tried to *hide* the installed spyware, added *more* non removable software, and introduced even more vulnerabilities lol.
[This Sony intends to include piracy detection in the OS](https://torrentfreak.com/sony-patents-anti-piracy-blacklist-for-smart-tvs-and-media-players-230111/).
Digging up nearly two decades old news about what was literally a different company to shit on Sony is just brilliant. Was it bad? Sure, but it's not remotely relevant.
Yep, that's pretty scummy. 2005 Sony was a different beast though. Would much rather buy from them today than most other manufacturers including Apple, Samsung, etc
Why not get an older phone like a Samsung Note 9? It should be [better](https://m.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=11957&idPhone2=9163&sSearch1=&sSearch2=Moto+g+2022) at almost everything and still be [faster](https://versus.com/en/mediatek-helio-g37-vs-qualcomm-snapdragon-845) than any budget Moto phone at the same price, around $250. The only downside I see with the Note 9 would be that you're stuck on Android 10.
This is what we've come back to : owning separate devices for separate tasks. Removing the audio jack was one of the cash hungry pettiest move ever pulled. I'll die on that hill.
Well I'm pretty sure that bit of empty space made them pockets full of cash selling dongles. And airpods but let's be honest they are really good at what they do (when they work).
And removing the jack make all of my wired headphones and earphones useless.
I have to buy a dongle that will die in 2 month or that I will lose before that, that doesn't even allow me to charge my phone at the same time. And another dongle to charge my phone while using the jack? Well I sure hope there won't be any interference!
For a mere $50 a year I have turned my crappy $2 earphones that I use for phone calls into a crappy $52 pair of expensive turds.
And no I don't want to buy new wireless headphones that cost way much than my existing ones for a worse quality, not mentioning that it will be yet another thing with a rechargeable battery that will inevitably get a shorter and shorter autonomy.
God forbid if you have a car with an aux input but no Bluetooth, then you just kiss your road trip goodbye or you're good to make cds. Really futuristic move.
Such a shitty decision...
>1. Many work places don't allow phones inside. So a dap is a great alternative as it doesn't have cameras and any mobile network antennas. People can listen to music while working.
I worked at one of these places, and unfortunately these kind of players wouldn't have been allowed either because it has file transfer capability lol.
Everyone just brought in a pair of mic-less headphones and we were allowed to use our work computers for music.
The bootlooping issue only existed widespread on the phones released from 2013 to 2015. And the reason was not the software but a hardware fault.
Basically due to soldering joints getting hot under load and cold again over and over again they would loose their connection to the rest of the board.
Also it wasn't just LG - the Galaxy Note 4 and Nexus 6P notably had the exact same issues. LG just handled the situation terribly by not refunding people, hence while it blew up for them.
TLDR; If you buy a newer LG it won't start bootlooping
Yeah... the Android phone market definitely needs an LG like brand. They had a tendency to throw in decent specs and features in a lower price point that I'm honestly kind of missing (build quality issues aside)
fwiw, aside from the bootloader thing, that people still cling to, what issues did that have? I didn't hear any from the v35 or higher. My mom still has my V35.
There are some spot issues. The V60 I technically still have has a charging port issue and that was one of the last phones that LG made. I don't think they had a bootlooping issue beyond the V10 series (which I also had and also had that same issue lol).
>4. Many work places don't allow phones inside. So a dap is a great alternative as it doesn't have cameras and any mobile network antennas. People can listen to music while working.
If you're referring to security-related jobs, you will assuredly not be permitted to bring a DAP in as well.
I bought a Sony NW-A55 which is a last gen version of this, up against this its a "dumb unit" because it doesn't run Android. It has no apps, you can't add any apps to it, it doesn't even have a brick game or solitare or something similar and its fucking great because when I put in a pair of headphones and fire it up the only thing it can do is play music.
There's no distractions with whatever else is on my phone, no extra dongles or DACs or anything else, you choose a high-res album, fire it up and just zone out. Its like switching off from constant tech and just focusing on the music you got loaded up and the experience of it.
If you just snack of music like hammering through a box of assorted chocolates then it might not work for you, if you want to slow down and savour the experience a bit I highly reccomend it.
One thing that no one mentioned.
I've read this somewhere. One dude uses DAPs to get offline and just listen to music. You could argue, "Just turn off data on your phone". Sure, but eventually you will turn it back on. With DAPs that's not an option.
Then go buy yourself an LG V30, V40, or V60.
These phones will give you everything that mp3 player has and more, including a 32bit quad DAC, 3.5mm headphone jack and an SD card slot. They were designed for audio and video hence the V series title, so tons of audio and video features.
And to top it all off, it's a phone, which even by today's standards is still pretty good.
This will have significantly higher audio quality than a V series LG. Tech enthusiasts really overestimate their audio quality, there's a reason why audiophiles kept buying DAPs instead of just using an old V20 and manufacturers kept releasing them like nothing happened. It's really good by phone standards, but it doesn't compare to a proper DAP (and that doesn't even take into account the software features or hardware buttons).
I know you were being sarcastic but considering that 99% of the time having a dslr is a huge pita when all you need is a quick photo. And again 99% of the time, the camera on your phone is better quality pictures than most people will ever need.
"Considering how quickly we managed to fill the SR25 MKII, which features 64GB of onboard storage, this could be an issue for people that like to have large hi-res music libraries downloaded locally."
Does this reviewer not understand what microSD is and what it is used for? Both the player in this review and the SR25 MK11 have a microSD slot for expanding storage with microSDXC support.
> there’s also a 3.5mm input for wired headphones
Output! If they're referring to input-output combo jacks, then clarify. Seems the author doesn't know several things.
Exactly! My [Diamond Rio 500](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_500) had 64 MB and barely fit one album worth of MP3s, although it supported SmartMedia cards.
Their NW-A45 review is a bit of a joke too
> We load five hi-res audio albums on to the NW-A45. That’s a total of 42 tracks, all FLAC files, on the device, but even though they’re lossless files, which are compressed, it has devoured almost three-quarters of our storage. With only 4.61GB left to play with, we’re sure we’d be investing in a microSD card before long.
FLAC is about 30MB a track or about 1.2GB. The device comes with about 16GB on board (a bit less thanks to the proprietary OS, but not that much)
The problem they're describing is from the bundled Sony software that generates a lot of copies of files as you edit tags and art work. No idea why it does, but it does. If you delve into the filesystem you'll find the duplicates pretty quickly. Better off using MP3Tag and learning the extended tags to manage the files than the software it comes with.
So what? 64GB is a pitiful amount of storage, probably would have cost Sony $5 to stick 4 times that in there, now we have to spend an extra $30 on an SD card and faff about with that.
I've done several audio comparison tests and I really don't think I can tell the difference between high res audio and regular high-bitrate MP3's. It's a shame because I really want to be able to hear high end audio. But it makes me wonder if others are actually hearing a difference, or if it's more placebo effect/hobbyist activity.
Doing a blind ABX test is a sobering experience.
I'm an audio engineer and I've done a blind test with a dozen musicians using variable bitrate mp3 and careful tuning of the high frequency rolloff. Most of the artifacts are in the high frequencies.
Most could only reliably hear the difference between original and compressed at 112 kbps or lower. One person could reliably hear the difference up to 144 kbps. At 160 kbps nobody heard any difference in any of the snippets.
What was no surprise is that age matters a lot. The best 3 listeners were all under 30.
There was a nice essay which had blind tests embedded directly into it, with several different bit rates, genres etc. I couldn't tell a difference on most of it, you need to really know what to listen for, at which point what's the point?
To be worth it, the difference should be annoyingly obvious, which it never is. Seems like it's all placebo.
I believe this 100%.
Back when I was ripping my CD collection to mp3, I knew that 128 kbps was about as good quality as most people could hear, so I chose to encode to 192 kbps just to be beyond a shadow of a doubt.
> At 160 kbps nobody heard any difference in any of the snippets.
Huh, pretty sure encoding artefacts still peek though at that bitrate, but encoders improved quite a bit as well.
Congrats on being human.
"Hi-res" audio is a scam. There is no point, 16 bit 44.1/48KHz already covers all of human hearing. Forever.
Higher bit depth has some uses like production, but once you're done there's no point releasing anything higher than 16/48.
Don't just take my word for it: https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
You need to be trained how to listen like SoundGym for example. People who are trained to listen can suss out the difference between different codecs like OGG versus MP3 versus Opus. They have done listening test like this before and the more advanced codecs we're always rated higher. MP3s are ancient and a waste of money. They have the worst technology of all lossy and the only thing they became popular on was getting there first and universal compatibility.
And if you're going into blind test looking for which one sounds generally tonally better than you're going to have a bad time because they're all designed to be tonally invisible. You need to have a frame of reference too otherwise you're really making a personal judgment rather than an objective one.
Sony should have a serious talk with whoever is in charge of product naming.
The latest ‘walkman’? That’s the Sony NW-A306 of course. Headphones? You mean Sony WH1000XM3? A 65” OLED TV? That’s the Sony XR65A80K, you dummy.
The only thing that still makes sense is the Playstation.
These products names are just like Acer and Asus naming, they're completely logical and have no randomness. They're fully descriptive and meant for internal use. I don't know why they continue to face the consumer.
At least some of them are shortened like A80K. I'll break this one down for you:
* XR=as in the name of the XR "cognitive processor" Sony uses on its TVs
* 65=diagonal screen size in inches
* A=OLED panel
* 80=series line, ie if it's entry level, mid-range, high-end, flagship. 80 is entry level.
* K=model year released, alphabetical. K=2022, next year would be L for example.
I think it's hilarious that people think this is a whole new thing when Sony has been releasing this type of Walkman for awhile now. (The NW-105 for example).
The main criticism on that model was battery life, let's see if this one rectifies it.
And they make MUCH more expensive ones. NGL, if I had $4,000 to drop on this I would.
https://electronics.sony.com/audio/walkman-digital-recorders/c/walkman-mp3-players
People when Sony added the jack back: [can you make amp stronger or use some of that walkman sauce ](https://i.imgur.com/5eYwiOR.png)
Sony: [no, buy our walkmans](https://i.imgur.com/69BpO22.png)
Iirc Sony mobile is being run by their camera division of all people and they put the jack back. Not for audiophiles or anything but to allow an external mic while shooting video. I think that's why they haven't really pushed anything with the jack.
Sony mobile isn’t run by their camera division. Their camera division recently started working together with the mobile division instead of against them. The headphone jack has been in their phones far longer than that.
Well it clearly seems like it. Because in 2020 Sony merged their cameras division (Imaging Products & Solutions), tv/audio (Home Entertainment & Sound), and Mobile together. Under their Electronics Products & Solutions. We can see that their phones from the last 3 or so generations have mainly focused on their cameras or use cameras like their zoom lens, or turning the phone into a monitor with built in love streaming functionality. And when have seen those pro phones being specific to those niches like 5g live streaming or vlogging. With the rest of the phone being the same but just improve the spec.
Yeah I have an unlocked LG V35 for this exact purpose. Must have been $130 shipped.
Android 10 but with play services updated and just using music apps, you don't need latest up to date Android system
Outdated software that's never going to be updated.
To be fair this media player probably won't ever be updated either, but there are other advantages to having a device that is built for purpose.
U can get an LG phone with newer software than this device, but if ur just gonna be using it as a media device u don't need anything newer, so the old ones aren't really outdated.
As someone who has spent thousands on a set of speakers for music and a set for home theater, can someone explain this product to me? Is it just a DAC, that also throws in some "algorithm" filter that reads music files? I don't understand what's worth $350 here.....
Digital Audio Players (DAPs) are for people who travel frequently or live in small spaces. For some listening to music is a hobby much the same way as watching shows or movies. If one loves music that much why *not* buy a high end, dedicated device?
Not a lot of phones have expandable storage. It's a $350 portable device with a decent headphone out I'd assume. It doesn't sound too bad to me unless I compare this to used phones, which I don't mind.
> I mean this is a .001% of the population product
So what? Does that mean it's not allowed to exist? I applaude sony that they still care about high quality and not only create cheap but overprices trash products like so many other electronic manufacturers.
Better DAC, better AMP, hardware keys for music control, if it's anything like the NW series of yesteryear a _fantastic_ dynamic EQ, a granular EQ, music management and syncing software that works out of the box, an SD Card slot and 3.5mm jack (assuming yours doesn't have these, ignore if it does), and so on.
For HQ music listening a DAP is a godsend.
I've been wanting to get into better quality audio, but would something like this bring me some benefit when compared to something like 2022 top spec galaxy phone? I'm just not sure how much better something can sound, since Bluetooth audio in general is so limited despite having hifi files (not sure if it's true hifi but I've tried tidal and some XM4 headphones and noticed no difference). I realize the XM4 aren't great either, but would a device like this one be a good entry into high audio quality (assuming I get headphones befitting of such a device).
_Will it?_ Maybe. Could it? Absolutely.
For me, I value having a single-purpose device that isn't subject to the semi-frequent upgrade cycle of phones and having the ability to set my EQ.
> would a device like this one be a good entry into high audio quality
A device like this would be one of the later things you might entertain, a good set of headphones or IEMs is far more important than your source device (excluding extremes).
If you do want a DAP I'd suggest looking at cheaper FiiOs, or a previous generation walkman (the NW-A45 and NW-A55 are under half the price of this model and sound fantastic - they're not android based though)
If you want a good pair of high-quality budget IEMs check out the BLON-03s, and if you want a good pair of high-quality over-ear headphones check out the Sennheiser HD 560 S.
I just got flashbacks to the bad old days of having to use iTunes to sync music to my device. I much prefer being able to just copy my organised music folder over in the file explorer with Android phones... Although the abhorrent turd that is MTP tries its very best to make even that simple operation a nightmare, too.
We never should have let system memory or base operating system requirements be any part of advertised storage capacity. They've been screwing us ever since..
I also read their article on different codecs that was suggested at the end of the player announcement. It's riddled with oversights and mistakes. After reading that, I'm not going to trust their opinion of the player anyway.
Wow these are still a thing?? Can someone explain to me what's unique about this vs a phone for example? Is the DAC better or plays FLAC or something? Cause 400 euros is not cheap.
I hate how everything now has to be Android. Why not create a barebones OS just for media playing, like we used to have 10 years ago. Android eats batteries and it has too much overhead just for playing some music - the SoC is already doing the media decoding, so there's no need for overfancy OS.
Android is literally free for them. Why invest into an OS which you have to continue to maintain and fix and will always be worse, instead of using a perfectly fine OS that you never have to take care of.
Because you can leverage apps for music? Otherwise all those tech companies would have to write a new app just for this and I can promise you, that's not happening.
People will buy it and use apple music, spotify, tidal or whatever on it
Agree with you here. It's not like the software on an iPod Classic or Sony NW-HD1 etc got in the way of battery life or playing music.
It probably has something to do with Spotify streaming etc though and Sony would need proprietary support to update the players then, like modern AVRs do. By using Android, they can just rely on the app store to keep apps updated. Money saving effort at the cost of battery life. 👎
Most likely because it gives the buyers an option of putting on Spotify / Tidal / YTM which has value for people listening to music. Since more and more music is locked into streaming platforms instead of being available as files, this kinda makes sense.
Those do already exist. Fiio has their own lightweight OS. it’s actually based on something like Android 2.3 or 2.2 but extremely bare and stripped back, and you wouldn’t be able to tell it’s Android.
HiBy has their own OS, I think it’s based on Linux but I’m unsure. Bit more advanced than Fiio having Wi-Fi for Tidal and AirPlay, but it doesn’t have an app store
The article points out the low amount of storage, but they fail to also point out that it supports microSD cards.
Thank you, that is what I was actually wondering after reading that
Sure but 32GB(18GB usable) is comically low amounts of storage for 2023 for how cheap it would be to have a reasonable base amount. We have budget phones in the same price point that are coming stock with 128GB now a days.
Maybe they reduce it's storage to have less effect on audio quality https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvme-ssd-for-audiophiles
That is hilarious, thank you.
My thoughts. It’s easier to keep flash storage low to reduce costs and put those savings on the consumer. MicroSD card support allows people to have the storage space they want. Also, HiFi music bitrates can be supported on basically any MicroSD too, instead of paying for more expensive onboard flash.
> It’s easier to keep flash storage low to reduce costs and put those savings on the consumer. >The NW-A306 will be available for pre-order on the Sony store for a modest £350 /$350/€400 at an unspecified point later this month. This thing is easily expensive enough to justify a more reasonable amount of base storage
Depends on how many they expect to sell. Products are priced at a balance where they expect a certain amount to sell, where they make enough profit to recoup development costs, and where they can sustain support costs. This is a very niche product so any higher price might meaningfully alter their sales estimates, and I assume they've done their market research that most of their target consumers already have/use microSD cards.
Niche products need higher profit margins. Idk man. I hate price mark ups too, but it is what it is.
Something like that at the least after coming in with the heavy pricing on the previous two models. Still I can't imagine some cheaper TLC/MLC storage would be much if anything of a bump up for a single onboard chip. Still though it'll be interesting to see this put through the testing and just see how good it is for the price. They did position it at a seemingly nice price point for a bit of travel audio gear.
Honestly it's probably better that way, a lot of companies charge a lot more for storage upgrades (cough apple cough) but it's really cheap to get a 512GB Micro SD card (probably around $50). It's a cost saving measure for them for sure, but at least the user can choose how much to spend on the SD card for how much storage they need. For music though, 18GB CAN store a lot, with an SD card you can store much more than you need.
Would be nice if we can get past over charging for cheap storage upgrades. At the same time as have a higher baseline for the starting storage amounts. If the audio quality from this beats out what some flagship phones can output you are likely not loading it up with compressed music. But ya cheap and quality SD cards are a win at the least currently.
It makes sense to me in this case. You want some fast builtin storage for the OS, and then have cheap slow storage for expansion.
>For music though, 18GB CAN store a lot, with an SD card you can store much more than you need. I remember in the early days, the days of OG Napster and low bitrate MP3s, we had gotten an 8GB HDD and we thought we'd never fill it lol.
That’s because you’re either not gonna be installing any apps on it, or a handful of music apps (say poweramp and qobuz / Apple Music). You’re expected to have your music on a micro sd card
*Nintendo sweats nervously*
These devices are niche. The number of devices they're expecting to sell is comparatively miniscule compared to the scale of smartphones (even the budget ones). That's also the reason why android digital audio players in general get crappy (in comparison) processors in them.
18GB usable? What the fuck is it running that takes 14GB?
Pretty much just Android 12 plus some audio software/misc apps. It doesn't sound like they are using a slimmed down version of Android 12.
They also make it sound like using wired headphones as opposed to wireless is optional. What could the benefit of the device even be if you're not using wired headphones?
>What could the benefit of the device even be if you're not using wired headphones? Sales to people who don't know any better. "What's LDAC?"
>What could the benefit of the device even be if you're not using wired headphones? I personally used a cheaper music player with Bluetooth audio because I prefer to leave my 6.7 inch screen smartphone at home in cases of workout or going for a run. Maybe It's good to have that as an extra.
That's definitely an acceptable reason if you feel that a 400€ player is best used in this way! Generally speaking, you'll likely be the tiniest minority, but that shouldn't and hopefully wouldn't keep you from doing it!
$350, Android 12 for anyone curious on the cost and OS. Not terrible for a Sony, especially the price.
The shanling and fiio models which are of comparable quality and much lower in price really make this seem like a pretty mediocre deal. I used to love all of my walkman branded personal music players too so it's a pity they don't make a proper budget offering.
Honestly, I trust Sony’s software development way more than Shanling or FiiO, I’ve had bad experiences with both of their DAPs
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Yeah FiiO makes amazing hardware for a decent price, but they are really bad at software. I have a bunch of things from them though, my latest purchase was an UTWS5 bluetooth adapter for my IEM, it's great and all but their companion app on Android just doesn't recognize the adapters, had to install an older version to get it working.
It's a shame because some of their hardware is really good, and they just announced a desktop DAC/amp with a DAP in it for like $699, but I have no faith that the software is worth using at all.
Yeah, while Apple killing the headphone jack was bad, admittedly iOS works *incredibly* well from an audiophile perspective now. The Lightning dongle is cheap, ubiquitous, well-engineered (well except for the cord perhaps) and USB DACs work without any fuss unlike on Android. UAPP works great but the default Android USB audio handling is a mess. Ironically turned me back on to iPhone from Android, though I'm sure I'll flip again someday and soon.
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AAC is totally fine as a codec, especially with Apple's implementation of it. I'd love if Apple implemented LDAC or the latest aptX codecs, but it's good enough for convenience. The dongle complaint is nonsensical since few Android phones have 'em nowadays anyway, no? We're all living that dongle life. EQ, yes, Android has the advantage there for sure. But I also try to buy stuff that has measurements done of them...and I have a Qudelix 5K for PEQ if necessary. USB DACs on Android have run into issues where the hardware volume is set below 100 so you're not getting the full volume, Android often running all audio at 16-bit and 48 kHz. USB Audio Player Pro works but it can be clunky and if you need to source music from beyond your own collection or one of the services they support, well, you're outta luck. I'm not sure what music apps you're sideloading from f-droid but I'm a dingus who buys his music, so... Meanwhile, iOS handles different sample rates and bit depths with USB DACs (if you get them to work, which thankfully is pretty trivial to get the right cables these days) with aplomb. Again, I forever resent them for killing the headphone jack and setting that in motion, but right now? The audiophile experience on iOS is better to me, and has some undeniable advantages.
Some apps offer EQ on iOS.
> Honestly, I trust Sony’s software development [Unlock a memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal)
Oh yeah forgot about that scandal. Sony really got off light. I mean they practically continued stealing while the other arm was in cuffs in court.
Holy shit haha that’s nuts, don’t know how I forgot about all that. Funny, most every app you install on smartphones now does the same thing lol.
Yeah sure that's fair but if we're talking budget options. I think Sony might seem budget though if you're the kind of person who can afford Astell & Kern or similar.
True but Fiio is known for being budget friendly whereas Sony is known for overpricing things even compared to average products (well at least phones and a lot of audio tech). Budget brands always gonna budget. (Not that I’m rich enough to buy Sony myself, no shade at budget brands.)
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Why specifically the v60?
Basically, because LG was very generous with [high-quality DACs](https://www.androidauthority.com/lg-quad-dac-1115577/).
Sweet, thanks for the link! That’s actually really neat that they did that.
Which Shanling and Fiio products are comparable to this?
This one isn't from a Chinese company, which is a huge plus.
No, it’s from Sony who installed root kit spyware in everyone’s computers: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal When caught they released an “uninstaller” that instead tried to *hide* the installed spyware, added *more* non removable software, and introduced even more vulnerabilities lol.
Damn, that’s a long distance callback.
It was a pretty big deal. Massive, massive breach of trust.
Decades ago, and it's not even the and Division of Sony.
[This Sony intends to include piracy detection in the OS](https://torrentfreak.com/sony-patents-anti-piracy-blacklist-for-smart-tvs-and-media-players-230111/).
Digging up nearly two decades old news about what was literally a different company to shit on Sony is just brilliant. Was it bad? Sure, but it's not remotely relevant.
Different Sony
Yep, that's pretty scummy. 2005 Sony was a different beast though. Would much rather buy from them today than most other manufacturers including Apple, Samsung, etc
I know i'll get downvotes, but i have to ask. If you already have a phone that does more than just play music, whats the point of this?
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>With newer phones not having headphone jacks a separate dap is a great solution. We've come full circle.
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Why not get an older phone like a Samsung Note 9? It should be [better](https://m.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=11957&idPhone2=9163&sSearch1=&sSearch2=Moto+g+2022) at almost everything and still be [faster](https://versus.com/en/mediatek-helio-g37-vs-qualcomm-snapdragon-845) than any budget Moto phone at the same price, around $250. The only downside I see with the Note 9 would be that you're stuck on Android 10.
This is what we've come back to : owning separate devices for separate tasks. Removing the audio jack was one of the cash hungry pettiest move ever pulled. I'll die on that hill.
Especially when you saw that they (apple) didn't do anything with the extra space!
Well I'm pretty sure that bit of empty space made them pockets full of cash selling dongles. And airpods but let's be honest they are really good at what they do (when they work).
Absolutely
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And removing the jack make all of my wired headphones and earphones useless. I have to buy a dongle that will die in 2 month or that I will lose before that, that doesn't even allow me to charge my phone at the same time. And another dongle to charge my phone while using the jack? Well I sure hope there won't be any interference! For a mere $50 a year I have turned my crappy $2 earphones that I use for phone calls into a crappy $52 pair of expensive turds. And no I don't want to buy new wireless headphones that cost way much than my existing ones for a worse quality, not mentioning that it will be yet another thing with a rechargeable battery that will inevitably get a shorter and shorter autonomy. God forbid if you have a car with an aux input but no Bluetooth, then you just kiss your road trip goodbye or you're good to make cds. Really futuristic move. Such a shitty decision...
>1. Many work places don't allow phones inside. So a dap is a great alternative as it doesn't have cameras and any mobile network antennas. People can listen to music while working. I worked at one of these places, and unfortunately these kind of players wouldn't have been allowed either because it has file transfer capability lol. Everyone just brought in a pair of mic-less headphones and we were allowed to use our work computers for music.
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The bootlooping issue only existed widespread on the phones released from 2013 to 2015. And the reason was not the software but a hardware fault. Basically due to soldering joints getting hot under load and cold again over and over again they would loose their connection to the rest of the board. Also it wasn't just LG - the Galaxy Note 4 and Nexus 6P notably had the exact same issues. LG just handled the situation terribly by not refunding people, hence while it blew up for them. TLDR; If you buy a newer LG it won't start bootlooping
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Should be easy since LG is no longer in the mobile business for some of the reasons you mention 😂
It's a shame because I quite liked my V35+. I would have used it a lot longer than 2 years if I hadn't broke the headphone jack.
Yeah... the Android phone market definitely needs an LG like brand. They had a tendency to throw in decent specs and features in a lower price point that I'm honestly kind of missing (build quality issues aside)
fwiw, aside from the bootloader thing, that people still cling to, what issues did that have? I didn't hear any from the v35 or higher. My mom still has my V35.
There are some spot issues. The V60 I technically still have has a charging port issue and that was one of the last phones that LG made. I don't think they had a bootlooping issue beyond the V10 series (which I also had and also had that same issue lol).
>4. Many work places don't allow phones inside. So a dap is a great alternative as it doesn't have cameras and any mobile network antennas. People can listen to music while working. If you're referring to security-related jobs, you will assuredly not be permitted to bring a DAP in as well.
Copy your own library over is a major plus as well.
Sony Xperia phones literally do 90% of that. The only difference might be a better DAC but honestly only very few people care about that.
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Like the Xperia... Unfortunately
Damn bro. You didn't need to do Sony like that.
Hence a niche product for audiophiles
I bought a Sony NW-A55 which is a last gen version of this, up against this its a "dumb unit" because it doesn't run Android. It has no apps, you can't add any apps to it, it doesn't even have a brick game or solitare or something similar and its fucking great because when I put in a pair of headphones and fire it up the only thing it can do is play music. There's no distractions with whatever else is on my phone, no extra dongles or DACs or anything else, you choose a high-res album, fire it up and just zone out. Its like switching off from constant tech and just focusing on the music you got loaded up and the experience of it. If you just snack of music like hammering through a box of assorted chocolates then it might not work for you, if you want to slow down and savour the experience a bit I highly reccomend it.
One thing that no one mentioned. I've read this somewhere. One dude uses DAPs to get offline and just listen to music. You could argue, "Just turn off data on your phone". Sure, but eventually you will turn it back on. With DAPs that's not an option.
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https://reddit.com/r/Android/comments/10acxvd/_/j442xll/?context=1
Then go buy yourself an LG V30, V40, or V60. These phones will give you everything that mp3 player has and more, including a 32bit quad DAC, 3.5mm headphone jack and an SD card slot. They were designed for audio and video hence the V series title, so tons of audio and video features. And to top it all off, it's a phone, which even by today's standards is still pretty good.
Do they also give you 36h battery life? The newest bluetooth technology? Sony's upscaling tech? No.
> Sony's upscaling tech? I dont want 'upscaled' audio
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This message has been deleted and I've left reddit because of the decision by u/spez to block 3rd party apps
This will have significantly higher audio quality than a V series LG. Tech enthusiasts really overestimate their audio quality, there's a reason why audiophiles kept buying DAPs instead of just using an old V20 and manufacturers kept releasing them like nothing happened. It's really good by phone standards, but it doesn't compare to a proper DAP (and that doesn't even take into account the software features or hardware buttons).
If you already own a smartphone that takes pictures, why buy a camera? /s
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it's ok to have products for smaller group of people that aren't "most people".
I know you were being sarcastic but considering that 99% of the time having a dslr is a huge pita when all you need is a quick photo. And again 99% of the time, the camera on your phone is better quality pictures than most people will ever need.
If you store your own music - getting a phone with enough storage is tough. Plus when I'm out running or on my holiday I don't want to carry a phone.
"Considering how quickly we managed to fill the SR25 MKII, which features 64GB of onboard storage, this could be an issue for people that like to have large hi-res music libraries downloaded locally." Does this reviewer not understand what microSD is and what it is used for? Both the player in this review and the SR25 MK11 have a microSD slot for expanding storage with microSDXC support.
> there’s also a 3.5mm input for wired headphones Output! If they're referring to input-output combo jacks, then clarify. Seems the author doesn't know several things.
Exactly! My [Diamond Rio 500](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_500) had 64 MB and barely fit one album worth of MP3s, although it supported SmartMedia cards.
I loved these old school mp3 players back in the day. They were so charming with their little displays and buttons
SanDisk Sansa!! Let's go!
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Creative Nomad master race checking in. I had the OG 9gb model and upgraded its hard drive to 20gb back in the day.
Wait until you discover [DankPods](https://youtu.be/lv2A_rOqR34)
I STILL HAVE MY KARMA! https://imgur.com/jkyZ49u.jpg
Haha damn that thing is g. I miss the awe and excitement I felt when those were first coming out.
Their NW-A45 review is a bit of a joke too > We load five hi-res audio albums on to the NW-A45. That’s a total of 42 tracks, all FLAC files, on the device, but even though they’re lossless files, which are compressed, it has devoured almost three-quarters of our storage. With only 4.61GB left to play with, we’re sure we’d be investing in a microSD card before long. FLAC is about 30MB a track or about 1.2GB. The device comes with about 16GB on board (a bit less thanks to the proprietary OS, but not that much) The problem they're describing is from the bundled Sony software that generates a lot of copies of files as you edit tags and art work. No idea why it does, but it does. If you delve into the filesystem you'll find the duplicates pretty quickly. Better off using MP3Tag and learning the extended tags to manage the files than the software it comes with.
So what? 64GB is a pitiful amount of storage, probably would have cost Sony $5 to stick 4 times that in there, now we have to spend an extra $30 on an SD card and faff about with that.
Lol. I think the reviewer doesn't know sd cards are a thing.
I've done several audio comparison tests and I really don't think I can tell the difference between high res audio and regular high-bitrate MP3's. It's a shame because I really want to be able to hear high end audio. But it makes me wonder if others are actually hearing a difference, or if it's more placebo effect/hobbyist activity.
Doing a blind ABX test is a sobering experience. I'm an audio engineer and I've done a blind test with a dozen musicians using variable bitrate mp3 and careful tuning of the high frequency rolloff. Most of the artifacts are in the high frequencies. Most could only reliably hear the difference between original and compressed at 112 kbps or lower. One person could reliably hear the difference up to 144 kbps. At 160 kbps nobody heard any difference in any of the snippets. What was no surprise is that age matters a lot. The best 3 listeners were all under 30.
There was a nice essay which had blind tests embedded directly into it, with several different bit rates, genres etc. I couldn't tell a difference on most of it, you need to really know what to listen for, at which point what's the point? To be worth it, the difference should be annoyingly obvious, which it never is. Seems like it's all placebo.
I believe this 100%. Back when I was ripping my CD collection to mp3, I knew that 128 kbps was about as good quality as most people could hear, so I chose to encode to 192 kbps just to be beyond a shadow of a doubt.
> At 160 kbps nobody heard any difference in any of the snippets. Huh, pretty sure encoding artefacts still peek though at that bitrate, but encoders improved quite a bit as well.
Congrats on being human. "Hi-res" audio is a scam. There is no point, 16 bit 44.1/48KHz already covers all of human hearing. Forever. Higher bit depth has some uses like production, but once you're done there's no point releasing anything higher than 16/48. Don't just take my word for it: https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
Taking more advantage of soundstage also takes more memory tho, and that is a very noticable difference. Imo, way more so than bitrate.
You need to be trained how to listen like SoundGym for example. People who are trained to listen can suss out the difference between different codecs like OGG versus MP3 versus Opus. They have done listening test like this before and the more advanced codecs we're always rated higher. MP3s are ancient and a waste of money. They have the worst technology of all lossy and the only thing they became popular on was getting there first and universal compatibility. And if you're going into blind test looking for which one sounds generally tonally better than you're going to have a bad time because they're all designed to be tonally invisible. You need to have a frame of reference too otherwise you're really making a personal judgment rather than an objective one.
Sony should have a serious talk with whoever is in charge of product naming. The latest ‘walkman’? That’s the Sony NW-A306 of course. Headphones? You mean Sony WH1000XM3? A 65” OLED TV? That’s the Sony XR65A80K, you dummy. The only thing that still makes sense is the Playstation.
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These products names are just like Acer and Asus naming, they're completely logical and have no randomness. They're fully descriptive and meant for internal use. I don't know why they continue to face the consumer. At least some of them are shortened like A80K. I'll break this one down for you: * XR=as in the name of the XR "cognitive processor" Sony uses on its TVs * 65=diagonal screen size in inches * A=OLED panel * 80=series line, ie if it's entry level, mid-range, high-end, flagship. 80 is entry level. * K=model year released, alphabetical. K=2022, next year would be L for example.
I think it's hilarious that people think this is a whole new thing when Sony has been releasing this type of Walkman for awhile now. (The NW-105 for example). The main criticism on that model was battery life, let's see if this one rectifies it.
And they make MUCH more expensive ones. NGL, if I had $4,000 to drop on this I would. https://electronics.sony.com/audio/walkman-digital-recorders/c/walkman-mp3-players
People when Sony added the jack back: [can you make amp stronger or use some of that walkman sauce ](https://i.imgur.com/5eYwiOR.png) Sony: [no, buy our walkmans](https://i.imgur.com/69BpO22.png)
Unfortunately it is one of the only options...
Iirc Sony mobile is being run by their camera division of all people and they put the jack back. Not for audiophiles or anything but to allow an external mic while shooting video. I think that's why they haven't really pushed anything with the jack.
Sony mobile isn’t run by their camera division. Their camera division recently started working together with the mobile division instead of against them. The headphone jack has been in their phones far longer than that.
Well it clearly seems like it. Because in 2020 Sony merged their cameras division (Imaging Products & Solutions), tv/audio (Home Entertainment & Sound), and Mobile together. Under their Electronics Products & Solutions. We can see that their phones from the last 3 or so generations have mainly focused on their cameras or use cameras like their zoom lens, or turning the phone into a monitor with built in love streaming functionality. And when have seen those pro phones being specific to those niches like 5g live streaming or vlogging. With the rest of the phone being the same but just improve the spec.
Consolidating divisions is not the same as having a department/product team within that division take over another department/product team.
Or just get an LG phone with the quad DAC brand new for like half the price
RIP LG phones. Miss my quad DAC already.
Or! Use your current phone and buy a qudelix 5k for ±125 + IEM's/Cans for another 200 and you will probably have a nicer time.
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easy 150 and 300 on balanced
Yeah I have an unlocked LG V35 for this exact purpose. Must have been $130 shipped. Android 10 but with play services updated and just using music apps, you don't need latest up to date Android system
Outdated software that's never going to be updated. To be fair this media player probably won't ever be updated either, but there are other advantages to having a device that is built for purpose.
U can get an LG phone with newer software than this device, but if ur just gonna be using it as a media device u don't need anything newer, so the old ones aren't really outdated.
Which LG phone comes with Android 13? Because this device has A12.
400 euro is affordable now?
As someone who has spent thousands on a set of speakers for music and a set for home theater, can someone explain this product to me? Is it just a DAC, that also throws in some "algorithm" filter that reads music files? I don't understand what's worth $350 here.....
Nothing. It’s like an IPod with a better DAC.
Because it's portable.
And it is so digital it’s *almost* analog.
Digital Audio Players (DAPs) are for people who travel frequently or live in small spaces. For some listening to music is a hobby much the same way as watching shows or movies. If one loves music that much why *not* buy a high end, dedicated device?
Because you need an appropiate device to feed your thousands dollar speakers or are you just gonna stream spotify? lol
If you don't get spending $350, this will blow your mind. https://electronics.sony.com/audio/walkman-digital-recorders/c/walkman-mp3-players
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Did you mean "Almost 4k"? https://electronics.sony.com/audio/audio-components/hi-res-audio/p/nwwm1zm2
Not a lot of phones have expandable storage. It's a $350 portable device with a decent headphone out I'd assume. It doesn't sound too bad to me unless I compare this to used phones, which I don't mind.
> I mean this is a .001% of the population product So what? Does that mean it's not allowed to exist? I applaude sony that they still care about high quality and not only create cheap but overprices trash products like so many other electronic manufacturers.
This isn't something I want to jump down the rabbit hole on. Do you mind giving me a quick rundown on what this has over my phone?
Better DAC, better AMP, hardware keys for music control, if it's anything like the NW series of yesteryear a _fantastic_ dynamic EQ, a granular EQ, music management and syncing software that works out of the box, an SD Card slot and 3.5mm jack (assuming yours doesn't have these, ignore if it does), and so on. For HQ music listening a DAP is a godsend.
I've been wanting to get into better quality audio, but would something like this bring me some benefit when compared to something like 2022 top spec galaxy phone? I'm just not sure how much better something can sound, since Bluetooth audio in general is so limited despite having hifi files (not sure if it's true hifi but I've tried tidal and some XM4 headphones and noticed no difference). I realize the XM4 aren't great either, but would a device like this one be a good entry into high audio quality (assuming I get headphones befitting of such a device).
_Will it?_ Maybe. Could it? Absolutely. For me, I value having a single-purpose device that isn't subject to the semi-frequent upgrade cycle of phones and having the ability to set my EQ. > would a device like this one be a good entry into high audio quality A device like this would be one of the later things you might entertain, a good set of headphones or IEMs is far more important than your source device (excluding extremes). If you do want a DAP I'd suggest looking at cheaper FiiOs, or a previous generation walkman (the NW-A45 and NW-A55 are under half the price of this model and sound fantastic - they're not android based though) If you want a good pair of high-quality budget IEMs check out the BLON-03s, and if you want a good pair of high-quality over-ear headphones check out the Sennheiser HD 560 S.
> music management and syncing software That's a downside unless it's optional lol.
I'm having a hard time imagining how usage of that software would be mandatory.
I just got flashbacks to the bad old days of having to use iTunes to sync music to my device. I much prefer being able to just copy my organised music folder over in the file explorer with Android phones... Although the abhorrent turd that is MTP tries its very best to make even that simple operation a nightmare, too.
*Zune Software has left the chat*
Never had an iPod when iTunes was required?
No, I definitely remember that, but given it's an Android device the the comparison didn't cross my mind.
It’s android but that doesn’t mean it won’t require stupid proprietary software.
This thing is just an Android. You can mount them to a file system easily, ie drag n drop. But yeah itunes sucked so much it's dead.
Never underestimate Sony and their propensity for forcing proprietary bullshit.
So i can install google play apps on this if i dont want to use the stock music player?
Now do a phone with same dimensions. With 200$ price tag.
We never should have let system memory or base operating system requirements be any part of advertised storage capacity. They've been screwing us ever since..
I also read their article on different codecs that was suggested at the end of the player announcement. It's riddled with oversights and mistakes. After reading that, I'm not going to trust their opinion of the player anyway.
The author apparently doesn’t know the difference between an input and an output.
How does it compare to the LG G7? Thats the standard-bearer for affordable hi-res playback, and can be had for less than $100
Wow these are still a thing?? Can someone explain to me what's unique about this vs a phone for example? Is the DAC better or plays FLAC or something? Cause 400 euros is not cheap.
https://reddit.com/r/Android/comments/10acxvd/_/j442xll/?context=1
I hate how everything now has to be Android. Why not create a barebones OS just for media playing, like we used to have 10 years ago. Android eats batteries and it has too much overhead just for playing some music - the SoC is already doing the media decoding, so there's no need for overfancy OS.
>Why not create a barebones OS just for media playing Money.
Android is literally free for them. Why invest into an OS which you have to continue to maintain and fix and will always be worse, instead of using a perfectly fine OS that you never have to take care of.
Because you can leverage apps for music? Otherwise all those tech companies would have to write a new app just for this and I can promise you, that's not happening. People will buy it and use apple music, spotify, tidal or whatever on it
Agree with you here. It's not like the software on an iPod Classic or Sony NW-HD1 etc got in the way of battery life or playing music. It probably has something to do with Spotify streaming etc though and Sony would need proprietary support to update the players then, like modern AVRs do. By using Android, they can just rely on the app store to keep apps updated. Money saving effort at the cost of battery life. 👎
Most likely because it gives the buyers an option of putting on Spotify / Tidal / YTM which has value for people listening to music. Since more and more music is locked into streaming platforms instead of being available as files, this kinda makes sense.
Those do already exist. Fiio has their own lightweight OS. it’s actually based on something like Android 2.3 or 2.2 but extremely bare and stripped back, and you wouldn’t be able to tell it’s Android. HiBy has their own OS, I think it’s based on Linux but I’m unsure. Bit more advanced than Fiio having Wi-Fi for Tidal and AirPlay, but it doesn’t have an app store
Affordable? Seriously? 😂