New Sony Walkman music player | Hacker News Reader

New Sony Walkman music player

arstechnica.com

322 pointsrcarmo398 comments

I am a huge fan of standalone mp3-players.

So much so, that at some point I made a comparison site for mp3-players. But nobody cared. I made comparison sites for smartphones, laptops and monitors which became quite popular. But for mp3-players, it seemed like I am the only person on planet earth who uses them.

Personally, I still use a Sony Walkman NWZ-E585. For me, that is the best mp3 player ever made. It has a nice form factor, feels very good haptically, the navigation interface is ok, the sound quality is great, the noise cancelling too, and you can access the storage without having to install propriatery software on your computer.

Is that player comparison site still around, or do you have a recommendation for someone who has long had the thought of getting a dedicated music playing device?

The article listed those as $800, which is ridiculous and there's no way I'm paying that much, but if I can find something at a much more reasonable price (preferably a physical headphone jack) I'd be happy as a clam.

Did I not read far enough into the article or something? It says $360 in Japan and $430 in the EU to me.

They discuss a higher end model at the end which costs more than $800.

I was skimming specifically looking for price and must have missed the earlier, cheaper, listings. And when they said that $818 price tag was "relatively cheap" I took that to mean that's the entry-level fee and decided to nope on out.

I wouldn't even spend that much on my phone (spent less than half of that) so there's no way I'm spending that on another device, lol.

If you think that is bad, check out the Walkman NW-WM1ZM2 (who at Sony thinks that these names are a good idea?) for a cool $3500

"There's another new Sony Walkman, the NW-ZX700. It's 104,500 yen ($818) in Japan, and while that sounds like a lot for a portable music player, it's actually a relative bargain compare..."

Ok, at that price point (or even a quarter of that) it ceases to be a music player to become a luxury good to be shown by paid influencers on social media. Nothing to see here, move along...

I used to have one that cost me around £200 and was alright but sounded pretty anaemic. I replaced it with one that cost around £600 and is way better. I love it.

Comments of the form "price X is unreasonable because I'd never pay it" are mildly annoying. You're an individual, not a market, and as such don't get to choose what a "reasonable" price is. DAPs (digital audio players) are available at a wide range of prices. The top result for "MP3 player" on Amazon UK right now is £23.99. Choose a price point you're happy with and you'll find something. I love mine at the price point I went for.

(I've also had one for around £50, bought a couple of ~£20 ones for my small children and owned a couple of different DAC dongles for my phone. Unsurprisingly, the sound quality is very highly correlated with the price, up to the level I've tried. I expect it levels out not far above, though, and if you decide to pay thousands for a DAP they'll make it out of gold-plated copper because there's nothing else left to use the money on. [1])

[1] https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/walkman/nw-wm1z

> Comments of the form "price X is unreasonable because I'd never pay it" are mildly annoying. You're an individual, not a market, and as such don't get to choose what a "reasonable" price is.

When my gf wanted an adjustable standing desk the going rate was roughly $600 for anything that had everything she wanted so I built it myself for maybe $200 and the thing is still being used regularly something like 8 years later.

When I want a physical copy of an older PS2 game and they're all $100+, I pirate it.

If _YOU_ want to outsource personal responsibility for your money, that's on you, don't lecture me because I choose not to.

I can conclude that millions for a painting is unreasonable despite many people doing it because they're involved in money laundering just as well as anyone else.

I seem to have got under your skin. It wasn't my intention and I apologise if I caused offense, but I don't retract what I said. You've described ways you've obtained things for less than market price in exchange for extra effort or legal risk, not reasons the market price should be anything other than what it is, which is determined by what people will pay, collectively.

two comments made by others in this conversation:

> Ok, at that price point (or even a quarter of that) it ceases to be a music player to become a luxury good to be shown by paid influencers on social media. Nothing to see here, move along...

> If you think that is bad, check out the Walkman NW-WM1ZM2 (who at Sony thinks that these names are a good idea?) for a cool $3500

Your response is what everyone will sound like once our robot overlords finally take over. It certainly didn't come from an understanding of the human condition.

Further examples of the same attitude. Such comments are common, which is why I find them "mildly annoying".

I suggest you find a healthier pastime than getting upset about what other people are buying. In the meantime, I'll spend my money however I please. Maybe I'll buy a gold plated Walkman. They look shiny.

It's common for people to point out that something is overpriced?!? Why that can't be, after all, "the market" sez...

And if I tell you that your obvious poking has angered me, will you feel sufficiently positive to walk away from this conversation?

I guess we'll see.

It's plain I angered you with my first reply, but it wasn't intended and I apologised. You replied rudely, so yes I had a bit of a poke, which I'm not particularly proud of. I don't try to wind people up and it doesn't give me pleasure to do so. It just seems especially easy in your case.

It's possible to disagree with people on the internet without getting emotional about it. It's just a conversation about Walkmans. (Walkmen?)

^this is what it looks like when people have called out dang and are trying to make themselves look good. Or at least I hope so otherwise the lack of self-awareness in your posts is getting even worse.

It would be better to read my posts as amused rather than angry.

Your response is what everyone will sound like once our robot overlords finally take over.

Your needless rudeness belies a deeper personal problem.

Just build your own mp3 player/DAP then mate. You seem so proud of yourself, I'm sure you'd love it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What you can do is look at the players supported on https://www.rockbox.org/ (open-source alternative firmware for mp3 players) and check which ones are currently available for purchase somewhere. From the top of my head I know at least Surfans F20 and Xduoo X3II shouldn't be hard to come by.

interesting, thank you, I'll have to check that out.

It warms my heart to see Rockbox still alive and kicking. Most of my experience with it took place around 2005-2007 (wow, we're getting old I guess!). Great project.

I couldn't second that more. Rockbox is a wonderful 100% FOSS operating system for music players, and they're working hard to port it to new devices, almost always with zero help from manufacturers. HNers, please consider donating to the project, and/or if you have a old player collecting dust somewhere, also consider donating it to them so they'll have more hardware available for testing; when working with undocumented platforms the risk of bricking them is high, so it would help a lot.

> The article listed those as $800,

Oh it's middle of the line then? Because there are far more expensive Walkman models: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B354TW13/ and https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B45DJ5RQ/

> which is ridiculous and there's no way I'm paying that much

You forgot "for me" after "ridiculous."

I turned myself into an audiophile without even realizing it, but once you hear the difference, you can't unhear it. I have rediscovered some of my favorite tracks. So if your hearing is good (use an app to check if you can still hear the buzz sound, if not check your response curve) and you enjoy music, why not?

My regular audio setup (walkman, headphones, cable) cost more than the (very good, top of the line) OLED laptop I'm using. Add all the little extras I use time-to-time, like shoulder headphones for use in the morning, or the sunglasses with integrated bluetooth I use when taking a walk, and it's an obscene amount of money.

But music is what moves my soul. You may spend top dollar for your car and consider it a "reasonable" expense because it brings you such happiness everyday? I consider a top-of-the-line NZW Walkman "reasonable" for the same reasons.

I wish I would have some use for an mp3 player but I don't.

I have my Android phone with me all the time. Sometimes even a second one so my mp3s are on there.

The only use I could see would be for a long bike tour where I want to save phone battery time but those are quite rare and the price they call there is ridiculous for that.

When I'm travelling and need to be 100% sure my phone is working, i always bring an old android as mp3 player.

I use it to listen to audiobooks.

I use a powerbank since I need the phone too.

And yes, I use it mainly to listen to audiobooks too.

You're not alone and neither is the Walkman. Enough people use these things to support a small market that, having not been killed by mobile phones by 2023, isn't going to be. I have an Astell & Kern one.

People may not have been interested in the comparison site because there just aren't that many devices to choose from and the choice comes down more to the sound than features that can be enumerated on a comparison list. Monitors are a mess, with each manufacturer making a zillion variants with cryptic model numbers differing in quantifiable ways. I've actively sought out monitor comparisons, but one for DAPs never occurred to me.

I like to have a separate device for playing audio as well, especially one which is sturdy and waterproof and small enough to fit in one of those small pockets on my sleeve when I'm out in the fields or woods swinging a tractor or an axe.

I also like for that device to be able to receive and make phone calls...

...so I just use an old Android device, to be more specific my old Motorola Defy from 2011. It runs Android (Cyanogenmod, the predecessor to LineageOS) 4.4, does the Wifi thing but also the phone call thing, runs DSub connected to my own Airsonic server. It also takes photos, runs Telegram and when in dire need even a browser although it takes patience to wait for it chewing through a Javascript-burdened "modern" site. I have a 32GB microSD card in the thing which is enough given its connectivity options. The battery, also from 2011, lasts for 2 to 3 days of intense use.

Small Android devices running Google-free AOSP-derived distributions are a good match for the role of "standalone" music players with the added benefit of allowing connectivity. Total costs for the latter are around €10/year with occasional use (Sweden, "pay as you go" SIM), total cost for the device is zero since I've used it for 12 years.

Play music and make phone calls sounds like an SIM enabled Apple Watch.

No, a SIM enabled Apple watch sounds like an expensive solution to an already solved problem in this case. Apart from being virtually free the Android-based solution also stands out for being open versus the closed nature of the Apple watch. I use (other instances of) the same device as remote-controlled media player (a Defy running MPD connected to a car stereo in a large-ish wooden rectangular box with beefy speakers, a battery and several power hookups and charging ports (including 20W of solar panels to keep the thing going when there's light to be had)) or a trailer camera (a screen-less Defy in a custom wood+aluminium enclosure mounted in the front of my wife's horse trailer, the thing creates its own "cloud" through its Wifi adapter so she can see her nags on the road, it powers up and down based on the trailer hookup being powered with the battery as backup) and other similar contraptions.

I guess if it’s waterproof and small then it works too. Though older Apple watches are actually extremely cheap.

They're still running "iOS" (OK, trimmed down to "watchOS") and with that are far less amenable to running the type of software I want. It might work for those who are in the clutches of the Apple world but for those who live in freedom it is of not much use.

I guess I was basing my recommendation on a restricted device that was waterproof, plays music, and could make phone calls. If you expand your criteria back to general mobile computing device that can run many apps then sure you’ll just have to use Android or full iOS.

Standalone devices like HiBy R2 / Shanling M0 / Fiio M5 make a lot of sense, because they allow to bridge almost anything to almost anything else audio-wise. airplay/usb/bluetooth/dlna in — airplay/usb/bluetooth/dlna out. Too bad they are marketed as a "hifi media player"

Airpods/Earbuds (I use the galaxy buids pro) have filled that need for me. My uses are a little less extreme, granted, but I leave my phone in my bag and just use the buds. In practice the battery life is more than good enough for me to use every day, and it means I have less devices to manage.

Shout-out for the Motorola Defy - I used to have one and it was a great form factor, almost an ideal size. Sadly mine bricked for reasons unknown.

What was the name of the site, if you don't mind me asking?

I can say the same of my NWZ-S730. More than 10 years of usage and it still works great. I wish I could find replacement noise cancelling headphones for it, they were amazing for public transport. It will probably last 10 more years, maybe even more.

mp3 players are pretty niche. For normal day to day stuff I already have my phone which has all features any mp3 player has and I want to carry it for other reasons as well.

There needs to be a good reason to carry extra device. I could see carrying something that has much better sound quality with amp that can drive some more hobbyist headphones, but I don't know if such devices are made - at least all the mp3 players I've seen are made to be as cheap as possible.

I agree, it is pretty niche and I belong to that niche. As a music nerd myself, it was dedicated storage and just being used to having music offline without the streaming services. The iPod nano was so tiny, that it felt like nothing is in my jacket's pocket. I do have some music on my phone, but it's photos that are mostly taking up its storage. I literally have gigabytes worth of music and also audiobooks that are several hundreds of megabytes each. Though I don't have data to support it, I'm also trying to conserve my phone's battery.

If you listen to music all day, saving phone battery life is a pretty good reason. Plus a non-Android MP3 player can get 40-100 hours on a charge.

> all the mp3 players I've seen are made to be as cheap as possible.

There are plenty of high-end players which prioritise sound quality and provide a better output than phones. The NW-ZX700 in the featured article looks to be one of these. FiiO is another well-known higher-end brand: https://www.fiio.com/m17

I wouldn't call FiiO high-end, they have a pretty wide range in most products (including DAPs) that goes from budget to relatively high-end ($1800). Astell & Kern start about one step down from FiiO's high-end, but can take you much higher (their ULTIMA SP3000 is ~$4300).

> There needs to be a good reason to carry extra device

Funny enough, for me that extra device is the phone: I see no reason to carry a "phone" for normal day-to-day stuff as my walkman has all the features I normally need (email, PDF viewer).

I want to carry it for other reasons as well: due to its smaller screen size, the walkman limits the use of addictive social media.

Main reason to use a standalone mp3 device is: doing excersie (sports, running, etc.). I cannot play, let's say basketball with my phone hanging around. Nor running, nor almost anything that implies excersising.

The best MP3 (and FLAC) player ever made is the Sansa Clip+ with Rockbox firmware.

$50 when new. Size of a matchbox -- not the car, the small thing that restaurants and bars used to hand out as advertising. MicroSD slot for storage. 20+ hours of playtime, recharged via USB. Appears as a USB Mass Storage device, too. 3.5mm headphone jack. Small 2-part monochrome OLED display. Physical buttons: D-pad, OK, Menu, power, and volume up and down. After a day you don't need to look at it to pause/play, skip a track, change the volume or turn it on and off.

With Rockbox installed (ten minute process), you can play FLAC, use a parametric equalizer, customize the display, change playback speed for audiobooks, and generally do a few dozen things more than the factory firmware.

Rockbox lets you do the same on a large number of devices, but the Clip+ is the best.

Blast from the past, loved playing around with rockbox back in the days of the early iPods!

Glad to hear its still somewhat alive!

It is a nice device, but I would be missing noise-cancelling when using the Sansa Clip+.

Noise-cancelling is a must-have for me. It significantly increases quality of life to have it with you, wherever you go.

And I like the high-quality look and haptic feeling of the NWZ-E585. It looks like a classy audio device. And it feels really good in your hand.

Out of curiosity how does noise canceling works when on the device?

I assumed it was only possible when on the headset as it needed to be measured and cancelled based on the direction of the sound.

I'm failing how a device in your pocket can cancel any ambiant noise

If I’m reading the specs right it looks like their headphones are required. I’m guessing mic’s are on each side and offloaded to the player? Either way, I wouldn’t want to be forced to use their headphones.

No reason you can't have noise cancelling with wired earphones to the Sansa, Bose QC20s etc.

I assume also there are jack-to-bluetooth adapters for wireless.

QC20 are not an option for me because of the extra device that is built into the cord close to where you plug it into the mp3-player. It makes handling of the whole system cumbersome.

I guess the noise-cancelling has to be built into the mp3-player to avoid this. I have not seen elegant in-ear headphones with built-in noise-cancelling yet.

No need to have noise cancelling as part of the mp3 player.

As long as you don't mind over the ear headphones Bose QC35 are wireless but also come with a optional 2.5mm to 3.5mm jack cord.

I imgaine that there's lots of alternatives on the market too.

What’s the DAC/amp like on it?

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/sansa-clip-measured.html

Very good

I had a Sansa clip of some type and it lasted about as long as the cheap $5 mp3 player I bought next. These days I find it more convenient to use my phone. You can play mp3s just fine on a phone.

Phones are awful if you are doing exercises though.

Depends. I use my phone to control music when I'm in the gym but when I'm out running or cycling then listening to music is generally a bad idea, IMO, as you lose spatial awareness.

I suppose that's more or less important whether you're running in a busy city or out in the countryside though.

Either way, recent high end smart/sport watches usually have some sort of music playback support for folks who want to exercise with music but don't want to lug around a phone.

You can get good deals on Garmin watches that play music at their factory outlet store. I compress music with AAC Pro on my mac and then upload it, I really can't complain about the sound quality given that the gym or outdoors is usually noisy.

Garmin really undersells their music functionality on their fitness watches. I wasn't expecting the depth of music features on their newer stuff, like being able to automatically sync Spotify playlists to your watch for offline play, or being able to use the watch as a remote for your Bluetooth-connected phone.

As you said, losing spatial awareness is only an issue if you are forced to share space with cars where drivers often don't pay attention and try to murder you. If you are on paths/trails or in the middle of nowhere then its not a big deal. You don't hear the mountain lion stalking you regardless if you are listening to music.

Awareness is important without cars too. Be it cyclist to cyclist or runner to cyclist.

You may not hear mountain lion, but you may hear stray dog.

That latter part is important. I live out in the country, and I've had more than a couple of encounters with aggressive dogs. Occasionally other wildlife, but as I like to posit: The forest reveals its secrets if you listen closely enough.

It’s not just cars, helps to just hear what else is happening, if other runners are behind you, cyclists, etc.

The display on my exercise bike has broken, so it has been useful to have a stopwatch as well as a music player on my phone, I don't have a good way to carry it for any other kind of exercise.

How are phones awful? In the gym I just stick my phone in the corner and the Bluetooth radio has enough range to reach my headphones. For running I just put my phone in my pocket.

I have a Garmin smart watch that supports audio playback but it's a hassle to use because I have to load or sync recordings in advance. Streaming audio on my phone is much more convenient. Plus I have my phone with me anyway in case I want to take a picture due Strava or something.

You obviously don’t care if your phone gets stolen or your Bluetooth headphones get ruined by sweat or have a plate dropped on them.

I will personally attest to the Sansa clip + $10 earbuds being the best workout audio combo available.

I am fortunate enough to be a member at a gym where theft isn't a problem. Good Bluetooth headphones aren't ruined by sweat (and I sweat a lot). If you drop a plate on your ear then you have bigger problems than ruining your headphones.

Fair enough! I’ve been a member at some more… high risk gyms, and I’m unusually hard on earbuds and like. Cheap and replaceable may not be optimal for everyone’s use case.

Sure, but there are use cases where you can't play MP3s on a phone, and this is where MP3 players fill the need.

I have a friend who depends on her Sansa Clip+. Sure, she has a phone, but the clip is tiny, the battery lasts forever and it has a headphone jack.

Shame it was discontinued around 2013

I owned one (with Rockbox), unfortunately it broke after 2 years and then they were discontinued.

Absolutely the best, I use my phone these days as I have it on me but replaced the Sansa with another as I couldn't find anything as good even after it was discontinued.

I agree. There was something magical about these especially how good the sound quality is for its size and portability. I use mine at the gym and when running since you can barely feel it. It has a nice selection of apps too.

I've collected 3 over the years in case any of them die off. While the battery life is still good I should probably get around to researching replacement batteries/cells while I still can.

Can't you just put any 3.7v lipo battery with a protection board that'll fit?

The only failure I've had with one so far was the front buttons; and I bought a broken one for parts years ago that had the exact same issue...

I just ordered 2 batteries for each of my Sansa Clips. I'll have to unsolder/solder the wires to the mainboard to replace, but that's a small price to pay for keeping such a great player alive longer.

I second that. I'm a commercial painter and more then once I've had my sansa mp3 player fall into a paint bucket. Fish it out, clean it up and the damn things just kept on working. Instant brand loyalty after that. Shame they stopped making them.

Looks like Best Buy and other retailers still sell a line of Sandisk “Clips” ??

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sandisk-clip-jam-8gb-mp3-player...

Sadly, not the same. Rockbox makes a real functional and usability difference.

Cool. It's been so long since they disappeared in my neck of the woods that I have stopped looking. I'll check this out. Thanks.

From the Rockbox devices page:

> Sansa Clip Sport / Clip Jam / Clip Sport Go / Clip Sport Plus

> These are based on an Actions Semiconductor ATJ2127 chips, with under 100KB of available memory and all audio decoding happening inside dedicated hardware. A rockbox port to these (and other ATJ2127) targets will not happen, as it would require an immence undertaking and due to resource limitations, the end result would lack most of the features that rockbox users have come to expect.

Same here. Still use my Sansa every single day!

Yeah, the Clip+ with Rockbox was just incredible. Got me through a lot of workdays in the corporate "no software allowed on your computer" days.

I was using mine in the very early days of Android existing. Some people had them, but I didn't yet. I got my first Android phone, moved my music over, and was ... massively disappointed. My favorite phone incident was sitting on some flight, trying to listen to music, and my phone wouldn't play it through the headphones, speakers only, annoying everyone nearby. I didn't listen to music on that flight and promptly switched back to a device that did not have a physical speaker.

Over time, phones rebuilt trust and I got a lot of use out of that, until Google Play Music got shut down and deleted all my music (no problem, I have it all locally). Now I have no idea what people do and simply go without. I guess people don't have music libraries any more and just listen to the radio for $10/month? No thanks. (I use foobar2000 on my desktop, and don't listen to music away from my home anymore. Thanks technological progress?)

Sorry, but the best MP3 (and FLAC) player ever made is the Sansa Fuse with Rockbox firmware.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/195360366923?hash=item2d7c62a14b:g:...

But it's so big!

Carrying all that weight helps keep me fit.

I still have my original Clip+. The OLED display is showing it's age with dimmed pixels but it is still a great -stealth- recording device. It is also still my go to music player for long flights.

The latest Rockbox (3.15, I think) supports Opus on Sansa Clips, and I've loaded mine with transcoded Opus files. (I keep FLAC files in my archive.) I know, Opus is not FLAC, but I'm likely to be listening in noisy environments where it's impossible to tell the difference, and the vastly longer playtime is a good trade.

The "problem" I have is that I bought a Cowon iAudio 7 over a decade ago and the thing still has amazing battery life and sounds fine. By the time I need to replace it, they'll all be gone.

Why not buy some more now then?

How long does a battery last when unused?

There is a good chance you can just find similar size enough battery to fit, althought might require soldering

I already have a spare but its capacity is much lower. Will probably attempt a battery transplant when the first one gives out.

Still use an iPod 5th gen daily. I would happily use Rockbox but it's lacking any Podcast support which I need, but you're definitely not alone!

I've not tried it myself, but is this of any use?

https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/DataBase#Examples

All of the database examples talk about podcasts. Especially the last one that uses play counts to split podcasts into old and new "folders" seems useful.

(Opinions my own)

I used to use my NWZ-A17 every day until the pandemic started. It was small, light, has physical buttons I could press when it was in my parka's inner pocket, I didn't have to recharge it every night.

Now I work from home and I have migrated to my smartphone. I use it infrequently enough that I am not annoyed by what the streaming service tries to get me to listen to.

And owning a dumb mp3 player comes with its own drawbacks. If artist A has released 20 albums, artist B only five and I have both discographies on my player, that doesn't mean I want to listen to artist A four times as often when I ask for a shuffled playlist.

Back when I owned a 256MB mp3 player (and felt like a king among people with floppies) I would hand-pick a playlist that would fit. With dozens of gigabytes of storage I have no desire to do that and I want the player to come up with a good playlist for me.

What do you mean by "the noise cancelling too"? I thought that was a feature of headphones and not MP3 players`.

The wired ones use the DAP for the processing. Special (usually only for the DAP in question) headphones/earbuds with microphonesnare needed. They are usually included though, so it's hardly an issue.

I feel like I'm opening myself up to some abuse by posting this, but I still use my original brown Zune every day. I bought one as soon as they became available and I've always loved it. I've swapped out the original hard drive twice (once early on for a 100 GB HDD until it died, and then for a 128 GB SSD), and I've replaced the battery twice as well. Sometimes I wonder if I just hold onto it out of nostalgia, but I hope it will last a long time to come!

I got bit by its leapyear bug while I was traveling, and had to go the whole day without being able to listen to my music :(

I heard nothing but good about the Zune when it was available. I'm kind of sad it was taken off the market before I had a chance to try it.

What’s your comparison site for monitors (assuming it’s still up-to-date)? Interested in something that comes close to Retina in PPI, but doesn’t carry Apple’s hefty price tag.

Edit: ah, well that didn’t take much looking. It’s https://www.productchart.com/ for anyone else interested. Looks really nice, thanks!

> So much so, that at some point I made a comparison site for mp3-players. But nobody cared.

Not surprised in the least. People voted long ago, and continue to do so, that a single device that handles communication, entertainment, games, news, photography, etc. is superior to standalone devices you have carry around.

Good enough is good enough for the majority of the market. They don't want to hear Vienna Philharmonic's third violinist breathe, they want to listen to autotuned pop music on a pair of $20 headphones and get on with their day.

I subscribe to Tidal, which has master quality recordings. One’s headphone choice is orthogonal to the music player you use, so if you can pick a very high quality one for a standalone MP3 player you can use that same one with your phone.

Years ago, I would have agreed with you, for the longest time I used an iAudio 5XL with Rockbox. It was the best portable music player.

But now... I can have a cell phone with 512GB of storage and run Foobar2000 [1][2]. Nothing else can compete.

[1][Android] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.foobar2000...

[2] [iOS] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/foobar2000/id1072807669

>> you can access the storage without having to install propriatery software on your computer.

I was also a fan when they almost all played from a file system, but even 10+ years ago it was harder and harder to find something that didn't require a store or some terrible music management application. Streaming continues to kill this approach as well. My kids don't know what an mp3 is.

THIS is really interesting. There are lots of high quality players nowadays (called Hi-res or DAP), but most of them with very custom / outdated android. Fiio has the ability to sideload android apps with M6 and M9 models, but no open app store.

Most of these high quality players work well for music, some of them can even be used as USB sound card, but none of them has a specific audio book app / handling - except of course Apple iPod.

With android 12 and a size pretty similar to old iPod classic or iPod touch, the NW-A300 Walkman device is very interesting to me. Slightly too large, but it could run Apps like substreamer (with Navidrome) and AudioBookShelf. I really hope the battery can be replaced and it is repairable without too much hazzle.

Similar high quality devices / brands - some of them > 1000$:

  - Sony (NW-A55)
  - Fiio (M6, M9, M11)
  - Hidizs (AP80)
  - Shanling (M2X, M3X)
  - iBasso
  - Astell & Kern
  - Ruizu
  - Hiby (R3)
  - Lootoo
  - Luxury & Precision / L&P
  - Cowon

What is the software support cycle on this walkman look like? Android 12 is next year's outdated Android.

If it is a stock android it's quite possible that an open variant could be supported some day. These walkman devices have several advantages over smartphones:

  - Better audio quality (obviously, some also have balanced outputs)
  - Better Bluetooth high quality transmit standards (LDAC, aptX, etc.)
  - Smaller form factor (most of the time, some of these are bulky)
  - Control buttons

Something I don't know: Do they support earphone remotes?

I bought an LG G5 H850 with a bang & olufsson audio module (Hi-fi plus) - pretty good so far and cheap (< 100$).

  - Lineage OS support
  - Audio Jack
  - Pretty small form factor
  - support up to 2TB micro sd 
  - an interchangeable battery

But it is still to big and the lack of control buttons is pretty annoying, even if earphone remotes are supported.

Also better amplification - many smartphones don't have the power to drive more demanding pairs of headphones.

> earphone remotes

I've had a variety of DAPs, and they almost all support both Bluetooth controls, as well as inline volume up/down. Not sure what else you'd mean by 'earphone remotes'.

> Not sure what else you'd mean by 'earphone remotes'.

Basically every remote that is on headphones with a cable. Apple devices can nearly all be controlled by e.g. the remote of EarPods, from iPod to iPhone, even MacBooks with 3,5mm plug support these controls:

  vol+ [upper button]
  play / pause [middle button]
  vol- [lower button]
  next [double tap play]
  previous [triple tap play]
  fastfwd [double tap play AND hold on second tap]
  rewind [triple tap play AND hold on third tap]

Unfortunately Apple uses CTIA specs and most non Apple devices use OMTP - so EarPods do not work the same way on Android devices and Android apps often do not support all of these shortcuts.

https://thecablesland.com/ctia-vs-omtp/

Apple really did a good job for the controls, but the hardware (earpods) are really poor quality compared to similar priced in ears (e.g. house of marley or soundmagic e50c).

Gotcha, I didn't know the names off-hand but turns out this doc I'd read does have them specified[https://source.android.com/docs/core/interaction/accessories...]. I don't have any Apple products so definitely something that flew under my radar.

> many smartphones don't have the power to drive more demanding pairs of headphones.

Could you give an example? Most modern headphones (HD 6xx, dt 770 pro 250 Ohm, Audio Technica MSR 7 here) seems to be very efficient and work just fine with modern devices in my experience. Is that only relevant for old headphones?

I find most of the Beyerdynamic higher impedance headphones (including the DT770/DT990 Pro 250ohm) sound very different (especially lacking bass + sub-bass) when you try drive them on a phone. For transparency, most of my testing of this has been on slightly older phones (around 2-3 years ago) and most of the newer models don't have headphone jacks.

Other phones I've got which are not driven well include: Senn HD800S, most planars including {Hifiman HE1000, Hifiman Arya, Audeze LCD-2}, .

With one of the planars I own (the Dan Clark Audio Aeon 2) I've listened to them on an iPhone with an AudioQuest adapter and it sounded fine, but still the dynamics seemed much better on a proper amp.

There's something dirty about the fact that we have to hope that one day we'll be able to install our own operating systems on a linux device.

I'd pay for a thing that does streaming, is much smaller than my phone, and has good physical buttons. I don't want to run or sit in the gym with my huge iphone. But I also don't want to collect files, it has to support all the streaming services and I need to be confident it supports the ones tomorrow as well.

Have you thought about Apple Watch? Sure it lacks the physical buttons, but from my experience it is quite responsive with sweaty fingers.

Edit: I stand corrected, see comment below.

---

I don't believe you can download & save Spotify tracks on the watch itself - it still only operates as a companion app to the main iPhone one. So your only option is Apple Music which is a pile of shit.

It is somewhat of a recent addition, but you can now do that as well: download music and play it from Spotify without having your phone. I think they added it earlier last year, I was using it during summer.

What's the beef with Apple Music? Besides Discovery Weekly on Spotify, they seem about the same to me

Basically, unless you're all in on the Apple ecosystem, most products from Apple suck, compared to the alternatives. Businesses that are active in multiple markets tend to have worse products for each, compared to businesses that focuses on one market.

More concretely, Spotify for me has been a lot better than Apple Music for discovering new music, either via just browsing related artists, public playlists that include what I'm listening to or by following specific people I know have a similar taste to me.

I also like that Spotify includes a EQ that I've found helpful at times, when I cannot control the output device.

Lastly, I frequently change between OSes and devices (iPhone, Android and other hardware) and doing so with Spotify is really easy, it's just the same everyone. Unsurprisingly, it's not as easy with Apple Music. But that use case is probably very low on the priority for Apple, as mentioned before, they prefer to focus on people within their own ecosystem, which makes perfect sense.

Spotify beats Apple Music on performance alone. Search results and playback are instant on Spotify, but have a couple seconds' latency on Apple Music.

The Apple Music client feels like an Electron pile of shit, which is ironic because the Spotify Desktop client is actually Electron and manages to be more performant and feel more native despite that.

So... What's wrong with these Sony's? They're exactly what you're looking for.

It does seem like the perfect device physically, but the article talks a lot about storage space, CPU speed and screen resolutions doesn't include the word "streaming" and only mentions one streaming service in passing in the last paragraph, unrelated to actual features.

Am I supposed to understand that since it's 2023 a music player does indeed mean "something used to listen to streaming services, not files", and that the fact that it's Android means that the regular streaming apps can be used without issue?

It's not obvious to me (And I'm a geek and regular Ars reader) that this thing even plays streaming music!

I’m 99% sure you can stream Spotify and similar on it. The last generation of Android-based Walkman can do that just fine.

I think they mention streaming briefly because the target demographic for this device is the kind of people who have their own hi-res files available.

I hope Sony fixed the battery life on those, because the last gen was underwhelming on that front.

If it only has wifi then you can only stream what you saved beforehand in areas where there's no wifi access.

But if it has a SIM slot with 4G/5G access then it's nothing more than a repackaged phone.

It doesn’t have cellular network AFAIK.

But again, the target users don’t bother with streaming much, the device just so happens to run android, and that makes running streaming apps possible.

Is there a streaming service in existence that doesn't offer offline playback? It's probably requires a subscription, but a streaming service that can't be used in deadspots or tunnels is kinda useless, don't you think?

> Is there a streaming service in existence that doesn't offer offline playback?

Youtube Music :^]

The YouTube music app has offline playback, if you have a subscription. It can proactively download recommended tracks to a local cache only when connected to WiFi

For me the streaming part is important - I usually don't choose what to listen to before leaving home.

> a streaming service that can't be used in deadspots or tunnels is kinda useless, don't you think?

I think all of them have buffering to pass any dead spot. Also bad reception is a thing of the past where I live and and 30 GB of data makes it all very seamless.

I explicitly mentioned downloads - I didn't mean buffering.

> For me the streaming part is important - I usually don't choose what to listen to before leaving home.

Pre-downloaded mixes are a compromise of discovery and offline playback

So click the "Download" button in Tidal/Spotify/Apple Music?

I mean, if you need cellular, then you're better served with your phone and this isn't for you. It also doesn't have to be for you - use your phone and move on.

> But if it has a SIM slot with 4G/5G access then it's nothing more than a repackaged phone.

A repackaged phone with a quality headphone jack and physical buttons? I'd love to buy that (but unfortunately it doesn't seem to have a SIM slot)

It's an Android device. It has wifi. I really don't see how Sony could prevent its owner from using Spotify (or any other Android app for that matter) on it.

That's why it has Android! For that exact reason, so that you can stream from any service! And you can also have files, yes!

Mate, it runs Android. Of course you can stream music as you can just download the apps to do so. That's the whole point of it running Android and not some other OS (because Android is a bloated hog, but it has apps).

I find it bizarre that you are into technology yet can't infer that.

Not available for sale in the US :(

Maybe a smartwatch? The main reason for me to buy one was having music using spotify and blueetoth earphones while training.

Have you considered using a smart watch?

If you are on Spotify or Amazon music, then there's Mighty [1]: iPod shuffle form factor, syncs with the aforementioned services, supports bluetooth and wired headphones.

If you insist on the "all the streaming services" part though, you probably won't find anything at all, because... Apple.

[1] https://www.bemighty.com

That thing looks really nice, and not too expensive either. Too bad it's only IPX4 rated, would have bought it instantly if it was better in that regard.

they have a waterproof version: https://bemighty.com/products/waterproof-mighty-vibe

Strange, that website redirects me to https://mightyaudio.eu/ which only the following products: "Mighty Vibe", "Carrying Case" and "Charging Cable".

Maybe it's not certified for the EU yet?

It seems that the waterproof version is a mod provided by an external company, and currently out of stock [1]. It's a bit more expensive, but also comes with a set of waterproof headphones.

[1] https://www.audioflood.com/waterproof-mighty-spotify-player-...

The device would just need to run Android to support all streaming services because Apple Music has an Android app.

Samsung's Galaxy Watch can do that, if you're fine with Spotify and Youtube Music.

Apple watch cellular

This only partially ticks the box of "physical buttons," but this is what I use and don't regret it. Apple Watch cellular paired with Bluetooth earbuds (I prefer Powerbeats Pro when running) is a delightful and magical experience that I highly recommend.

YES BUTTONS ! (sorry for low quality post but it's been getting tough to find good hardware with buttons ...)

I share your enthusiasm. Much of my frustration with modern electronics and home appliances stems from the fact that I have to use shitty touch screens and touch buttons.

I appreciate the frustration and I am right there with you as a user.

However, it is actually hard (and costly) to manufacture and quality control physical switches that will survive the life time of a warranty + a few years (in terms of mechanical failure, dirt, corrosion, water ingress, etc.). Once you appreciate this then it is pretty easy to see how the design choices of using capacitive interfaces are a no brainer for consumer electronics and appliances.

On top of it you have the marketing push of capacitive interfaces = modern.

Maybe we're almost up to "physical buttons = retro cool"? I'm certainly ready for that.

Soon to be a major problem in vehicles as well. Hopefully it doesn't get too difficult to find a car with buttons.

Absolutely. How is anyone supposed to be able to safely do anything on a touchscreen while driving? That using a touchscreen while driving is legal completely baffles me.

One thing to note about Sony android players is that the European models have ferocious volume limits; neither having high gain mode, nor the grunt to drive more inefficient headphones in low gain mode.

This appears to be set as a value in a read only database that would require root to remove. A method to acquire root is not known to be available on any of them.

That's odd, AFAIK the EU only requires a warning at a certain volume level. My android phone will give you a warning that you've set the volume to the limit once, but then allows you to increase it further after dismissing the warning anyways.

They certainly do that in Europe too, but they also hard limit the output of the player. Even the balanced output, which should offer more power is limited to the same volume as the 3.5mm output.

I've noticed Sony doing a sort of malicious compliance with European regulations, implementing them in a way that is conformant, yet maximally infuriating. For example, energy usage warnings on their TVs sold in eirope.

This is exactly what they are doing - as confirmed by their response to my very unhappy review of the WM1AM2 on their website: https://www.sony.co.uk/store/product/nwwm1am2.cew/WM1AM2-Wal...

Can anyone really name a reason why you would need a standalone MP3 player in 2023? With services like Tidal or even just Spotify it seems like there are so many downsides, with little to no benefits. (Other than maybe owning your own physical music as opposed to relying on a streaming service?)

My wife has decades of music downloaded from CDs etc. It's just the music she likes, no ads/distractions/faffing about with networks etc. For her commute it works great to have just an MP3 player.

She doesn't want to listen to other music, she likes what she knows, so the benefit of recommendations etc aren't of interest either.

Just one data point for your question :)

There are these things, smartphones or something like that, that apparently almost everyone has, that can do that.

Some people prefer a device that has real, physical buttons and is not permanently at risk of shattering after being dropped (the use case being to listen to music while on the go...)

For personal music collection I’ve found using navidrome (and subsonic before that) to be a much nicer solution than having a separate player.

Some people want to avoid futzing with tech for some things to whatever extent they can avoid it. Even some people otherwise immersed in tech.

You already answered your own question, but it's mostly related to higher audio quality and owning your own music, while not being bothered by availability of internet.

A lot of comments about the internet availability. Living in Northern Europe - never a problem. And as for lets say a flight, you can download spotify music. Audio quality i do agree that spotify kinda sucks

> Living in Northern Europe > internet availability

Implying that Germany is not part of Northern Europe.

I thought Germany was central Europe

You don't need special standalone devices for that. Any Android phone has that. Is it impossible to listen to your own audio without internet on iPhones?

Features like auto-playing next song that Spotify/YouTube/whoever "thinks" I "might" like after a playlist finished playing is driving me mad. (Yes, I know it can be turned off, but it's on by default. Which reminds me, despite being a subscriber, I don't really like Spotify's UI on mobile, nor on the desktop.)

Working out. Who wants to exercise while carrying a giant phone around with them? A tiny mp3 player is so much better for this!

I hang on to my old iPod shuffles and nanos with clips on them, and have paid to get them refurbed. It's just so easy to clip them onto my shirt and go. The alternative is... what, to put my gigantic phablet phone in the small pocket of my running shorts?

I shouldn't complain too much, since there actually are a fair number of modern small dedicated mp3 players that can clip on to your shirt (although none of them that I know of are quite as unobtrusive and lightweight as a 2nd gen iPod shuffle).

The very main reason is to have a higher quality audio output. Instead of having a shitty jack a device like this will have a very good DAC & amp, sometimes even a bi-DAC and bi-amp, and also a lot more power to handle bigger headphones.

Globally if you just have a basic pair of headphones / earphones you're better off having a USB-C <=> Jack adapter or a simple bluetooth receiver, but for cases where you want to have a really higher quality source then these will do incredibly well.

For really high quality audio you pretty much need high impedance headphones, and I don’t think these walkmen support those. I’m not convinced the new walkman sounds better than an iphone, but I’d be interested in a blind comparison test.

Pray tell why high impedance makes sound better quality? From what I gather studio headphones have higher impedance due to sharing a signal between lots of people, not for quality reasons.

I don't know how to read specs for these, but this NW-ZX707 model supports up to 50mW/ch for 3.5mm stereo and 230mW/ch @ 16 ohms for balanced output - yes it has both 3.5mm unbalanced and 4.4mm balanced TRRS on the device.

Nah, check Fostex TH-900 (25 ohm), for example

A standalone MP3 player will tend to have a better interface that is much more responsive. Will be much easier to queue up certain kinds of things with a San Disk Clip Sport than an iPhone. Even just unlocking the phone is a whole thing!

The general thing of futzing around with a home screen, switching apps, having notifications?? When sometimes you just want an mp3 player.

This is my main frustration with these Sony walkmans, is that I'll still have to pay the UI friction cost from it running Android. Would love a device that really sticks to playing music... but I get that that is very hard since you lose streaming optionality.

I don't use smart phones because I don't like my every step to be tracked and recorded for an extended period of time by some company.

you would need a standalone MP3 player in 2023?

Children. I wanted my daughter to be able to listen to music and audio books, I didn't want to buy her a smart phone. Plus you can buy a good enough one for $30-40, so it's not as big a deal if they lose or break it.

I've also considered getting a cheap one with bluetooth for kayaking, so that I can listen to music without having to worry about my phone getting water damaged.

It might be nice for the office. I don’t want to run personal streaming software or load my personal mp3s on my work laptop, and I don’t want to forget my phone on my desk (again) because I was using it as a media player.

But $400 is more than I’d want to pay for it.

Control. Spotify uses dark UX patterns to prevent me curating and exploring a library of Music that I love, instead trying to push artists on me that line their own pockets.

Self-hosted streaming (with downloads) is the way forward.

which is unfortunately becoming harder and harder with artists only releasing their media through DRM-locked platforms like Spotify/not on physical media that can be ripped/bandcamp.

At some point it’s PCM.

Indeed - and at some point it is also forced to pass through a literal air gap, vibrating molecules as it does so at various frequencies — another “attack vector”.

- Listening to music without needing a web connection

- Very light and easy to keep in a pocket or backpack so I have it with me when I'm out, or to listen to while I cook / do hardware repairs

- No distractions

- Physical buttons means I can replay or skip tracks without looking at it

- Doesn't drain the battery of my smartphone; doesn't need recharging each week

- Has a real working FM radio in it

- Music on my SD card doesn't disappear

- Doesn't need security updates

- Bought it in 2013 and it still works

Considering this new one has Android on it, your point about not needing security updates doesn't hold. If Sony is as aggressive as Google is, three years you'll have a malware magnet in addition to your smart phone.

Malware from where?

If you're legally buying music, not there. All the apps for mauic playback, streaming, etc. come from the Google Play Store, and there are very few that someone who buys one of these would need anyway.

I'd venture many of these will spend most of their existence with wi-fi turned off, as it's a battery hog.

Mostly power. Phones just don't offer enough to drive demanding headphones or earphones.

There are dongles to address this issue, but they can drain the battery pretty fast. I don't want to drain my phone battery just because I'm listening to music.

If you have an iOS device, having offline music has plenty of limitations. It takes a ton of space that I'd rather save for pictures, videos and apps. And you have to sync your phone with a MacBook which is a hassle if you have more than one.

If you’re serious about quality you’ll use a portable headphone amp anyway…

I need a standalone music player so that an old person with severe arthritis and poor vision can listen to music and audiobooks.

These devices are not it.

not everyone uses those services

The way you can't understand that, is the same way I can't understand why people would listen to Spotify.

Sure.

- I can control it completely without looking at a screen.

- It's easier to put my mp3s on there than it is to do that on a phone.

- The battery lasts a lot longer than a phone

- It has a headphone jack

- No crappy software needed, it's just a USB drive as far as my computer is concerned.

> It's easier to put my mp3s on there than it is to do that on a phone. > No crappy software needed, it's just a USB drive as far as my computer is concerned.

I understand that apple device users live in their special world. But every android phone does this.

Does it? I have an android phone, but it's obviously been so long since I tried to put music on it I can't remember.

You plug it in and copy what you want.

It does, albeit in a shittier way than the dedicated players do. Instead of presenting itself as a removable drive, it uses the MTP protocol. Slower UX and but mostly similar to handling normal files.

I have an Oakcastle MP200, it cost £20, is tiny and weights nothing. I can use the controls without looking at the screen. Battery lasts seemingly forever. I can take it to the gym, clip it onto my clothes and listen to music without being interrupted by phone notifications and without having to take my phone with me.

Makes me nostalgic for the pre-smartphone era

I don't want to be connected to the Internet all the time, yet still listen to music? Is that not a good enough reason?

And contrary to what many seem to think, cellular data is not always available and data caps are still a thing.

If I sound pissed off, that's because I am. I've seen an ever increasing number of comments like yours that just dismiss things because they don't see the value to them. They then phrase their dismissal as an innocent question (which, honestly, comes across as very condescending).

I understand your point, but a question will be why not just loading your smartphone with mp3 files. In this case, you don't need internet connection (if this is the only the reason) and you don't need a separate device.

I got one specifically because I love the offline nature of the device. I don't use streaming, and I don't want ads or my device going out to the internet and giving 3rd parties a list of what I listen to and when either.

I also like the idea of a device that does one thing but does it well, unlike a cell phone that tries to be everything for everyone. With a dedicated music player there's no distraction. No notifications, no texts, no calls, no games, no internet. A good music player does everything you need but stays out of your way. A cell phone is designed to demand your attention as often as possible and hold onto it for as long as possible.

I'm cheap and don't pay for an unlimited data plan/

Why have an outdoor grill when you have a stove? Sometimes some things are better at specialized tasks than other things are.

I don't own a smartphone, but I'd like to be able to put on headphones and listen to music (from the vast collection on my computer) when I'm traveling, driving, or doing chores.

I quite like the look of this device. It's blocky, 16:9 screen, lots of buttons. I would definitely buy a phone or PDA in this format. Actually I wonder if this could function as a decent PDA? I guess it doesn't have any cameras or GPS, which would be nice to have.

The older Sony Xperia phones look at lot like this, but unfortunately the new ones don’t.

One of the reasons i liked and bought the xperia pro-i was this design style. Unfortunately it has really bad battery life.

I have the Pro-I and I get 3+ days on a charge. Right now it reports 21 hours since 100%, and 3 days left. It's been excellent.

I say it's time to bring back cassette tapes and a new edition of the TPS-L2. If Leica can release a new M6, Sony should release a new TPS-L2

Even if cassette tapes become popular again, decent-quality cassette mechanisms aren’t coming back.

If Sony (or anyone else) ever chooses to release another cassette player, brace yourself for a meh listening experience, and a crap mechanism with lots of plastic that’s going to deteriorate and break, with no one around who’d be skilled enough to fix your unit.

Is the knowledge to make good read heads just lost? There's definitely a market for them. You'd think a Chinese manufacturer would have started cranking them out by now.

I don’t know much about read heads. To me, they seem like complex mechanical devices on their own. The head must be able to move vertically, yet end up perfectly flush with the tape material. Its design requires special consideration just so it won’t damage the tape. It needs to take some degree of abuse, mostly in the form of abrasion but also (inappropriate use of) cleaning agents. Then the angle of the head needs to be adjustable, and the head needs to maintain the angle even in the face of vibrations. Even if someone knew how to design a good read head, producing one might turn out difficult in a less-than-mass market.

What worries me even more than that is the art of building a drive. A tape drive must maintain the angular velocity of the capstan(s). If yours varies by more than a few tenths of percent, you’ll be dealing with “wow and flutter”. Not all listeners may care enough, but most do notice.

Drive makers used to have all those issues under control, at least in the higher-end segment – as Sony has shown with their DD series and the D6C. Trying to mass-produce a decent drive in 2023 would, however, eat up incredible amounts of engineering time just for _designing_ a workable mechanism. Trying to copy and paste one of the old designs may turn out even more laborious. Those designs are tied to a huge stack of specific parts [0], for which there used to be an ecosystem of suppliers but those all long gone of course. I can imagine that they’ve taken their own specific knowledge with them, too.

[0]: If you’re interested, elektrotanya.com has service manuals for a few higher-end Walkmen with exploded-view diagrams and BOMs. Looking at those has been a very humbling experience for me!

One issue, completely independent from manufacturing, is that Dolby no longer licenses their noise reduction algorithm used for tapes encoded with Dolby noise reduction.

It is more the wow and flutter and the quality of the gears and belt. They could either spend the time and money creating quality parts that they might not sell or they could keep pumping out the same crap that is already selling.

Well, we're halfway there. "Last year, cassette sales grew 28% to 440,000 units, up from 343,000 in 2021."

https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2023/01/the-cassette-comebac...

It's bizarre to only have 32GB/64GB storage. I remember getting a dedicated music player with 80GB in 2008. Bulk storage seems like it would be one of the few good ways to differentiate these from a smartphone

Maybe I'm just not the target market. They must be doing something right because Hideo Kojima uses one (and frequently tweets pictures of it): https://twitter.com/hideo_kojima_en/status/16147460932707409...

You can add a 512GB micro-SD for $50.

I think that's not the point. They are making a product seemingly targeted at audiophiles and they don't provide enough storage (for the amount of music an audiophile might have), while showing off some obscure features like the gold plated components

It has an SD card slot for unlimited storage practically, what are you complaining about?

It doesn't "provide enough storage" because it's not supposed to provide storage. You're supposed to provide your own storage, whatever amount you see fit, and you are able to upgrade it at any time.

I know people nowadays are used to not having any control over their storage and simply throwing their device in the trash and buying a new one every few years when it's no longer enough, but it wasn't like this in the past.

The transfer speeds wouldn't be as good as a built-in SSD though, right? Maybe that's just not a big enough deal to matter?

Why would it matter for audio?

If you're moving a terabyte of music to the device from your computer where it lives, that could matter

How often do you move terabytes of data - to a device with much smaller capacity?

In this case storage should be mainly used for music. I don't think an SSD is going to make a big difference, assuming Sony's software supports playing from SD cards.

It's for playing audio mate, not playing games.

Sure, loading a large FLAC library onto a microSD will initially take longer, but the thing only needs to be done once, and many audio enthusiastsnwill already have microSD cards with it on.

Who IS the target market for something like this? It's almost as big as a phone, and costs as much as many phones... why would anyone use this instead of their phone? I guess maybe if you have a giant phablet and want something more portable (or more disposable, but it's still $400) for workouts or that kind of thing? Maybe if you're addicted to social media and so the fact that it can't do anything besides play music is a feature?

> the fact that it can't do anything besides play music is a feature?

It seems to not have a modem but it does have the play store and wi-fi, so...

Me actually.

I finally made the switch to a phone without headphone jack last year. I like the phone, but the pretty expensive bluetooth headphones I tried don't sound as great as my beaten year old wired ones.

There's many places where I don't care about having a dangling wire: at home watching tv/movies, while working at my desk, or in public libraries for instance.

A small audio player that work with my wired headphones would be workable, I l'm seriously thinking about it if moving music in and out is easy enough.

> Who IS the target market for something like this?

Some people work in environments where you can't have "smart" devices. I could see this squeaking by (for example you can have some single purpose devices like Garmin watches, but not Apple watches with wifi and cellular).

It might be good for airplanes too if you want something to drive your headphones without draining your battery, but I guess in-seat power has kinda solved that already.

I don't have this exact model, but I did have two earlier iterations of the Walkman which I liked for three reasons: 1) it's a lot lighter than a phone, so convenient to take running 2) the battery lasts days (if not weeks) rather than a single day 3) it has a wired headphone jack, so I don't have to use Bluetooth earbuds that regularly fall out or disconnect.

I don't recall either model being that expensive though.

Good points. The battery thing seems like a big one for someone who travels a lot especially. Headphone jack is nice, but I find a USB adapter works fine when I want to use wired headphones with my phone. Size/weight probably depends on the size of your phone. I tend to prefer smaller phones, so to me most of what people use today is a giant "phablet".

That thing is running android. The battery usage on android phone is based on network access. If you install as many apps as you do on this walkman than on a regular mobile phone, it won't last better. Also if like me you don't install any social media app or anything that connect on a regular basis to some service and play music stored locally on your sdcard your smartphone will also last for days.

I can understand wanting to use an affordable tiny ipad nano like device instead of a smartphone. But I don't understand this, being 3 times more expensive than a decent entry level smartphone unless you want to use it with high quality over the ears noise cancelling headphones. The physical buttons do not even seem to be ergonomically placed.

Why would you install as many apps as a smartphone?

Hell, for many people why would they even have wi-fi on?

What I meant is it is not the device but the usage that makes the battery last or not and it is fairly easy to have a smartphone running for days.

> Who IS the target market for something like this? It's almost as big as a phone, and costs as much as many phones...

Me, but I aint paying $800 for it (if I understood the article correctly).

Give me a walkman made specifically for listening to music with 250GB+ and without all the pain to move music onto and off of the device and can last _weeks_ on a single charge with regular use and I would purchase the shit out of it.

I feel like a lot of people don't realize just how leashed they are with modern phones. My favorite phone ever is an old Palm phone that I still have to this day because I refuse to throw it away. It's smaller than the original SE, far lighter, and could last up to two weeks on a single charge. Contrast that with the 3rd gen SE I have now and I'd give it up in a heartbeat if something like that Palm arrived.

But it won't, so moving the music playing experience off of the phone is a good step to loosening that leash.

> Me, but I aint paying $800 for it (if I understood the article correctly).

That's the pro model. The consumer version is half that.

Potentially me, but this time not.

My criteria is heavy on "do one thing well". I want something without internet, "apps", a convoluted OS, and basically all the other things that make phones a Swiss army knife.

Those things aren't free, they come with a cost which I'm not willing to pay; attention, bugs, distraction-as-a-service. Also, I'm not 100% on this because I haven't tested it, but I think the output I get from FLAC files on my music device is better than my phone.

Yes, I'm also the type who enjoys a separate camera.

There's a piece of mind to dedicated devices I was robbed of for a while with the the phone.

Now having said all this, the real answer to your question is; nobody, because this device seems to be a phone :/

> the real answer to your question is; nobody, because this device seems to be a phone

Well said, that's _exactly_ how I feel. I would 100% purchase a dedicated music device, but it can't be a glorified phone (I don't even like the smartscreen in the article) with a phones problems.

> real answer to your question is; nobody, because this device seems to be a phone :/

The terrible error here is including the Android home screen in the marketing materials.

By all means base it on Android, but I never want to see anything like that on a "stand alone" device. Eliminating any generic UI should have been a priority from the go because it completely changes the sentiment around the device.

You could just... I don't know... not leave the Walkman app and turn off the wi-fi.

I often leave my phone at home after hours and on the weekend. This is a perfect solution.

I'm sure this appeals to a market segment:

> Anyway, back to this $800 model. Unlike regular phone equipment, this has a proper audio amplifier with big, beefy capacitors to power the analog audio output. That makes it much bigger than the A300, at 72.6×132 mm and a whopping 17 mm thick. It also has two audio outs: a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack and a 4.4 mm "balanced" audio jack, which is used by some high-end audio equipment.

It just feels weird to cheap out on storage, of all things, on an $800 device in 2023

Yeah, I get the audiophile one. (I mean, I don't get it really, but I get that there are people who do.) But the cheaper (but still expensive) one didn't seem to offer much. As many people mentioned though, battery life is a compelling one.

The target market is people who want a device with a headphone jack, an SD card slot and a good DAC. The number of phones that include these features nowadays is small.

That’s for the OS and apps. Every user is going to use the SD card anyway, and 256GB or 512GB of good quality storage would be wasted on music.

If anyone is wondering, there are a number of choices out there for DAPs and portable music devices.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hi-res-portable-daps-compari...

I have a Shanling Q1. But, next time around I will probably go with something from Sony. Not out of brand loyalty, but because some of these companies tend to forget to provide updates. I really didn't want an Android device for music. I just wanted something around €100 that could play hi-res music.

To echo what so many others say: all hail the Sansa Clip+ and Rockbox.

If it doesn’t play DAT and MiniDisc, is it even a real Sony?

I hope it has a Memory Stick Pro Duo™ slot.

It is going to be interesting to see if someone figures out other uses for it. Such as voice recording? I would like a recorder with tactile buttons. This could be it, except it looks like it is lacking a microphone?

> I would like a recorder with tactile buttons.

Sony has a lot of dedicated voice recorders with tactile buttons already. What are you missing from these?

Android and programability. GPS. I want to geotag my voice notes.

Thank you Sony.

I would so buy a standalone music player with buttons and OMG .... a motherfucking 3.5mm headphone jack.

So simple.

I don't get how removing essential things became "progress" and demanded "courage" from the consumer to accept.

So why buy one of these over an Android phone and an external DAC/Amp?

Also 32gb? That's only a handful of highres audio.

I'm assuming the people buying this kind of thing are the same people buying higher than CD quality audio?

I'm pretty sure the last iPod I bought in 2006 has 160GB.

Sure (I actually still use the same model).

But it doesn't come with a memory extension slot. Which, granted, is also not really necessary.

Some people prefer a dedicated device for music.

I feel like they know that the people who buy this are going to need TB of storage, and are going to use MicroSD cards for the media.

32GB is just for the system. It has a microSD slot for music.

What combination of apps would one need to install on an android phone to pull this off?

I remember being able to copy music onto my Nexus 4 via the usb cable and play it through Google’s music app, ten years ago. But they ripped that out years ago so that you could only stream music from in the app. Now the default way to play music on my phone appears to be “YouTube Music”, which kinda grudgingly let’s you play individual songs from the hard drive, but only after explaining that it’s not going to let you put them in playlists or categorize them by artist and album or search on them.

Does there exist a nice way to play your own mp3s on a phone today?

Vlc

I use musicolet

Blackplayer EX, Musicolet, VLC. There are quite a few file-based players for Android phones.

> Does there exist a nice way to play your own mp3s on a phone today?

There are tons of MP3 player apps for Android:

vlc - has a surprisingly decent UI for music. (Open Source)

Simple Music Player - gets the job done. (Open Source)

Rocket Player - paid a few dollars for it near a decade ago and it's still decent.

Foobar2000 - The familiar old man is still around.

I use VLC on my Android smartphone whenever I'm on the train or bus and the only reason why I wouldn't give it the highest possible recommendation is that they have implemented stop by having you hold down pause for a bit, rather than having a stop button in the UI. Aside from that I can't think of anything wrong with it, it plays .opus (and a slew of other formats), it has an equalizer with a bunch of presets, it doesn't drain too much battery, it doesn't crash, it doesn't show a bunch of ads,... in short, it's a great media player.

> Rocket Player - paid a few dollars for it near a decade ago and it's still decent.

I would have +1'd that – the combo of iSyncr + Rocket Player was perfect for transitioning from iTunes + iPod to iTunes + Android phone while keeping bi-directional syncing of play counts and ratings intact. Rocket Player also supports smart playlists, which is also nice, even if you cannot sync those directly with iTunes and need to manually re-create them on your phone again.

(iTunes has its foibles, but on the other hand I don't find it that terrible, either, and at that time it was the only workable solution I found for bi-directional syncing of ratings and play counts between computer and phone. Plus while I appreciate that with Android you can just copy files directly to your phone and be done with it, a dedicated syncing solution also has its advantages – I don't have to remember to manually copy a file over each time I edit its metadata in any way, and I don't have to setup a ton of exclusion rules like I would have to if I wanted to sync my computer's Music folder with a regular file syncing software.)

Plus Rocket Player has some dedicated support for podcasts synced over from iTunes – since unlike my former iPod my phone has direct internet access, I'd be happy to just use a separate podcasts app for listening to actual podcasts without having to go through iTunes, however I've also been manually adding files as podcasts in iTunes because I've found that to work quite nicely for managing my collection of radio comedy show episodes scrounged together from all corners of the internet. Rocket Player puts those in a separate Podcasts section apart from the rest of my music library, shows which episodes have been listened to, and remember the playback position (and can even sync that with iTunes).

--------------

Except – the original developer of Rocket Player and iSyncr sold his apps not that long ago, and it seems like the new owners are mostly only interested in extracting as much money as possible (supposedly changing both apps from one-time payments for the non-trial version into ridiculously overpriced monthly subscriptions) while doing as little work as feasible before the whole thing completely crashes and burns. So the whole thing (last app version before the sale) might or might not stop working once I have to switch to a phone with a newer Android version (Google isn't as bad as Apple on backwards compatibility, but it's no Microsoft, either), and I've got no idea what to do then…

Supposedly MusicBee (for your PC) allows play count/ratings syncing with either PowerAmp or Gone Mad Music Player, though I haven't tried it myself yet and with newer Android versions you might have to compile the sync app yourself because it hasn't been rewritten for Google's ridiculously over-complicated new file access permissions system.

Supposedly at least Gone Mad also supports smart playlists, too (PowerAmp on the other hand looks like it doesn't?), so if I had to switch, I suppose that's what I'd switch to.

Unfortunately it seems there is no good replacement for iTunes + Rocket Player's podcast handling – while MusicBee imports your iTunes library (with mixed success as far as podcasts are concerned), it doesn't allow manually adding files as podcasts (and on a Mac even Apple itself has broken things, because post-iTunes-split-up the new separate Podcasts app no longer allows manually adding files, either), and on the Android side I suppose things don't loo much better, either. I suppose I might have to set-up a fake local podcasts server on my computer and switch my collection of radio comedy over to my dedicated podcast player app on my phone…

I'm in the same boat with Google Play Music and Youtube Music.

I switched to AIMP and have been gradually moving files over.

Plexamp is really nice, I just tried their OSX app today too. it does require hosting your mp3's on a Plex server though.

I can't spend enough good words on Poweramp. Expecially if you use an external DAC, it's the software you're looking for.

It's been thr first app I bought on my first Android phone running 2.1.

The developer behind it kept delivering updates, improving compatibility with the quirky audio stack of some smartphones and introducing actually useful features.

The interface doesn't follow the latest user-hostile trends, having instead its own consistent style. Nonetheless over the years it's been constantly polished. The huge number of features and settings are not limited by the interface which actually provides discoverability for them.

For the audiophiles, the audio pipeline is extremely customizable. For the tinkers the interface is very customizable and APIs for writing plugins with are provided.

let's say you have an organized collection of music on your home computer, laptop, NAS, whatever. An easy way to stream that is with a subsonic server. I prefer Navidrome, but there are lots to choose from.

To get that on to your Android you can use an app called DSub. This app can stream, but more importantly playback from cache. You can flag which songs or albums you want to cache on your Android. You can permanently cache as well.

That works well. But if you want to step it up a notch, you can point Poweramp to the cache folder that DSub uses and use Poweramp for playback.

The benefit of this setup is getting music on to your device is trivial once you have these apps configured. No more shuffling files around. Just open DSub, select which new albums you want, and they will appear on your device.

I've been using Vinyl for years and have no complaints: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.poupa.vinylmusicplayer/

> Does there exist a nice way to play your own mp3s on a phone today?

Lots, but you do have to venture outside of the app. stores where every app. wants you 'streaming' so they can also monetize the metadata they can collect from you as well.

I use this one on my Android, no fuss, no muss, just plays mp3's from the SDCard:

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ch.blinkenlights.android.van...

Fdroid's Multimedia area has a lot of other options as well:

https://f-droid.org/en/categories/multimedia/

I could probably use something like this hiking so I can power off my phone for emergencies hunting/camping.

Putting your phone in airplane mode and carrying a power bank for emergencies seems like a much more efficient solution to me?

I can get behind the idea of less fiddling with an expensive flagship phone, avoiding risk of dropping and cracking it, reducing wear and tear on its battery, and avoiding distraction if all you want is music or audiobooks

Dedicated hardware buttons for music functions would also be a plus

If a device separate from phone is desired ...an older android phone that is loaded only with music player app and good SD card and 3.5mm audio jack might suffice?

It may actually make sense for custom ROMs that are optimized for dedicated use cases like these to make great purpose-driven gadgets out of old all-purpose smartphones

These DAPs aren't about 'sufficing' though.

That old smartphone is not going to have as good of a DAC and certainly no physical media buttons.

Nobody ever seemed to buy LG phones, so I guess part of the answer is there.

RIP LG smartphones :(

32gb is not a lot, but at least it's possible to insert an microSD card.

A such player is lighter than a phone and has a buttons for everything. Phones just have buttons for volume.

Also if you travel a lot, you can listen to music and don't have to worry about the phone battery and like a junky search for wall plugs all the time.

Phyiscal buttons (god I hate the current stock android widget with everything tiny tiny outside of Play/Pause)

Won't break your USB port if you drop it the wrong angle.

Sony can be trusted thr sound will be good.

Separate battery from your phone that probably lasts way longer, like days or weeks.

No notifications coming in (feature or not? yours to choose)

People buying this will also buy a SD Card, and I assume they are the same who still bougth the iPod Classic.

Check out neutron?

I suppose you’re referring to the Neutron Music Player app?

I never heard of it and though it was a hardware player competing with the Walkman, but it’s another android music player from the look of it. I still checked the app page in case they went for completely different playing controls to compensate for the physical buttons and playing widget, but it seems it mainly focuses on EQ tweaking and “high fidelity” playback.

I’m all for alternative players on the market, so more power to them. But I’m probably not their target audience.

I came across these recently at an electronics store in Japan. These feel really good in my hand; it's not too wide or long, the buttons feel really solid, and its a bit thicker than a phone which makes it easier to hold and makes the buttons bigger. And they are light.

I have no use for an mp3 player, but I would love to have a phone in the same body. It runs android but doing anything other than playing music felt sluggish.

I used the smaller xperia phones for 2 generations and really liked them, but this mp3 player feels even better in my hand.

All phones are migrating towards being portable video watchers and mobile gaming devices with huges screen surface area.

I was hoping it was just a trend and they come back to phones that my thumb can reach the top corner and that actually fit in my jeans back pocket.

Seems like all the marketing people have forgotten about those, or perhaps I am just in the minority and there really is no market for phones as _just_ a PDA device.

> All phones are migrating towards being portable video watchers and mobile gaming devices with huges screen surface area.

Because you can't fit as many ads on a small screen.

You can still buy iPhone 13 Mini, like I did last year.

I wonder why these don't also include audio recording features. It seems like a standalone device to play music well would also be perfect for recording audio well.

There are very few situations where you can't just use a phone, but don't need any of the features of a proper audio recorder (phantom power, multiple inputs, XLR/jack, a good directional microphone...). It wouldn't hurt to have a mic on the player for sure, but I can't see it unlocking any new use cases.

There's a whole market for stand alone audio recorders. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=audio+recorder&crid=1W4GXCLJNGKPI...

Oh yes, I've used those a few times and they were great. They're usually quite cheap (sub 50€), have weeks to months of battery, tactile controls (so you can use them for narration without looking) and (perhaps most importantly) large and high-quality microphones. Not something you can just add to an mp3 player.

Thanks! Yes, they have nice features of their own. What about adding an mp3 player's features to those products?

I’m not knowledgeable at all, but I suspect there would be a DAC I could buy that’d make my iPhone sound just as good. Am I way off base?

The $9 headphone adapter is better than most audiophile DACs. Audiophile equipment is a scam (one sign is the "balanced" audio output, which they pretend is better but isn't) and Japan's high res audio brands are also scams.

You might want an external amp for high impedance headphones for electrical compatibility reasons, but an amp and DAC are not the same thing.

> one sign is the "balanced" audio output, which they pretend is better but isn't.

Maybe for a MP3 player it does not matter, but in general the physics behind balanced analog audio is quite sound (pardon the pun). It is a simple trick that provides better resistance to interference.

Every XLR cable on the floor at a show is balanced and it is not because the sound guy fell for audiophile marketing, it is because it works and costs next to nothing.

Indeed it does, but that doesn't really apply to headphones since the cable is short and there's not a lot of EMF interference.

It does have one theoretical advantage - the maximum voltage from a battery powered device can be higher which might be useful for a very high impedance headphone if they're too quiet.

Yes but iPhones already have a pretty good DAC so you're not gaining much.

Doesn't matter what DAC they have unless you're listening on the built in speaker, because you can't plug anything into it.

Actually the lightning to 3.5mm adapter has a tiny little DAC chip in it, and it's also a very good one.

basicly any fiio will do. But often a good dongle will be enough if you only got basic in ears. The amps are helpful for headphones with higher impedance rating and therefore need more oomph on the line to make them move.

Apple's own 3.5mm adapter is actually pretty reputable in the audiophile community for being a surprisingly good DAC. If it has enough output power to drive whatever you use, you don't need anything else (the cable is pretty thin and fragile though, might want to get something else if you care about that)

It's not as cumbersome as wrapping together an iPhone and a Sony PHA-3 with rubber bands.

I miss good mp3 player days. I started on iriver cd player that could read MP3s... once i had some spare money upgraded to iriver H10 wit 20GB spinning rust drive (still have it, still working, sitting in the drawer). Once tried an old ipod, to see what the hassle, learned the pain of loading my own music to it, and the lack of file browser on it, no i dont want that artist/album BS, got my own categorized collection. Sold that one quickly. Sandisk sansa with rockbox was spot on, both both units failed like a year from time i bought them. Currently using an old old heavy duty samsung xcover2, with cyanogen mod, it does not have a simcard just 128gb microsd with lots of music on it. DAC is reasonably good on it and it plays FLAC no problem. Doubles as offline GPS with osmAnd maps loaded in.

This device has all the specs that I want _for a phone_. Seriously, I would love a music player with a phone, not a phone with a music player. They do need to increase the storage, then add a SIM card and this thing would fly off the shelves.

The ideal mp3 player is

- small, fits in your palm,

- plays flac, wav, mp3, midi, and other obscure formats,

- easy to upload/download files, pops up as an usb drive when plugged into a pc,

- good sound output (I can sacrifice size for sound quality),

- jack/bluetooth output,

- sd/microsd card support,

- cheap,

- +1 optional fm/dap+? receiver.

I once bought a Sony Xperia mobile phone. It had all kinds of issues. Microphones were trash, the noise suppression was terrible, sometimes you couldn't hear the other party, the back glass shattered multiple times while sitting on the desk etc. That was such a bad experience I never touched any kind of handheld from Sony, and not gonna touch this one, for sure.

Hidizs (AP80)?

Hm, looks great, thanks.

- has a removable / replaceable battery

Seeing it's running Android and having the name Sony I'd strongly recommended that you not buy one if you intend to play pirate tracks!

These days I wouldn't trust Sony as far as I could chuck the Walkman.

Well, maybe do some better research than just reacting to the name before judging stuff?

It seems to play things like mp3, wav, aiff, flac and more formats perfectly fine, so hook the thing up to a computer, it shows up as a USB Mass Storage device and you chuck your illegally/legally acquired files over and it'll play it.

Can't find anything else that says it has built in DRM, so why would you assume so?

It's hard to explain to anyone who never experienced Sony in the days when Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita—Sony's founders—ran the company. Those were the hardware days before the company freaked out and went into entertainment, films and other intellectual property ventures to the extent of putting root kit viruses on people's computers.

In those days Sony was an excellent company and had excellent customer service, its equipment was leading edge/state of the art. I still have lots of equipment from that era that still works. I was so enamored with the original Walkman that one afternoon when in Akihabara I bought four different versions of the device. I have a Sony 100W HiFi that's now 49 years old and its as good as the day it was purchased; I've two ICF-2010 radio receivers bought nearly 40 years ago and they're still used every day—even after all that time their volume potentiometers still havn't gone scratchy. Anyone who owns a ICF-2010 is unlikely to sell it as it's iconic and best of class. Moreover, its service manual is a sight to behold, it ought to be held up by the Rights to Repair advocates as the quintessential way companies should handle service.

That company called Sony once run by engineers with engineering excellence as their aim no longer exists!

What we now have is miserly spiteful interloper company that has the audacity to still trade under the name of 'Sony'.

There's no point me adding more, you either understand what I'm on about or you don't.

For the record, I've never been infected with the Sony root kit virus, nor have I pirated any of its IP (I've almost no interest in movies). What I'm on about is that a Trojan horse took over the company and it's never been the same since.

That’s a rather bold claim without explanation

Not the OP, but I think they've got plenty of precedent to fuel their caution. I'm surprised that not everyone doesn't immediately remember, when someone says "Sony", the time they silently installed a rootkit onto the PC of anyone playing one of their music CDs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

So the fear is that when you connect the Walkman to your computer it'll do something similar, installing a "copy protection rootkit" in order to prevent you from transferring non-DRMed files to it? Seems farfetched to me I guess, especially if there is zero evidence of it happening. But happy to be proven otherwise.

Not sure what that has to do with Android either, the "rootkit scandal" you linked is about CDs.

No. The fear is that Sony will do something that they think is in their own best interest, while completely ignoring the interests of their customers. It doesn't have to be a rootkit specifically, it just needs to follow their pattern of lack of interest in their own customers.

So what, realistically, could they do here, if they had lack of interest for their own customers? Disable USB Mass Storage transfer functionality? Disabling being able to play non-DRMed files?

See my later comments.

Cmon now this was 20 years ago. Anyone involved in that decision is dead, retired, gone or has learned their lesson

But their actions still live on as corporate edict. Sony, Unfortunately, is now nothing like the company we once admired.

Above, you now have a partial explanation. I could have added much more including my professional dealings with the company and how that suddenly changed but it'd be only regurgitating stuff that's been stated by thousands of others over the past few decades.

Finally with a standart USB port. So I guess it's time to buy a new one :-)

This looks awesome. I've been wishing for more hardware buttons on Android or iPhone devices for so long.

I would even take a case for iPhone which has extra buttons for common tasks on the side. Please steal this idea.

> I have no use for a standalone music player, but both of these Walkmans are so pretty that I just want to hold one.

I think that sums it up pretty well. Who would actually buy one of these?

I recently got into collecting minidisc hardware.

A minidisc player isn't too different from a flash player in that it plays compressed music off a filesystem, the difference is the filesystem is stored on a magneto-optical disc instead of flash.

You definitely don't have the huge capacity that a flash player has but I'd say listening in outdoor conditions you can put 160 minutes of music on a disc and with a few discs you have enough music for your day.

Been thinking about something like this but in the end I don't want trouble of additional device to take care of.

Tried couple of off-line music players for iOS, but was not really happy with the experience so far.

Is anyone using an offline mp3/flac player app for iOS (ideally both iPhone and iPad and supporting Apple Watch) where I can upload files (ideally from my NAS)? Paid app is fine, but subscription is not.

I would like something like this but one thing that makes Android-based music players like this unappealing is the versions of Android they start with. When this is releases in February, Android 13 will have been out for six months. Android devices don't get security updates for long enough as it is, so starting out the gate with a non-current version of Android isn't great.

It's a DAP. I mean, sure, you could be doing smart device things on it, but really it only runs Android to get easy access to streaming services and media apps.

So it doesn't really matter, as the vast majority of owners aren't going to be doing anything that will get it compromised. Many might never connect it to the Internet again after setup.

I agree the number of attack vectors is significantly reduced in comparison to the same version of Android on a smartphone (particularly if the user is making little or no use of the music player's already limited app store). But there are still many, many CVEs for Bluetooth, for example. Taking the Bluetooth example, I would be happier connecting to a hire car's audio system with a version of Android that is getting patched than a version that is not, and may have known vulnerabilities. I don't want my DAP to potentially be a vector for transferring malware around.

If this has a Qualcomm chipset and run Android, does this mean that it has a functional GPS radio as well? I've always wanted the equivalent of an android PDA/MP3 player--with all the functionality and ability to run 'apps' but without the cellular radio.

I realize I could use an old phone in airplane mode, but I don't want that :)

They both use Qualcomm chips. The smaller model uses a QCS2290, which appears to support GPS, so I suspect the larger model does as well.

https://www.qualcomm.com/products/technology/processors/appl...

I'm pretty happy with the Hidizs AP80 PRO-X (priced just under $200), but the Walkman devices are the endgame.

Finally USB-C, no more proprietary cables.

I would be hesitant to shell out 400 EUR for a music-player-only device. But this is a very appealing phone form factor, if Sony could also squeeze-in a GSM module, a workable (not necessarily great) camera, and more storage (32GB sounds rather measly these days).

It's not a music-player only device. It's basically an Android phone without the modem. It can do a ton of stuff besides play music.

I have an nwa55, which is notably Not one of the android walkmans. I love it and spend usually 1-2 hours a night listening to music on it before bed. Battery life is incredible.

I'm not sure why they went android though. Begs the question why not just get a phone.

Fascinating. To use such a thing, where would I get downloadable DRM free music these days? What software do I use to sync it to an Android device? What software do I use to browse and play it on an Android device?

(I am asking these questions excitedly, not dubiously)

I guess one option would be to use the same music streaming apps I would use on a phone, but use the download feature aggressively for playing music offline.

There's plenty of stores to buy MP3 or lossless music. Random (un-reviewed) list I found: https://www.10stripe.com/featured/directory/drm-free-music.p...

Obviously there is also Bandcamp. 7digital is also missing from that list.

That list is 13 years old. Many links are dead.

> To use such a thing, where would I get downloadable DRM free music these days?

I usually do one of the following:

1) Purchase physical CDs from Amazon that include "AutoRip" on the description. This provides a DRM-free mp3 version of the album that you can download.

2) In the event that an AutoRip is not available, do the rip myself. I still have a USB CD/DVD drive that I plug-in to my laptop for this purpose, and a tiny VM to run Exact Audio Copy.

3) Finally, for purchasing digital music outright, there's always Bandcamp.

I suppose itunes is still around, too, but to be honest I've never used it.

<blockquote>To use such a thing, where would I get downloadable DRM free music these days?</blockquote>

<p>One option is the same place you used to get downloadable DRM free music in the past, your local bittorrent client.

> Fascinating.

One of the best purchases I did these past years. Make sure to get a silicone case and a lanyard.

> To use such a thing, where would I get downloadable DRM free music these days?

https://www.supraphonline.cz/ is my favorite source: they have about everything. You can buy track-by-track or the full album. You get FLAC files immediately.

> What software do I use to sync it to an Android device?

Your regular file manager, doing a drag and drop from the ~/Downloads folder

> What software do I use to browse and play it on an Android device?

The default Sony player isn't bad, but there are 2 other extremely good players: Musicolet (great for it support of lyrics if you are into Opera or Rap) and PowerAMP (great if you have a USB Dongle or new bluetooth headphones and want to make sure the codec support is adequate)

> https://www.supraphonline.cz/ is my favorite source: they have about everything. You can buy track-by-track or the full album.

Exactly what I'm looking for -- except the whole site is in Czech!

Use google translate. Create an account, save your credit card, then it's just about clicking in the same place as you did before :)

Is there a viable competitor of these elegant Sony designs?

2021 thread on music players, some with Rockbox firmware, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26870648

Fiio devices are excellent, but not much cheaper. https://www.fiio.com

Have a FiiO M6, industrial design is nice, but the system software is horrid, as is the battery life.

FiiO M3K has partial Rockbox open-source firmware support, https://rockbox.org.

But where do you get legal flacs from for a price comparable to what one would pay for a service like spotify, qobuz or tidal? Long gone are the days I could exchange them with friends as none of them own any anymore...

I paid £250 for 5th generation iPod Touch in 2013. SONY's prices are way higher.

7 buttons on one side. The whole thing is roughly the size of a deck of cards, so not sure how well that works out for anyone with big hands or gloves. But better than a touch screen I suppose.

What's interesting about this vs. something like an Apple Watch?

It's hard to imagine a use can where I need to to hear lossless audio on wired headphones but wouldn't have my phone with me.

I heard good stuff about the Fiio players. Apparently they also run Android.

https://www.fiio.com/player

I am still using my iPod classic 6th gen 160 GB. Almost everyday. It is wonderful to have a single purpose device for listing to music, podcasts, or audiobooks.

At least it has both a headphone jack and Bluetooth 5, unlike the majority of the smartphones out there that have outright removed the former.

Just plug it in and that is it.

With regards to playlisting my digital music collection in novel and interesting ways, I've found Plexamp's "Guest DJ" feature [1] to be second to none.

It's not the cheapest piece of software. However when viewed in comparison to the cost of a standalone mp3-player, I think Plex's $119.99 Lifetime Pass is justifiable.

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/plexamp/status/158570440123829863...

I'm a real fan of Sony audio equipment. My XM3 cans still make me smile when I turn them up. Absolutely amazing sound.

Instareview: maybe cool, let's see... What, no buttons to skip ahead/behind 15 seconds? Useless. What a goof! Good-bye

From the article:

“It's a shame Sony never became a force in smartphones, because, wow, their product designs are still so good.”

It looks like shit

Mobile phones aren't allowed in prisons while MP3 players are. Good to know Sony cares about inmates.

I'm just buying a DAP, but I wouldn't buy an android based one, it'll get obsolete.

$300 for 32 GB storage with no option to expand sounds kinda awful for dedicated music player

It has a MicroSD slot for storage.

With such specs and form factor, that’d be the perfect phone for me. If it was a phone :(

Statistically nobody buys Sony phones, it seems there's really no market for truly premium Android devices

I really like their phones, in theory.

I don’t trust them though. It’s a lot of money for a relatively unknown device

I bought them twice (Z3 Compact & Z5 Compact).

I loved their design. Beautiful, colorful, original, compact and ergonomic.

But Sony abandoned them. They barely received any update, the Z5C had an overheat issue that Sony never fixed.

The phone in itself, the hardware part, was brillant and I truly miss it. I’d even say that their design was better than iPhones.

The problem was Sony.

They could have been a serious contender to Apple. Even the software in itself was pretty good out of the box. It’s just that it was never updated and so their phones aged very poorly.

iPod Nano 4 Gen was one of my favorite electronic devices ever. So sad Apple decided to discontinue it. I would still one today instead of carrying my phone everywhere.

I wish they'd make phones with profiles more like this. 3.6", nice tactile controls.

Even if it has relatively short 16hr battery life, I'm fine, if it can take a 25W charge. A passable camera also feels essential.

The Unihertz Jelly 2 has everything except the cameras are arguably not passable. They are like 2010 Android phone level quality at best.

still waiting for minidiscs to make their comeback.

It seems that tech world goes in round, we unify devices to only having to take one around, then we split the unique device in multiple devices, and back? Is it what capitalism is about? Manufacture needs back and forth to keep you paying?

Is there any scientific evidence that the special hardware found in high-end audio equipment (gold-plated connectors, "large polymer capacitors", expensive DACs etc.) actually produces perceptibly different (and perceptibly better) audio output?

I mean of course assuming hearing abilities that are within 1-2 standard deviations of the human average, not one-in-a-million-people super hearing. Also assuming actual music is being played, not audio tracks specifically engineered to highlight the difference.

I think your real question is wether uncompressed audio from a fine tuned DAC sounds better than compressed AAC converted by current Bluetooth headphones.

The competition to this are mobile phones, and they almost all moved to bluetooth only, so the choice is which Bluetooth headphones gets better sound with a form factor you better like, pitted against the flurry of wired headphones and hybrid that are still on the market.

Its all marketing. Price and performance have a surprisingly low correlation in the hifi market, after going above the threshold of crappyness. Nobody will believe you if you tell them this.

Certainly the gold-plated oxygen free copper hocus pocus would only be relevant after the DAC where the signal is analog. But that doesn't matter if you are just cargo culting. Case in point, the infamous $1650 HDMI cables where people would leave hilarious reviews on Amazon.

That being said, there can be a big difference going from "consumer" level to "basic audiophile". I remember my own surprise when I first got a pair of Grado SR80s, how many details I could hear in music that I never knew existed before.

I get that some equipment is better than others. But is it because of those specific hardware components commonly cited in marketing material, or simply because of better overall engineering?

It's mainly because of tradeoffs and engineering. The Grado's as an example have zero outside noise isolation and the aesthetics of a 1950s ham radio operator.

The only thing gold plating does is protect from corrosion.

There is plenty of empirical evidence people will overpay for things they think will enhance their social status. As Woz said at Jobs funeral, "Steve invented some of the greatest tools known to mankind: Apple fanboys."

Speaking about evidence, where you get that quote from? Sounds oddly out of character of Woz, doesn't seem like something he would say about Jobs, even less so at his funeral.

Sorry. I should have added a sarcasm warning. I cribbed it from someone else. It is kind of spot on though.

The amplifier can make a big difference because it can allow you to use headphones that you couldn't with a less beefy amp, and the speakers/headphones are the one thing that definitely makes a perceptibly different sound.

Proper capacitors certainly help. Bass is a big dollop of energy being delivered all of a sudden - being why you can see the speaker moving. That energy has to come from somewhere and it's just one of those things that if you shortcut it, you can tell. Similarly you can tell if speakers are in shitty boxes. The combination of the two leads to those "home theatre" things you see in shops that make a loud "splplplplpl" noise when something explodes on screen. Yuck.

Other than that, I think it's mostly bollocks. I think a disappointingly large proportion of it can be summed up as "don't cut corners" which is why hifi gear from the 70's can still sound nice. If you replace the capacitors.

Take a test yourself[1]. Connectors and most of cables probably don't matter, caps do, DACs do. The real problem with cultist audio is people don't close PDCA or OODA loops and resorts to occultic nonsense like gluing pebble stones on circuit breakers to "absorb bad energy", but scientific methodologies do work for what are measurable and actionable.

1: http://abx.digitalfeed.net/

I don't understand why these products still exist.

The audio out of my iPhone with good headphones is excellent. It's certainly the greatest portable audio solution I've had in my lifetime. Not needing another device is a real boon for me, so I have a hard time understanding why you'd choose a single-purpose player in 2023.

I think it's for people that have higher impedance headphones or just want a more audiophile-focused experience (hardware playback controls, a dedicated device, etc).

Having a specialized device is a real boon to others. Also I'd expect Sony to use great DACs

you want to have... just music? If this gets lost, you don't have to worry about identity theft, bank/financial compromise, etc. Yes, security on modern smartphones is... pretty strong, but it's also a target.

> The audio out of my iPhone with good headphones is excellent.

Unless you're using a no-longer-supported older iPhone, you don't have an aux jack. Given the ongoing ubiquity of aux cables in cars, homes, planes, etc. and the ongoing unreliability and low quality of bluetooth headphones, I'm not sure you can call the audio out "excellent." I'm sure it works for many use cases. When you use an external DAC, I'm sure it's even great.

But considering the fact that Apple doesn't even support hifi codecs over Bluetooth, it might be that you just have a simple use case for audio. I know that between the car and my home speaker system, I couldn't live without an aux jack.

I am a lifelong audio nut, and I suffer from Headphone Acquisition Disorder.

The sound I get from my Airpods Max paired to my iPhone is easily as good as I get from the Sennheisers I have to plug into a headphone amp to use. So no, the idea that all Bluetooth is "unreliable and low quality" is not a true statement.

I don't use an Aux jack anywhere anymore. My car has Carplay. I don't use wired headphones anymore, because I haven't been able to hear a justifiable difference.

My guess is that most people who whine about things like "hifi codecs over Bluetooth" wouldn't be able to reliably choose the audio stack they think of as superior in a blind test.

As I said -- Bluetooth works fine for many people. But it does not cover 100% of the aux jack use case.

I'm glad it works for you. But it doesn't work for me, or everyone else. Think of people with older cars that only have an aux jack. Or who live in apartments with lots of interference on Bluetooth's limited channels. Or coworkers subjected to awful bluetooth earbud microphone quality. Or the million other use cases where bluetooth falls short.

You’ve moved the goal posts. First, it was “Bluetooth sucks generally” and now it’s “Bluetooth might not always be an option for various corner-case reasons.”

Interference I suppose exists, but I live in an urban area with close neighbors and it’s never come up. Nor has it come up on planes, or in other public areas I’ve been in with many Bluetooth users, so I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.

I dunno anything about “awful Bluetooth mic quality.” I prefer to do calls at my desk with a wired headset, but I’m not always there, and folks generally seem to think my AirPods sound fine. I know for a fact that many of my customer parties are using AirPods, and they sound fine to me, too —- better than any number of crappy wired headsets I also see in use on calls, for sure.

I recently bought an audio setup for my motorcycle helmet, which is of course Bluetooth; my wife reports that my voice is clear and clean from there at any speed below about 35MPH, at which point wind noise becomes an apparently insurmountable problem.

Bluetooth for audio is great. It sounds awesome with decent gear — far better than we got 15 years ago with wired buds, and (with good headphones) easily as good as the fancy needs-an-amp headphones I have around. Declaring that Bluetooth headphones are, as a class, unreliable and of low quality (as you did above) suggests you to have an axe to grind about Bluetooth, but it’s an axe without any substance.

This is entirely separate from the set of corner cases where Bluetooth isn’t viable, such as in an old car with no such connectivity. But that’s not a problem with Bluetooth itself, and doesn’t justify claiming Bluetooth is universally crappy.

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