[HN Gopher] My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman
___________________________________________________________________
My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman
Author : Tomte
Score : 263 points
Date : 2022-07-02 04:57 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (rubenerd.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (rubenerd.com)
| new132122 wrote:
| Question: is there any hardware related proof that this thing can
| play music better than any modern iPhone?
|
| Edit: With better I mean in terms of quality of the outgoing
| analog signal.
| [deleted]
| locofocos wrote:
| The death of Google Play Music sent me down a similar path. I
| fired up my old 3rd gen ipod touch and synced it up with my old
| iTunes collection. It was jarring missing out on a decade of UX
| development, but it's been a breath of fresh air being able to
| just.... manage your music collection and play the music you want
| to play. No ads, no playing something I didn't ask for. ITunes on
| windows is really nice today. Older CDs are super cheap, and my
| family is often happy to offload their old CDs to me.
|
| It's also helped me rediscover a lot of old music from my
| formative years. If I had to choose between my old favorites and
| all the new neat stuff I've found on Spotify, I would choose the
| old stuff! And I can still pull out my phone for those occasions
| I want something on Spotify, but if that happens enough, I buy
| the CD and it gets loaded into the collection.
|
| It even sent me down a rabbit hole of getting a home stereo
| again. It's so nice leaving music playing in our living room.
|
| For music on the go, iTunes makes it dead simple to copy/paste
| playlists onto my android phone's storage.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| Does anyone know if this device reads NTFS-formatted MicroSD
| cards?
|
| (I've had too many failures with ExFAT where I've lost everything
| - the last crash having wiped out about 200GB files - so I've
| switched to NTFS. ExFAT is just too fragile to be used regularly
| as an interchange medium.)
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > You don't need to use any special desktop software; you mount
| the Walkman as a USB storage device and transfer files. Wait...
| that's it? Yes!
|
| Ooof, yes ! I remember my minidisc fondly but I somehow erased
| from my memories the atrocious file management thing.
| anentropic wrote:
| Can anyone recommend a good non-streaming, album-centric music
| player for Android?
| Stormwalker wrote:
| Poweramp is what you're looking for. It is paid player, but
| it's worth every penny
| worble wrote:
| I upvoted this but honestly feel like that isn't a strong
| enough recommendation for Poweramp. It blows every other
| player out of the water, there's no competition.
|
| I also just checked their website and as of v3 it doesn't
| even require google services to buy, so even if you have a
| degoogled phone you can still use it.
| thekingofrome wrote:
| I took my music collection offline at the start of this year, so
| I would lose my final reason to "need" to carry a smartphone
| around. It took me about 16 hours over two days to plan, organize
| and acquire all the music I would otherwise have listened to on
| Spotify.
|
| In the end the experience was far inferior. My wireless earphones
| were harder to manage and connect, the UI and build quality were
| outright unpleasant ($40 price tag, wasn't willing to spend
| more), and podcasts wouldn't save the point I last stopped at.
| Not only that, but the MP3 player didn't recognize the track
| number from within the MP3 data, meaning that albums were played
| with the tracks in alphabetical order, until I found a program
| that could change the file names to contain said number at the
| start of the file name.
|
| The problem was clearly the really crappy MP3 player I got, but I
| couldn't find anything better that was reasonably priced in the
| market available to me in Europe. If I could find something then
| I'd love to give it another shot.
| aquova wrote:
| I too assumed that dedicated MP3 players were relegated to very
| low-budget devices, and I didn't realize that Sony was still
| producing the Walkman line. I decided to take a look at their
| line up to what was happening in the space -
| https://electronics.sony.com/audio/walkman-digital-recorders...
|
| Boy... what a massive range of prices. There's a touchscreen-less
| device for $75, one resembling the one described by the author at
| $350, an $850 model with different chassis and higher output but
| nothing else I can immediately see, and then models jumping up to
| $1100, $1400, $3200 (!), and even $3600 (!!!) which is apparently
| made out of a gold-plated copper. I was vaguely interested in
| such a product but even $350 seemed too much, let alone the other
| ranges of products with, for the general audience, not much in
| the way of obvious differing benefits.
| rtpg wrote:
| The unfortunate thing is at least for me I've found the ...
| basically glorified locked down android interface on the
| expensive walkmans to be insulting.
|
| Give me a dedicated interface if you're gonna charge me that
| much for a dedicated device! At least comparable to an iPod
| nano in "time to play mp3"
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Historically, Sony's in-house developed software hasn't been
| great, to say the least. Getting android could be a blessing
| in this specific case.
| tuxie_ wrote:
| Really? I mean we are talking about the company that
| develops the Playstation. I have a very different opinion
| on Sony.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Yes..."Sony" is probably better seen as a group, with a
| lot of different entities doing their thing almost
| independently (not even talking about their entertainment
| and financing branch, really just the main bloc)
|
| For instance Sony's audio branch is probably completely
| separate from the camera branch, which is separate from
| the TV branch, which doesn't talk to the EV car branch. I
| don't know if financially they are separate companies,
| but from what I got they are clearly cut divisions.
|
| I imagine them as an archipelago of products and
| services, all under a common flag, but only talking to
| each others by delegations.
|
| For instance Sony has a NFC venture that is really good
| with encryption and hardware data transfers, it's even
| integrated in their VAIO computer line. Yet their Network
| Walkman was an utter pile of poop when it came to move
| songs from the computer to the encrypted MD disc.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > For instance Sony has a NFC venture that is really good
| with encryption and hardware data transfers, it's even
| integrated in their VAIO computer line.
|
| They also support Felica (NFC-F) on most of their
| hardware.
|
| > Yet their Network Walkman was an utter pile of poop
| when it came to move songs from the computer to the
| encrypted MD disc.
|
| The only NFC part in the walkman is pairing headphones by
| touching them - something I actually enjoyed!
|
| Now I wish music could be transferred in the same way!
| csdvrx wrote:
| > I was vaguely interested in such a product but even $350
| seemed too much, let alone the other ranges of products with,
| for the general audience, not much in the way of obvious
| differing benefits.
|
| I was also skeptical, but after hearing the difference, I'm not
| coming back. I'm rediscovering my favorite tracks! I'm hearing
| instruments in the background that I couldn't hear before!!
|
| > even $3600 (!!!) which is apparently made out of a gold-
| plated copper
|
| TBH I don't care much about gold, but 40h battery life? That
| speaks to me. And if there's as much of an audible difference
| as I got from my middle range NW-Z507, I'll be _happy_ to spend
| $3600 on an item that brings me happiness every single day.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Crazy to think that even the shitiest mp3 player would easily
| get 30-40 hours on a single AA battery back in the days
| nicoburns wrote:
| > 40h battery life
|
| You'll be happy to hear that you also get that on the cheap
| low-end devices!
| csdvrx wrote:
| > You'll be happy to hear that you also get that on the
| cheap low-end devices!
|
| It won't matter much if their quality is so poor I don't
| want to bother listening, or if the interface doesn't
| provide hardware buttons meaning I won't be able to skip
| tracks in my car.
| BirAdam wrote:
| I use a Shanling. Awesome device, audiophile sound, lower
| price.
| toastal wrote:
| They have several devices, old and new, some with an in-house
| UI on Linux and others atop Android, at vastly different
| prices. So this comment isn't very clear or helpful.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| One thing to factor in is the longevity of these devices, they
| aren't an 18month affair like the typical smartphone. Battery
| aside, I have an original Zune that boots right up, and an
| unmodified iPod Mini with 4GB of spinning metal that doesn't
| skip a beat, that's about 17 or 18 years gone by, people also
| offer them on eBay spec'd out with upgraded battery, memory,
| and DACs
| aembleton wrote:
| That's impressive. My Rio Karma mp3 player HDD died after ~10
| years of use. By then, I had a smartphone and haven't gone
| back to a dedicated player.
| waiseristy wrote:
| Hottest of takes : A shitty music app on my phone like Spotify is
| 1000x more convenient than a dedicated music device will ever be.
|
| As a society we already processed and answered this question in
| the late 00's. PMP's (heh, remember that term?) suck. All-in-one
| devices are better
|
| Hot-take over.
| xdennis wrote:
| > As a society we already processed and answered this question
| in the late 00's
|
| Yes, but I think this is being revisited. Vinyl continues to
| grow for example. Some of us are going away from single devices
| which can do everything, but can also control and spy on you
| for everything.
|
| With single devices it feels like you're the curator of a
| collection just for you. With Spotify it feels like you're just
| an ear that's being leased.
|
| Even if you don't like physical media, it's nice to have a
| collection that you can depend on. You never know when Spotify
| will take stuff away from you, or just won't add more obscure
| stuff. (Although, given how left wing Spotify is, I was quite
| surprised that you can find Werwolf by Absurd. I'm not sure how
| long that will last.)
| INTPenis wrote:
| Yes it is convenient, I agree with you.
|
| But it's also frustrating when one track in the middle of an
| album disappears, or when a few tracks from an old playlist are
| suddenly greyed out for some licensing reason.
|
| For these reasons I started buying actual records of my
| favorite albums a few years ago. I realized I had spent X
| amount on 10 years of Google Music (now youtube music) and had
| nothing to show for it. In fact, during that time tracks had
| disappeared from my playlists.
|
| So I felt more like a conservator than a music lover buying up
| old 90s albums.
| gyulai wrote:
| > As a society we already processed and answered
|
| It's difficult to disentangle this from the switch to streaming
| and regarding the latter it is very much unclear whether this
| was a consumer preference or just something that one-sidedly
| benefitted an oligopolistic music industry and consumers just
| had to live with it. Even if a preference for streaming apps
| reflects an uncoerced choice that a majority of consumers made
| back then or would make today, it's still a hallmark of a well-
| functioning market and a free society if the needs/preferences
| of the minority don't go entirely unserved by the market.
| waiseristy wrote:
| You know what was an oligopoly? The original music services
| we used in the early aughts. The *vast majority* of music
| being bought and downloaded in the wild west days of PMP's
| was from iTunes. And I think you would be surprised to see
| that Amazon and iTunes account for a significant amount of
| music sales still to this day
|
| It's plain to see that the needs and preferences of minority
| users _are_ being served too. This NW-A55 device obviously
| has a following. Sony pumps out a PMP every so often. Music
| nerds are probably the #1 target for weird enthusiast gear
| outside of gaming /pop-culture knickknacks.
| gyulai wrote:
| We seem to be in perfect agreement then. It's a good thing
| that these devices are still getting made. Your initial
| comment made it sound like you took a different view, but
| maybe I misunderstood.
| waiseristy wrote:
| Oh yeah, just because I don't like certain tech doesn't
| mean other people do!
|
| ... but I still think all-in-one devices are better[1] :)
|
| [1]if you consume music just like me, and don't really
| enjoy the deeper aspects of collecting and curating your
| own music library
| mellavora wrote:
| > As a society we already processed and answered this question
| in the late 00's.
|
| Perhaps, and perhaps society is re-processing this question and
| maybe drifting towards a different answer?
|
| Society does change its mind sometimes
|
| > A shitty music app on my phone like Spotify is 1000x more
| convenient than a dedicated music device will ever be.
|
| Perhaps for you, and you do you. For me,
|
| Pick up phone,
|
| Unlock screen. Shit, doesn't recognize my fingerprint. Again.
|
| Unlock screen with PIN
|
| Navigate to Spotify.
|
| Start spotify, wait for the UX to load.
|
| Try to find that song/albumn I wanted to listen to.
|
| Connect to my headphones/stero.
|
| Hit play
|
| Get a phone call, now ringing over my speakers and the music
| has stopped
|
| Oh, and it helpfully turns down the volume for me after a while
|
| I'm not quite seeing the convenience here.
| dmix wrote:
| If sound quality + local music + non-android is the goal there
| are plenty of lossless audiophile dedicated devices with DACs and
| amps built in on Amazon, with some nice designs:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/FiiO-M11Plus-Resolution-Portable-Blue...
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Surfans-F35-Resolution-Music-Player/d...
|
| https://www.amazon.com/iRULU-F20-Bluetooth-Lossless-Resoluti...
| csdvrx wrote:
| Do you like the M11 plus?
|
| Music is very important to me. I'm considering the WM1ZM2, but
| I've seen a lot of great reviews about the FiiO and Surfans -
| but the F20 doesn't have Bluetooth (ok if LDAC and AptXhd are
| supported) and the F35 doesn't have USB-C.
|
| The M11 plus has both BT+ USB-C, along with hardware buttons.
| If it can give me better audio and battery life than the
| WM1ZM2, I'm interested!
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Honestly, I have trouble finding out if these devices even do
| playlists, and if so, what format?
|
| I have a sneaking suspicion that, while I have some "musts," I
| probably don't even know the right questions to ask, and I
| guess forums for this kind of thing stopped existing.
| IlPeach wrote:
| Cool... But will they last?
| herbst wrote:
| I owned a FiiO many years ago, took it travelling, drowned it
| multiple times and it died underwater, still playing music on
| a boat after like 6 years of constant use and abuse. It's the
| best device I ever owned.
| kixiQu wrote:
| A. User CSS changing the font was maybe not a good idea here --
| definitely misread that product number...
|
| B. I resent that this is so expensive. I'm not saying you
| shouldn't pay it, but it _feels_ too expensive by half.
| mkoryak wrote:
| One thing no "new" mp3 player has done correctly is audio books.
| None of them do bookmarking as well as rockbox. Also, new mp3
| players usually have terrible battery life. Because of these
| reasons, I bought myself about 7 sandisk sansa players on ebay
| and have gotten very good at fixing their shitty headphone jack
| problem.
|
| With a rockboxed sansa I get about 60 hours of battery life and
| bookmarking on stop with a list of recent bookmarks per file.
|
| Can this sony do any of that? Hardware music player have gone
| down hill.
| visiblink wrote:
| I have a Rockboxed Sansa Clip+. I like that I can set it to
| turn off automatically, so I can fall asleep listening and not
| have it play all night. I also like that it will pick up right
| where I left off the last time. That's nice for podcasts and
| books. I suppose that might be what you meant by bookmarking.
|
| You can buy a one-foot 3.5 mm extension cord with a right angle
| plug for a few dollars to avoid repeatedly stressing the jack.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| +1 ... rockbox'ed sansa clip+ is the best, except for one
| thing: browsing. In every other way, it beats all the other
| options i've seen.
| gspr wrote:
| +1
|
| Sansa Clip+s with Rockbox is the perfect solution. I went
| through three before being unable to pick up any more without
| paying triple price.
|
| Why do great products disappear?!
| dsr_ wrote:
| Why are yours dying so fast? (Alternatively, why do mine
| hold up so well?)
|
| I have had two Clip+ in the last 15 years. I retired the
| first one because I broke the clip off; it still works
| otherwise. I was using them about 2 hours a day until the
| pandemic.
| Jiejeing wrote:
| I have had several clip+ses over the year, and the one
| thing that died every time was the onboard flash (which
| prevents the player from booting at all). I resurrected
| my last one where it was only corrupted and not dead, but
| I did not have other issues otherwise.
|
| Now I am using an hiby R3, which is quite clunkier, but
| allows me to choose between microsd storage and streaming
| from the phone in high quality, while also having 2.5mm
| balanced IEMs (kind of a gimmick, but I like their sound
| a lot).
|
| edit: and of course being able to finally ditch USB-mini
| is great.
| johnvaluk wrote:
| For anyone affected by this, a simple trick to reviving a
| Sansa Clip+ that won't turn on is to hold the power and
| home button simultaneously for about 20-30 seconds. Let
| go and press the power button and it might turn on.
|
| I'm not sure what causes these players to become
| unresponsive. It's happened to me when it tries to play
| an unusual file or after I've transferred music to the
| device and left it plugged into the computer for a while.
|
| They are still my favorite standalone portable mp3
| player, even with the stock firmware.
| leeoniya wrote:
| > I have a Rockboxed Sansa Clip+
|
| +1, it's a great audiophile quality tiny little player.
|
| i recently got a HiBy R3 Pro Saber, but still frequently come
| back to my Rockbox'ed Clip+ for its much smaller size.
| INTPenis wrote:
| Can you tell me if the Hiby has a sleep feature? I'm
| looking at the store[1] but can't see it listed as a
| feature.
|
| 1. https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-r3-pro-saber
| roboyoshi wrote:
| I had one for a week and returned it. IIRC there was no
| sleep/standby feature. You either lock it like an iphone
| screen or turn it off. But it starts pretty quickly when
| you turn it off, so that's not the problem. For me it was
| just too slow and instable. There is a github repo with
| all the issues (https://github.com/vext01/hiby-issues) -
| check that before you buy one.
| INTPenis wrote:
| When I say sleep I mean that you listen until a timer
| runs out and it pauses whatever you're listening to
| automatically.
| leeoniya wrote:
| that sounds like a very niche feature, does it exist
| outside of ultra-tweakable firmware/OS like rockbox?
| INTPenis wrote:
| Sure, in VLC for android and audiobookshelf app for
| android.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Cool to hear Rockbox still alive! I wrote the original
| graphical UI code for the playing screens many many years ago.
| Back in the iRiver H120 times.
| kinleyd wrote:
| Rockbox was very cool. I used it for many years.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| is, not was.
| olyjohn wrote:
| How would he know if it still is if he hasn't used it in
| a long time? To him, it was cool and that is proper for
| him to say.
| bpye wrote:
| I'm surprised there hasn't been a successful open hardware
| project for a portable music player. Rockbox, a low power SoC,
| some decent DAC, a basic display - epaper would be kind of neat
| - and preferably a standard battery - something like the Nokia
| BL-5C.
| dangus wrote:
| I don't find it surprising. It's a solved problem. Every
| phone has a music player built-in, you can even choose which
| one to use from hundreds of options. Offline, streaming,
| self-hosted cloud, the options are nearly infinite.
|
| Even if you don't love the lack of headphone jack in the
| typical phone [1], the solution is an adapter that costs less
| than $10. What open hardware project can compete with that?
|
| [1] Non-audiophiles are perfectly happy with AAC/AptX codecs
| over Bluetooth, the bottleneck is still the quality of your
| headphones, IMO, and the convenience of never tangling a
| cable greatly outweighs missing out on the audiophile ghost
| whispering that they supposedly hear
| toastal wrote:
| Most phones don't have expandable storage which can get
| limiting if you're using the device to do more than just
| music
| applefangirl wrote:
| The worst part about listening to music on the phone is
| nervously waiting for the next spam call to interrupt it.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I mean, I don't disagree with your main point, but I
| hundred percent disagree with the notion audiophiles are
| the ones missing the 3.5mm jack. I miss it awfully and it's
| due to sheer convenience. Every one of my headphones used
| to work seemlessly with every one of my devices. I had
| cheap headphones (and later headsets) in each car, at the
| office, in the backpack, at home, and nice headphones at
| home, and they each and all worked with every phone and
| device immediatelly and without hassle or issues. They
| never ran out of battery, never disconnected, never had any
| lag, never garbled music, and were never obsoleted due to
| new codec or BT version or incompatibility or the eventual
| death of lithium ion. And they never wanted me to pull my
| little remaining hair if I dared to switch headphone or
| device.
|
| Labeling those who vehemently miss 3.5mm as audiophiles is
| a straw man or phenomenal proportions.
| SECProto wrote:
| Yup. I am definitely wouldnt call myself an audiophile,
| but I like my over ear headphones. I switch them easily
| between my desktop, my laptop, and my cell phone. They
| never die. Then I take my phone to my ten year old car
| and plug an aux cable in (it has Bluetooth but it is
| garbage - slow to connect, bad quality for music (regular
| skipping etc). Then when I travel to family's houses and
| want to play something over their stereo with an aux
| input, I can easily.
|
| I like aux because it's _easy_. It just works.
| amelius wrote:
| There are still times when you want Bluetooth. For
| example when you want to pair with someone else's
| Bluetooth speaker at a party.
| SECProto wrote:
| Yes, fortunately including an aux port doesn't preclude
| also including Bluetooth. To quote the article:
|
| > It has NFC for pairing with wireless headphones, but it
| also has a headphone jack _so you can choose_. Shock of
| horrors
| Pawka wrote:
| There is also value of 3.5mm input on the speaker - it
| reduces battery drain a lot (useful when camping for
| example, mine lasted longer almost 50%). All three BT
| speakers I was able to find in my flat (different brands)
| have the line-in connector. Checked just now because I
| was curious.
| astrange wrote:
| If you had nice headphones they probably didn't work
| perfectly with everything, since most nice ones need a
| headphone amp to sound like they're supposed to. The
| analog interface also means inconsistent volume, and
| using them on a walk means cable microphonics.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| "Nice headphones" is of course relative. I have two sets
| of Sennheiaer hd380. They plugged into anything and
| everything and sounded nice to my ears. They are super
| comfy. They still plug into my computer, synthesizer, and
| most of my stuff - but not of course my wife's iPhone.
|
| (My old galaxy s2 had microsd, replaceable battery,
| grippy exterior,and of course 3.5 mm jack while being
| smaller in every dimension so I am skeptical as to some
| of the arguments other than "apple did it so entire
| industry will copy it")
|
| As indicated above - I'm _not_ am audiophile but I enjoy
| listening to music, and miss the easy convenience of
| 3.5mm jack on my phone along with everything else. A
| headphone amp would completely counter act the
| convenience and practicality.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| There are plenty of nice headphones with low impedance
| among grado, sennheiser, beyerdynamic etc, you kinda have
| to go out of your way to choose a high impedance "home
| stereo" style 'phone
| astrange wrote:
| That's funny since when I ordered a Beyerdynamic
| headphone on Amazon they sent me the high impedance model
| I hadn't asked for.
|
| Although the best one I own is a Stax which needs an
| entire speaker amp.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Wait, aren't Stax the electrostatic high-voltage
| headphones? I think at that point, "Convenience" is
| deeply crossed out as a selection criteria, and a
| portable phone while jogging is not a likely scenario :).
| paulcarroty wrote:
| Bought Sansa Fuze+ several months ago and should say about good
| battery life on Rockbox - ~24h display on and 30-40h playback.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I miss these little buggers but they were a little too fragile
| (battery, or lcd, or audio jack). Time to make an esp32 clone I
| guess.
| marlor wrote:
| The pre-Android Sony Walkmans (like the NW-A55 mentioned above)
| have decent battery life. I typically get around 30 hours from
| my SONY NW-A45. In a world where many modern "audiophile"
| players only get 8-10 hours of playback, that's not bad.
|
| However, they really are terrible for podcasts and audiobooks.
| There aren't any real bookmarking features to speak of. For
| that, I use a Rockbox-compatible player (my preference is for a
| refurbished old HDD-based iPod with a new battery and SD card
| storage).
| nicklaf wrote:
| This used to be available in the United States for purchase. I
| have one, and bought it in 2020 from Best Buy for $170. [0] Good
| to know it's still available in Japan, but it's a shame it
| doesn't seem to be in stock in the US anymore since it's a
| fantastic player. It's free from all the smartphone bloat and
| runs a slick interface on vanilla linux (and works just fine with
| linux as USB mass storage device, as well as an FM radio
| receiver, and a bluetooth client/host).
|
| That there is no wifi in my mind is a feature rather than a bug.
|
| I also like to think that model name is an homage to the hip hop
| group, N.W.A. :-P
|
| [0] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sony-walkman-nw-a55-hi-
| res-16gb...
| kwatsonafter wrote:
| Man Rube. I really hope you never, ever have to live around
| working class people. They'll literally tear you apart.
|
| Thank god for inequality keeping these little anime dorks safe.
| God bless America.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > I really hope you never, ever have to live around working
| class people. They'll literally tear you apart.
|
| ?
|
| > Thank god for inequality keeping these little anime dorks
| safe. God bless America.
|
| ??
|
| Can you explain the point you are trying to make?
|
| Is the problem the price of the unit? Or is it your opinion
| that "working class people" would tear apart the argument that
| the NW-A55 is a nice device?
|
| If so, why do you think they will dislike about the device? Or
| which alternative will they prefer and recommend?
| kwatsonafter wrote:
| It's a rhetorical point about the degradation of our social
| economy. I shouldn't have to explain poetry.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > It's a rhetorical point about the degradation of our
| social economy.
|
| I'm sorry, I still don't get it - neither from a rhetorical
| angle, nor from a poetry standpoint.
|
| I like poetry though, and after checking your profile I
| like your take on things (ex: the new programming
| paradigms) even if I couldn't understand your reply here or
| to the person who suggested putting side by side Rousseau,
| Montessori and Steiner.
|
| Anyway, if you've got 5 minutes, please explain!
|
| You said you are an academic pedagogist in training, and
| I'm always eager to learn more about things that interest
| me.
|
| Music, sociology, and the sociology of music are SUPER
| interesting to me!
| rchaud wrote:
| As an MP3 player fanatic in the pre-smartphone era, this post
| brought back a wave of nostalgia. Tactile buttons! A proper DAC!
| A device that does one thing, and does it well!
|
| I miss the ability to control playback using physical buttons,
| and not having to look at the device. Back when Android firmware
| flashing was common (OEMs rarely sell phones with unlockable
| bootloaders today), you could use the volume buttons to act as
| "forward/backward 1 track" buttons by holding them down. That
| hasn't worked on a single other phone I owned after 2014.
|
| I loved the default Android music app too, and then one day the
| UI started showing items from Google Music Cloud or whatever,
| right alongside my locally stored tracks, as if they were the
| same. I jumped ship right away, but had to find an alternative
| music player app that was "offline-only".
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Too much internet... I read it as newass walkman.
| WWLink wrote:
| I'm still reading it as such.
| [deleted]
| gbanfalvi wrote:
| I recently started transitioning away from using my phone for
| everything to having dedicated devices and I quite like it.
|
| I have an Analogue Pocket I buy second-hand game boy cartridges
| for, I have an e-reader on which I read e-pubs, etc.
|
| The "integration experience" is _a lot_ tougher. I can't buy
| games from an App Store and I need to plug in the reader to
| Calibre to get my next book... but the actual user experience is
| so much better. I don't know if it's the dedicated hardware or
| the uninterrupted experience or something else... it just lets
| the content shine through much more clearly.
|
| I'm an app developer and I strongly believed that we can have one
| device replace pretty much everything else almost perfectly...
| but now I kinda wanna try having a Walkman and getting rid of
| Spotify.
| tsak wrote:
| I love my Sony NWZ-A151. My whole music collection fits on a 128
| GB SD card. I always found streaming apps lacking. Spotify's UX
| is atrocious. I also don't think that their recommendation
| algorithms work well. There's also a huge gap in availability of
| non-mainstream recordings in most streaming services.
|
| 1 https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/support/digital-music-pla...
| jstummbillig wrote:
| I am mostly confused by what the author thinks the selling point
| is.
|
| > I can't describe what a breath of fresh air this is compared to
| how bad modern smartphone music and streaming apps have become.
|
| Well, I was hoping they would try to describe it, because
| personally, I would have to wear my most deeply shaded nostalgia
| glasses to think that MP3 player UX has ever been comparable to
| what Spotify offers nowadays.
|
| And we can not even directly compare a MP3 player to Spotify,
| which is paid to do an entirely different and way more
| complicated job, considering that you are able to browse and
| organize a completely different and incomparably larger (and
| automatically growing) set of media.
|
| In the end, this feels like a case of someone convincing
| themselves of a peculiar diet, where the believe in its
| effectiveness does all the heavy lifting. Which is great, when it
| works for that person - but probably not applicable in general
| and likely worse than the market solution.
| atoav wrote:
| > but probably not applicable in general and likely worse than
| the market solution.
|
| Worse, for which usecase?
|
| I as a musician _like_ to listen to full albums (as opposed to
| single songs) I like to _manually_ read up on music and then
| listen to that specific music from that specific world region
| and era. Spotify can be neat to discover some starting points
| for that search, but it is arguably shit at the listening
| experience _I_ am looking for. For people who don 't care so
| much about what is playing _in the background_ it is certainly
| doing a good job tho.
|
| I need to listen a lot to mixes and recordings as well, and an
| MP3 player certainly has an easier UX for that, than the
| typical phone - plug it in and copy over. How would you do that
| on spotify? I use a nextcloud sync setup, which works -- but
| setting that up to work flawlessly with your audio-player app
| (e.g. poweramp) can be a bit tricky at times.
|
| So yeah, Spotify ftw. _if_ you convinced yourself of that
| peculiar diet, to use your words.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Having grown up in an era when cassette walkmans were new,
| then salivating over CD walkmans before building my own MP3
| player in the mid-00's, I think smart phones are the best
| thing to happen to portable music.
|
| Like yourself, I do also listen to full albums. You can do
| that on Spotify very easily. You can listen to
| recommendations (either via Spotify's own suggestion engine
| or curated playlists) of music from genre's, region, era, etc
| too. Sure you cannot add your own mixes to Spotify but the
| beauty of smart phones is that I can use a different app for
| that (and as an ex-DJ I really am into listing to DJ sets so
| I very much to use my phone in that capacity).
|
| And this is really the point of the GPs comment. It wasn't
| that _Spotify_ (specifically) replaces the need for a walkman
| but rather that smart phones support an array of more
| convenient ways to consume music with Spotify as one
| _example_. If you don 't like Spotify then that's fine
| because we all have our own personal preferences. But you're
| not just limited to Spotify on a smart phone.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > Like yourself, I do also listen to full albums. You can
| do that on Spotify very easily
|
| Can you load into Spotify a very specific recoding that's
| rarely available? I have a few CDs hard to source from rare
| live recordings.
|
| If you just want to listen to background music, or a given
| song from a given bad, sure. If you want to listen to a
| specific recording that happened at a given date for which
| you have the CD, I don't think Spotify can do that.
|
| > I think smart phones are the best thing to happen to
| portable music.
|
| If they had hardware buttons, yes, but that's rarely found.
| Also, the DAC is rarely any good (less of a problem now
| that LDAC and AptXhd are becoming popular).
|
| Are these hardware buttons and a good DAC worth $400 to
| $4000? Maybe not to you, but they are worth that for me.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| > Can you load into Spotify a very specific recoding
| that's rarely available? I have a few CDs hard to source
| from rare live recordings.
|
| Weirdly, yes you can. I stumbled across that option
| myself on the desktop client when search for a song that
| wasn't in Spotify's catalogue.
|
| > If you just want to listen to background music, or a
| given song from a given bad, sure. If you want to listen
| to a specific recording that happened at a given date for
| which you have the CD, I don't think Spotify can do that.
|
| It can, but you really don't need to use Spotify if you
| don't want to. I still keep Subsonic around for exactly
| this kind of scenario (and podcasts too). So I use
| Spotify for 90% of my listening but Subsonic for anything
| I've curated myself from physical media.
|
| > If they had hardware buttons, yes, but that's rarely
| found.
|
| All smart phone has hardware volume buttons. My Bluetooth
| earphones have hardware play and pause buttons. And the
| device we are comparing it against (the new Sony Walkman)
| is also touchscreen based like smart phones. So there
| isn't really anything between modern Walkmans and smart
| phones these days.
|
| > Are these hardware buttons and a good DAC worth $400 to
| $4000? Maybe not to you, but they are worth that for me.
|
| You have no idea how much I've spent on audio hardware so
| please don't assume I cheap out and don't care about
| audio quality. In my home office alone I have an entire
| rack full of professional grade hardware. But I'm also
| pragmatic about what I buy. A PS400 MP3 player isn't
| going to sound any better than an iPhone when I'm
| listening to lossy music. The real differentiator there
| is what (ear|head)phones I use. However when I am sat at
| home my vinyl collection, I notice all the nuances of
| cheaper hardware much more.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > All smart phone has hardware volume buttons. My
| Bluetooth earphones have hardware play and pause buttons.
|
| I don't care much about volume buttons - it's usually
| adjusted to what I think is right and rarely tweaked.
|
| What I care about is buttons to control the tracks: there
| are no next/previous track and play button on the
| smartphones I tried.
|
| > And the device we are comparing it against (the new
| Sony Walkman) is also touchscreen based like smart
| phones.
|
| It also has actual hardware buttons.
|
| > So there isn't really anything between modern Walkmans
| and smart phones these days
|
| Well, if you exclude the buttons I care about, yes.
|
| > when I'm listening to lossy music
|
| You do, but I don't!
|
| > The real differentiator there is what (ear|head)phones
|
| Agreed, it's often the limiting factors. I had played
| with FLAC files before but couldn't find much of a
| difference.
|
| Now that I have proper headphones and earbuds, I do!! And
| it's actually why I'm waiting for proper neckbad earbuds
| to consider exercicing with music: just like I don't want
| to listen to lossy music, I don't want to be exposed to
| bad earbuds.
| [deleted]
| jstummbillig wrote:
| > Worse, for which usecase?
|
| For most use cases.
|
| > I as a musician like to listen to full albums [...]
|
| How does Spotify prohibits you as a musician from listening
| to an album or reading up on music or looking at music from
| eras? I detect nothing in any of these tasks that Spotify
| would make harder than any of the alternativ ways I know of.
| If anything it should be easier, considering the considerable
| amount of meta information that resides in Spotify (for
| example finding music from a specific era or displaying
| lyrics) and that you don't have to gather yourself.
|
| > How would you do that on spotify?
|
| I wouldn't. I would use foobar for that, because that's the
| right tool for the job. I also try no get confused about what
| the job is, what the available tools are and which tool can
| replace which for a specific job.
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| Here's one reason: you can only have playlist of songs.
| There's no way to collapse songs of a single album to one
| entry. You might think it's a little change but it
| completely devastates the experience if you're someone who
| listens to whole albums.
|
| That's not the only UX hurdle if you're someone who curates
| a library of things to listen to instead of engorging from
| an algorithm. Sure, you can follow albums and artists but
| since you can't organize them, these features gets useless
| if you have anything more than 100 items. The UI is in
| general is way too simple, with very sparse information
| density compared to your traditional music player. Was it
| because of necessity or style that all these previous tools
| opted for all these features Spotify shirks? I'll let you
| decide that.
| Toreno96 wrote:
| > you can only have playlist of songs. There's no way to
| collapse songs of a single album to one entry.
|
| You could add the whole albums to the playlist, one by
| one, and then play the playlist w/ shuffle disabled. This
| last bit makes it a limited workaround, however.
|
| On the other hand, Spotify API could allow to implement
| the custom solution to shuffle these, similar to
| https://spotifyshuffler.com/, if you have enough skills,
| time, and determination to do that.
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| I'm not using the playlists as a list of songs to listen
| to in one session. These are issues that come to the fore
| when you start using them as an organizational primitive.
| It's more limited than you think in that sense. For
| example, let's say I have a 20 album playlist. A very
| usual affair for me as I compile a single playlist for
| one month or a season. 20 albums comes around at 200
| files. That's an ungodly amount of scrolling right there.
| (my seasonal/monthly actually average around 50 albums).
| Now imagine how painful it'd be for my long running
| playlists with hundreds or even that one playlist of mine
| with thousands of albums?
|
| One workaround that I and other users make use of is to
| just add the first track of albums as links to the albums
| themselves. It's whatever. It's a bit stupid this is
| something I have to fucking deal with in the biggest
| music interface that the planet makes use of. Anyways, I
| mainly mentioned that as example of the ethos of Spotify
| UI/UX and what kinds of user they're primarily catering
| to. I guess I'm in the excluded group in this
| implementation of "worse-is-better" or something. (Is
| there a term for that group? Power user can't cover it
| because people with disabilities are usually in it.)
| bartread wrote:
| > MP3 player UX has ever been comparable to what Spotify offers
| nowadays.
|
| You might have different experiences to me.
|
| My iPod was never a distraction whilst driving in the way that
| Spotify, with it's manifold failure modes and
| inconsistent/unresponsive UX, can be.
|
| With depressing regularity I drive without either music or
| podcasts because that's preferable to dying (or killing someone
| else) in a car crash because I'm fussing with Spotify after
| it's crapped out in some weird way yet again.
|
| Again, not a problem I ever had with my iPod. I know they _do_
| crash occasionally - happened to a friend - but I can 't
| remember a single incident in the 7 - 8 years I used mine
| regularly (multiple hours, every day) where it crashed.
|
| Spotify is terrible software to the point of being dangerous. I
| can't see how that is desirable UX.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| > You might have different experiences to me.
|
| Definitely.
|
| Your experience does sound demoralizing. I am not sure I have
| had Spotify crash on me thus far and certainly not with any
| regularity. I think it's safe to assume that you have an
| untypically bad experience, because if what you described was
| true for most people, Spotify would have no users.
|
| Which begs the question, why do you stick to it? There are
| competing services. How could they possibly do a worse job,
| in light of what you are describing?
| criddell wrote:
| Spotify crashes on me quite a bit too but I stick with it
| because my kids like Spotify and we have a family
| subscription which is a pretty good deal. I really dislike
| the Spotify UI, especially the way podcasts are given so
| much screen space and it's something I have no interest in
| and can't figure out how to disable it.
|
| I had free Apple Music for six months and I think it
| actually sounds better than Spotify (or at least I
| preferred it, I absolutely do not have audiophile ears) but
| I don't want to pay for a third music service (we also have
| Pandora because their radio stations are great) and my kids
| prefer Spotify.
| projektfu wrote:
| I find Apple Music to be pretty good _except in CarPlay_
| where the features that ostensibly make driving safer make it
| more dangerous. If I 'm parked, I have access to the whole
| collection. If I'm moving, there's a tiny fraction available,
| or I can use Siri to try to get what I want. If course, Siri
| is stuck on one language at a time and my collection has
| many, some of which I can't even pronounce. What could have
| been a quick scroll to find the album or artist I want
| becomes a frustrating experience in finding something
| acceptable for the mood.
|
| I'll agree that people with early iPods had an easy time
| finding their music. If you truly love recommendation
| engines, that old style is not for you. But it would be nice
| to have the same interface on CarPlay for the rest of us.
| fbnlsr wrote:
| > And we can not even directly compare a MP3 player to Spotify,
| which is paid to do an entirely different and way more
| complicated job, considering that you are able to browse and
| organize a completely different and incomparably larger (and
| automatically growing) set of media.
|
| Spotify has two drawbacks though: you need a constant Internet
| connection and it removes tracks at will. The constant internet
| connection can be solved by downloading media to the device,
| but the fact that some tracks (even whole albums) can become
| unavailable suddenly is utterly disappointing. This is the
| reason I keep buying CDs. Spotify is an amazing tool to listen
| on the go but whenever I feel a real connection (no pun
| intended) with an artist's music, I have to buy their art in a
| physical format.
| mellavora wrote:
| > The constant internet connection can be solved by
| downloading media to the device,
|
| Well, you'd think so, but I've had albums which I had
| downloaded disappear if I hadn't listened to them for a
| while.
|
| So the "download" isn't really stable.
| lxgr wrote:
| There is a maximum of five offline devices per account
| which used to be enforced manually (i.e. you had to make a
| conscious choice of which device to kick out if you wanted
| to add a new one), but it's now managed automatically on a
| least-recently-used basis. Maybe this is what you're
| running into?
| dmitriid wrote:
| > but the fact that some tracks (even whole albums) can
| become unavailable suddenly is utterly disappointing.
|
| Blame the copyright holders aka the Big Four/Big Five:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry
|
| Streaming services would gladly stream anything you want to
| you.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Who is to blame is irrelevant.
| mosselman wrote:
| That is still a downside of the system. Even when there is
| some external force at play. The BigFour/Big Five don't
| come into your house to take away your CDs.
| rchaud wrote:
| Nah, I'll just blame Spotify.
|
| There are services that let you download to your local
| storage, whatever you buy from them. Bandcamp is the
| obvious example, but in the past there was eMusic and even
| iTunes. Spotify could do it, but they just don't want to.
| How else are they going to help themselves to your wallet
| every month?
|
| Sure streaming services want to give me anything I
| desire...anyhting except allow me to download an audio file
| that I can keep on my system. Then I wouldn't have to give
| a crap about whether Spotify still had the rights to it.
| IgniteTheSun wrote:
| > I am mostly confused by what the author thinks the selling
| point is.
|
| -------------------
|
| From the article:
|
| > You don't need to use any special desktop software; you mount
| the Walkman as a USB storage device and transfer files. Wait...
| that's it? Yes!
|
| >The player indexes any music you add, but keeps the files in
| place. This lets me use rsync to regularly diff and copy new
| ripped CDs or downloaded tracks across, even on FreeBSD. It
| also decouples syncing from music organising, so no more
| finagling iTunes in Wine, or using the garbage new macOS
| Music.app. As a (diagnosed) OCD suffer, this literally makes me
| happier than it should.
|
| ----------
|
| These are features I had in my MP3 player about the time the
| first iPod came out (looked like a thumbdrive with a couple of
| buttons and a 2-line LCD screen on its side). Features I highly
| prefer, along with the fact that no internet connection is
| required at any time. I'm not looking for a device to be the
| front end for Spotify, Apple, or any other service - just an
| MP3 player that lets me play podcasts, music, lectures, etc. -
| e.g., any audio file that I want to, ideally in most of the
| common audio formats (including ogg).
|
| [Edited for format.]
| lambic wrote:
| I want to listen to my music, the music I've bought, not what
| spotify throws at me. I'm currently using Youtube Music because
| it at least lets me store and play my music collection, even
| though it tries to push me toward the streaming options.
| pier25 wrote:
| Spotify has an opportunity here to sell a hi quality portable
| player with a good DAC and headphones amp.
|
| It's obviously a niche product, but if they started streaming
| in FLAC and paired it with their own audiophile player, it
| would be a fantastic marketing stunt they would probably turn a
| profit by selling the devices. God knows what audiophiles do to
| be able to listen to audio on the go with a good DAC and amp.
| izacus wrote:
| I don't remember any of the MP3 players desperately trying to
| shove podcast down my throat instead of showing my music. They
| also never lost all my downloaded music in the first 30 minutes
| of an 11 hour flight due to a crash bug.
|
| So just in those simple ways Spotify is worse.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I've encountered plenty of bugs with portable music players.
| I've had CD walkman scratch disks, cassette players eat tapes
| and I've had SD and compact flash storage fail on me too. No
| technology is beyond failure.
| rchaud wrote:
| A CD getting scratched isn't really a bug, it's a
| limitation of that technology and form factor. Is there
| anybody on earth that didn't scratch up at least a few
| accidentally?
| hnlmorg wrote:
| It is a bug when the battery compartment is inside CD
| tray so if the battery flap isn't shut flush you end up
| with damaged discs. This isnt normal operation of CD
| players, it's a problem with the design of the unit.
|
| That said, it was still one of my favourite portable
| music players because it sounded amazing and supported
| MP3 CDs too.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > Well, I was hoping they would try to describe it, because
| personally, I would have to wear my most deeply shaded
| nostalgia glasses to
|
| Leaving aside the UI issues (most of which can be alleviated
| with hardware buttons having tactile indicators like bumps /
| different sizes etc), my core concern is you are leaving not
| just the preservation job (prey none of the albums/songs gets
| deleted after an IP right renegotiation) but the curation job
| to Spotify.
|
| I don't want that. Curation is the most important thing even. I
| carefully select the albums I want to listen to. I don't ever
| want software to try to guess my tastes or fill in the blanks
| when the playlist is over.
|
| It might be good for Spotify as they can show better stats
| (more tracks listened to, more engagement, whatever) but it's
| not for me as I'd rather have audio stop to let me take another
| decision about what I want to listen to: I care about my own
| experience much more than Spotify might.
| [deleted]
| layer8 wrote:
| The ability of such players to be operated blindly, and to give
| audio feedback on operations, is a major advantage. Then also
| the pocketability, compared to today's huge phones. Lastly,
| being distraction-free because they are dedicated to sound file
| playback. No internet, no ads, no hit-and-miss recommendations,
| no connection issues. Just play what you know you have and
| like. It's a simpler life where you have full control.
| cush wrote:
| In terms of UX, it's really hard to beat high fidelity audio
| and hardware buttons. Spotify is just an app. The real
| experience is the playback.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Hardware buttons I agree with. But the Sony NW-A55 Walkman we
| are comparing against requires constant touchscreen
| interaction too so it's not really any better than a smart
| phone. Plus most phones have hardware buttons for volume
| anyway.
|
| As for high fidelity audio, I doubt there is much between
| devices these days. I remember back when I was buying
| portable cassette and, later, CD players there did used to be
| a real noticeable difference between the audio fidelity of
| different brands (ironically with Sony often cashing in on
| their brand and than having worse fidelity than hardware from
| significantly cheaper competitors). However these days
| everyone is listening to lossy compression over bluetooth so
| there isn't really going to be much room for the host
| hardware to improve. As always, the headphones you use will
| make much more of an impact.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| I like to keep music playback separate from my phone
| because I hate having it interrupted by some random app
| notification. And on my smartphone I have to push the
| volume to the max to barely reach the level I consider
| normal with my headphones. On the Walkman that's not an
| issue and the difference in sound is immediately
| noticeable. Of course that doesn't matter if you use
| Bluetooth, but as there isn't a single decent pair of BT
| headphones with replaceable batteries on the market I'll
| keep using cables in the foreseeable future (and headphones
| have a minimum size, so the manufacturers can't even use
| their typical excuses for using glue).
|
| Of course some phones are quite solid in terms of sound,
| with some music there's no difference either way, but
| without comparison you can't really know what's missing
| unfortunately.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I have done comparisons. :) It used to be that the key
| differentiator was a hardware's DAC but I can't say I've
| noticed that much difference in the last 10 years. Even a
| cheap Chinese phone I used for a bit sounded equivalent.
| And that was before I switched to bluetooth.
|
| I do really notice the difference on non-portable
| hardware though. I have used a bunch of different USB
| devices and they vary wildly. I have 4 amplifiers and
| several audio switching boxed rack mounted right next to
| me (they power 9 speakers, 2 CRT TVs, 4 LCD monitors and
| a projector :D).
| rob74 wrote:
| > _...you can pocket the player and use its physical side
| controls for play /pause, stop, back, forward, and hold..._
|
| Many Bluetooth headphones have physical controls for that. E.g.
| my Marshall headphones have a nifty little "joystick": up/down
| for volume, left/right for skip, press for pause/accept call,
| long press to turn on/off. Elegant, minimalistic, easy to
| remember.
|
| > _It's also nice having a dedicated player that isn't inundated
| with notifications and other modern distractions. Separating out
| ebooks to a dedicated tablet worked the same wonders for my
| anxiety._
|
| YMMV - I for one would be ridden by the anxiety of missing an
| important call on my phone while listening to a dedicated music
| player...
| shmerl wrote:
| Looks pretty cool. Is there some open source firmware for it?
|
| Rockbox was good for Sansa players.
| varispeed wrote:
| Please someone make an mp3 player that has precise progress bar,
| ideally controlled by a physical slider or potentiometer.
|
| Also please add an option to slow down or speed up the material
| with reasonable anti-aliasing and an option to retain pitch.
|
| Please make it so that you can scroll through thousands of mp3s
| and preview without interruptions.
|
| Let me store cue points recallable by dedicated physical buttons.
|
| At this point you may see that I am actually describing
| professional DJ player, but these things are mad expensive and
| bulky.
| moralestapia wrote:
| I loved the iPod Nano and these players are fairly similar, might
| give one of them a try, thanks for sharing.
| layer8 wrote:
| Volume buttons not being granular enough is what I despise about
| iPhones/iPads (and also the one Samsung tablet I own). It's
| something that would be so easy to make configurable. (Jailbreaks
| enabled that.)
| zasdffaa wrote:
| Regarding the interface: no. I bought one of these and regretted
| it ever since.
|
| It may well be better than the competition currently, but it is
| still got a shitty interface that demands your attention for
| anything. Small example: to switch off you have to press and hold
| the off button (edit: a few seconds), then it pops up a modal but
| asks you whether you really want to turn it off. Err, yes please?
| The 'off' button at the top is actually well engineered you can't
| hit it by accident, it's hard to hold in and you have to do it
| for several seconds. I don't want to a confirmation dialog
| popping up that when I'm getting off a bus. It isn't needed.
|
| The damn thing demand your attention all the time. I used to have
| an Archos, I could navigated using its clunky front-the lever
| without looking. Not with this you can't. You have to
| concentrate.
|
| The buttons shown on the side are too small to feel unless you
| concentrate (the smaller ones are ~2mm wide, the volume 'bar' is
| thankfully usable after a bit of practice).
|
| There's other problems with it - turn it on? Pretty animation +
| almost a minute startup time before it's ready. Unplug it from
| charging, it remains on despite going blank, on standby, looking
| like it turned itself off - come to use it in a few days, it's
| gone flat - "but I just charged it, what happened?".
|
| It's beautifully well-made in hardware, sound is really great,
| the UI... I bloody hate navigating the music on it. It's an
| absolute pain in the arse. Bring back proper user interfaces, not
| touch screens. You know, with user testing.
|
| It's a lovely bit of kit that I just don't want to use.
|
| Rant over.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Electronics are getting more 'needy' all the time. Try
| switching off a modern TV, it requires three or four steps in
| sequence or you can start all over again. In the good old days
| you just hit the 'off' button and that was it.
|
| Ditto for navigation, in car systems (the designers of non-
| tactile systems deserve a special place in hell and hopefully
| their victims don't haunt them in person), phones and so on.
| They all seem to thrive on your attention instead of just
| getting the job done and staying out of the way otherwise.
| eropple wrote:
| _> Try switching off a modern TV, it requires three or four
| steps in sequence or you can start all over again._
|
| They do? My LG has a power button and it turns off when I
| press it. So does the TCL in my studio.
| kkkgllloo wrote:
| The Samsung TV in this Airbnb goes into standby when you
| press the "power" button. To actually turn it off you have
| to go into the settings and find the real option, or unplug
| it.
| aceazzameen wrote:
| I don't even think my Sony Android TV is capable of turning
| off! Press power on the remote and it goes to sleep. Ok,
| that's fine. But when an app is unresponsive I have to hold
| the remote power button for something like 6 seconds and it
| only reboots the TV. I can't even find a software shutdown
| button.
| theodric wrote:
| Beautiful hardware let down by its software? Sounds like every
| Sony product I've ever bought.
| trollied wrote:
| SonicStage was a perfect example of this. Amazing (small!)
| MiniDisc hardware, let down by one of the worst pieces of
| software I've ever had the misfortune to use.
| laputan_machine wrote:
| Yeah this is exactly what I was thinking of, that software
| was truly awful. I owned 3 MiniDisc players. I thought they
| were so neat!
| voxadam wrote:
| In defense of Sony's software/firmware team I'd argue that
| we've also been repeatedly burned by Sony's flawed hardware
| full of their endless NIH proprietary BS (e.g. Memory Stick,
| UMD, Minidisc, ATRAC, Betamax, to name just a few).
| layer8 wrote:
| MiniDisc wasn't proprietary, it was available from many
| manufacturers:
| https://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html
|
| And the hardware itself was great, even when it was for a
| proprietary standard.
| NonNefarious wrote:
| But Sony is a champion of undermining industry standards.
| S/PDIF is a bastardization of AES/EBU. They created a
| bullshit version of Firewire with a rinky-dink non-
| standard connector that lacked power. They continued to
| cripple their products with Memory Stick for years after
| the rest of the planet settled on SD.
|
| Their first Thunderbolt support came crammed into a
| hacked USB port on one of their laptops.
|
| I'm sure I'm forgetting some other examples.
| wvh wrote:
| It would be worthwhile if some companies would just be willing
| to minimally invest into an open-source version of their
| interface and a safe way for developers and hardcore users to
| update their devices without bricking them.
|
| It might go nowhere, but if they're lucky, some really good
| interface ideas might pop up that could then be incorporated
| into the official product. This Walkman line and its embedded
| software has a relatively long lifespan, so a lot of people
| might benefit from improvements.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Also Sony's preinstalled music app is the worst I've ever seen.
| It cannot create/edit playlists or playback queues. It can only
| delete playlists, and whenever you do that the app will
| interrupt music playback for a second. It can only display
| album cover thumbnails if their resolution is around 80x80 or
| lower. Thanks to Android it's possible to install alternatives,
| but a more lightweight system would have been preferrable.
|
| It can only charge the battery while switched on. The last time
| the battery was at 15% when I plugged it in, and the Walkman
| instantly booted up Android, draining the battery to 7% before
| it started charging. I do not know what happens if the battery
| charge isn't enough to boot up the OS and I'm too afraid to
| try.
|
| It's a really neat device and I like using it, but it has so
| many puzzling quirks.
| noxvilleza wrote:
| Was looking at DAPS in this price range towards the end of 2019
| - ended up going with a Fiio X5 III. Many of your Sony concerns
| are present in it: really poor menu/nav design, slow startup -
| but excellent sound quality.
| otikik wrote:
| > you mount the Walkman as a USB storage device and transfer
| files. Wait... that's it? Yes!
|
| Ahh yes that is a Premium feature not even Apple or Android
| flagship phones are able to provide. For some reason.
| otikik wrote:
| In case it was not clear: connecting a mobile phone to a
| computer and using it as a usb storage devices is simply not
| possible, doubly so if you are looking for platform
| independence (windows/Mac/Linux). At the very least you will
| have to use external specialized apps, or jailbreak your
| device, or a combination of both, if it's at all possible.
|
| This was a basic feature that all phones used to have. It was
| quietly removed, I suspect in an effort to push users towards
| iTunes/Google Play Music, both of which are dead now.
| d--b wrote:
| > But the audio quality is a noticeable upgrade from my iPhone 8
|
| What? Can anyone second this?
| UkrainianJew wrote:
| Curiosity question: has anyone done any work on reverse-
| engineering the Sony Mega Bass feature they used to have on old
| analog players (and ported to some early MP3 ones)? It sounded so
| much deeper than any phone/sound card would give. I'm wondering
| if it's some purely analog schenanigans (some tricky extra
| capacitors?) or if it can be replicated in pure software.
| fortran77 wrote:
| There's a Wikipedia page on how these techniques work.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_fundamental
|
| I've played pipe organs that do the same thing with "resultant"
| stops to fake 32' or 64' stops.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > It sounded so much deeper than any phone/sound card would
| give
|
| If you have a full Sony setup (walkman + headphones) DSEE
| Extreme sounds just like that, and seems to be purely software.
|
| One of my "tests" is to run my favorite Pavarotti rendition of
| Verdi's La donna e mobile - with DSEE Extreme on, it's night
| and day.
|
| However, on my normal FLACs, it's far less important.
|
| Some people even dislike it:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/sony/comments/ipcqf9/dsee_extreme_o...
| wg4t3464y4 wrote:
| Sandisk makes a line of budget players, that while inferior in
| many aspects, excel in at least one major area over most
| competitors: they all _have physical buttons_ , not a touch
| screen. For a music player, this is a must, because it lets you
| pause/play, fastforward/rewind, skip track go back, raise/lower
| volume _without having to actually look at the screen._
|
| I clip mine to the inside of my left pants pocket, and other than
| track selection, I can operate the entire thing without having to
| look at it.
| varispeed wrote:
| > I can't describe what a breath of fresh air this is compared to
| how bad modern smartphone music and streaming apps have become.
|
| My biggest pet peeve is that very much all streaming applications
| have very tiny progress bars, it's almost impossible to navigate
| through longer piece of music or podcast precisely. It's like all
| the functions to navigate around the music have become an
| afterthought and they focus on showing artwork and other bells
| and whistles over utility.
|
| As if people making these apps don't actually use them.
| jwmoz wrote:
| It's nerdy. Pointless though imo when you have a phone and
| Spotify. The days of hoarding mp3s are gone, thankfully.
| loser777 wrote:
| Pointless until you veer even the slightest bit from what
| Spotify is able (cares?) to license.
|
| City pop listeners in the states will back me up on this one
| (it's not even an esoteric genre!) but where's Yamashita,
| Kadomatsu, or Sato? The Spotify US catalog is black hole here.
| Ironically the best legal way for listeners to buy this music
| is to fly to Japan to buy vinyl.
| ifelsethenyeah wrote:
| Keep your hands off my FLAC and MP3 hoards. :P
|
| Actually, Spotify's catalog isn't that impressive. I use
| Plexamp when Spotify's choices get old. Soundcloud also has
| infinite permutations of remixes.
| 8fingerlouie wrote:
| You don't even need to add Spotify to that equation.
|
| I have all my music stored locally. It's about 300 CDs that i
| ripped (out of a 1000 CD collection) and stored the originals
| in the attic. Since iTunes removed their DRM, i've purchased my
| music there. My iPhone is "plenty" good for playing music where
| i want it, and with an iTunes match subscription, i have my
| music available in the cloud.
|
| I don't subscribe to any music streaming service, and i doubt i
| ever will, especially since "modern music" seems to be about
| cranking out one hit wonders with very little quality and
| skill.
|
| It may be survival bias, but i am hard pressed to find any
| band/musician from the past 2 decades we will still listen to
| in 2 decades time.
| porcoda wrote:
| I got one of the NW-A45 Walkmans a few years ago - it's pretty
| nice and similar to the A55. Good audio quality, but most of all,
| it lets me focus on music without temptation to do things I would
| do on a phone.
|
| My biggest gripes are the interface.
|
| - It takes forever to rebuild its database when I add new music
| to the SD card. No matter how much I searched, I couldn't figure
| out how to build this myself on the computer side when I added
| music.
|
| - Creating playlists isn't possible. You can add to existing
| playlists, but if you want new ones you need to add them from the
| computer side. I did find that if I add a skeleton playlist file
| to the SD card I can add to it on device, but that means I need
| to plan ahead for what playlists I'm going to want.
|
| - Navigating is a pain when you have a big collection. I collect
| live music, so sometimes I have hundreds of "albums" for a given
| artist. It's painful to find what I want.
|
| The inconvenience of using it has led me to usually leave it at
| home and fall back to the Music app on my iPhone and use iTunes
| Match to shove all of the music up into the cloud after I've
| transcoded it from lossless to a smaller lossy form. I know lots
| of people hate that app, but so far it's the only one that I can
| fly around in my 90k+ song collection with. I'm always on the
| lookout for better ones, or better dedicated devices, but so far
| no luck finding one that isn't a pain to use.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| Yep; see my other post. Let me add one to this, perhaps it
| affects you?
|
| I'm fussy about what I like, I buy a CD, rip, and listen.
| Usually I want to throw that track away after a few listens.
| You can't delete the track you are listening to (you can sort
| of, depending on how you found it via the UI, but usually you
| can't) so you must remember to delete it at home on your main
| computer. That's a major feature for me and it messes that up.
| porcoda wrote:
| I do the same - buy CDs, rip, archive CD away in a box as my
| backup. I don't delete though. I approach my huge collection
| as stuff I know I have, and who knows - sometimes I'll listen
| to something I haven't felt like hearing in a decade, so I
| like knowing it's there if I hunt for it.
|
| I do agree with your post - the UI is bad. Even with the tiny
| buttons, a better UI would be nice. It seems to be designed
| for people with relatively small collections. I find this a
| lot - devices that market to audiophiles emphasize sound
| quality as all that matters, but often ignores that
| audiophiles may also have massive music collections. They
| usually suck on the "how does the audiophile organize and
| find the music they want to hear through that fancy expensive
| hardware" aspect.
| wvh wrote:
| I've been looking with some interest at the NW Walkmans for
| several years, and as far as I know, the whole range still
| missing queue functionality. It's strange to me whoever is in
| charge for the product line at Sony doesn't seem to be
| interested in adding or improving pretty basic player
| functionality like playlists and play queues. It's almost as if
| they invested into the hardware platform, then called it quits
| instead of naturally evolving the software side.
| pcmoney wrote:
| Somebody help me understand this?
|
| If the audio quality isn't better why is it so much better than
| the "bad" subscription services?
|
| I understand critiques of how little they pay artists but I mean
| from a customer perspective, why is spotify et al bad?
|
| I assume you have to buy download organize and sync the music for
| this system?
|
| Is it just nostalgia? Just a single purpose device that cant text
| you etc?
| marlor wrote:
| I have both a Walkman (for music) and an upgraded/rebuilt iPod
| (for audiobooks) and prefer them for a few reasons:
|
| - They don't use any mobile data, and work when in a mobile-
| phone black spot (e.g. the national parks I go to most
| weekends). This is the main one.
|
| - I can store all my music on there, without needing to use any
| storage space on my phone.
|
| - They last forever with some basic maintenance. My iPod was
| made in 2006. I've upgraded the battery and replaced the HDD
| with an SD-card, but otherwise it just keeps on going.
|
| - I can switch EQ profiles on my Walkman super-easily to suit
| different music or headphones. No navigating menus, it's done
| in under a second.
|
| - Tactile controls and voiced menus on my Rockboxed iPod. I can
| use the device entirely without looking at the screen. Handy
| when driving, but also useful when jogging or cycling, any
| other time you'd rather not stare at a screen instead of being
| aware of your environment.
|
| - I can load them up with the exact pressing of music I want to
| listen to. For many old albums, which have gone though a dozen
| re-releases and remasters, this makes a difference. In fact,
| for some albums I have several different releases on my player,
| all with their distinct character, pros and cons.
|
| - Brilliant bookmarking in Rockbox for audiobooks. Super
| customisable. And dedicated players never do a software update
| and lose your state. It's always ready to go, precisely where I
| left it.
|
| - Car mode. Brilliant for cars like my weekender that predate
| proper phone connectivity. Rockbox will automatically pause
| your audiobook when you turn off the ignition and start again
| when you're back.
|
| - Ability to enable dynamic range compression to combat road
| noise. All in a few button presses, without looking at the
| screen.
|
| Are they for everyone? Of course not. But all of the above
| things matter to me personally.
| magnetowasright wrote:
| I think you've covered it all here but I'll add my slightly
| different use case to your list
|
| I use iPod Classics, I haven't tried rockboxing any, though.
| I've been meaning to but haven't yet.
|
| Many artists I like aren't on all (or any) of the streaming
| platforms. I also still buy CDs and generally like owning my
| copies as much as I can.
|
| I hate user interface changes/companies like Spotify having
| the ability to disable basic features on a whim
|
| No internet, buy once/no ads/no drm, and no touchscreen are
| important to me. The click wheel is just so good lol
| aceazzameen wrote:
| I think you're selling me on upgrading my 4th gen iPod. I
| didn't realize you can swap out the HDD for a SD card. It
| looks pretty easy too! Also all this talk about Rockbox makes
| me want to try it.
| jwong_ wrote:
| What Walkman and iPod do you use?
|
| I've started using my old iPod video again, and enjoying it
| for music, but curious on your use case for it as deviated
| audiobooks. How did you rebuild it specifically for
| audiobooks? Just toss RockBox on it?
| rtpg wrote:
| From a usability perspective Spotify is doing stuff like
| pushing podcasts all over its interface, and sometimes the UI
| just completely freezes up.
|
| There's theoretical stuff about losing access to music but
| there's the entirely practical issues that come from playing
| music off of a remote server that has to track plays etc vs
| stuff on disk and a software stack that doesn't have to be
| concerned about new features or some upselling to meet KPIs.
|
| And of course a dedicated player is just a player, so you're
| gonna be able to quickly open and do stuff. The problem with
| Omnidevices is you gotta first navigate to the single purpose
| thing
| californical wrote:
| > theoretical stuff about losing access to music
|
| This has happened to me noticeably a bunch of times. It
| happened on Spotify, which I've since switched away from, but
| it happens on Tidal too (which I use now). I'm not sure if
| Spotify still has this feature, but Tidal will show me a song
| "grayed out" if it was on a playlist but it's unavailable
| now. It isn't often, but sometimes songs/albums that I really
| like just... go away. You wouldn't always notice, but it is
| definitely a very real issue!
| cfcf14 wrote:
| The author could have probably shed a tad more light on why
| they feel music apps (spotify et al) are bad. I agree with them
| though - these apps are atrocious to use, and seem to be
| continually getting worse. Some of my ongoing complaints about
| spotify are the following:
|
| * Offline mode still doesn't work properly, after literally
| years of development. If you lose connection while streaming
| and want to switch to your 'downloaded albums'? Nope, the app
| will hang on a blank screen or crash. As londoner, this means
| spotify basically doesn't work on the tube at all - again,
| _even in offline-mode_.
|
| * App will generally blank screen, hang, or crash semi-
| regularly for no apparent reason at least a couple times a day.
|
| * Audio quality is awful. The default is 96kbps, which I
| believe even the most untrained listening can hear the
| crumminess of.
|
| * Tons of missing music, even from mainstream artists.
|
| * UI makes it difficult to navigate playlists <-> artist <->
| song <-> album, traversing the hierarchy of music associations
|
| * UI prioritises pushing podcast & other unwanted commercial
| content at you, make it difficult to find what you want and
| navigate the library
|
| Then you've got the scumminess of the company itself that you
| alluded to (not paying artists, toxic corporate politics, etc).
| stonith wrote:
| I have a similar device and use it daily.
|
| I don't have to worry about my music being removed because the
| licensing changed at the streaming provider. I tried various
| streaming services and all of them removed music from me at
| some point. This isn't something that's particularly negotiable
| for me.
|
| I can trivially add songs that aren't on a streaming service
| using youtube-dl or similar.
|
| I can change songs by pressing a physical button on the side of
| the player, meaning it doesn't have to leave my pocket and I
| don't have to look at it. This is particularly useful while
| exercising.
| wombat-man wrote:
| you can still load songs directly. I use the controls on my
| earbuds to switch songs. Not as fine a degree of control but
| most of the time I just need to skip anyway.
| dangus wrote:
| You can do all of this with a smartphone, though. There are
| plenty of offline music apps for smartphones. There are
| plenty of phones (and headphones) with physical buttons to
| control music.
|
| My main criticism is that this is all redundant hardware with
| basically no unique capabilities.
|
| Even if the DAC is extra special, that's something you can
| get on a phone via USB.
| berkut wrote:
| In my opinion, the iOS experience for playing offline music
| is going downhill, and has been since the iPhone 3GS era.
|
| It gets more and more difficult to have a UI dedicated to
| offline music - you can disable streaming, but you can't
| disable the 'Radio' section of the Music app for example.
|
| Similarly, the user experience has got quite a bit worse
| for navigating your catalogue: 10 years or so ago, you used
| to be able to click the Name of the Artist or Album that
| was playing, and it would jump to either the artist or the
| album respectively: these days, on iOS 15, doing that does
| nothing other than jump back to the currently playing song
| list (so current album normally), neither does hold-and-
| press. I have to navigate with the back button, or go back
| through library, and find the artist each time, or use
| search.
|
| There are third part dedicated apps and I've tried some of
| them (and bought Ecoute and VOX), but they're not perfect
| either.
| ge96 wrote:
| Neil Young comes in with his Toblerone MP3 device
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > why is spotify et al bad
|
| Because Spotify et al doesn't give you a big directory full of
| MP3s. On top of that, the physical interface and features of a
| small dedicated player is a better user experience.
| dangus wrote:
| What's better about a small dedicated player compared to
| using an offline media jukebox app?
|
| Smartphones can play offline media. They can play media
| hosted on a private server. Nobody's forcing any smartphone
| user to use Spotify in particular. There's always
| alternatives like VLC and countless others that offer that
| same functionality.
|
| To me, a dedicated player is redundant hardware with less
| processing power and refinement than a typical smartphone.
|
| Even Apple, king of the locked down proprietary experience,
| has a Music app with the option to completely disable and
| hide their streaming service from even being visible. You can
| sync music via a USB cable or WiFi from local files just like
| it was an original iPod.
| nl wrote:
| To add to this, you can use Spotify to sync your MP3 from a
| computer to your phone and play them via the Spotify
| interface. It works very well!
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > What's better about a small dedicated player compared to
| using an offline media jukebox app?
|
| Sometimes offline requires more effort. I would rather my
| kid have a dedicated MP3 player that does just that instead
| of a phone that requires locking down with too many points
| of breach. Way more cheaper to replace too compared to a
| lost/damaged smartphone.
| thirdsun wrote:
| Because there's _a lot_ of niche, obscure music missing from
| streaming services. People who are into music care about those
| gaps in the catalogue and they want to own their collection
| without fear of loosing access to their content due to changing
| rights, which might happen any day.
| iasay wrote:
| To note you can add your own music to Apple Music. About half
| my music was from CDs and iTunes back in the day.
| thirdsun wrote:
| I know. My whole collection lives in Apple's music.app - I
| jsut don't want to rely on their (or anyone else's)
| streaming service. I use Spotify merely to preview releases
| I consider buying.
| erwincoumans wrote:
| >> But the audio quality is a noticeable upgrade from my iPhone 8
|
| Is this still true with latest iPhone? I would expect that iPhone
| hardware is not a limiting factor for audio quality (assuming a
| wired adaptor for HiFi headphones)
| hug wrote:
| > Is this still true with latest iPhone?
|
| The latest iPhone doesn't _have_ a DAC in it for headphones.
| The little 3.5mm-to-lightning dongle is active -- it contains a
| tiny DAC /amp powered by the lightning port.
|
| Is the tiny lightning dongle a good DAC? The answer is largely
| "it's fine". Anyone who isn't on the cork-sniffing side of
| audiophile trends will find it acceptable, assuming the amp is
| capable of driving the load of whatever headphones you're
| plugging into it.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| My experience was (and one of the reasons I miss the
| headphone jack is) that the dongle quality + Apple ear buds
| wasn't as good as the DAC the older iPhones had.
| hug wrote:
| I don't want to deny that, when picking up the two & due to
| some trickery of your own brain, you prefer the iPhone 8,
| but I _do_ doubt is that it is because of a measurable
| difference in audio quality.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Perhaps, but I was comparing Apple ear buds with the
| 3.5mm jack vs lightning ones. Presumably the drivers and
| whatnot would be similar. In general I don't think audio
| quality has ever been particularly important to Apple.
| The iPhone (and all smartphones really) is a jack of all
| trades gizmo not a device for high quality audio
| playback.
|
| I remember when I had a first gen iPhone and the call
| quality was atrocious with AT&T compared to my RAZR on
| Verizon. You get used to it over time but back to back it
| was pretty dramatic.
| iasay wrote:
| Not so sure about that.
|
| I've got a decent quality pro audio interface and monitor
| headphones. I've also got airpod pros. The AirPods sound
| much much better and I prefer listening to anything with
| them.
|
| It's all subjective.
| erwincoumans wrote:
| If you have an iPhone and you care about its audio
| quality there are some DAC dongles, see also
|
| https://www.whathifi.com/advice/how-to-play-hi-res-music-
| you...
|
| Quoting the article:
|
| "Next, you need a decent DAC such as the Audioquest
| DragonFly Cobalt, Cyrus soundKey or Chord Mojo 2 and a
| good pair of headphones, such as the Grado SR325x, Shure
| Aonic 3 or Austrian Audio Hi-X55.
|
| This is just a starting point, of course. Don't be afraid
| to build up to a more revealing system. You could combine
| the Chord Hugo 2 DAC with a pair of Beyerdynamic T1 (3rd
| Generation) headphones for a more premium set-up. That
| might be a touch overkill and punishingly transparent for
| an iPhone, but these are hi-res files, after all."
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Oh I don't particularly care about audio quality from the
| iPhone, most of the time I'm using it in a noisy
| environment. I've a decent pair of proper headphones but
| there's no way I'd wear them in public.
|
| More to the point I don't want dongles for my phone
| either. These are all solutions for Apple cheapening the
| product.
| jensgk wrote:
| The Audioquest DragonFly Cobalt is not very good: https:/
| /www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/a...
| The Apple USB-C dongle is better: https://www.audioscienc
| ereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r...
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| The dongle always impresses me as slaying so many specialized
| DACs.
|
| https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r.
| ..
| brewdad wrote:
| It really is amazing the Apple, the poster child for
| overpriced dongles and accessories, has built such an
| incredible device for $9 MSRP.
| [deleted]
| capitalsigma wrote:
| Yeah, it's really hard to believe that... compute power is the
| limiting factor on audio? In 2022? On a $1k piece of hardware?
| Over Bluetooth, in both cases?
| KerrAvon wrote:
| No idea, but it doesn't surprise me that a dedicated audio
| player could theoretically do a lot better. Just as one would
| generally expect a DSLR to beat the iPhone for picture quality.
| iasay wrote:
| Well it depends on the material really. You can take a good
| photo on a phone and a crappy one on a DSLR. You can listen
| to crap music on a dedicated audio player too...
| don-code wrote:
| While I can't speak to either the iPhone or the Walkman, the
| quality of the digital-to-analog converter is significantly
| more important than raw horsepower or other capabilities. Where
| they're analog devices, there's much less to be said about the
| "it's just zeroes and ones" argument.
|
| Some older devices I've owned had good-quality DACs - a Palm
| Treo being the best. My current ThinkPad has a downright awful
| DAC, to the point where music sounds _better_ over my Bluetooth
| headphones (Audio-Technica ATH-M50xBT) than when plugged
| straight in. The quality issues are even more egregious for the
| cheap dock I use for my work MacBook Pro, which puts out so
| much electrical noise over the headphone jack as to be annoying
| even in in Zoom calls.
| erwincoumans wrote:
| Interesting. There are indeed small external DAC's that can
| be plugged into the USB adapter, for example DragonFly Red or
| Cobalt DAC.
|
| [EDIT: looks like the Apple 3.5 mm headphone dongle has a
| good DAC, see other comments by hug/JohnJamesRambo below]
| andai wrote:
| One of my high school teachers soldered some kind of
| extension cord onto the pins at the bottom of his iPod
| because that signal bypasses the crappy amp on the device.
| em500 wrote:
| I really doubt that the Walkman's audio quality is "better"
| than the iPhone 8's in any objective sense.
|
| _> I'm not an audiophile, and I'm sure said people would
| blanch if they read about the files I play. But the audio
| quality is a noticeable upgrade from my iPhone 8. It sounds so
| much clearer, especially in the midrange. Its EQ settings also
| add extra sparkle and pop, for want of better words! It's the
| biggest uplift in sound I've experienced since I bought AKG
| monitors for home._
|
| According to gsmarena measurements, the output of the iPhone 8
| is extremely accurate across the entire spectrum[1]. Sampling a
| few gsmarena reviews, this is also true for a typical modern
| Samsung or Xiaomi phone, or even an ancient iPhone 4s.
|
| I believe _accurate_ audio quality is indeed a solved problem,
| and what the author 's describe as an upgrade in quality is
| just more pleasantly tuned (though distorted) EQ settings (c.f.
| the "warm" sound of vinyl vs accurate redbook CD-audio).
|
| [1] https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_8-review-1664p7.php#
| Markoff wrote:
| > The NW-A55 is part of Sony's budget digital audio player
| lineup. ... It worked out about AU $300 including shipping, not
| bad considering how expensive iPods and cassette Walkmans used to
| be.
|
| We must have very different definitions of "budget" because 200
| EUR for MP3 player is nowhere close to budget line in times when
| you can buy decent budget phones for that money or how much I
| spent for great cassette Panasonic walkman. He is also comparing
| prices of technology at peak with price of technology pretty much
| nobody buys anymore and they should be giving pretty much for
| free.
|
| Btw 16GB model having 12.26GB available capacity I'd expect from
| some Android phone and not dumb MP3 player.
| ifelsethenyeah wrote:
| Argh, I mistook it for the classic yellow WM-F45.
|
| Tapes and pencils forever. ;P
|
| Edit: I remember one of the last-ish MP3 players was a Dell one
| with a micro HDD. First drop and it died. xD
| plaff wrote:
| Being inundated with notifications is not a problem with the god
| damned smartphone. It's a problem with you not being able to set
| up apps to shut the hell up if they don't have any business
| throwing notifications your way.
|
| I see this argument all the time and it's completely foreign to
| me. I get notifications on messages, lost calls and some very
| specific emails regarding downtime or exceptions in production.
| That's it, and it works very, very well.
| herbst wrote:
| The worst about modern MP3 players is that they have little to
| zero buttons.
|
| I am on my second Sony E39X since my FiiO died a while ago. The
| Sony are way to expensive for the quality, but other button MP3
| players are a different weight and price class.
|
| I hate wasting battery for a fancy screen and Android like OS,
| like most MP3 players these days.
|
| The reason I never stopped using a MP3 player is because I have
| 20/30+ hours of HQ music organized in folders, just as I like it.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > The reason I never stopped using a MP3 player is because I
| have 20/30+ hours of HQ music organized in folders, just as I
| like it.
|
| 20-30 hours. Hmm.
|
| Clementine tells me: 16345 tracks (64 days 16:52:45)
|
| And that's not even large by the comparison with some friends.
|
| And yes, it all fits on my Sansa Clip+ (except that I keep the
| christmas music off the Clip+).
| justinclift wrote:
| Wonder if there are any OSS dedicated portable music players out
| there?
|
| eg something like this Sony player, but OSS so hardware/software
| problems can be iterated on
| tlkwejrp234 wrote:
| I'd probably just buy a Xperia X / XZ compact. Added bonus: cheap
| wired NC earphones that works quite decently.
| 13of40 wrote:
| Probably over a decade ago my wife bought me a Sony Walkman MP3
| player for Christmas, and even though I ended up going with
| something that was Audible.com friendly, I was so impressed with
| the earbuds' quality I've sourced them a couple of times so I
| have a lifetime supply at this point. (If interested, I think the
| model number was MDR-EX082)
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| Those Sony earbuds are absolutely fantastic. Excellent audio
| quality for the price, solid build quality and cables that seem
| to last longer than most.
| Stormwalker wrote:
| This is cool, but how do you obtain music as files legally? The
| only platform that allows that is Bandcamp, but if artist is not
| presented here, torrents is your only option I can think of.
| ploika wrote:
| You can (almost) always buy CDs and rip them. I'd be mildly
| surprised if an artist was selling music without either a
| presence on Bandcamp or a store on their own website that you
| could download from.
|
| I'm certain I've bought a handful of albums from Amazon and
| Google over the years that I've put onto various phones and MP3
| players. Is that not possible anymore?
| Jaruzel wrote:
| Amazon still let you download DRM free MP3s for any music
| you've bought (well, as a Prime customer I still can, maybe
| it's different for non-Prime).
|
| I still buy CDs. That way the music is _mine_ , and no-one
| can suddenly delete the CD from my bookshelf without my
| consent. I rip the CDs lossless, then de-jewel-case the CD
| and put the disc and inlay into an acid-neutral storage bag,
| and seal it. I can't do hi-bitrate music like this (unless I
| want to rip BluRay albums) but at my age, it's not like I
| still have a high-fidelity hearing ability anyway.
| aceazzameen wrote:
| Amazon. I still buy mp3s off Amazon to play on Winamp.
| toastal wrote:
| Soulseek is still going.
| [deleted]
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Wonder how it compares with sony audio recorder which do raw.
| csdvrx wrote:
| As the happy owner of a NW-Z507 (and matching Sony 1000XM4
| earbuds and a more traditional WH-XB900N over-the-ear headset),
| the Sony Walkman lineup is worth every single dollar!
|
| It's helped me rediscover some of my classics!
|
| The 507 is Android, which was both a pro (more apps) and con
| (battery life) especially since the Sony default player is a bit
| special. I didn't need Android as I don't use streaming, but I
| wanted USB-C, and that excluded previous models like the A55.
|
| The battery life is less of a problem than I thought it would be,
| as my earbuds are drained first.
|
| However, I'm still not a fan of the Sony music player. If you
| want to try Sony newest Android lineup, I recommend installing
| the foobar music player.
|
| If you use wired headsets and the limited battery life is a
| problem for you, check the 1ZM2:
| https://musicphotolife.com/2022/05/sony-wm1zm2-review-digita...
| MarkG509 wrote:
| I'd love to A-B these to my trusty old FiiO X5 with Sennheiser
| HD-650's (at home) or IE8i's (when exercising). Hearing the
| sound-stage and subtle do-dads buried by lesser set-ups is a
| pet-peeve of mine.
|
| A very important, perhaps dominant, factor in all of this is
| how the music was ripped/encoded. Except in my car, for which I
| did separate rips, I don't bother with MP3-320. For the X5,
| having 200 CDs ripped via WMA9 locks me in, until I can find a
| week or two to re-rip to a more modern lossless format.
|
| I grew up on vinyl via my (crazy/rich) older brother's Class
| A/B stereo. I'm spoiled, and feel sorry for the people today
| that think MP3-120 is "good enough".
| mellavora wrote:
| You might be interested in building your own Class A amps.
| The sound is amazing.
|
| See https://diyaudiostore.com/
|
| https://www.diyaudio.com/community/
|
| for details. Hobby-ist driven, fantastic stuff.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > Sennheiser HD-650's (at home) or IE8i's (when exercising).
|
| I prefer the 900N outside, and the 1000XM inside.
|
| To exercise with some music, I'm waiting for good neckband
| headphones with active audio cancellation: ideally something
| like the Anker Soundcore Life U2 - same form factor and USB-C
| plug, but with LDAC, AptX HD and a quality at least on par
| with the Shure AONIC.
|
| Yes I'm super picky :)
|
| > Hearing the sound-stage and subtle do-dads buried by lesser
| set-ups is a pet-peeve of mine.
|
| Oh so much this!! I'm hearing instruments that I hadn't
| noticed before! The first week, I thought it was in my head,
| because some of the tracks I've been listening to for years
| started sounding different!!
|
| But no, the Sony is that good. Again, it's worth every
| dollar.
|
| > I'm spoiled
|
| Now I'm spoiled too :) I just can't forget how much better it
| made my favorite tracks!
|
| TBH, the Sony has been my best purchase of these last few
| years: it has even rekindled my interest in music.
|
| Right now I'm exploring "pop urbaine", a very interesting
| genre that I didn't even know existed.
|
| My favorite tracks are inbetween EDM and Raeggeton, the best
| example being "On fleek" by Eva -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_eEW2Ioe-o (starts at 0:30)
|
| I would never have expected I'd take a liking to french
| music, but here I'm! Thank you Sony!!
|
| > A very important, perhaps dominant, factor in all of this
| is how the music was ripped/encoded.
|
| This too!
|
| I only use FLAC ripped from known-good sources like DDD audio
| CDs, but after reading a few things like
| https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/51326/spotting-
| a-f... and https://musicfans.stackexchange.com/questions/1254
| 5/original... I've been thinking about developing a "scoring"
| app that would basically do a spectrogram and look for
| suspicious banding to rate my CDs on a 0-10 scale.
|
| > For the X5, having 200 CDs ripped via WMA9 locks me in,
| until I can find a week or two to re-rip to a more modern
| lossless format.
|
| I recently re-ripped using a slot-in Apple Superdrive with
| Windows Media Player Classic running on Windows 11 set to
| auto-rip into FLAC.
|
| I just worked as usual and every now and then swapped the CDs
| from 2 huge piles on the side of my desk.
|
| > I'm spoiled, and feel sorry for the people today that think
| MP3-120 is "good enough".
|
| Same lol
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| You've no doubt double blind tested these claims?
| gbraad wrote:
| On an Android device use USB Audio Player Pro. Supports most
| DAC and allows for good EQ.
| csdvrx wrote:
| Are you sure it will help on a Sony? It seems to be for USB
| OTG DAC.
| gbraad wrote:
| No... Not just externally USB attached. You can try about a
| trial version from the author.
|
| I use it on my fiio, phone, tablet, usb dac, etc.
| csdvrx wrote:
| I'll try it then! It's the ideal thing to do on a 4th of
| July :)
| gbraad wrote:
| Got a Fiio. Never trust Sony anymore after the forced Atrac-
| nonsense in almost every device: it would only play MP3 after
| being converted to an Atrac-file. After they blocked my Sony PSN
| account it is Never again Sony.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Keep fighting the good fight, but... if the CD rootkit wasn't
| enough to convince people not to buy Sony, I can't imagine what
| will be.
|
| One of my most cherished personal mottoes: "If the answer
| involves giving money to Sony, you asked the wrong question."
| binbag wrote:
| I enjoy high quality audio, but I use my phone. If you get a
| Quboz or Tidal 24/96 subscription then as long as you take care
| of the DAC and speakers/headphones you've got a great chain.
| Rather then buying a Sony digital audio player, you could spend
| that money on a good set of Sony headphones - assuming you
| already own the requisite phone. And in the house, you can build
| a very high performance audio setup for about PS200 via
| hifiberry, avoiding the bonkers price of hires hi-fis.
| drpixie wrote:
| _I can't describe what a breath of fresh air this is compared to
| how bad modern smartphone music and streaming apps have become.
| It's also nice having a dedicated player that isn't inundated
| with notifications and other modern distractions._
|
| Until you see something done well, we get seduced by "features"
| and loose track of how nice a really well design thing can be.
| (Got to hand it to old Apple, they did know design.)
| urlwolf wrote:
| I use a dedicated voice recorder to think while I walk. It has
| made a world of difference in my thinking. And no, a phone with
| an app is not the same. A button you can press anytime that just
| records is a godsent. No notifications, no chats, no Trillion
| dollar companies giving you dopamine shots.
|
| Your attention is too valuable. We are squandering it on devices
| that are designed so you can't think clearly.
| subhro wrote:
| This is so true. I avoid using my phone other than to receive
| phone calls and sometimes text people. I find most of the
| dedicated devices like voice recorders, GPS, flashlight has a
| far more intuitive, faster and more functional interface than
| the apps that mimic them on a phone.
|
| Also, my GPS can (and has) jumped out of my backpack and
| dropped over 100ft and worked (and still works) just fine. Not
| sure I would like to bet my life hoping the same outcome with
| my phone while I am in the middle of nowhere.
| creakingstairs wrote:
| Do you listen to your recordings as you walk? Or does the mere
| fact that you are recording change your thinking?
| rramadass wrote:
| The Fiio M5 is that and more : https://www.fiio.com/m5
|
| Bag one if you can get it since it has been discontinued.
| evanrelf wrote:
| What device do you use?
| subhro wrote:
| Not the OP but I use a Zoom H1N. Terrific device and runs on
| 2 NiMH AAA cells
| hitekker wrote:
| hear, hear!
| rocketbop wrote:
| As a public information aside, the phrase is actually "hear,
| hear".
| hardlianotion wrote:
| Hm - either parent has edited, or you are objecting to an
| exclamation mark.
| hitekker wrote:
| Today I learned, thanks.
| phuff wrote:
| I got a Fiio M7 for Christmas or my birthday a year ago. It's
| amazing how awesome it is to have a device that's dedicated to
| music and does a great job at it. There are side loadable apps
| like Musicolet that also do a great job of providing all the
| music management you could want.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| +1 to musicolet[0] - hands down the most flexibility and
| features I've seen in a dedicated music app.
|
| [0]:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.krosbits.mu...
| m1sta_ wrote:
| Sony phone and spotify. What's not to like other than a lack of
| Sony 360 content?
| seedees wrote:
| Why not tidal and Sony Xperia/ LG v60? Dolby atmos, Sony 360,
| and mqa
| stevepdp wrote:
| > I can't describe what a breath of fresh air this is compared to
| how bad modern smartphone music and streaming apps have become.
| It's also nice having a dedicated player that isn't inundated
| with notifications and other modern distractions. Separating out
| ebooks to a dedicated tablet worked the same wonders for my
| anxiety.
|
| A place for everything, and everything in it's place.
| bjarneh wrote:
| > You don't need to use any special desktop software; you mount
| the Walkman as a USB storage device and transfer files. Wait...
| that's it? Yes!
|
| That's always nice, although I struggle to see the need for an
| additional device to play mp3's at this point...
| Reason077 wrote:
| It's not a real "Walkman" unless it can play cassette tapes. I'm
| sure anyone who grew up in the 1980s/90s would agree.
|
| How else am I going to listen to my Spice Girls and Backstreet
| Boys collection?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Same way I listen to my collection of 80s dance/club 12" vinyl,
| which I sold 3 years ago: find them all on YT and download the
| audio.
| Reason077 wrote:
| But it just doesn't sound the same as on classic, analog
| cassette!
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| that depends on whether or not it was a Sony MDR or a TDR
| TDX
| cm2187 wrote:
| It's crazy that we have come there, but reading this I am
| actually entertaining buying one.
|
| It is shocking how bad the experience of listening to my own
| music has become on iphones. Dongles (different for ipads and
| iphone of course), itunes for windows is barely usable, there is
| a bug they never fixed where the music player on iOS randomly
| mismatch the album artwork, and there are so many conflicting
| gestures that I always end up messing what I am trying to do. And
| like a year ago an OS update auto-decreases the volume if it
| deems I am listening too loud. Android isn't an option for me
| because Google.
|
| But it's a pain to have to carry two devices, manage two
| batteries.
| ozzythecat wrote:
| I religiously use Spotify for music on my iPhone. Are you
| against the subscription payment model, or are you considering
| this device because it's better than Spotify on an iPhone? If
| it is better, how so? Genuinely curious if there are better
| music options than my current "setup".
| cm2187 wrote:
| Subscription model doesn't work for the stuff I listen to. I
| want specific interpretations of specific operas, I want
| playlists by composer (no two album uses the same spelling
| for a classical music composer). I want playlists that skip
| the recitatives, etc.
|
| And I already own the music, legally purchased on itunes and
| amazon. Why would I rent it?
| thirdsun wrote:
| While Spotify covers most popular stuff there's a huge amount
| of music that isn't available on any streaming service. Plus,
| your content might disappear any day.
|
| I use Spotify for previewing, exploring and making some
| buying decisions but my actual collection is _mine_. It 's
| lossless, DRM-free and I plan to have it for ages to come.
| chanc3e wrote:
| This is it for me, I used Apple Music for a few years and
| eventually I noticed that some of my playlists would have
| tracks missing - sometimes a listing would be ghosted,
| sometimes it would straight up vanish. I called time,
| brought a A50 and haven't looked back:
| https://chanc.ee/posts/20200830-abandon-stream.html
|
| Granted my music tastes are esoteric but silently modifying
| my playlists felt grievous. Now I make sure that
| subscription money goes on supporting artists directly.
| jeffhuys wrote:
| But the nice thing about apple music is that you can add
| any song to it on your PC and it syncs it to all your
| devices. So if you have an esoteric taste, you can mix it
| in with the streaming service.
| blep-arsh wrote:
| Sony specifically might not be the best option for a modern
| audio player. I've tried using A55 but exchanged it for a
| Shanling M0 eventually.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Why is that? The thing that terrifies me with less known
| brands is the quality of the DAC. I had so many shitty mp3
| players before settling on ipods in 2003. Even today most
| laptops motherboard DAC are useless.
| blep-arsh wrote:
| P.S. These players don't have very powerful CPUs,
| obviously, and this makes me wonder whether they can handle
| more complex audio compression formats (such as AAC
| encoding for Bluetooth) without cheating and using sub-
| optimal encoding settings.
| blep-arsh wrote:
| M0 is much lighter and cheaper and uses USB-C instead of a
| proprietary cable. The feature set is roughly similar
| (audio formats, USB audio, BT source/sink, etc.). It
| doesn't offer any media sync software, though. DAC should
| be good ("ESS Sabre ES9218P") but honestly I can't tell the
| difference between Apple's own 3.5mm-Lightning dongles and
| fancy audio equipment. At least it's not obviously noisy.
| thirdsun wrote:
| You might already be aware but there is a range of alternative
| music players on iOS that focus on listening to a local music
| library. Doesn't help with dongles - but may fix your software
| issues.
|
| Here's a very in-depth showcase of your options:
| https://barrowclift.me/post/fourth-annual-ios-music-player-s...
|
| For me the killer feature of the desktop music.app is still the
| option to transcode to a lower bitrate during sync. My lossless
| music library spans close to 2 TB (and growing) these days. SD
| cards are very expensive at that kidn of storage - so in
| contrast to the article sd cards certainly don't provide
| limitless space.
|
| Anyway. To meet mobile storage requirements I need to transcode
| it to 256 kbps AAC and I don't want to handle this manually or
| manage a second lossy library. music.app / iTunes easily does
| this on the fly during sync.
|
| I'm sure other software / hardare players can do that too - but
| if it's the same process why would I carry an additional device
| around? The iPhone is just very convenient for that purpose.
| Otherwise I really like Sony's Walkman range.
| rramadass wrote:
| Checkout the Fiio M5 : https://www.fiio.com/m5
|
| Bag one if you can get it since it has been discontinued.
| alexalx666 wrote:
| iPod Video is Still better
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