Sony NW-A55/L Walkman NW-A55 Hi-Res 16GB MP3 Player, Moonlight Blue, Moonlit Blue

I've had my device for over a week and could not be happier! Stating this up front to temper my review for anyone else that reads this; I would not classify myself as an audiophile, but I do listen to music for many hours during my day and have some nice IEM earbuds (SIMGOT EN700 Pro) that can bring out the differences in the quality of the music format & player capabilities. More of a music lover that appreciates being able to hear their music in the best quality possible without getting into the world of 4 figure equipment. And I can say this device is bringing out a level of detail & depth to tracks that I have owned for years that I never heard before. For the price of what this player is, this is the perfect balance between cost to the level of what you get, with enough customization available for tuning, setting playlist and/or bookmarks... most of the things you would want in an audio player. And the battery life is FANTASTIC! This Sony player is still on their in-house developed firmware (which is the reason for the proprietary cable, which has been in place for their legacy operating system), but with the inclusion of NFC, Bluetooth, micro SD expansion, and FM radio (when wired headphones plugged in, as this is also the antenna), this device is the perfect combination of old & new to get the most out of the player. I've loaded in everything from MP3s I've had for decades, to acquiring some super high sample rate tracks from specialty websites (HDTracks) to really see what this player and headphones can do. On the lossy files, this player is clearly giving the tracks extra tuning & polish that I have not experienced on other devices, even including LG phones, which have their own on-board DAC that tend to give great audio. But then adding onto the A55 some 192kHz 24bit tracks onto the player and my gosh... every little detail that is being produced by the instruments and every sound from the artists are clear & make their way through. Tones that tend to get washed out or muddied like bass guitar on certain tracks come right through. I considered this device over the A105, which I have heard has some improved controls for the EQ, some additonal uses (wifi capable for streaming audio), but that all comes at the cost of having Android, meaning needing to secure the device, and loss of battery life. Given streaming audio isn't the highest quality in the first place, and I bought this to be able to play for long periods without having to worry about recharging, this player won out and I couldn't be more pleased. Every device has it's pros & cons, which I'll lay out below. Some things I think are more good to know than true cons from my perspective, so I will list them separately. Hope this provides useful for others, as you look to make a similar purchase. Pros: - Exceptional battery life - Physical buttons for look-free volume/track control - Clear & detailed color screen - Bare-bones operating system (Simple & easy to navigate) - Decent audio controls & options available for the price - Lots of output/connection options Things to know: - Connection cable is proprietary (again, due to operating system & Japan device ecosystem) - Software for transferring on PC is limited - Charging LED in upper corner for when the screen is off (nice little detail they left in) Cons: - Legacy firmware means no streaming (Spotify, Stitcher, etc.) apps available at all - Only standard 3.5mm jack for this player (similar devices in the market have balanced port for similar price)

Not sure why I see so many bad reviews on here. I think this Sony player is great, significantly better than Classic iPods in my opinion. I've already bought 2 of them and may buy another in the future. I have mine loaded with a 256 GB memory card and loaded all my music onto it. What I REALLY like over the Classic iPod is that this is completely drag-and-drop with Windows explorer -- no proprietary software needed!!! Just get your music's metadata entered right, and it works flawlessly! Works with MP3, AAC/M4A, and who knows how many other formats, including lossless formats. Gapless playback works flawlessly, as long as your music was properly encoded to begin with. It even gives you an option of sorting by Artist OR Album Artist categories. Wired sound quality is excellent. The Bluetooth play works great with my aptX-HD receiver -- sounds just like the source CD! Works well within about a 30 foot radius, which is plenty. I also tested SBC Bluetooth mode and it sounds great too. So far, the battery life is excellent, compared to Classic iPods. And since they have no moving parts, heavy vibration never causes any skips. I highly recommend this player to anybody with a large music collection who wants something simple, functional, and with high sound quality and build quality. Did I mention again that it's simple drag-and-drop operation?? Pros: -Excellent battery life -Sound quality - both wired and Bluetooth -Gapless playback (if you encoded the files properly!) -High capacity - works at least up to 256 GB cards, and probably higher -Works with lots of file formats, including gapless MP3, M4A, and lossless types -Simplicity - no proprietary software needed! -Lots of EQ adjustments, if you're into that Cons: -Physical buttons are a bit small. I wish at least the play/pause button was bigger. -Proprietary cable connector (Why do so many companies continue to do this??) -Initial database build on 1st data load takes a very long time, but seems to only happen once. Subsequent data adjustments/rebuilds are much faster. Wants to rebuild database every time it's turned completely "off" (holding the power button+screen acknowledge), so I normally just put it in standby/off (power button single tap) when not using. -Interface takes some getting used to, but OK once you learn it.

Not a bad player at all. The interface has some quirks that seem odd to me: Cons: No rating system Can't sync back playcounts to your PC Sony's Music Center looks nice but ultimately isn't very good Proprietary charging / sync cable. Not a deal breaker, but USB C would have been nicer No search option and no ability to jump from a song you're listening to into the artist list and/or album this song was on. You'll have to jump from the main screen and select the artist from the list. Pros: It sounds about as good as my LG V60 but not quite the same as... still very good though. You can hear it in songs with multiple instruments playing at once and as always, recordings originally done on analog equipment will usually sound better on hi-res tracks. It can sync with any other player than the Sony software (using MTP)... I recommend J River Media Center. MediaMonkey is fine but it can't sync DSD songs... but J River does the job pretty well. Get a good case for this since the unit seems slippery. There are some rugged cases on Amazon that do the job well. Ultimately, if you listen to an iPod, this opens your ears to how good music can sound. Is it top of the line player? No, but it's good enough to where you enjoy it. Battery life will be better than using your phone and you won't get constant interruptions from notifications either ;) Very happy I bought it. I'm using a 400GB micro SD card in there with no issues. That 128GB limit you may see is for SDHC cards... SDXC cards can go higher than this. But I am using a Sandisk 400GB and it is using it just fine and sees the full capacity. I put about 140GB of music (hi-res, lossless, DSD tracks I bought from Acoustic Sounds and hi-res songs from Qobuz.... plays everything pretty well) But seriously... Sony needs to add: (1) ratings, (2) playcount sync, (3) podcast support -- although you can use the language learning section for this, I bet... Still, it doesn't run Android which can be good considering you won't run into the frustrations and speed problems of using Android on a music player EDIT: Sometimes, I noticed, that the player will say "unable to play file" on M4A files... took me a bit to realize that it wasn't the audio file itself but the tag that was in the file. Even Sony's Music Center couldn't pick up on that. But the player seems sensitive to certain types of tags. FLAC files seem to be generally OK (including hi-res ones) as do DSD files... but to solve this, I used my JRiver Media Center, selected my M4A lossy files, right clicked and said "Remove tags"... then when that was all written to disk, I selected that same group and said "Tag from Library"... waited for that to finish and that seemed to fix it... I guess years of getting files from various sources that you occasionally get a bad one or some corruption with media centers and the like. Anyway, just keep that in mind if it frustrates you. You'll see your phone and PC media centers play them fine but this player will just balk at it. That simple fix seems to have resolved those issues.

I have had a Fiio X3 Gen2 player for a number of years and have always considered it to be a first rate DAP. When mated to my Sony MDR-EX300 vertical earbuds, the sound quality is excellent. Recently, however, I found that I needed a player that can transmit to receivers via Bluetooth which the Fiio can't do. I picked up up the Sony NW-A55, which does have Bluetooth, at a very fair price and have been more than happy with how good it is. In terms of audio quality, it's as good, if not better than my Fiio and has number of settings to let you customize the sound to your liking. Sony also has ClearAudio+ which disables any adjustments and figures out what the best settings are on its own. It's very effective but you still have the option of using your own settings. My Sony earbuds are a perfect match for the player and the sound is wonderful. Uncompressed audio tracks (flac, WMA, etc) are fantastic. The player also has a setting that tries to take a compressed audio track and improve it to a less compressed one. It's obviously an artificial digital enhancement but it actually works pretty well and 320bit rate MP3s just sound great. Other settings include expanding the sound stage and one that adds some warmth to a track to make it sound like a vinyl record. It has internal storage of 16GB (more like a bit under 13 in reality) but supports microSD cards of up to 2TB (I use a 128Gb card) so there's plenty of room for your entire music collection. The user interface is clean and simple and battery life is excellent. The only small quibble is that the player uses an old fashioned Sony charging/data cable in instead of the now more standard USB-C cable but there are plenty of third party cables available if you need and extra or a replacement. The A55 is small, clean and gives you a first class audio experience. Highly recommended.

I did a TON of research before buying this Sony. One requirement was having a FM radio built in and a budget of around 200 bucks. This fit my requirements. The interface is simple and the Sony Media software for my laptop is super simple to use. If you are missing album covers for your music, right click on the album and select "search for unknown sources" and BOOM, you have album artwork! Sony ClearSound is AMAZING! Opens up your music to a wide sound stage feel, it is awesome! ClearSound does not work for FM radio, just your music library. The only downside is I wish it had a usb-C port instead of the proprietary Sony plug. I ordered 2 extra plugs for a few bucks on Amazon to have around. Mp3 players are still very relevant in 2021. Small and lightweight making it easy to have at the gym. The FM player makes it nice to warm up on the treadmill and tune into the TVs. Remember FM only works with wired headphones, which I prefer anyway. Battery life is as advertised so I am happy. Worth the extra money for a quality product and PC software to match. You won't regret it.

I'm an audiophile that owns an elaborate audio system. This little DAP wasn't intended to replace my system and therefore I didn't expect it to sound nearly as good. And it doesn't. However, it sounds surprisingly good. The convenience of being able to carry within all my music in an uncompressed WAV and Hi-Res formats yet still obtain good sound is amazing. Another huge convenience is that when connected to computer, the two storages in the DAP, the internal and the micro-sd, display as drives, and you can copy and paste files to either storage in order to store music, just as you would to a regular drive. I used a 400MB micro-sd to which I stored all my music uncompressed, and that came to just over 300MB. The user interface is fantastic and the operating system is unexpectedly quick. The DAP was ready to play when turned on with the 400MB drive 3/4 filled within a minute or so. I just like to play my own folders and it had no problem playing in that mode. I can't comment on the other modes such as playlists, albums, etc. because I haven't tried those. The battery life is among the highest among the current DAP on the market, being well over 20 hours. The more expensive DAPs have much shorter battery life because they often use discrete DAC chips and more elaborate circuitry for better sound. So obviously some will seek the best possible sound quality and purchase those. But for me, this is the ideal device to carry with me on travel, and still enjoy beautiful sound.

The Sony Walkman plays all the music I put on it. The music is really easy to put on the device too. I just rip my CDs and sync the software with my Music folder every time I launch the application (I don't even think using Sony's software is required anyway). The Walkman is also built well, and has a microSD slot for expandable storage. There is an FM radio which is nice to have. This device is perfect since I needed a device with no camera, microphone, wifi connection, and this means no Android OS. Which is a great thing, because this means you will have a longer battery life; no clunky cluttered useless apps along with all the extra useless features that just aren't needed anyway. This Walkman is basically an introductory "audiophile" Walkman, therefore it's relatively cheap compared to higher end models. I am able to drive 300 ohm headphones comfortably at "3/4s volume". Regular earphones I can run at around "half volume". A higher end model will likely be able to drive the higher resistance headphones at "lower volume" and have specific built circuitry that will improve the sound, but to what extent can be subjective. I am happy with how the music sounds so I went with this option. The cons for the device is the guts of the machine aren't the strongest suit, so the buttons (specifically pausing and playing) and the touchscreen suffer a bit. The biggest flaw I noticed is if you pause and then resume your music it will sometimes skip a bit ahead about a second or two.

This is a terrific Hi Res player with great sound and controls that are easy to use. I've tried several hi res players with limited success. This is by far the best, with controls that make sense and extra EQ features that some may like. Sony is not new to the game of designing small players, and it shows. The build quality is good and the external controls respond predictably. I can't say enough about how well it sounds, especially upconverting music by re-recording them to more accurate FLAC files. It's dismaying to report that the software to support this player, Sony Music Center for PC, is a complete disaster. It is usually straightforward in accepting downloads on the computer. But once you decide to shift those over to the player, the nightmare starts. It seems to randomly select additional recent downloads to transfer again. Sometimes I have to take 100 or more duplicate tracks off the list of potential "new" transfers. And there are no commands that I can discover that will shorten this process, other than to uncheck each redundant track one at a time. Others have mentioned this problem of not being able to manage duplicates. But it is even worse than it sounds. Can a major builder of consumer electronics really not notice that their software is so dysfunctional? Beware, too, that this software does not strictly sync your player. The player will hold on to things that have been deleted on the Music Center for PC library. They, too, need to be taken off the player one track at a time. Having known what I know now, I might have still purchased the player but hoped for using a better music management system. How many player functions might be lost in the process is something I do not know. Overall, I've never seen such useful hardware left to flounder with such dysfunctional software. I'm stunned that Sony puts its name on Music Center for PC.

If you have a large collection of music in files, this device is drag and drop heaven. Format the card in your new walk and then copy over your collection via a card reader (to speed up process) then top up your collection via the device over USB I love being able to search and select my music via folders (I'm old-school) Perfect for my needs, LDAC bluetooth audio with Sony headphones is unbeatable sound qualty Buy both and enjoy your music !

The sound that comes from this device is amazing, I am very pleased with it. However, the device is NOT compatible with Apple's AirPods, as the AirPods disconnect from it when outside, but that's an Apple problem, not a Sony problem. When used with my other headset, the bluetooth worked flawlessly everywhere. The touch screen is very responsive and there are so many options I have yet to try them all. Sadly you can't use equalizers when using bluetooth, but I find that I didn't even need the equalizer because the base sound is perfect for my liking. The battery life seems pretty good, but I can't really tell since using bluetooth drains the battery faster. There is a battery care option, which is appreciated. I have had Walkmans before, so I'm pretty sure the battery life is on par with the rest of them. Overall, I am very happy with this product and if you just want a good MP3 for when you go out and about, then I find this device to be perfect for that!

Arrived promptly and was as described.

Does what it says it play's MP3, DSD and flac Sometimes when you have the screen off for a long time it will create a database then you have to wait for a couple of minutes. But when you have it completely off and turn it back on you'll have to wait even longer because it has to create a database I wish there was a feature to turn it off so it doesn't create it all the time and so I can do it manually. But other than that you can turn the screen off and on periodically so it doesn't have to create a database and I use a 512 gigabyte Samsung SD card and I have over 33,000 songs all legally owned on CDs and it's great so I don't scratch the CDs any more and I don't have to carry them all the time. All the album art and titles are searched on the internet with music center then I take them and put them in to folders artist or band then albums in each folder then I go to the folder and copy paste it manually on to the SD card when the device is plugged in. For the Bluetooth I search it manually to pair them and you don't have to use NFC to pair that it's all in the settings. I use a silicone rubber case and a screen protector and I use it all day and the battery still runs. The sound quality is adequate and better than a cell phone.

The sound is great, good design and it looks sturdy, so far I have not tested the battery life since I just received it. My only complaint is that it comes with 12GB instead of 16GB. The FM radio works fine. The software that comes with it (downloaded from the Sony website) is rather clunky. I am more inclined to just drag files into the Music folder. It takes about 10 seconds to access the library So far I like it. I also ordered an extra cable and a silicone case to protect it. I think I will have this for a few years.