![]() Running off Google’s Android 12 OS, the device is full of features normally only seen on much more expensive portables.įor starters, its circuitry uses a reflow solder containing gold. They come with not only best-in-class playback, but they also have a number of features to fine-tune your songs and make them sound just how you want them to.It has been quite some time since we’ve seen a hi-res player from such a big brand cost so little and we’ll be very curious to see how the NW-A306 performs against its more expensive rivals when we get it in for testing. That said, if you're an audiophile and crave the absolute best listening experience, the Walkman lineup and Sony's high-end audio products might be worth a look. And as music streaming services get their hi-fi tiers up and running, things will get even better. If you don't have local music and you just want to enjoy jams, then Spotify and other music streaming services do a swell job already. And if you really need the music fidelity and reliability that wired earbuds/headphones provide, you can always use a dongle to plug them into your USB-C port. And while headphone jacks are every day less common on phones, Bluetooth earbuds are getting better every day as well. ![]() ![]() If you have local music, your phone can play even lossless FLAC files. If you already have a smartphone, you probably already have most of your music listening needs served. While smartphones will provide a good enough experience for most people, Walkman devices advertise features like native DSD file support and the inclusion of an S-Master HX digital amplifier.įor most people, a high-end music player, or a dedicated music player in general, might be a bit useless. The audiophile market is a small yet loud community, and Walkman is Sony's dedicated solution for them. ![]() Sony (and other manufacturers) are putting weight on premium, high-end music players. From there, the cheapest option is $780, and everything else is over $1,000, with a couple of options costing over $3,000. What's the difference? If you look at Sony's Walkman portal, you'll only find two cheap models: the NW-E394, costing $75 and resembling an old-school, no touchscreen MP3 player, and the NW-A105, costing $300 and coming with a touchscreen and the Android operating system. Yet the Walkman series is still seeing regular releases, with the latest models, the NW-WM1ZM2 and the NW-WM1AM2, released in early 2022. And that was pretty much the only big hold-over left. The latest iPod Touch was released in 2019 and discontinued in 2022, with no successor planned. They just evolved, adapted to the newer market circumstances, and changed their target audience.ĭon't get us wrong: general-purpose music players are dead. Soon, that wasn't even needed, as music streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music began to arise.ĭedicated music players are not dead. After all, there was no point in carrying a separate device if your phone can do the same things and do them even better, as they quickly started to come with more and more storage and, in the case of some Android phones, even expandability thanks to microSD card slots. But then, in 2007, Apple launched the iPhone, which, among other things, absorbed many of the music-playing capabilities of the iPod.Īs both Apple and Android smartphones popularized, dedicated music players began losing steam rapidly. Load it on your device (using either a computer for digital files or a cassette/CD for other types of players), plug in a pair of earbuds, and go off. This was the point where users largely transitioned from physical music media to digital music files, thanks to the magic of the internet and, in the case of iPods, iTunes.īack at this time, this was our primary method for listening to music on the go. While digital music players started to become popular in the late 1990s, their big break would be boosted by the launch of the iPod in 2001.
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