Sony - Walkman NW-A55 Hi-Res 16GB* MP3 Player - Black

A tremendous improvement over prior digital music players I've had in the past. I wish I knew about the Sony Digital Walkman before I bought my last unit. I took the SD card from my previous player and put it in the Sony and WOW! Night and day. Bass response, separation, you name it, it improved. Two minor critiques: the touch screen is very sensitive so the locking feature is a must. Also, do not understand why the database needs to refresh every time the unit is turned on, but it refreshes quickly.

TL;DR I love this Walkman. The sound quality is excellent and it plays everything I've thrown at it. I'm sure there's a format or two that it's not compatible with, but so far, it's a moot issue for me. The Bluetooth features - transmitter AND receiver make this a very versatile device. The USB DAC (think external sound card) feature has become a go-to for me. I find myself using it on my Mac almost exclusively over the built in speakers/headphone jack because of the quality and convenience. The only downsides are lack of WiFi sync, no proper Audiobook support, some quirks with MP3 tags and album art as well as the need to recreate the database every time it boots makes for some minor inconveniences, but definitely not deal breakers. With the exception of WiFi, all should be able to be fixed with firmware updates (maybe Sony reads these reviews? One can hope.) Those shortcomings aside, this is still a definite buy recommendation from me. ===FULL REVIEW BELOW === THE GOOD Sound: It's phenomenal especially when using a quality lossless, high-res format like FLAC, ALAC, WMA or DSD. If you're playing an MP3, even ripped from a CD at the highest bit rate, you really can't tell the difference between this Walkman and an iPhone/iPod. However, once you dip your toes into the high-res pool, you won't want to get back out. Functionality: This is where it shines. It can pair with every BT headphone and speaker I own - from Bose to Sennheiser - with no problems (transmitter mode). Pairing is super easy and NFC makes it even more so. I haven't had a single issue here at all. This can be a Bluetooth receiver as well and act an a headphone amplifier for your music stored on your computer or even your iPhone/iPad/iPod! I even connected it to a Bluetooth transmitter on my TV to watch TV with my headphones instead of the speakers/soundbar! If I plug it into the USB port of my computer - I have a Mac and a Surface Pro - it acts as a USB DAC. It basically becomes a USB audio interface (think USB sound card) with no drivers necessary! Interface: It's very easy to use and very intuitive. I have many options as to how to access my library and Sony even provides an option to filter out just high-res audio. The screen is bright, clear and very responsive. What's especially nice is the physically buttons with conveniently placed "homing bumps" (like on the F and J keys on a keyboard) so you can operate the player while not having to look at it; in your coat pocket, for example. Capacities: 16GB is an excellent starting point, but the fact that you can expand the storage of the device with micro SD cards alone makes this a better choice than the iPhone/iPod. You can use a single large SD card for your whole music collection or many smaller ones for different collections (like a party mix, or a study mix, etc.) I've tested this with a SanDisk 512GB Micro SD and it worked perfectly. However, (full disclosure) I use 128GB SD cards instead because I currently don't have more than this in music and the smaller cards synchronize and update the internal database quicker. THE BAD While not many, there are some glaring faults with the device. For me, they're not deal breakers. However, some could be fixed with a firmware update to further enhance the product. No WiFi. The fact that I have to plug the device physically into a USB port seems so 1990's. The Microsoft Zune was able to sync wirelessly, so there's no reason for this not to. Whether you plug the whole Walkman into the USB or use an SD card reader to copy over the files, you need to physically connect to a host. No proper support for audio books. Sony makes reference to "learning" folder that can be used for audible language less (though they don't tell you where to obtain these lessons). There's no reason why it can't support audio books as the M4B format is just a container for audio files that it already supports! All they need to do is update the firmware with support for this file type. Updating the database. Every time you power on (not wake from sleep) or disconnect the Walkman from your computer, it has to create the database which adds to the boot time. If you have larger SD cards, the time is increased. There's no need to recreate the database if no files were modified. ID3v2 Tags. Unfortunately, Sony chose to use the OLDER v2.3 of the MP3 tags. This means that you have to embed a baseline JPG or PNG into the song itself for album art to show up and tags with multiple values aren't supported. Going to the latest v2.4 spec is just a firmware update and Sony should do this to stay current. CONCLUSION While inconvenient, the bad points don't carry enough weight to have much of an impact on the positives. These are "nice to have" features that for the most part, Sony could add with a firmware update. As such, it earns a "Good" rating instead of a "Great" but I would still highly recommend it.

I absolutely love this MP3 player I had one before and I lost it because it was so smalle and it was the NWA45 series. It went on sale last year around Christmas time for $50 less and I didn't take advantage of it so I lost out. But this year it went on sale for $50 less and it was the newer model which is the NWA50don't really see any difference except that newer technology I guess it works totally OK a the sound quality is amazing it has a lot of memory and I've already added a couple of playlists in their. It would be nice if it came with some type of carrying case or Clip on my shirt or a carrying case on a lanyard but other than that I absolutely love this thing It has Sony as its name and Sony has always been high quality stuff. This is the 4th Sony walkman that I have owned, 2 of them were CD players and now with technology the way it is 2 of them were MP3 players. I definitely recommend to a friend. The only thing is I don't know why the headphone is on the bottom that kinda is funny to me but it doesn't matter this thing is extremely high quality stuff

I liked everything about this Sony Walkman, the sound quality was excellent also the battery life, interface wasn't that bad either. One thing that was a deal breaker was the bluetooth didn't work on any of my speakers. I ended up returning it, but I would have kept the Walkman if the bluetooth worked. I will probably try another model.

Easy to load music onto, and pretty good sound quality. The part where I went to add my Sony Bluetooth earbuds and/or my Bose headphones, still no luck and it's been well over a month. I give up. I have watched all of the how to videos and read the directions, restarted both the headphones and the player, still won't recognize the headphones. The only thing that has ever come up to connect to is my stupid LG sound bar :-( I don't have the time or patience to keep monkeying around with this "technology". Now I am just using it in my car, connected with a wire, no Bluetooth there either.

Did not want to continue carrying an I phone to listen to tunes while walking . This lighter weight player is a good option. A good product.

This is a dedicated music playing machine. Everything about it seems to have been built for the pure enjoyment of sound. It feels solid, looks sleek, operates with ease and speed. This is my replacement device for listening to music since I got away from smartphones. So glad to have this gorgeous piece of technology that doesn't demand my attention. It just gives me music, wonderfully.

A little high on the price but overall a good MP3 player