Sony Walkman NW-A55

 

Sony NW-A55 Walkman

You can read the full specifications here.

I got tired of using the Fiio device to play audio files. The interface is clunky but the audio quality is stellar. With the Sony Walkman, you get a basic GUI and superb sound quality. Vastly superior to the Fiio. Although it comes with 16GB local storage, you can jack up to 128 GB into the micro-usb port. So I did that.

 

Functionally, the device has everything you need on the side: lock button, audio up/down, skip, ffwd/rev, and power off. 

The touch screen is good, responsive, and LCD quality fairly decent. I was relieved to see it was made in Malaysia instead of China. Incidentally, the walkman has a hearing protection setting which never allows the sound loudness to go beyond 70 on the scale. I've been using  that lately to test it out. I'll turn it off for some songs because I want to see how hard it can drive my head phones.

It uses a proprietary Sony port for the USB setup. It looks exactly like the Microsoft Zune MP3 connector I had for years. Oh those days. There is no application, you just drag and drop files from your computer to the SD card. Depending on the card, it can be a slow process.

I need to buy a rubber case for it, because the thing is pretty fragile. Going to leave it at home until then.

EDIT:

I forgot to mention: This device also can act like a pass through digital to audio converter. It will basically act like your computer sound card, but vastly superior.