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Where's my DAP (Digital Audio Player) people at? Looking to upgrade my NW-A26HN Sony Walkman

Bman94

Bman94

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,545
I won't call myself a Audiophile in any sense, but I do enjoy having a dedicated audio player with high resolution audio and good quality software/hardware. I'm currently rocking a NW-A26HN Walkman that I want to upgrade. I have the biggest SD Card it can support and I've basically ran out of possible space (32GB model with a 126GB micro SD card in it). I'm bit of a Sony fanboy so I've owned Walkmans as my go to DAP for years now and I'm leaning towards the NW-A55, as it is coming to the US pretty soon only I don't know if it's a significant enough upgrade. I'm generally trying to keep the budget sub $300, a lot of my library is NOT high-resolution FLACs, I'm slowly replacing a lot of it for high-resolution audio. The Sony WH-1000XM3 is my current headphones that I literally just bought, so that's the type of drivers I will be using for the long future. I'm open to trying Fiio or Pioneer DAP or anything else but again, I'm trying to upgrade but I want the best bang for my buck. Any suggestions from my Audophiles?
 
LQX

LQX

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,871
Got tired of run-of-the-mill players failing or being limited in some way so got the LG v20 phone which has one of the best DACs on any phone. Drag and drop, the cloud, expandable space, easy battery replacement if it someday fails, but the best thing is the Play store and the fact you can get a media player for everything. I have a separate app for proper Audiobook, Podcast and FLAC support which is great as often there is some limiting factor to what is on a dedicated DAP.
 
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Bman94

Bman94

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,545
SilentPanda said:
I think the dedicated autio website discussion board might be more useful for your question~~

I had a A26, but I upgraded to a A40, and decided against the A50, since it didn't seem that much different compared to my A40(I was able to try one out in Kaohsiung store) and the new feature don't seem necessary for me.
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What do you think about the upgrade? I'm mostly thinking about sound and usability
 
SilentPanda

SilentPanda

Member
Nov 6, 2017
13,621
Earth
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Bman94

Bman94

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,545
gozu said:
Why is my iphone not enough?
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To oversimplify, Digital Audio Players usually have different tech and software built inside of them to either greatly enhance music or reproduce high quality, high resolution audio in ways that the DAC in a iPhone cannot reproduce. Also from a battery standpoint, Digital Audio Players have a much better battery life because they aren't bloated with a ton of OS fluff like phones have.

SilentPanda said:
Sound is good, I'm not a audiophile
Battery life seem longer then the A20
Still just drag and drop after plugging into PC.
But I switched because my A20 was not holding charge well and I got new cable and it seem to be device problem.
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Can you still use Sony's Media Go for transfer, playlist creation etc. for the A40? I installed Sony's Music Center out of curiosity and it's significantly worse than Media Go.
 
Homekoro

Homekoro

Member
Dec 5, 2018
129
Bman94 said:
Can you still use Sony's Media Go for transfer, playlist creation etc. for the A40? I installed Sony's Music Center out of curiosity and it's significantly worse than Media Go.
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Yep, you sure can use Media Go with the A40, Music Center is awful in comparison. I greatly enjoy using Music Bee for syncing my library to the A40, but Media Go is better suited for playlist transferring.

I've been using the A40 for a year now and I find it fantastic; very nice sound quality, perfect gapless playback with FLAC and the bluetooth compatibility is great thanks to all the supported codes (SBC, Apt-X, Apt-X HD, LDAC). Your Sony headphones will be able to connect via Apt-X HD or LDAC and sound virtually lossless. The only aspect I do not enjoy is the long time it takes rebuild the database from a cold boot (nearly 30 seconds for me with a 260 GB music library). You can opt to use standby instead of powering the player down, but it drains the battery too much for my usage.
 
signal

signal

Member
Oct 28, 2017
40,183
holla

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Maturin

Maturin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,099
Europe
Last year I got a Shanling M0. Best DAP I've ever owned. The thing is tiny but reviews have the audio quality on a par with the Chord Mojo.

I have a 256GB MicroSD in it. Device has no problem with any of my headphones. Has Bluetooth both in and out - so you can use it as a bluetooth receiver for non BT headphones. And it even works as a USB DAC.

And it was only £99.
 
Serein

Serein

Member
Mar 7, 2018
2,345
I picked up a Sony A45 to replace my faithful Cowon J3 and I'm perfectly happy with it. Sound quality's very good, I only have to charge about once a week and it has physical buttons on the side which is pretty much a necessity for any DAP for me.

It can double up as a USB DAC too which is a nice feature but I already have a FiiO E17 Alpen so that's not something I need.
 
Stinkles

Stinkles

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
20,459
I recently fixed my ZuneHD 32 gig by soldering in a new battery - but I have zero idea how to install the zune software on windows 10 to reformat and reflash the firmware. All the methods I find are ultracomplex (for me) server spoofing etc
 
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