Sony Walkman NWZ-A17

howard and all, 
 
For the life of me, I now can't find anything that says that the 1ABTs actually HAS ClearAudio+ baked into it. I don't know where I'd seen it originally, but now nothing. I don't know if Sony had edited their Sony Store product page for it, but there's nothing there on it at all now about that. The UK Sony Store page for the 1ABTs doesn't mention it either. Ughh! 
 
However, DSEE HX still IS listed as a feature, and no clear way to disable it is listed either. There is a chance that it only can be enabled if you have a Sony player controlling it, but I don't know. If that was the case, the description on their product page would say "Must have Sony player to activate". One factor to consider is that DSEE HX is ONLY enabled even on the A17 Walkman when the content being played is BELOW Hi-Res (which means the content is BELOW 24-bit/44.1kHz, or CD-Quality or lower). So when playing Hi-Res content, even if DSEE HX is on, it won't be used b/c it's not needed. 
 
Of course, I am not a believer that you can hear ANY audible difference as long as your content is above mp3, but that the only reason for a difference in sound quality is that Hi-Res albums are made by producers or engineers who take greater care or put more attention into the finished master/remaster. I've done my own ABX blind tests and even though I went into it thinking the resolution does matter, I was proven very much incorrect. Publications such as this article also further allude to this fact: 
 
"But Montgomery counters that even a properly encoded MP3 can satisfy most listeners. And while other audio experts we talked to wouldn’t go as far as Montgomery, many are dubious about the added quality of high-resolution audio.
Nevertheless, there could still be value to high-resolution audio, and the Boston Audio Society study offers a clue as to why. Toward the end of the paper, the authors suggest that sound engineers often put more care and attention into higher-resolution recordings than they do to mass market CD releases.

Dr. Sean Olive, President of the Audio Engineering Society and Director of Acoustic Research for Harman International, agrees. “I’ve heard some wonderful CDs, but I’ve also heard some wonderful 24/96 files,” Olive said. “I really think the difference is how well they’re recorded and mastered.”

 

These are still great headphones in that the 1As I own are fantastic and very well-rated, and they have LDAC (triple the bandwidth of regular Bluetooth so less chance of compression and data loss) too which is great as well. I guess if you're JUST playing Hi-Res content, you have nothing to worry about. lol You can simply downsample any Hi-Res you have to 24-bit/44.1kHz, and it will still be recognized as Hi-Res. This Hi-Res U2 album I own further proves this point of what stands for the lowest resolution in existence that's still considered Hi-Res. 

I'm by no means an audiophile, but I'm thinking about purchasing an A17 to replace a slowly dying 80GB iPod.  Ideally my next player would have a memory card slot, support multiple file formats, and it would be a bonus if it sounds nicer than an iPod.   
 
The NWZ-A17 seems to fit the bill, but before I take the plunge can someone let me know if Album Shuffle is supported?  i.e. randomly select an album and play all of its tracks in order berfore selecting the next album.
 
From googling around I found:

When [Play Mode] is selected and [Shuffle] or [Shuffle & Repeat] with [Playback Range] is set to [All Range], your Walkman will not shuffle all of the songs at once. Instead, the Walkman will select an artist, album, etc. and play all corresponding songs in random order before moving on to another artist or album. 

Click to expand...

 
If I read that right, it will select an artist/album at random, then play all of its songs in random order before selecting the next artist/album.  I probably listen to 99% of my music through an Album Shuffle.

sr20, 
 
I recently owned the A17 (and started this thread)......... I believe you can choose by artist and song, and I think also by album? I prefer to play by artist, but it sounds like from what you said that it will shuffle in whatever option you choose to play from. Like from album it should shuffle by album. I wish I could tell you for sure though, but I didn't use the shuffle much, but instead just chose an artist or band and just played their music without shuffle being on. 
 
If no one responds, I'd just buy the A17 off Amazon and then you can return it if that feature isn't available. Amazon is pretty easy to return stuff to, especially if Amazon is the actual seller (you get about 4-6 weeks to return stuff too). When returning, just choose the reason option for the return is the website description wasn't accurate or right, and then you'll get shipping refunded too. lol Just put in any reason that makes even SOME sense (like it not playing shuffled songs in the manner you desire), and it will be fine. I don't think they even check, it's all automated. But a third party seller would check probably. (Use the link I just gave you. Amazon is the DIRECT seller!)
 
The A17 was a great player and I was very happy with it. I only switched to a dac/amp b/c I wanted to play only off my phone (and connect it to the dac/amp). Be sure to read through this thread to see my suggested sound settings (earlier in thread) which are very simple, etc. It's basically just leaving the extra sound option stuff OFF and an easy tweak to the Custom EQ. It will DEF sound better than the iPod or iPhone, or ANY smartphone for that matter. I have the Sony Xperia Z3 which some have rated as having the best sound quality of any smart phone, and the A17 Walkman still outdid it. iPods might be a bit better than the smartphones, but I'd be willing to be the A17 will still outdo them too. I think anything under $200-$250 (which includes iPods) won't sound any better than a smartphone or even iPod. I tried one $200ish player (the iBasso DX50), and compared to my Z3, it sounded THE SAME. So I say stay at $300+, and you will DEF notice a difference. With the A17, you are doing just that. 

Thanks for the info RockStar2005.  I've read throug all of the pages and will definately try out the suggested sound settings.  I live in Canada, and isn't sold directly by Amazon Canada.  Hopefully someone else will chime in, but I guess it's a feature that people other than me don't use.  At one point I almost bought a Fiio X1, but found out that it didn't support album shuffle, had some UI quirks and a file limit, which is when I discovered this Sony unit.

sr20,

The link I gave you is for the American Amazon page. There's no reason why you can't just order it from there. lol Unless they charge for shipping? I dunno.

Great news guys!!! Sony NWZ-A17 is on Massdrop.com for $259.99 if 9 of us commit to purchase it at the lowest price. I am really interested to do that because I am tired of borrowing my cousin's player. 

how does the A17 compare with the new X3 and new X1 and new X5 ?
 
specifically the SQ
I already prefer the design and UI from the A17 but it's pretty expensive compared to X3 and X1

rgr, 
 
Several months ago before purchasing my A17, I'd purchased the FiiO X3 and the iBasso DX50. The reviews I'd read indicated they were pretty much equal in sound quality. I only opened the DX50 package, and compared it to my smartphone's (Sony Xperia Z3) SQ. Even though the DX50 was like $200, I couldn't tell a difference. So I returned them both and decided another $100 was prob gonna be necessary to hear a difference. And it was.............the A17 had the volume, the spark, the SQ to REALLY make all my albums shine, esp my newly-bought Hi-Res albums. 
 
If you want a dedicated player for around $300, then the A17 is your best pick. I'd since decided I just want one device to play my music, so for that reason alone I sold my A17 and got a portable amp/DAC (see previous posts for more info). The one I got is double the price of the A17, but is very highly-rated, even trumping the $1200 Walkman and other equally-priced systems per several reviews. As an alternative to the A17, and only if you might want to just use your smartphone as your player like me, I suggest looking into the Oppo HA-2 portable amp/DAC. It has some incredible features, including rapid charging and being a battery pack for your phone too, a great slender premium look, awesome sound quality etc. It costs the same as the A17 as well, and at least one review I've read stated the sound quality was actually better. It is very well-rated, and also has the same Sabre chip my amp/DAC has, which is considered up there if not better than Wolfson's chips. So look into both, weigh your options, then make a decision. 
 
Note: The HA-2 can charge your phone AND be used to play music at the same time if you have an iOS device. For Windows and Android, it's either/or. FYI. (I had to ask their customer service dept to find this out.) 

Gents,
 
Have read as much as I can find about this Sony A-17,
but  cannot find if it has a DAC  or a `line-out' feature?
 
After buying and using FiiO stuff for too long
shopping for a  DAP/DAC with great battery life.
 
A EQ would be nice.
 
Any and all sincere help would most appreciated,
 
Thank you in advance!

auditus, 
 
The A17 Walkman IS an amp AND DAC combo, and a very solid one at that. 
 
Not sure on Line-Out, but the battery life is VERY good. You get 30 hours for Hi-Res, and 50 hours for non Hi-Res (I downsample all my Hi-Res to CD-Quality 16/44.1 anyway, as it doesn't affect the sound quality AT ALL.......... files become smaller and take up less space and less battery power is needed to play them vs big Hi-Res files, which helps battery life too. If you have questions on this, search this thread for for my post on "dBpoweramp", using that as your search term. I gave detailed instructions on how to downsample.) How's that sound?? lol
 
I also have EQ setting suggestions as well in this post. Just search this thread using the term "EQ" to see. It's pretty simple.
 
Hope that helps!

rockstar2005 said:

  auditus, 
 
The A17 Walkman IS an amp AND DAC combo, and a very solid one at that. 
 
Not sure on Line-Out, but the battery life is VERY good. You get 30 hours for Hi-Res, and 50 hours for non Hi-Res (I downsample all my Hi-Res to CD-Quality 16/44.1 anyway, as it doesn't affect the sound quality AT ALL.......... files become smaller and take up less space and less battery power is needed to play them vs big Hi-Res files, which helps battery life too. If you have questions on this, search this thread for for my post on "dBpoweramp", using that as your search term. I gave detailed instructions on how to downsample.) How's that sound?? lol
 
I also have EQ setting suggestions as well in this post. Just search this thread using the term "EQ" to see. It's pretty simple.
 
Hope that helps!

Click to expand...

 
 
 
Thank you RockStar2005,   BTW: Is 2005 you're date of birth? lol   many I haves seen used their dob at the ___ok you know what I mean,
 
30 hrs high-res? Wow! A very long time. I do prefer Aiff and Flacs.
having looked at all the pictures I could find, I do not see an  amp-out line,
I like using a ext. amp with a rotary knob to adjust volume.
Further, in the "info" on the `17',   I find no mention of an EQ and could not find your comments
regarding such.
This week after buying and trying to enjoy FiiO products for too long. I have given up on IMO 
their junk, They have glutted the market over the past 2 years, with inferior batteries.
Now, shopping for a Real quality DAP/DAC___to use with SENN IE80 IEMs.
Nothing goes through my iMac, not music anyway.
 
It strikes me that all DAP's come from Asia? 
 
I do love my music, and have software that can modify the bite-rate to suit,
using SanDisk Class 10 cards, try to get some quality sounds.
There are times when an EQ is fun to `toy' with, but do prefer music in
completely "flat" form. 
 
Could you please inform as to these odd requests kind sir? 
Holding my breath.

auditus,

Ha! No........... it's just a year I chose for my own personal reasons. lol

With regards to EQ and other sound settings:

On the Walkman, I had no extras enabled at all really. Only thing I had done was I'd turned up the 2.5 kHz band in the Custom EQ by 2 notches. That was it........all else was on 0, even Clear Bass. Doing so made the vocals a bit louder and more clear, and somehow it even gave the drums a lil more punch too it seemed. I learned this "trick" from my Sony Xperia Z3's walkman app which has this setting already in an EQ preset labeled "Soul". The A17 Walkman doesn't have this preset, so I had to do it manually. All the other stuff like DSEE HX, Clear Audio+, even VPT was off. On my phone, I play around with Clear Bass and I def think it sounds better with VPT (Surround Sound, "Studio") on, where on the Walkman when I enabled "Studio", it sounded good on some songs, but others it sounded kinda compressed. ​

Here is another post I put up regarding dBpoweramp and where to get Hi-Res albums from and how to downsample them using dBpoweramp:

Start buying Hi-Res albums. I've been doing that over the last 9 months..........buying all the albums I really love, just a few here and there as the cost adds up. The difference is significant to me as albums or songs I've long since grown tired of suddenly sound great again, and others I didn't really care for in the first place now have a new life to them. I've compared them to mp3 and even CD versions of songs or albums I own, and I always seem to notice a difference. The Hi-Res files are huge, but you can downsample them (make them smaller) using converters like dBpoweramp (free, even after 3-week trial ends). Just convert to WAV/Wave (Uncompressed, 16-bit, 44.1; doing this is what makes it smaller), then to FLAC or ALAC (iTunes can't play FLAC), or even to 320-512 kbps CBR AAC. These are lossy, HOWEVER.... they take up even less space and are statistically said to sound no different than FLAC or ALAC. ALL THAT MATTERS IS YOUR SOURCE WAS A HI-RES PURCHASED SOURCE. AS LONG AS YOU DON'T CONVERT IT DOWN TO MP3, IT WILL SOUND THE SAME. The file will be way smaller, but again sound exactly the same (trust me lol). (Keeping it in Wave may mean the album cover pic may not show up, so don't skip the next step. Note: But if you're downsampling a 16-bit (CDQ) file, you can skip the "WAV/Wave" step and just do a straight conversion to AAC.)

For DSD conversions, you will need to install dBpoweramp's DSD decoder. Do this (very easy) after installing dBpoweramp. Then it will be able to handle downsampling the DSD tracks. Also, as mentioned above, the AAC codec encoder (aka mp4, or next generation mp3.......make sure to download the first one listed) is the format I use. It's lossy, but it's been statistically proven that people can't tell the difference between it and lossless, and it takes up LESS space than FLAC/ALAC do too. Just follow the same steps above in bold.

Hi-Res sites:

1) HD Tracks: http://www.hdtracks.com/

2) Super HiRes/Acoustic Sounds: http://store.acousticsounds.com/index.cfm?store=acousticsounds (Also has DSD Hi-Res albums available, which are better than regular Hi-Res, but not many albums get a DSD release)

3) 7digital: https://us.7digital.com/ (Also lets you get individual tracks on many albums, and CDQ files)

4) Onkyo Music: https://onkyomusic.com/US/ (It appears that this site is owned and/or presented by 7digital.)

5) Pro Studio Masters: http://www.prostudiomasters.com/featured/genre/rock#x

6) Amazon (for SACDs): I also buy used "like new" regular CDs off Amazon and rip them to anything EXCEPT mp3. SACDs (Super Audio CDs) use DSD files.

7) MoFi: I have bought at least one Hybrid SACD off here. PM me for more info on SACDs before buying anything.

8) iTunes Store (you need to download iTunes to your computer, open an account, and then go to the iTunes Store through the program)..........look for albums with the label "Mastered for iTunes". They are also 24-bit (aka Hi-Res) albums that go through a specific process by Apple to clean them up.


Note: I mainly only download from the first 4 sites.

If the file sizes are still too big for you using FLAC/ALAC, then let me know. You CAN make them smaller still, but there's pros and cons to that. I do it, but it takes an extra step. CD-Quality FLAC/ALAC are pretty small already anyway. I back my Hi-Res stuff up as FLAC/ALAC, but store it on my phone and Walkman in a slightly smaller format........AAC/mp4. But leaving them in FLAC/ALAC is fine. **Update: I now back them up as 320-512 kbps AAC/mp4 (CBR) files instead of FLAC/ALAC. This takes up less space than even CD-Quality FLAC/ALAC files do. It IS lossy (though not lossy like mp3s are), but studies have shown people can't statistically tell the difference b/t it and the lossless CDQ FLAC/ALAC files anyway, so I just do it this way. But either one is fine. You can use iTunes to downsample as well, except for DSDs.**

Yeah I tried the iBasso DX50 which is supposed to be equal in quality to the FiiO X3, and after comparing it to my Z3 phone, I couldn't hear a difference, and it was $200! That's when I switched up to the A17. I could DEFINITELY hear a difference with the A17.

Hopefully that answers all your questions!

rockstar2005 said:

  rgr, 
 
Several months ago before purchasing my A17, I'd purchased the FiiO X3 and the iBasso DX50. The reviews I'd read indicated they were pretty much equal in sound quality. I only opened the DX50 package, and compared it to my smartphone's (Sony Xperia Z3) SQ. Even though the DX50 was like $200, I couldn't tell a difference. So I returned them both and decided another $100 was prob gonna be necessary to hear a difference. And it was.............the A17 had the volume, the spark, the SQ to REALLY make all my albums shine, esp my newly-bought Hi-Res albums. 
 
If you want a dedicated player for around $300, then the A17 is your best pick. I'd since decided I just want one device to play my music, so for that reason alone I sold my A17 and got a portable amp/DAC (see previous posts for more info). The one I got is double the price of the A17, but is very highly-rated, even trumping the $1200 Walkman and other equally-priced systems per several reviews. As an alternative to the A17, and only if you might want to just use your smartphone as your player like me, I suggest looking into the Oppo HA-2 portable amp/DAC. It has some incredible features, including rapid charging and being a battery pack for your phone too, a great slender premium look, awesome sound quality etc. It costs the same as the A17 as well, and at least one review I've read stated the sound quality was actually better. It is very well-rated, and also has the same Sabre chip my amp/DAC has, which is considered up there if not better than Wolfson's chips. So look into both, weigh your options, then make a decision. 
 
Note: The HA-2 can charge your phone AND be used to play music at the same time if you have an iOS device. For Windows and Android, it's either/or. FYI. (I had to ask their customer service dept to find this out.) 
 
 

Click to expand...

Thank you
Are there any common problems with the A17? I am interested in used or "refurbished for $200-240" if there are no problems. 

can I use the A17 as a dac for my macbook pro ?

No, it is a standalone player.