there is a Remote Control option in this player, how can I use it?, is it for Bluetooth remote or wired?
http://www.accessoryjack.com/sony-signature-rmt-nws20-bluetooth-remote-control-black.html
There is a dedicated remote control for this series, for those that use wired headphones. Surprisingly, the player does not respond to inline remote controls like every other DAP or phone does, but thankfully retains controls via bluetooth headphones.
With that out of the way, I'd like to share a few thoughts on the NW-A45 for those that have the good sense to read this entire thread before making a purchase. There's a few extremely important things to know, so here is my short review such as it is.
First and foremost, this little DAP is capable of a truly incredible level of audio quality. With a little tweaking of the EQ via quality wired headphones or earbuds I am hearing details I have never heard before in tracks that I've listened to a thousand times. Not only that, but the tracks sound amazingly natural, like they were intended to be heard that way. The soundstage created is truly beautiful. I wouldn't call it neutral at all; it hearkens back to the feel of playing factory produced minidiscs in a high quality sony MD in the early 90s: suspend your superiority complex, relax and know that you are in good hands. This is a very enjoyable sound.
With a quality pair of wired headphones and a couple of EQ tweaks, lossless HI-RES audio is bringing new life to my collection and impressing me in a way that I haven't felt in a long time. Even at ridiculously high volume, there is no trace of distortion and the signal has enough grunt behind it that your ears don't hurt the way that they can with some brighter outputs. No tearing.
I am even liking the effect of DSEE HX on the standard 320kbps MP3 parts of my collection; this is the only other audio enhancement I'm using other than EQ settings: +3, +2, 0, +2, +2, +3
Battery life seems absolutely stellar so far, obviously dictated by various factors such as screen-on time, file format and transmission format but overall this is the single biggest reason I went with this unit and so far I am not disappointed in this regard. I have purchased this for international travel so that my LDAC-capable smartphone can remain charged and useful for maps etc rather than getting run down keeping the soundtrack running.
I went in with fairly low expectations about the UI given my experience with previous touchscreen Sony DAPs, but I have been pleasantly surprised. Even loaded to the brim, scrolling is snappy and fast, the display is just short of gorgeous and it is extremely intuitive. However, it is lacking a few simple things that would have taken zero effort for sony to implement that makes me hope that some day down the track there will be a rockbox implementation that works...high hopes I know.
For example, you are required to set the time on setup and the device is totally aware of timezone...yet there is no option to display a clock. Ridiculous.
Changing zone to Japan has been great for on-device playlist creation but I'm not sure what I've lost at this point given that Australian zone had support for High Gain output and Japan doesn't. I can't find any information about what high-gain grants you in terms of playback.
Overall, this is quite a lot of hardware for your dollar however, I am certainly not without grievances.
My biggest gripe is that I went out of my way to buy a DAP that supports bluetooth LDAC and APT-X HD because I have been living that wireless life for a while now and it is beyond inconvenient going back to wired earbuds or headphones. I wanted to make use of these new technologies to get the best audio quality money could buy whilst still using a wireless headset.
What have sony gone and done? Disabled ALL equalizer functions when playing via bluetooth, unless you happen to own exactly the right pair of $500 Sony BT headphones.
I wouldn't mind, but without applying the minor EQ tweaks described above, the soundstage on this device sounds extremely crowded to the point that the sound I get out of my smartphone is far preferable (and louder!). I could drone on about this, but if I had completed reading the entirety of this thread before dropping a huge amount of money (Australia tax), I probably wouldn't have bothered. All of my android devices going back to 2010 have been capable of applying EQ settings over bluetooth, as are numerous much cheaper DAPs. There's no technical limitation to prevent it, this is just sony being sony.
This reeks of a hard-sell on sony headphones. Same story with noise-cancelling only being available on IER-NW500N or MDR-NW750 (weren't some of these supposed to come in the box?!)
I'm a bit disgusted to be honest. I could live with the proprietary connector, but to flat out disable advertised features unless you drink the sony cool-aid is a bit gross.
My attempt at a solution at this stage is going to be to order a pair of RBH ProStereo H2 (LDAC) earbuds because they have their own built-in DAC and the ability to perform some EQ adjustment on the device themselves but I've no way of knowing if this will match up to the sound out of the built-in EQ, and i've read that the build quality is pretty poor but I can't find a better LDAC solution at this stage. Reviews of audio quality are glowingly positive even from standard apt-x so that is promising.
Unfortunately I don't see sony adding any significant features via firmware update because that is just not how they roll, they'd rather I sell my brand new 2018 unit for a loss and buy the NW-A50 in a couple of months.
The only other complaint I have is that a unit with a build date of 02/2018 is actually limited to USB 2.0 speed because they were so hell-bent on sticking with their proprietary port. Ridiculous.
If anyone has any advice around sets of headphones and earbuds which ARE capable of EQ over bluetooth with this unit I would really appreciate a heads up. I remember reading about some pairs which can bet setup via android app and will retain settings after connected to the NW-A45. I'm not really interested in full-size over ear style but would consider it if the sound is truly mind blowing.
Would love to get any comment on the RBH Prostereo H2 before I blow any more cash too. Thanks guys!
