[ColdsnapBry]

So one day of using the FiiO m6 I realized it's not for me. It felt extremely cheap in the hand, battery life wasn't good, UI was bad, and overall I've soured on the idea of an Android DAP (just way too much bloat ware / UI in Android to have it make sense in DAP form). I picked up a Sony NW-A55 from Yahoo Japan auctions for $120, I think I'll like this one.

 

[MetalWarrior]

You will be be satisfied!

 

[udo]

Yes 2 min 48 sec and 48 hundreths.
Player NW-WM1A 128GB in board
Card 1TB sandisk

Thanks, this confirms my fear and suspicion and also the design flaw that Sony 'support' cannot treat seriously.
What player does not have this database issue? No need for wifi or bluetooth. No need for multicore android. Should accept 1TB cards and play 20+ hours....

 

[gerelmx1986]

Thanks, this confirms my fear and suspicion and also the design flaw that Sony 'support' cannot treat seriously.
What player does not have this database issue? No need for wifi or bluetooth. No need for multicore android. Should accept 1TB cards and play 20+ hours....

as many have said here, as long as you don't piwer it off (pause and screen off) it will go to standby. The battery consumptions is minimal.
Also, how many songs do you have? I have more than 50.000 songs

 

[ColdsnapBry]

How scratch resistant is the NW-A55? I usually go case-less with my electronics, but wasn't sure if I'd regret this with the Sony.

 

[0rangutan]

@Krutsch - any chance of sharing your macOS -> A55 workflow?
I had mine working fine for a year or so using Carbon Copy Cloner and exporting iTunes playlists to M3U.
The playlists sat in their own folder within the root MUSIC folder and all worked well.
Unfortunately this has stopped working recently (possibly when I upgraded to FW 1.02?) and now the music files are okay but I just can't get external playlists to work any more.

 

[Giangregorio]

With A55 and airpods is possible to change volume?
With A35 it doesn't work.

 

[Electrolite]

Anyone knows what DAC chip the Sony NW-A55 has?

 

[yorosello]

Anyone knows what DAC chip the Sony NW-A55 has?

They use their own DAC chip, S-Master HX

 

[BMAN94]

Patiently waiting for this to be available in the US at Best Buy. I'm still having an internal debate on whether to get the A55 or the A105. I'm upgrading from the A20 so either one would be a substantial upgrade.

Pros for the A55 for me is: The Battery Life, The newer sound enhancements, the new interface and new simple UI. The cons however is that it doesn't have native Podcast support like the A20 (seriously, you just needed to add one more tab Sony!), STILL using the WM port, although that isn't too big of a deal, it's still bothersome and unnecesary and the buttons don't look as nice as the A105.

As for the A105, the pros are: Android based, so other music apps, specifically Primephonic can be used without the need of the Bluetooth receiver, more flexibility in the UI, snappier UI, from what I can tell it sounds better than the A55 (some can back this up for me hopefully), while native support of podcasts still isn't there, it has Spotify and I can load podcasts using that or an external podcast app from the Playstore, USB C!. Cons: Since it's running on Android the battery life is going to be significantly worse that the A55, significantly more expensive than the A55, worried that the OS will get bogged down more and more as time goes by (this happened with my old F series Android walkman).

That's the conflict I'm stuck with. Both have significant pros and cons to them, and I want to utilize my $70 Best Buy giftcard on one of them. I also have to factor in a 256 GB micro SD card. Does card speed matter? If so, what the best Brand/speed combination to go with for loading the music fast?

Last crucial question: For the A55 or A105, can I continue to use Media Go for importing to the device or do I have to use the horrendous Media Center?

 

[MetalWarrior]

Well, I would go with the a55 for sure...
A YouTuber I personally trust has testetd the a105 and only got 8 hours of playback out of it. That's ridiculous...


Media Go still working fine for importing.
When I was on Windows 7 Music Center worked ok, too. Now that I'm on Windows 10 (same hardware) Music Center won't work anymore and I switched back to Media Go. Better program anyway in most aspects...

 

[BMAN94]

Well, I would go with the a55 for sure...
A YouTuber I personally trust has testetd the a105 and only got 8 hours of playback out of it. That's ridiculous...


Media Go still working fine for importing.
When I was on Windows 7 Music Center worked ok, too. Now that I'm on Windows 10 (same hardware) Music Center won't work anymore and I switched back to Media Go. Better program anyway in most aspects...

Thank God, Media Go has been super reliable for years and it's the fastest music UI I've ever used. It's quite ridiculous how big of a downgrade Music Center is. 8 hours is pretty awful, especially since I would be using the Wifi features for said streaming apps in additon to the onbaord music will have. What Youtuber was it by the way? Super Reviews? Coolaid710? Techmoan?

 

[ColdsnapBry]

I went with the a55 after some debate too. I got a FiiO m6 as a stopgap while I was deciding and the Android implementation there soured me so much on Android in a DAP. It's just too much bloat ware for what I'm after, and FiiO's implementation is more basic than Sony's.

 

[ColdsnapBry]

Well, I would go with the a55 for sure...
A YouTuber I personally trust has testetd the a105 and only got 8 hours of playback out of it. That's ridiculous...


Media Go still working fine for importing.
When I was on Windows 7 Music Center worked ok, too. Now that I'm on Windows 10 (same hardware) Music Center won't work anymore and I switched back to Media Go. Better program anyway in most aspects...

What does Media Go do? Sorry never heard of it. I have my Sony NW-A50 being delivered this week.

 

[davidcotton]

Patiently waiting for this to be available in the US at Best Buy. I'm still having an internal debate on whether to get the A55 or the A105. I'm upgrading from the A20 so either one would be a substantial upgrade.

Pros for the A55 for me is: The Battery Life, The newer sound enhancements, the new interface and new simple UI. The cons however is that it doesn't have native Podcast support like the A20 (seriously, you just needed to add one more tab Sony!), STILL using the WM port, although that isn't too big of a deal, it's still bothersome and unnecesary and the buttons don't look as nice as the A105.

As for the A105, the pros are: Android based, so other music apps, specifically Primephonic can be used without the need of the Bluetooth receiver, more flexibility in the UI, snappier UI, from what I can tell it sounds better than the A55 (some can back this up for me hopefully), while native support of podcasts still isn't there, it has Spotify and I can load podcasts using that or an external podcast app from the Playstore, USB C!. Cons: Since it's running on Android the battery life is going to be significantly worse that the A55, significantly more expensive than the A55, worried that the OS will get bogged down more and more as time goes by (this happened with my old F series Android walkman).

This is the one big bugbear I have with daps of 2020's Aside from apple I can think of no dedicated audio device that has podcast/audiobook support built in to the native player. As for the a105 I would have got one except for the drawbacks you mentioned.

If you are after a decent audiobook app from the playstore I recommend Smart Audiobook. Basic but does all it needs to if you have a large library of your own material.