Recommendations for a digital audio player

[garym]

Hi,

I just random-checked a few albums and they all seem to be displaying the artwork! And those with double/triple-discs correctly display their respective-artworks.

Ironically, Sony emailed earlier on. They said their higher-tech team advised: "I will not be able to use my own PC to transfer music files or artworks to the Walkman"; and so instead I need to use an 'alternative' computer for this task. Quite unbelievable!

Paul

No, very believable. These folks are idiots. I really feel sorry for end-users of technology who don't know (or don't have the capability) of gathering info from actual knowledgeable users.

[monsterjazzlick]

No, very believable. These folks are idiots. I really feel sorry for end-users of technology who don't know (or don't have the capability) of gathering info from actual knowledgeable users.

Sony Tech Team would do well to read this thread. They might actually LEARN something!

[monsterjazzlick]

Hi,

I don't want to sound pedantic (really, I don't!), but I noticed something relating to the behaviour the Sony Walkman since using 'embedded' artworks this week:

As the album moves from one track to the next, it is almost as if the artwork is refreshed. I mean, as soon as the player jumps to the next track on the album, for about a 1/4 of a second the artwork disappears (ie, the artwork region of the screen goes blank) and then reappears again. Perhaps this is what happens with 'embedded' art?, or maybe it's just down to a quirk on the Walkman?

I will check it in foobar on my PC just to see is the same thing occurs...

Paul

[garym]

Hi,

I don't want to sound pedantic (really, I don't!), but I noticed something relating to the behaviour the Sony Walkman since using 'embedded' artworks this week:

As the album moves from one track to the next, it is almost as if the artwork is refreshed. I mean, as soon as the player jumps to the next track on the album, for about a 1/4 of a second the artwork disappears (ie, the artwork region of the screen goes blank) and then reappears again. Perhaps this is what happens with 'embedded' art?, or maybe it's just down to a quirk on the Walkman?

I will check it in foobar on my PC just to see is the same thing occurs...

Paul

Not surprising, because evidently with the walkman, it only sees the embedded art. So each track has "new" art, even if it happens to be the exact same artwork. It loads artwork for EACH track. Foobar doesn't likely do this as it can read the folder.jpg.

[GaryG45]

I use embedded art in mp3 files in my car player, and it refreshes like your Walkman. Foobar mobile on my iPhone doesn't do a refresh for embedded art in mp3 files.

I'm interested in how the Walkman handles multi-value tags, if you use them.

[monsterjazzlick]

Not surprising, because evidently with the walkman, it only sees the embedded art. So each track has "new" art, even if it happens to be the exact same artwork. It loads artwork for EACH track. Foobar doesn't likely do this as it can read the folder.jpg.

Hi Garym,

You are probably correct here. Yes, the Walkman treats each new artwork-file as if it were different, even though the image is the exactly same!

I think, by default, foobar is reading the 'folder' art. Hence there is no refreshing of any track-images (unless of course it's a box-set with multiple-arts). I just tried it using foobar on my PC. btw - the FLAC folder it is reading is the one on my C: drive which has both 'embedded' and 'folder' (same FLAC folder as on the Walkman SD-card).

Cheers.

[monsterjazzlick]

I use embedded art in mp3 files in my car player, and it refreshes like your Walkman. Foobar mobile on my iPhone doesn't do a refresh for embedded art in mp3 files.

I'm interested in how the Walkman handles multi-value tags, if you use them.

Hi GaryG,

Thanks for the info.

I am afraid I only use FLAC format now; and I only listen using my Sony Walkman, Win_10 PC, and Amazon Fire. The latter two are through foobar app.

"Multi value tags"; I seem to remember hearing/thinking about this sometime last year? So much has gone on through my journey of FLACs/ripping, etc! And so please remind me just in case I am able to return some assistance.

Paul

[GaryG45]

Paul,
An example would be genre. I have albums where the genre is Jazz and Pop. Another multi-value tag would be the STYLE tag, which I believe you were using. Although I doubt if many players display style. You may have decided to not use them.

Gary

[mville]

From DAPs, full-size and in car, missing cover art seems a massive issue as there are no standards, and different manufacturers implement this differently. Folder.jpg or Embedded, maximum/minimum pixel size often in tandem with different maximum file size, and now Baseline DCT!

No wonder there are issues.....

Spoon, I believe the baseline (standard) versus progressive format for .jpg files, is something that could be incorporated into dBpoweramp Image Converter, maybe as a DSP?

[monsterjazzlick]

An example would be genre. I have albums where the genre is Jazz and Pop.

Hi GaryG,

I took a look for you last night.

The Sony Walkman has:

ARTIST - this can be set to ARTIST or ALBUM ARTIST (I have it to the latter)

RELEASE YEAR - the year the album was released (I manually entered this data during tagging). I don't use this category as a search function to be honest. Personally, I would have preferred RECORDED YEAR.

ALBUM - is an alphabetical list of every album (all GENRES combined) in an A to Z list. I don't use this category.

COMPOSER - gives you a list of how many ALBUMS a composer has contributed to. So, if a composer has written 50 songs across 20 albums, the result will indicate the amount of '20'. I may end up using this once I get around to listening to some CLASSICALs.

GENRE - I use this one all of the time! I currently have: Choral, Classical, Country, Holistic, Jazz, Languages, Popular, Prog-Rock, Stage & Screen, Self-Development, and Xmas.

Upon checking this info. for you, I have noticed something odd which is occurring in my library. The folder containing all of Chick Corea's albums does not appear under the letter 'C'?, but rather between 'F' and 'G'. Similarly, George Shearing appears between 'M' and 'O'! Though I have not investigated this thoroughly as of yet.

Paul

[monsterjazzlick]

Another multi-value tag would be the STYLE tag, which I believe you were using. Although I doubt if many players display style. You may have decided to not use them.

As expected, the STYLE tag is not displayed. But yes, I have still used STYLE in all of my tagging. As you know, from a previous thread, I spent a good while compiling these - though am still stuck on quite a few CLASSICALs at present.

[Dat Ei]

iBasso has released a new DAP lately called DX120. It as no Wifi, no Blutooth and no changeable amplifier, but two card slots, an uptime up to 16 hours with one charge. The new model is inexpensive if you compare it to the bigger models like DX150 or DX200.


Dat Ei

[chippe01]

Re-opening an older thread, I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Sony NW-WM1A.

I do own the NW-A45, and I love it, and now use that as my "bedtime" player.

The NW-WM1A isn't cheap, but it has a lot of quality features. It has dual amplifiers for balanced output, and a standard headphone jack. It's got a high gain amplifier, which blows away the volume on the A45. High gain can be turned on and off for both the balanced and standard connections. I have paired this with a balanced wired headphone, which was also pretty expensive and the sound is just amazing and LOUD.

There are a number of sound settings, and you can adjust the tone with either a 10 band customizable EQ or standard Bass, Mid, and Treble settings. Battery is rated for about 20 hours. I don't use Bluetooth or NFC and have those turned off. With the high gain setting, and balanced wired connection, I have not had the battery quit on me yet. I listen at pretty high volume, and after about 2 hours, the battery meter goes from 4 bars to 3. I've never had the battery go below 2 bars.

Putting all the Sony bull aside, I do use the Music Center software. While it's not the friendliest software, it gets the job done. I have my entire collection in FLAC (Standard CD quality from my ripped CDs thanks to dBPowerAmp) with the exception of my LP's which I ripped myself in Hi Res format (both 96Khz 24 bit and DSD 5.6). Thanks to the Sony Hi-Res turntable, I can rip from standard CD quality up to DSD 11.2. I have also purchased about 20 Hi-Res albums online, ranging from 24 bit 44.1K to DSD 5.6.

I have almost 11,000 tracks on the Walkman on a 512GB card, and still have almost 150GB free. The player has built in 128GB memory, but I have everything on the SD card except the music that was installed on the device - a few Hi Res DSD and FLAC files.

By the way, I had this same 512GB card in the NW-A45 and it worked without an issue. I now have a 400GB card in the A45.

There are quirks with the software and both of the players, but I have incorporated the workarounds into my normal routines when putting music on both players. The music center software just got an update, although it's not much more user friendly now than before. For instance, I posted some time ago about a bug with the year display in the software, It always subtracts 1 from the actual year. If the year is 1960, the year displayed in Music center is 1959 - even though the correct year is tagged in the file. This was not fixed. I also make sure my album art is in the correct JPG Baseline format before adding the art to the FLAC files.

Anyway, the unit and headphones commanded a hefty price tag, but to my ears at least, the sound quality is incredible. The A45 is the MUCH cheaper alternative with less volume and features, but has good sound for a compact player. I'm using the A45 with a pair of Sony Hi-Res earbuds and they sound great. The battery on this is rated for 30 hours, and seems to last incredibly long.

I love the user interface on both the A45 and WM1A, it's very user friendly in my opinion.

FYI, with the max volume limit on the European units, there is a way to disable this. There are articles on the internet on how to do this.

[monsterjazzlick]

Hi Chippe,

Thanks for your input.

I will keep this short as I don't want to inadvertently reiterate what may have previously been discussed here.

It does look a great machine and I was actually not even aware of this model. I am pleased to hear that you like it. I can not see how anyone could dislike it?! However, it is totally out of my price range and I am very happy with my A-45.

Before purchasing my Walkman I went through weeks of testing out different combinations of players with phones. My ears were tired after so many A/B comparisons and I don't know if I would want to go through it again! I decided to stick with Sony for the phones also. In fact, I additionally purchased a pair of Sony wireless buds for the gym!

Cheers,

Paul