Things I love: My (modern) Sony Walkman NW-A306
VA-11 Hall-A Complete Sound Collection — Garoad and various artists.
I love music.
I do not buy too many CDs nowadays, but I still purchase (DRM-free) music quite often. Utilizing services like bandcamp to support indie artists, qobuz for generally anything in the highest quality, and I've even dabbled in OTOTOY when I want to support Japanese artists+composers.
Of course... I have my other means as well. 🏴☠️
Unfortunately with the popularity of streaming, a majority of people nowadays choose to not own their music which I find incredibly sad. There is something about managing a digital library of music, especially over a long period of time. I can agree it's not the same as a physical vinyl collection and it's all digital files.
My music files however have been with me for a long portion of my life:
- Across multiple computers.
- Portable devices like my PSP and iPod nano.
- USB flash drives.
- Copied to friends and families computers.
- Burnt CDs.
Building up a library overtime over the span of 15+ years (with a majority of my music files being FLAC) I needed a compact device that can carry a large majority of my library on the go and playback everything perfectly.
After some searching, I decided to go with the Sony Walkman NW-A306:
Memories Of Tokyo-To — 2 Mello.This was it, the best device for my needs.
Sony was the first electronics manufacturer to perfect portable audio with the original Walkman in 1979, and to this very day in our post-iPod generation have continued to keep the Walkman brand alive by making portable digital music players.
It has everything I needed in a portable music device:
- A headphone jack (this is unfortunately a miracle nowadays.)
- Micro SD card slot. (I use a 512GB card.)
- Physical buttons for playback control (and a HOLD switch!)
- Bluetooth audio.
- USB-C for charging.
- A high quality DAC that eliminates all electronic feedback/noise.
- Capable of playing all formats including FLAC.
Loading some of my favorite albums onto the device the first time and listening to them with my favorite pair of headphones, they sound nothing short of amazing. It's exactly like the experience of listening to my library on my desktop computer at my desk, only it's coming from a portable the size of an Altoids tin.
No ADs, no algorithms, no subscriptions, no internet connectivity required. It's just me and my personal library at anytime with my favorite pair of wired headphones. Listening to an album I don't even have to look at the screen and can use the physical buttons on the side like any other old music player to play, pause, rewind, fast-forward, adjust the volume, etc.
Outside of it's main function of playing music however, it has one feature no other portable player has. The cassette display:
the inaccessible solitude of the sky — our dear friend, the medic.Depending on the file format of the song being played, the player displays an animated Sony tape being played with the artist and track information. Complete with a fast-forward and rewind animation when skipping around a track. It's a gimmick, but a damn good one that I keep on constantly.
Unfortunately... There is only one major problem I have with the device. Instead of Sony making it's own operating system for the device, they opted to have the software be an app that runs on Android.
That's right, this is an Android device.
So on top of the Sony Walkman app, you can download any music app and use them on this same device. Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify, foobar2000, VLC, whatever. It's all here like any other Android device.
This doesn't sound like a bad thing. But starting up this device the first time and... it's terrible experience in that it's exactly like any other Android phone. Complete with it asking for a google account to proceed, accepting a terms of service, and disabling every option of them wanting to track your activity. The works.
You go to the home screen and it's like any android phone, plastered with google apps everywhere. The only thing missing is the phone app because this thing doesn't have a SIM slot.
Fortunately, with it being Android. You can disable every function and app on this device. I updated the device and software to the latest version, disabled wi-fi, and immediately began to disable every application.
By the time I was done, all this thing can do now is open the Walkman app and play music off my SD card, and... that's it. I disabled Chrome and installed Firefox, but its largely useless with wifi being disabled. I have VLC media player installed as well for some of the music videos I keep saved on my SD card.
Bad Vibes 2022 — Molly Noise.So... with my current setup. It's perfect!
My favorite way of using this device is usually when I am reading a book on my e-reader, or wanting to work on my desktop or laptop and not wanting to be distracted by my phone. I can put my phone away, and just focus on what I am doing without things like discord, social media, emails, etc. bothering me every waking moment.
This device isn't perfect for everyone. Outside of being an Android device, there is no accessible way to get to the battery, and... It's expensive. Very expensive. Fortunately I got it as a gift from my wife! (^~ ^)
All bad things aside, I love this little music player. Anywhere I go, I take it with me in my bag whenever I need my music. It sometimes also becomes a bit of a conversation starter whenever people see a little cassette playing at my table in a cafe.
Even if this device is not within your price range, I still encourage anyone to carry around a dedicated portable music player. Whether it's a cheap MP3 player, a modded iPod, even an old mini disc player or cassette Walkman if you are dedicated.
While music is valued less by corporations and streaming services, I cherish every album I carry in my little Walkman.
NEON GENESIS EVANGELION II — various artists.— Froey