Sony’s affordable new Walkman could make your digital music sound better than ever
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Sony is fully embracing music streaming with its latest Walkman, the NW-A306, which features a new sound engine that can enhance your favorite tracks from your streaming service of choice.
Digital music has made it super easy to carry your entire audio library with you, and using one of the best music streaming services takes it a step further – now your music doesn’t even have to take up virtual space to listen to it wherever you are. you want (provided you have internet access).
However, streamed songs are both a curse and a blessing for serious audiophiles – the compressed music files may lack the dynamic range and acoustic subtleties of the original songs. However, Sony’s NW-A306 could change that, thanks to its Edge-AI and DSEE Ultimate (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine) features, which are designed to upscale compressed digital music files in real time – providing a much richer and more dynamic experience. results during playback.
These new tools complement the Walkman’s existing hi-res features, such as LDAC – which allows anyone using one of the best wireless headphones to enjoy high-quality audio wirelessly – and the 360 Reality Audio feature, which allows the player can immerse you in its 3D soundscape.
We’ll have to see for ourselves how the Sony NW-A306 performs to know just how capable it really is. But Sony’s audio expertise has seen its devices appear in – and dominate – several of our buying guides (including our list of the best wireless earbuds), so we expect this new gadget to be no different.
That said, there are some potential drawbacks.
For starters, it doesn’t have much storage space. The Sony NW-A306 has 32GB of storage, but once you factor in all the software you’ll need to have installed, you’ll only have about 18GB left to play with. That’s certainly enough for more than a few albums, but those of you with a huge music library may find yourself running out of space pretty quickly.
Then there’s the price. The NW-A306 costs £350, which is about $425 / AU$615 – there’s no word yet on a US or Australian release date or official pricing, but it will launch in the UK and Europe later in January 2023.
Compared to the best MP3 players out there, that’s a super affordable price – the Astell & Kern A&ultima SP2000T, which takes the top spot in the guide linked above, costs $2,399 / £1,999 / AU$3,599 – but if you content with your phone’s reasonable portable audio experience, then you might not appreciate the entry cost of the NW-A306.
However, if you’re looking for an audio player rated much better than ‘it’ll do’ then the Sony NW-A306 could be the gadget for you.