NW-A306 Walkman 32GB Hi-Res Portable Digital Music Player with Android, up to 36 Hour Battery, Wi-Fi & Bluetooth and USB Type-C – Black NW-A306/B, Black

I have, for decades, owned Android devices and never one thing labeled Apple. Not even an iPod. So reading the reviews and seeing people complain that this Sony WM is Android-based is what led me to purchase one. Having first bought a Shanling, I couldn't even get it to recognize the same 1TB memory that is working fine in the Sony. So I returned the Shanling without hesitation... I have used Roon ARC since release and before that, PlexAmp while on the go. I mainly use them in the car with a portable USB DAC. The apps work well "overall" - barring cell phone reliability. ARC runs into minor issues nearly once a day. It might pop up a 'Poor Connection' error or it will just pause what you're playing and then start to buffer. Can become very annoying... This is especially true in heavy traffic because I prefer all of my music files to be in their native format and resolution. So CD rips - 16/44.1 wav, SACDs DSD 1x (dsf) and hi-rez downloads, DVD-As and Bluray audio at their native bit rates and sampling rates. So this takes some bandwidth off my cellular provider and they fail miserably at times. PlexAmp is far more reliable but you're only getting mp3 quality. They transcode everything, as far as I can tell, when on cellular data. Such a shame... And so began my search for a capable but reasonably priced DAP. I am a hi-fi home audio guy, so I pick my battles. On the road, I just want everything to be there. A nice, tight thump when the bass drum kicks, clean midrange that isn't harsh and extended highs. I know I will never get the imaging and 'air' that my expensive home system provides, so I don't fret. It's not very complicated. And we won't even get into the 'you can't tell the difference between an mp3 and a DSD file in the car' rubbish. Before I get into the good and the bad, I will say that the complaints about Sony's Music app are very spot on. What a piece of horse dung. It is ugly, poorly implemented and slow as all heck. When I first mounted my memory card, I had to figure out how to get things onto it. And Sony said you had to add their Music app for Windows 11 to do this. Fine, I did it. Then I started moving files over (8800+ songs) and Sony was taking an eternity! It would have literally taken between 3 and 4 whole days to transfer all of them. I did not want to leave my gaming PC running for that long. My GPU alone would probably make my electric bill sky high this month! So I figured I would remove the Micro SD and put it in my old, slow-as-heck card reader and transfer the music that way. And slow it was. But it still happened sometime while I was sleeping. I would guess 8-10 hours compared to 48-72 for the Sony. That is just unacceptable. Anyway, here are some of the good and bad about it so far: The Good: - Android OS - Google Play Store - Compact chassis - Good function/button location (once you get used to them) - All the connections you should need - including Micro SD slot up to 2TB - USB C charge/transfer port - Sound Quality from top to bottom is good. Clear, extended highs, clean midrange and kick drums well, kick. - Sound great through car speakers or my IEMs. - programmable auto-off The Bad: - Volume, volume, volume. Where is it?? It is limited on IEMs. Sounds plenty loud in car stereo though, and that is the main reason for buying it. Can go to 120 in-car. - Can be a little slow to react. But not as bad as some of the reviews say. - Sony Music App - really, just get rid of it and use VLC player. You'll thank me. Can't think of anything else at the moment but will update if/when I find more. I can say it's a good buy if you love Android OS.

Hardware and OS are very snappy and responsive. However, if you're looking for a music player, look elsewhere. It takes over 1 minute to boot and another 10 seconds for the music player app to load. This is a full blown Android smart device like a phone but without phone features. Depending on certain features or desire to install productive apps like Tasker, you need to log in with your Google account. The volume automatically adjusts itself back to 50 out of 120 upon boot. I just wanted a music player with fast startup, high quality audio, fast and responsive operating system, long battery life, high quality hardware, and durability. This does not fit the bill for the price Sony is asking for. Returning device after 2 days of function testing.

Brief: I use this device in the car while driving, while walking the dogs, hooked up to my home stereo, and while at my desk at work. If I had to replace it, I'd likely get another one. Pros: - Battery life is great, compared to the more high end audiophile devices this will last way longer. - Sound is great. Really it does sound nice. There's decent EQ support and a vinyl simulator that's nice too. - Size is smaller than your phone and super portable. About the size of a pack of playing cards, or a tin of Altoids for comparison. - Physical buttons so if you have the device in your pocket it's easy to skip tracks, pause/play or adjust volume. - No issues with a large collection on an SD card. - Has a place for a wrist strap. This might sound like an odd pro, but when I take this in the car I can put the wrist strap over the shifter knob and when I drive the player doesn't go flying across the car. It's the little things. If I'm honest - this is what I really want in a portable player. Cons: - Lots of Android phone residue on this. It annoyingly still feels like a phone. Demanding I connect to WiFi to update, notifications I can't suppress, etc. The FIIO M11 I have (also Android and at twice the price!) doesn't seem to have this issue. - It's Android, so if you have issues copying files to/from and Android phone this would be a big con for you. If you plug it into your PC you can't use command line tools (rsync/robocopy) to update your files (the FIIO M11 also has this issue). You'll have to pull the SD card and mount that as a drive if you want to do this. - My library as a number of files in formats that aren't supported (OGG as an example) I'll have to convert all of them to use in this player. - I can't seem to get any variation of CUE files to work. This is a shame as I have a few older gap-less recordings that use CUE sheets. Interface: - There are some other improvements here that could be made, but these would be personal preferences I think. For instance a larger view of covers as an option, with UI elements like the "..." for settings rendered over it. Tapping on the album cover does nothing, maybe using that to swap between song details or a larger view of the album cover would be nice. There are no swipe gestures I see where you can swipe the screen left/right to change tracks. Directional swipes instead take you to different app views (playlist, library, eq, etc.), would be great to have an option to change this behavior and bury that under the "..." UI element. Other: - Audio levels capped for US/EU: You can read up on this online if you think it's a huge drawback. Unless you have really high impedance audiophile headphones, this isn't an issue at all. Volume is great for all the places I'm using it.

The reviews on this Sony Walkman are quite mixed. My reaction is similar. There are pros and cons. But the more I get used to it, the more I like it. First, the sound quality, using Apple AirPods Pro 2, is far above what I was used to with my old iPod touch 6th generation player. The iPod was better at finding and selecting albums and tracks, and the quality of the display was better. It was also less sensitive to accidental touches, particularly when in a hard case. The Sony takes some getting used to in all these aspects, in part because the controls are so sensitive and the player is so small. It is sometimes hard to select the right item or to type in your pin number unless you have very small fingers. It also doesn't display most of the cover art on albums, which the iPod touch did automatically without any problems. I ordered Sony's case for the player at an exorbitant $49, and I am hopeful that will keep the player in good shape as well prevent accidental inputs. All this said, once you get used to the controls, there is no comparison on sound quality. The Sony is far superior, and that's without my making any adjustments to the sound controls. Ultimately, that is the real value of this player, despite some awkward design choices. I couldn't be happier with it despite some limitations. The player comes with very limited instruction material, but you can find the full 150-page manual online, and that helps a lot in initial setup and learning the controls.

I've been using my Walkman for almost two years now, and I feel ready to provide a comprehensive review. I approached this device as a middle aged Millennial looking for a replacement for her old iPod that lasted fifteen years. If this describes you, or you're Gen Z or younger getting into the "single purpose device" revival, this review is for you. I feel this product suffers from the Swiss Army Knife conundrum. If you ever need a screwdriver, you get a screwdriver, not a Swiss Army Knife. If you need a pocket knife or tweezers or a corkscrew, you buy those items. Not a Swiss Army Knife. I feel this product is a digital Swiss Army Knife that happens to have an MP3 player in it. First of all, unlike iPods of old, this device doesn't have its own operating system. They just slapped the Android for phones onto here and made some minor adjustments. The device even refers to itself as "your phone" in places. Already not off to a great start. Speaking of starting, the device takes two to three minutes to boot up, including the time to load the Music Center software, which you must do manually (two minutes, forty-five seconds to be exact). That feels unnecessary, especially that a majority of what's on the Walkman are just fancy bells and whistles – other tools in the army knife – that I'll literally never use. Of all the programs to auto start upon loading the Walkman, the music player itself isn't one of them? Because of this, I had to all but completely disable the battery saving shut off option, setting it to only shut down after twelve hours of battery use. There’s nothing worse than when you’re running late for work and all you have to do is connect your headphones to the player and head out the door only to find out you’ve got to wait three minutes while the device boots up because it shut down from the battery saver function thirty minutes ago. On the topic of headphones, we have to talk about the Bluetooth. This device has the worst Bluetooth I’ve ever experienced, to the point where I’d say this is not a Bluetooth device. When using wireless headphones, the music either distorts significantly or skips like an old CD player, depending on the headphones. I tried buying a completely different pair of Bluetooth headphones just to make sure it wasn’t the headphones causing the issue, and the newer pair was even worse. Both headphones work just fine when playing music from my phone, so it has to be the Walkman. It will work when I use a Bluetooth speaker, seemingly because the Walkman isn’t in motion and right by the speaker itself. When out for a walk or exercising though, keeping the Walkman in my pocket is enough to completely disrupt the signal. Literally the only way around this problem is to not use Bluetooth at all and use wired headphones. If your Bluetooth can’t transmit through a denim pocket, it doesn’t work. Sometimes even holding the player up directly by my headphones would still disrupt the signal because there appears to be a “death grip” way of holding it that just kills the Bluetooth connection. Was this product not tested in a real world setting? We’re still only getting started, because now we need to talk about the Music Center software for PC itself. This program is a sad imitation of the original iTunes. You can’t just sync your library to the device; you have to manually drag and drop each new file, album, or playlist to the device. Worst of all, the device won’t auto delete old files. For example, if you have a lower quality recording of a song from a live concert that you’re replacing with a newer HD version, you’ll have to open the device up with the file explorer functionality of Music Center as if it were a USB jump drive and delete the old file yourself. That may not sound like much, but when you’ve been collecting MP3s for as long as I have (over twenty years), with a library of over 10,000 songs, these little, honestly baffling inconveniences start to add up. Then there’s what I can only call the “miscellaneous” problems with the device. For example, I get volume warnings at seemingly random times? I could have the volume as low as 50%-60% and it will pause my music and start chiming a little alarm bell sound until I dismiss the warning that my volume is allegedly too loud. Then other times I could have the audio at 90% for hours at a party or something and absolutely no warnings come up. Then there’s just the confusing volume scale, which when using an AUX cable goes up to 120%? At risk of sounding geriatric, what on Earth does 120% even mean? Another problem as baffling as it is frustrating is you can’t loop albums with this device. You can loop playlists, but not albums! Was that an oversight? If so, that’s a pretty big oversight! Lump it in with the Bluetooth being entirely thwarted by denim. I also can’t help but be disappointed by what’s not included in this product. There were two features missing from my original iPod that I’d have liked to see included in an upgraded version that just weren’t in this Walkman. It doesn’t have a built-in speaker, which no matter how low quality it would have been, it still would have been better than nothing when my car stereo went out. Additionally, there’s no way to make playlists on the fly from the device itself. The only way to make playlists is to make them in the aforementioned lackluster Music Center for PC and import them. These are super small complaints overall, but when you look at what they did include in this player I can’t help but be disappointed. I don’t need to read my email on a Walkman, I don’t need loads of audio mixing options, and I certainly don’t need two-factor authentication. It’s a digital audio player for God’s sake; it wouldn’t need two-factor authentication at all if you didn’t force me to log into my Google account to use the device! I just need a device that can manage a large, private music library and play music. That’s it. Which is why I ultimately came to the conclusion that if you have the option to buy an old iPod classic, or refurbish your old one, even if it’s hundreds of dollars, it’s a better deal than this device. Yes, the Walkman does have a few strengths, primarily that it’s got great battery life, and works well with speakers, but that’s it. As charming as the retro cassette tape idle screen is, none of that is worth $400. And the $600 and $1000 models are just insane. I’ve not used them, but I literally cannot fathom a damn music player having that much value in it. I fear all of that “value” comes from even more pointless add-ons like streaming movies in 4K or the most detailed and complex audio mixing software in the world. God knows they’ve probably found a way to cram AI into this thing to do little more than drive up its price. As bad as all of that is, sadly, this may still be one of the better options on the market. Not because it’s a good product – it’s not – but because Sony is just about the only company actually making music players these days. There are some on the market that can hold a whole of twenty songs, or others that are clearly just cheaply made phones with music playing software on them that will maybe last a couple of years. I just did a search to see what’s available now and there’s somehow a $2200 digital audio player on the market. I just can’t with this anymore. If you’re looking for a device to manage a large MP3 library, definitely just get the $400 model, along with a good AUX cord and some wired headphones. You will need them. Then again, if you’re fine with wired headphones and have that much cash to spend I’d encourage you to search for a refurbished iPod classic. I honestly regret not using my money towards fixing my iPod’s battery and AUX jack. You can even buy a little dongle for those old iPods that give them Bluetooth. I used to use one with my old iPod, and let me tell you, that Bluetooth was way better than the Walkman’s.

I’ve literally spent months reading reviews of all manner of digital audio players and eventually settled on the Sony NW A306 which is the current entry level “budget” Walkman. I was sorely tempted by fancier audio players which cost four to five times what this one does. But in most cases those are built with a lot of power to drive expensive high impedance headphones. This isn’t really my use case. I’m more interested in using it as a source for other components: Bluetooth speakers, wired connection to the living room stereo hi-fi, and ultimately my insane PA system for when it’s time to rock all the acres. I haven’t tested the last one yet, but it’s coming 🙂 The quality of the Bluetooth connection is pretty decent, well in excess of 50 feet outdoors. Less inside but good enough for streaming to an amp in the next room. The wired connection from the 3.5mm jack to my stereo sounds excellent. No complaints. There is a built in EQ in the native player app as well as other sound filters. I haven’t played with these very much but it’s nice to know they’re there. The Android OS may be a little sluggish compared to what one would find on smartphones, but I’m going to avoid using extraneous apps as much as possible. I will experiment with a few streaming platforms and network WiFi features (nugs dot net, Tidal, Roon, etc…) but I’m not too worried if the results aren’t ideal. I still have my phone if needed. If you pick up this model, make sure the firmware is up to date. Supposedly there was a low bass response issue with the original software. Also, those sold in the US and Europe have a capped volume level- a safety regulation thing. If you want the full power version look for a Japanese import. You’ll have a louder player but will likely forego any warranty protection. I almost went this route but decided against. Again, I’m not interested in driving headphones and figured my components can push the volume as loud as needed. So far this has been the case. For my purposes I feel this little player offers fantastic bang for the buck.

When Apple removed the headphone jack from their newer phones other phone manufacturers began to follow suit. It ushered a new era of how we listened to music today by using Spotify/Tidal/Apple ect. as our primary music provider. For some it was a convenient change. No longer did you have to dedicate precious storage space for music and you had almost complete access to a massive library of music from around the world at your fingertips. Sony's a306 Walkman feels like a product made in a era where it shouldn't exist and yet its one of my favorite devices that I take with me almost everywhere. It's small pocketable form factor makes it easy to tuck away in your pocket during a workout or jog session. The device also feels solid and well put together and It also doubles as a USB DAC making other devices sound quality way better if you're into that type of thing. The device also supports all major music files like MP3, AAC, FLAC, ALAC, WAV and MQA(lmao) just to name a few off the top of my head. The a306 does have a few issues. If you have US firmware your device will sometimes nag you for having your music too loud and will lower the volume once but after shooing the notification away your free to crank your music back up to 11 but every once in a while the notification returns making this safety feature a headache for most. The device also has difficulties driving larger power hungry over ear headphones but if you use IEMs or Bluetooth headphones you should be fine. There's also a search bar widget that cannot be removed from the device's home page but because the device is an android device you do have access to the Google Play Store and I was able to change the launcher that allowed me to swap the search bar with controls for the music player and the Sony Music Player software itself is just ok. It allows you to access the music files on your device but it lacks some sorting options that urks me wrong (The software sorts albums alphabetically while I would perfer that albums be sorted by Release Year, But still you can sort Artist by Album Artist so some thought about organization was consider I just wish they did more.) Nothing special about it imo but if it really bugs you, again you have access to the Google Play Store to find a new one to that better suits your style. Actually access to the Google Play Store gives this device a fair bit of customization that allows you to make this device truly feel yours. Now your probably wondering as to why even have this device when I can just use my phone and while sure you can just use a phone with bluetooth headphones and spotify premium for music. There are also cheaper alternatives like buying a second hand ipod and modifying them to give them more storage and customize cases that Apple never intended for their products are also a valid option for anyone looking for an MP3 player on the cheap but For someone like me who still buys music (CDs, Vinyls, Digital ect.) and have been doing so for years and wants to enjoy my music to the highest possible quality. My personal music collection is fairly large (about 8000 files and still adding more daily) and there are just some music from band that no longer exist that I have that I will never be able to listen on Spotify or elsewhere and being able to listen to them without the need to listen to commercials or having to pay 10.99 a month is a freedom I refuse to throw away. This little device makes that possible. Update 1/30/24: Having used this device for a few months now I still use it regularly and it is still my go to device for music listening to my digital files. Sony recently allowed the device to be update to Android 12 which is nice. The loud volume warning while I understand is necessary due to US law, I wish there was a way to just tick an option on the device "Yeah i know loud music will damage my ears. You dont have to remind me every week." was a thing. The last annoyance has to do with the way Sony configured its buttons for Next, Play/Pause and Rewind. I wish Sony had swap the Rewind/Next buttons to make it feel like nearly every other electronic device with physical buttons but I've gotten use to it but if Sony added an option to swap these buttons around in a menu I would change it in a heart beat.

I bought this essentially just to listen to music at the highest fidelity possible within a reasonable budget and to not kill my phone battery as I use IEMs with a DAC when I listen to music. I'd figure can't go wrong a Sony Walkmen right? Boy I was wrong. First of all due to being basically an android the 32 gigs is wayy less than 32 gigs. Its like 14 gigs. So I tossed a 512gb sd in there. Problem solved right? Not really as I used the device I ran into bigger problems. Like the fact that if I use my DAC (which I shouldn't have to on a music device) the battery life still dies very quickly. But honestly the DAC allows me to achieve greater sound quality. I have decided to not use it currently though otherwise the thing dies so fast. This is with battery saver on and disabling as many android apps as possible. And then its so slow and laggy when it comes to certain things. I just do not understand how they could mess this up. Especially at this price point. The worse part for me is a large percentage of my songs just do not play at all. And I know the files are fine because they play on my computer and my phone.