LTT Reviews the new Walkmans

 So recently I saw a video in which LTT reviewed the some of the new Walkman lineup from Sony.  They totally and completely missed the point, so I felt I should discuss it here.

By the way, the video I am referencing is here:

Should you buy a Walkman in 2023? - Sony NW-A300 & NW-ZX700

I should preface this by mentioning the fact that many of the LTT videos are basically the team clowning around and being silly, doing things like "concrete cooled" gaming PCs and the like.  They aren't bad people and they don't hurt anyone.  In fact, they provide a steady paycheck to a team of people, and some useful advice to people who want to build their own PCs.  I have very little interest in the channel in general, but I do enjoy the podcasts occasionally.  

It also should be noted that they don't review much audio equipment, and don't really claim to be serious audio reviewers, so perhaps we should cut them a little slack.  Still, there will be people who watch this video and take it at face value - so here goes...

First thing: The reviewer claims to not know what a "hold" button is.  This is standard terminology for a button that prevents the other buttons from working so that you don't accidentally press them.  Concretely, you enable hold so that you don't accidentally press the forward, backword, pause, play, or stop buttons while listening to music.  This is especially useful for devices that go in your pocket.  This is something that was included on pretty much all portable CD players, MD players, and MP3 players, as well as a lot of cassette players.  It is common on portable music players to this day, because these players still have dedicated buttons that can easily be pressed by accident.  Sony isn't doing anything unusual here.  It isn't called "Lock" for historical reasons.  "Lock" was often a separate slider that would prevent you from accidentally ejecting the media.  While not so relevant for modern players that use MicroSD cards, it is still good to maintain continuity.  I would say with the utmost respect: If you don't know what a "hold" button is, you shouldn't be reviewing portable audio equipment.  

Second thing:  They reviewed two models, a 300 series and a 700 series.  Basically speaking, the 300 series is an iPod touch competitor, whereas the 500 series and above are more serious audio equipment.  I myself have a NW-ZX507, and have played with the two models they reviewed in the store.  

They seem to question why anyone would buy any digital audio player, so let's discuss that first.  What advantages would even the A300 or indeed something like an iPod touch have over using your phone?

Firstly, a lot of phones sold recently don't have a headphone jack, so if you want to use wired earphones, IEMs, or headphones, or even just plug them into the AUX jack in something like your car, these devices all at least have the jack for that.  (Many phones like the Xperia do have an audio jack, but many, such as recent iPhones do not).  

Secondly, many phones don't support expandable storage and overcharge for internal storage.  You can buy the lowest end Walkman, stick in a cheap SD card and load it up with as much music as you like.  Sure, 128kbps mp3 files don't take much space, but if you want the highest quality audio, FLAC files ripped from CD take up a lot more space, and high resolution files downloaded from the likes of e-Onkyo, Apple Music, and Mora take up yet more space.  If you have a phone with 512GB of storage like a SIM Free Xperia, or a phone that supports SIM cards, then this is a non-issue, but if you have a 128GB iPhone filled to the gills with apps and such, then you might not have enough space left over to put your entire collection onto your phone.  

Thirdly, many modern smart phones can barely last a day on a single charge.  The last thing you want is to finish with your subway commute or plane flight only to find that your phone is almost dead.  Having a separate device solves that issue.  

Finally, the reason that a lot of people would buy these devices is the DSP effects.  These devices include high-quality upsampling (DSEE Ultimate), as well as various DSP effects that many people like.  They include things like the DC Phase linearizer (which adjusts the sound to make it more similar to an analog amplifier, while maintaining the SNR of a digital amp), they include a high quality equalizer, and support a wide variety of file formats and Bluetooth codecs.  That last point is a nice touch for people who have headphones that support higher quality like LDAC.   

Some people may think this is all snake oil, but people like the sound.  The DSP features have been praised by most Japanese reviewers, and I would wager that most owners keep them turned on.  

They also say that the "Vinyl" profile "adds artifacts" to the audio, which I wouldn't say is quite right.  

Finally, since they are using Android as a base for recent models (this wasn't always the case), it is possible to use steaming music apps like YouTube music, etc.  - Granted, this point is only to bring them to parity with smart phones.  

They do all of this even on the lowest end models, which seemed to confuse the reviewers, with them wondering why anyone would buy the more expensive models, if even the lower end models support most of the features.  

So if you really like music, own a nice pair of wired IEMs or headphones, have a large lossless music library and want to get the best quality audio, then something like the Walkman is a no brainer.  

Likewise if you want to use wired headphones and store a lot of music, but you have aphone that doesn't have a headphone jack, a lot of space, or the battery is constantly running down, the Walkman may be a good option for you.

The lifecycle of a music player is also likely to be much longer than that of a smart phone.  Even with smart phone lifecycles becoming longer in the last few years, many people still replace their phone every 2-3 years, whereas a music player can easily last twice that long.  It really only needs to be replaced if you are using android apps and the apps you want to use no longer support the version of Android used on your player.  If you are using the built-in music player, then this is not a concern.  While the batteries on the Walkman are sadly not user replacable, Sony will replace them for you for a small fee.  

At any rate, Sony has been producing Andoid Walkmans for at least 5 years, and similar non-Android Walkmans for years before that, the reviewer's apparent perception that this category of products is somehow new is just uninformed.  

The smaller 300 series (or indeed the 100 series) is also good for joggin if you have a huge phone.  

They discuss the application performance, but that misses the point.  It only has to be fast enough to let you run a music app and select the tracks you want.  Most people will be using the W. Music app most of the time, but they don't even bother to review that at all.  

The reviewers then pull out an $8000 USD Abyss headphone set and try to plug it in, which is jumping the shark to be sure.  Not only that, but they plug it into the non-balanced jack.  According to Sony's spec sheet, the balanced audio on the 707 can produce 230mw, vs. 60mw for the unbalanced jack, so they purposely choose a pair of headphones that is hard to drive, and choose the jack that has 4x less power.  

To be fair, apparently the European and North American variants of the Walkman are apparently gimped (no high gain mode) due to legal restrictions about the volume.  If this is the case, then I would agree they are somewhat useless in the US.  The Japanese models don't have restriction.  

There is a video that discusses this situation.  (Though they are discussing a previous non-android model, so the solution would be totally different for an Android model).   

For the most part, the bluetooth feature is more of a convenience feature, so that you can use your wireless headphones with the device you already own that has your music library.  

The reviewer says near the end: "If you're running planar magnetics, don't buy this".  I have a set of planar magnetic (erm.. "Orthodynamic") headphones 

Near the beginning of the video they discuss the fact that most of the buttons are the same size.  This is true, but this is also true with the cassette and CD players.  Anyone with experience will know that they can remember the position of the buttons, so they don't need to all have a separate texture.  

I would think that before reviewing these devices, or at least after reviewing them, they might check some if the Japanese reviews to see if they are missing anything major.  (I'm sure they probably have at least one person on staff that can translate Japanese).  

Onto the difference between the low end models: Sony isn't porposely gimping the lower end models, so of course they support the same codecs and DSP effects.  The cost is largely dictated by the fact that Sony is using a custom digital amplifier that is a relatively low quantity device.  The main difference between the models is the quality of the components in the analog sections of the device.  For example, normal electronics like capacitors and resisters might have tolerance of 10% or 15%, but they are available with tolderances of 5%, 2$, 1%, etc.  The higher quality components are more expensive.  

I've you've ever heard electronic "Noise" from a device, it is often due to lack of shielding and/or low quality components.  Since these are dedicated audio players, they put a lot of emphasis on over-engineering the shielding and aplifier to eliminate any traces of noise.  If you can't hear the differences between two models, then perhaps you should save money and buy the cheaper model.  

Another new feature on these new devices that was not on the previous models is that they can be used as a DAC and amplifier for your PC.  This means you can plug it into your PC and use them to listen to your fancy headphones with balanced audio at a higher quality than your PC could provide from the stock audio jack.  

Finally, a new feature on the 707 series is that even when using 3rd party apps, the DSP features work, so DSEE upsampling will work even when listening to things like Amazon music.  

As an example, looking at a random review, the the 707 got a audio review of 4.5 (out of 5).  Non-paid personal Japanese YouTube reviews also are positive.  The popular Kakaku.com also gives an anerage satisfaction rating of 4.57, and lists it as the numer one seller in the category among 2563 similar products.