Saturday, May 15, 2010

Sony Walkman NWZ-A840 first impressions

I've only been listening to the Sony Walkman NWZ-A840 series for a couple of hours and has so far I've been impressed by it. The sound quality is pretty good, but I'll give it two weeks of intense listening and comparison with other DAPs before I comment further.

The amp here isn't as powerful (or it may be a bureaucratic decision) as the one that powered the X-series or S730/S630 that much is true. With the old X-series I rarely need to go above volume 15/30, but with the A830 I would need go increase it to 20s to get a comparable loudness. Not a problem with my IE 8, but this may be an issue with people with more demanding headphones. I haven't touched the bundled headphones yet, but they look good and should sound better than most bundled headphones. I still suggest investing in an aftermarket higher end headphone.

Build quality wise, the A840 passes with flying colours. The OLED screen is dominated by a visible glass layer that gives it an extra class though I worry about the durability (plastic is generally more crash-proof than glass). The buttons on the front are nicely build but do not provide enough feedback. It should have been raised so as to provide a better tactile experience for people who want to control it 'blindly'.

Transferring music is quick! Despite being connected via MTP, it is so much quicker to move music onto the A840 compared to the X1060. More later!

Just a note on Sony's confusing way of naming products: NW means it is for Japan and NWZ is the international version. A840 is the series as a whole and the last digit represents the storage capacity. So A845 is for 16GB, A846 for 32GB (so far only available in Asia Pacific and Japan) and A847 is for 64GB (which does not exist outside of Japan).

3 comments:

Fredy Fernando said...

Hi Jon. My name's Fredy. I'm a Sony's follower. I always ever had a Walkman since I was 14. I remember that i bought the CD Walkman D-NF421 in 2004, years after (2008)I got the NWD-B133F (MP3 Player), next year, NWZ-B135; currently, I own the Noise cancelling (to my bad luck, NC earphones came with the device are broken some months ago) Mp3 Player NWZ-S736F. Now I am an audiophile and I like that music sounds great in a audio device. The problem that I had with the last Walkman is the NC earphones ,over time, were hardened and cracked. It would be the same with the headphones that come with the new Walkman NW-A840?. The other point is... I always were worried about the capacity of the flash devices,... ¿what i should do if I am an audiophile and I love to listen to uncompressed music?... what's your opinion?.

Sorry for the large text, and some strange expresions. ;)

Greetings from Peru. :)

P.D.: I love Broken Social Scene, I see you got the new album... cool indie rock band!

ROMEOS said...

i m using an 8 gb music is good but wats about the pivacy theres nothing like security lock or password to prevent others using my ipod may be sony should upgrade their software and add some features like security password for access etc...

and i have a problem wit my NWZ840 it turns on wen i turn it off ant one tell me if they are having same problem or any solutions 4 dat

ROMEOS said...

i m using an 8 gb music is good but wats about the pivacy theres nothing like security lock or password to prevent others using my ipod may be sony should upgrade their software and add some features like security password for access etc...

and i have a problem wit my NWZ840 it turns on wen i turn it off ant one tell me if they are having same problem or any solutions 4 dat

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