With the elimination of 3.5mm headphone jack in smart phones, Bluetooth headsets are coming one after another. Although Bluetooth headsets are popular with wired headsets in terms of convenience, they are not so friendly to people who have a certain pursuit of sound quality. Therefore, the portable player with guaranteed sound quality has become the choice of many consumers, Sony recently launched a new A-series product, NW-A55HN. Let's see how this mini player performs.

Unpacking, appearance and details

In terms of packaging, Sony's consistent style is continued. In addition to showing the basic shape of the fuselage, various parameters are also indicated. In addition to the player body, the NW-A55HN also includes a pair of IER-NW500N earphones.

NW-A55HN has five colors, Moonlight Blue, Twilight Red, Grey Black, Light Gold and Mint Green. This one is the Moonlight Blue version. The body color is just like its name. The light blue is very elegant.

The design style of the fuselage continues the usual style of Sony's two generations, namely, solid color fuselage+embedded screen. However, compared with the previous generation of products, the fuselage material has been changed from plastic to metal, and the texture has been greatly improved. In terms of modeling, the arc design is added on both sides of the square fuselage, which not only contains roundness but also retains a certain degree of firmness.

NFC chip is built in the upper back of the body, which supports NFC headset or mobile phone pairing connection. It is very convenient to complete pairing by tapping NFC. However, due to the built-in NFC chip, the back is not made of metal, but of frosted plastic.

In terms of keys and interface layout, the control keys are concentrated on the right side of the fuselage, and from top to bottom are power, volume, fast forward, play/pause, fast backward, and lock switches. Among them, the volume increase and play buttons have bulges that are easy to identify the feel. This small detail is worth praising.

On the left side of the body is a TF card interface, which can be inserted after the dust cover is pulled out. It supports up to 128GB expansion, which is also one of the necessary interfaces for a player.

There are 3.5mm headphone jack, lanyard jack and special data/charging interface at the bottom of the fuselage. This interface is not common with other models, so it should be kept properly.

The included earphone model is IER-NW500N, which is designed as an in ear earplug. Two sets of replaceable silicone earplugs of different sizes are included. The earphone is somewhat similar to the MDR-NC750 in shape. There are microphone openings on the back of the earphone. It supports AI intelligent noise reduction when paired with the player, which is different from ordinary active noise reduction earphones. This game is quite special.

user's experience

The first is the system. Unlike the popular Android system, NW-A55HN still uses Sony's self-developed system. It does not have too many expansion functions and only focuses on music playing, which is very pure. In terms of control, the operation of side entity keys+touch screen is very easy to use. Apart from some settings that are difficult for non enthusiasts to understand, normal use is not difficult. The machine has 16GB of storage, but the actual available space is about 12GB, taking into account the space occupied by the system. The lossless music in DSD format is often hundreds of MB in a single song. Therefore, for the more enthusiastic players, the high-speed TF card is an inevitable accessory.

As for the NFC on the back, it can quickly pair with mobile phones, speakers and Bluetooth headsets in one touch. Maybe professional audio enthusiasts think NFC is useless. Indeed, the NW-A55HN is not a professional player, nor does it have a balance port. Instead, it provides ordinary consumers with a multi-functional music terminal with moderate price and sound quality. It not only has the ability to play lossless music including DSD independently, but also can serve as a supplement to the sound quality when the mobile phone is used as the sound source. There are many ways to play, which is the positioning of NW-A55HN.

In other words, in addition to the wired headset, you can also connect the NW-A55HN to the Bluetooth headset or speaker. When it is not convenient to use wired earphones outdoors, when you want to use noise reduction earphones in the subway or on the plane, or when you want to play some easy music in the speaker at home, you can use the NW-A55HN as the audio source through Bluetooth.

In addition to being a Bluetooth player, the NW-A55HN can also be used as a "Bluetooth receiver", that is, it can receive audio output from mobile phones and computer devices, which is why its playing methods are relatively diverse. After receiving music from other audio sources, NW-A55HN converts Bluetooth digital audio into high-quality WALKMAN audio through S-Master HX and DSEE HX technology inside the body, providing users with a better sound experience. Today, streaming media audio is popular, which is also a "curve to save the country" way.

As for the sound quality performance, after all, it can play DSD lossless music. In addition to the vinyl record processor, the sound quality is absolutely not good. After all, the price is here. But compared with mobile phones, it is obviously stronger by more than an order of magnitude. Except for a few HiFi phones that can compete with one another in some frequency bands, most mobile phones are not rivals. As for the choice of earphones, it is not impossible to listen with Bluetooth earphones, but it is recommended that consumers use wired earphones as much as possible. Although LDAC technology has been developed for Bluetooth earphones, there must be some gaps in sound quality compared with wired earphones.

summary

The NW-A55HN is not so much a music player as a multi-functional music terminal in the digital era. It can not only be used independently as a player, but also use two-way Bluetooth to make up for the lack of sound quality of mobile phones as audio sources. Today, when streaming media dominates the music industry, the emergence of NW-A55HN makes it possible to enjoy pure music quietly. Maybe it is not suitable for those fans who are pursuing the ultimate sound quality, but the various playing methods provide a new idea for ordinary consumers to enjoy music.

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