The new Sony NW-A100 and NW-ZX500 series Walkmans have arrived! As successors to the wildly popular NW-A50 and NW-ZX300 series, these new models feature Android operating systems with full support for streaming apps, larger displays and USB-C output. But the new Walkmans also come with a substantial increase in price and decrease in battery life. So what do we think of the upgrade here at Minidisc?
In Australia, we carry the NW-A105 and ZX507 models, which come with 16GB and 64GB of onboard storage respectively. As before, the industrial design of the new Walkmans is wonderful, with high quality materials, good fit and finish and a smooth feel in the hand.
One thing we will say right off the bat: despite Sony detailing some improvements to the internal components of the A105 and ZX507, we didn’t discern any significant differences in the way either of these units sound compared to their predecessors. Power output, output impedance and noise floor seem mostly unchanged from outputs of either model, balanced or unbalanced.
The noise floor of the Sony NW-A105 is very noticeable with some earphones.
The NW-A105, like the A55, still hisses a great deal with sensitive earphones. If you plug in something like the Campfire Audio Andromeda, it will produce a constant and noticeable background fuzz. Dynamic driver, hybrid and even the majority of balanced armature earphones will not pick this up, but it’s worth noting that the higher noise floor of the A105 is noticeable in some cases.
With the same Campfire Audio Andromeda, the NW-ZX507 sounds great. The Andromeda + ZX300 pairing was always recommended because the slightly higher output impedance of the ZX300 produces a nice effect where the Andromeda sounds warm and smooth without the upper frequencies getting dull. The same balance is found with the new ZX507, and the noise floor is lower than units like the Fiio M11 or Chord Mojo.
Neither of these Walkmans produce a great deal of power. In fact, power output spec is unchanged from the previous generation, with 35mW @ 16 ohms coming out of the A105, while the ZX507 produces 50mW out of the single ended output and 200mW out of the balanced. If you want a portable player that can drive full size headphones, we would still recommend the Fiio M11 Pro or the Kann Cube from Astell & Kern, both of which are several factors more powerful than the Walkmans.
To put things in a practical perspective, we tried the ZX507’s more powerful 4.4mm balanced with the 300 ohm Sennheiser HD820, which comes with a 4.4mm cable. We found that the ZX507 has trouble driving high impedance headphones to sufficient volume for tracks with high dynamic range, like classical music recordings. We had to run things at 120/120 volume steps, which still wasn’t loud enough, but likely fairly stressful to the ZX507s amplifier. As a result, things sounded less exciting and more compressed.
Even with the balanced connection, the Sony NW-ZX507 is more suited for driving portable headphones and IEMs.
Of course, this might seem like a slightly unfair test. The same 4.4mm balanced connection does fine with less demanding headphones and earphones, and the intention was probably more that the Sony be matched with more efficient Japanese designs like the Audio Technica ATH-WP900 or Sony’s own MDR-Z7M2. The ZX507 sounds great with headphones like these, with plenty of gain left to spare. But again, this is no different from the ZX300.
No more matte display on the ZX507!
The most important changes with the new Walkmans are practical. We have improved UI performance and database creation speeds, which could be a real bane of the previous Walkmans. The matte screen is gone from the ZX300, but both of the new Walkmans come with larger glossy displays that are easier to navigate.
There’s a limited edition of the A105 Walkman that comes with a unique case that celebrates the 40th Anniversary of Sony’s original Walkman model, the TPS-L2 cassette Walkman. The case features a little plastic window through which you can see the spinning reels of a charming tape display screensaver. The type of tape displayed changes with the format / resolution of the music. While the models that Minidisc carries do not come with this limited edition case, the cassette tape screensaver itself is still pre-installed on the standard models.
The position of the USB-C output on the ZX507 is a little unusual.
The new Walkmans also, finally, come with USB-C ports instead of Sony’s proprietary WM-Port connector. The change to USB-C makes the new Walkmans more convenient to charge and much better as transports, as USB-C cables are much easier to find. The ZX507 has a unique USB-C port placement on the left side of the player. This makes it more awkward to use as a transport with short OTG cables. The A100 keeps things traditional with a USB-C port on the bottom, and makes for a cute little transport for DACs like the Chord Mojo.
Of course, the headline feature of these new Walkmans is support for streaming apps thanks to the implementation of the Android operating system, which is pretty much unskinned Android 9.0 with full Google Play Store support. With Wi-fi, you’ll get support for both online and offline listening, and we’re happy to say that everything works as you’d expect as far as the OS goes - that is to say, like any other small Android device.
Unfortunately, with the new OS comes a dramatic decrease in battery life. Sony quotes that battery life has basically been cut in half with the new models, and in our own testing we found that this is actually optimistic. Active playback time on the NW-A105 can be as short as a few hours depending on what kind of tracks you play and how often you fiddle with the display. Standby time on the new Walkmans is disappointing as well. We found that if you leave Wi-Fi turned on, after 24 hours the ZX500 will go to 25% battery and the A100 will drain completely flat. This is without you touching it. We know this because we have to charge these things daily.
Battery life on the new Walkmans is a disappointment.
Of course battery life is extended if you leave the players with Wi-Fi turned off, or if you use the auto power off function added in recent firmware updates. But with auto power-off, the new Walkmans take up to 1 minute to fully boot up from cold. This pretty much ruins their pick-up-and-go usability. Having Wi-Fi turned off also makes the new streaming app support somewhat redundant - downloading all your tracks and playlists and then using offline listening will be your best compromise.
Thanks to their streamlined, single function custom OS, the previous ZX300 and A55 used to be the players we would recommend to people who wanted an elegant music device that would just play music files you downloaded, and do that really well. The new Walkmans add a whole raft of new features and welcome updates, but arguably the actual core functionality of the players isn’t as good with this kind of disappointing battery performance. So considering the higher prices, we think that most people would actually be better served by a player like the Fiio M11 or M11 Pro.
But if you do love Sony’s slick and compact designs (and they really are nicely made), the Walkmans are still decent options - just not outstanding.
Check them out for yourself at our store, and let us know what you think!
LINKS
- Sony NW-A105
- Sony NW-ZX507
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