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I bought this player to replace a pair of last generation Zunes I've been using for a decade. They still work fine but they've been unsupported for some years now and it's only a matter of time. I will make comparisons to those touchscreen Zunes as well as the Sony NW-A45 I have since bought to replace this unit.
A big reason I liked this unit was the hard volume knob on the side. This turned out to be useless, as it requires 38 (yes, 38) spins to go from no volume to max. It takes several turns to make an even discernable difference in volume. What the hell?
Another annoying thing is I can't get it to turn on easily. Apparently you have to press the power button twice in succession with each press a second long, to get it to turn on. Then it takes 15 seconds to boot up. This as well is way sub-optimal.
The unit has good sound, somewhat better than the Zune. Unfortunately that is nowhere near made up for by the rest.
It chops off the first 35 milliseconds and the last 35 milliseconds of each song, and has an annoying 1.5 second gap between songs, which is turd-like. My Zunes are gapless.
The random number generation, necessary for shuffling songs, is also not acceptable. A proper shuffle builds a database of all songs, then ticks them off the list as it goes so it doesn't repeat songs until all of them are played. I keep 1,100 songs on this device and after 90 minutes or so I start hearing repeats. Not cool, man.
There are three identical buttons on the side which control FWD, pause/play, and REV. Being identical, one cannot easily discern them by feel. That's poopy.
Scrolling on this unit is better done by handing it to someone else and letting them get pissy. Save your sanity.
The Sony I bought, which was a lot cheaper, has much better sound than the A&K, and it's physical design was done by people who, unlike the A&K staff, made it past the third grade. The software on the Sony is similarly designed well, is intuitive and wasn't done by someone who apparently learned to code on a TRS-80.
So yeah, please, please go check out the Sony (my dad used to pronounce it SONN-ie haha) units. Save yourself from writing a review like this one.
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer Rating | (114) | (760) | (133) | (1827) | (467) |
| Price | Unavailable | $119.99 | $979.80 | $49.99 | $149.00 |
| Sold By | — | Surfans Audio | Welcome to Hollywood | Amazon.com | Secondipity |
| Item Dimensions | 2.08 x 0.35 x 4.6 inches | 4.72 x 3.15 x 1.57 inches | 0.5 x 2.99 x 5.08 inches | 0.68 x 1.74 x 2.6 inches | 0.43 x 2.2 x 3.84 inches |
| Item Weight | 3.28 ounces | 3.84 ounces | 7.23 ounces | 1.28 ounces | 3.52 ounces |
| Supported Standards | FLAC, WAV, DSD, MP3, ALAC, AAC, AIFF, OGG, WMA; FLAC | MP3, AAC, ALAC, AIFF, APE, FLAC, WMA, M4A, WAV, OGG | — | MP3 | MP3, WMA, FLAC, WAV, AAC, HE-AAC; Apple Lossless, AIFF, DSD, APE, and MQA |
Customer Questions & Answers
Customer reviews
Top reviews from other countries
Amazon Customer
Stand out device
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 16, 2019Verified Purchase
Gilbert Bilodeau
Livraison excellente. Le lecteur possède une interface très peu ...
Reviewed in Canada on June 25, 2018Verified Purchase
Nico
Bluetooth difettoso.
Reviewed in Italy on June 23, 2019Verified Purchase
Arondight
Happy with it but it could use some work!
Reviewed in Canada on May 17, 2017Verified Purchase
Matthias Hasenöhrl
Handlicher High Res Player
Reviewed in Germany on November 21, 2019Verified Purchase
