This player got it a week ago, Sony mexico charged me the amount on Mondaya nd on tuesday was already at my home upon returning from work (my mom received the FeDex guy)
My Model is the international version intended for Mexico as o¿in it's back it has the mexican certification agencies, is made in Malasya (Hecho en malasia), The box comes with lots of papers on it, did not need to read any as I already owned 2 walkmans in the past with the same UI which is extremely friendly to use. The box has also the walkman and the USB cable, there are no earbuds included nor a SD card.
Mexico only gets the A17 which sports 64GB as internal memory (once formatted in windows mine has 56.8GB useable), I had this MicroSD from Sandisk class 10 UHS I (128GB, formatted 119.1GB), I formatted the SD using the player's built-in format uitlity, this player uses exFAT as default format for the microSD card and FAT32 for the internal system memory.
Works with MusicBee music management software, I did not even bother to check the "Detect MTP Devices" checkbox and worked just as fine, transfer speeds on the player are still on USB 2.0, but this walkman is faster than my other previous walkmans (A818 & X1060), Took 1 hour 50 minutes to transfer 42GB (Entire Mozart collection), Card speeds are the same if it's inside the walkman slot, so I used my 2014 Sony VAIO FIT MULTIFLIP built-in card reader which is USB 3.0, the same amount of music (Beethoven, Louis Couperin and Boccherini) took 30 minutes.
I have not experienced any card-readout errors as some one reported when he or she used the PC reader/writer..
Library creation process took 4 minutes for 176GB, I did connect it to the Pc to delete the songs I already listened and this time takes like 5 to 10 seconds. Speed of the player is fast, responsive, browsing a massive list of 9700 FLAC files is fast and smooth.
I cannot comment on Bluetooth as i don't like wireless audio quality (I use wired headphones) nor on video or picture playing as i won't use it for this purpose, fro that i Use my VAIO
FM Radio is good if your station is good, here the classical music station is on older analogue so it osunds like **** with lots of static, but is handy to have a radio in case of emergency situations like power failures during storms or so.
SensMe and podcast i don't use that as well
The Music "app" is very intuitive and easy to use, the diamond shaped D-pad is cleverly designed, pressing lef or right functions as FF or REW, long-pressing those buttons cues to any point of the currently playing song, pressing either up or Down takes you to the cool Jacket scroll (Sony's coverflow) which is nice only if and only if you have the jackets on your files. Haven't tested if it works with a Folder.jpg instead of embbeding the photo in the file.
The Option/Menu button serves a s a menu when pressed once and ppower-off when long-pressed (saves the point of time), I like the fact when you turn it on it does not start autoplaying the song like the fiio x3 i had.
Sound quality out of the box is pretty good, neutral and clean-sounding little player, mine has a louder volume than previous generation walkmans, I didn't note any difference in sound when using DSEE HX on 16/44.1 FLAC files, just when playing back Harpsichord music files i can note a more smoothed-out sound and less harsh if i Turn on DSEE HX For certain Harpsichord recording in 16/44.1
With 24-bit files this shines so good, the level of detail is very good, very enganging and enveloping, my 24/88.2 album of Striggio Grand parody mass "ecco beata di giorno" sounds superb and so realistic, I closed my eyes and i was inmediately involved in the recording as I was with the players there (Label Glossa / Herve Niquet, SACD ISO Rip to 24/88.2 FLAC)
switching to Franck's Organ works 24/96 sounded euqally good and enganging, the reverb of the venue was pretty good and the greatness of the organ regsters sound pretty good, even the most feeble pipes could be heard easily. Natural sense of sound decay esp in reverb.
Vivaldi 6 concertos for Anna Maria 24/88.2 (CPO) sounded very enganging, the playing of carmignola is very detailed as he was with me, the orchestra was overall balanced with the soloist,, you could heard a little error (Carmignola's bow somehow slipped a little bit) , the lute stood out form the orchestra too., very 3D imaging and very enveloping surround experience.
Then to try out 192KHz i had a Vynil rip of Vivaldi's 4-season on the organ, equally enganging and pretty natural sound, great bass rumble of the deep bass pipes of the organ, nice crisp mids and highs, the pedals were als sometimes heard so nice, i felt like I was there except when the crackle and *pop* of the vinyl came out (very feeble but audible at times) 24/192
I turned off all other enhancements as they tend to ruin the sound of the player, such as clearAudio+ and the VTP technology
I used mostly the MDR-1R which i consider to be fairly neutral, slightly a bit mid-centric but fine, Using the XBA-H3 totally destroys the sound of this player as those have a mid-bass bump defect. I have tamed the Bass of the H3 using the A17 EQ but not that successfully to make sound like my MDR-1R.
I have not detcted any hiss so far, not even with the EQ activated, battery life so far almost 28 hours and syill has two bars left on the battery icon
Compared to my Fiio x3 I find this to have Better sound Quality despite the weaker amp section, the bass of the A17 is cleaner and soft lie a vinyl yet it goes deep as hell with Organ recordings and Harpsichords that Have 16' Stops
The sound stage is even wider and accurate than the Fiio x3. The walkman fixes the problem i ahd with the fiio x3 imaging , basically the fiio x3 presented the above striggio mass album with the female singers as "floating above" me, pretty annoying.. A17 walkman presents this a correct female singers at the front at the correct distance due to the huge recording venue ( a cathedral, to fit 60 voices, 40 human, 20 instruments).
Battery life is stellar, for a first charge and constant playing with the screen and setting of SQ, it lasted 39 hours 36 minutes, so impressive