Kinda surprised that Sony still makes them. I have trouble managing the large amount of songs in the Nexus 5's playlist. As a result I'm looking at the Fiio X3 to solve my problem and I came across the new Walkman. Are they worth it? My playing device are Beyerdynamic DX160i and Custom One Pro. My songs mostly consist of Celldweller's songs.
If you have a ton of music then a dedicated MP3 player may make sense I would go with the Fiio or any higher quality player because it has a better DAC over what a phone has.
You could rock an OTG cable and flash drive if you want to save money.
So it is actually worth it? I have heard that these players also acts like an amp that can alter sound quality. I personally have never bought these.
Is it worth it? I don't know. That completely depends on you and your needs. Hell, I had no idea sony made a DAP, let alone one they called a walkman lol. I remember about 7 years ago or so they had a line of phones with the walkman name that were geared toward media, but I didn't know they made any dedicated DAPs with the name.
Sony is known for using decent dac chips in their phones, but I have no idea if that translates to their DAP line. So it's tough to say if they would be a better choice than say a Sandisk Sansa or something similar.
The Fiio DAPs on the other hand, combine a media player (which is FLAC and other high quality codec capable) with an integrated amp/dac (the X3 has the same chips that are used in the e17). So they remove the need for a portable amp, and have a high quality dac built in. Of course, you're DX160i IEMs aren't too hard to drive @ 47ohms, but amping will likely improve the sound and if you ever want to use a set of higher impedance headphones, the option is there.
As far as library management, I'm not sure a dedicated DAP will be any better than your Nexus. In my experience, most phones handle libraries and playlists about as well as DAPs do. Some have better navigation than others, but it's usually nothing drastic. You usually just have your basic sort features (artist, album, title, genre etc) and playlist creation, which most smartphones are fully capable of as well (plus, there's always 3rd party media player apps you can install).
They are worth it if you don't want to be tide down to your PC or carry extra baggage (portable dac & amp) with your smartphone.
No, they aren't. phone batteries are getting bigger and bigger, and the storage is as well, you can get a 32gb Phone and a 128gb Micro SD Card. that's more than enough for most people for anything. and personally i don't think NO headphones or Music Player should be worth $1000 Dollars.