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Is the sound better or different enough to justify spending extra for higher-resolution files? That's up to you, I'd say for well-recorded music you really love, absolutely, but in order to hear high-resolution sound you'll need a set of audiophile-grade headphones, otherwise you'll miss out on the detail and clarity high-res files can offer. You hear the "spaces" between instruments more clearly, and the dynamic shadings of the piano and drums are more nuanced. The high-resolution files sounded significantly clearer than ALAC files, played on my iPod Classic.

What exactly do high-resolution files sound like, compared to ALAC files ripped from CDs, played on an iPod Classic or phone? Listening to jazz pianist Dave Brubeck's iconic "Take Five" album in high-resolution on the NWZ-A17, the differences were immediately clear. Some audiophiles might be surprised to note the NWZ-A17 doesn't support Sony DSD high-res files, but that's a story for a different time. It supports MP3, WMA, WMA lossless, AAC, FLAC, AIFF, WAV and ALAC files, with audio resolution up to 192 kHz/24-bit. The NWZ-A17 features 64 GB of built-in memory (expandable via optional microSD to 192 GB), and it can play tunes for up to 50 hours. The controls and user-interface are intuitive to use, which is far from true with most high-resolution music players. It feels like a precision made design, with an easy to read antireflective TFT LCD display. The sleek, die-cast aluminum body measures a trim 1.75 x 4.3 x 0.3 inches (44.4 x 109.1 x 9.1 mm), and it weighs next to nothing, just 2.4 ounces (66 grams) but still manages to exude high-end glamor. I love that the NWZ-A17 is (probably) the smallest bona-fide high-resolution player on the market. Sony went on to sell boatloads of CD, video, radio, network, and even MP3 Walkmans, but the NWZ-A17 is the first one I really wanted to try since the original player. Sony's latest reboot of the Walkman - the NWZ-A17 high-resolution music player - brings back memories of the original Walkman analog cassette players that were all the rage in the 1980s.