Walkman Hacks: Activate FM radio, increase volume and improve the sound

Thanks to an email I received from ‘Mr Walkman’ my NW-A55 digital music player now thinks it’s an £8000 music player from Australia.
If you have a digital audio Sony Walkman which has missing features or compromised functionality - it may be possible to do something about it.

LINKS:
Mr Walkman's Custom Firmwares: (LINK DELETED - WEBSITE HAS GONE)
(Note these Firmwares are BEER WARE - that means it's only right to give a donation for a beer if you use them).

The NW-A50 series can be purchased via the Affiliated Amazon Links below:

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[JulianCallan]

Can’t believe you got an email from Mr. Walkman himself, creator of the Walkman and son of Mark Sony.

[wmrg]

Should have mention that the firm ware upgrade are "beer ware". Got to feed the help! 🍺🍻

[kennylauderdale_en]

"You can't tell me how loud my music is dad!"
Some things never change.

[jafizzle]

Mr Moan hearting all the comments telling him to install OBS or use some Windows feature buried under menus, while probably thinking to himself "My camera does the job just fine" or "If I wanted to use OBS I would've done".

[Shrike]

thank you so much! I have an A45 that I use for long motorcycle trips with the same western europe code as your A55, and at random I would receive the warning for the capped sound that would automatically set the volume to a very low level, forcing me to stop and fumble with the player to have it working again. Not what this video was tackling specifically but I had no idea it was possibile to disable that by just changing the region of the Walkman, you saved me a lot of trouble!

[vintagethrifter]

This episode he said "Damn sight." In the last episode, he said "Half arse." I think the stresses of lockdown are starting to get to him. I hope the puppets are okay.

[MichaelGisiger]

Ah, Rockbox. Nice, that they're still around. Before I bought my FiiO players, I had a SanDisk Sansa Clip+ 8 GB and prolongued it's lifespan with the Rockbox firmware. Worked very well, simple update process.

[JonathanTuckerls]

FYI: Windows 10 has a builtin screen capture, enable Game Bar, Open Settings > Gaming > Game bar. When you want to capture the screen press Windows-G, to activate

[jamesbelkin]

I updated my 40 Series Walkman yesterday after watching your video. The new mod definitely makes a difference; sonically it opened everything up, I enjoy using the Direct Source setting the best. I agree with the harshness in the highs with the factory firmware, before I always had to adjust the highs to negative in the eq. After the update it definitely smoothed out. Thanks to you, and Mr Walkman 👍✌️

[EscherWD]

Thank you so much for this! i bought a walkman NW A35 off ebay two years ago without realizing it was the Japanese domestic version, and i’d been using it in Japanese for the past two years lol, not even as bad as it sounds but i’m so glad it’s in english now. I had no idea this tool existed.

[FSF]

Nice to see that the first hack works on the A10 series. My A15 will definitely be getting treated, just to get rid of that annoying "warning" (it's not a warning... it's a complete invasion that ruins your listening experience by pulling you out of your music-induced trance). Thanks for this, Mr Techno Man.

[bladeofzorro]

Very specific to those with Walkman's of that type but rather interesting never the less. I used to love finding loop holes where outputs or additions to products were limited due to various country regulations. And it's always nice to find hidden gems you didn't realise existed. Nice one.

[MikeGervasi]

I love the modding community. They work just for the love of making things better or different.

[josephnicholas]

I'm disappointed that the screen wasn't upside-down after setting it to "Australian."

[Charky_Creations]

I have fond memories of pulling out my phone in the car and using the radio when I didn't like my dad's choice of music... My biggest discovery was looping the headphones around the grab handle on the roof to improve my reception!

[shdowchasr]

Glad to see rockbox are still around doing stuff. they were my choice of custom firmware for my archos and iriver mp3 player/recorders

[swiperthesniper]

Thank you so much for this video, my Walkman NW_A55 sounds godly now. Best music experience ive ever had

[Voidhalen]

Installed the firmware on my A-45 and I believe it's a must the sound is noticably better imo

[jakalair]

I am always amazed by the things people figure out about devices when they start tinkering with software.

[KayDat]

Last time I was this early I was still playing mixtapes in my Walkman.