A Player Worth Its Salt

FOR Punchy bass; insightful midrange; good tonal balance

AGAINST Nothing of note

Imagine someone asked you to cook their dinner, write them a poem, paint a portrait and dribble a basketball, all at once.

Unless you’re some kind of artistic, athletic polymath, you’re probably going to experience some difficulty. Undoubtedly you’d do a better job if you could focus on one task at a time.

Give your phone a rest

Sonically speaking, that’s what we expect of our smartphones. They’re web-browsing, tweet-posting, call-making, music-playing machines, and we expect them to do everything well.

Herein lies the benefit of having a dedicated portable music player: something designed solely for the purpose of playing music is already giving itself a headstart.