It’s like buses – we wait months for new budget hi-res music players that might finally rival Astell & Kern’s Award-winning entry-level A&norma SR25 MKII, only for two to come along at once.
Earlier this month, Sony announced the NW-A306 (£350), its first budget Walkman since the NW-A55L, which won a Award in 2020 before being discontinued without an immediate successor. This news came hot on the heels of FiiO launching its next sensibly priced budget offering, the M11S (£489). Both of these considerably undercut the price of the aforementioned Astell & Kern (£699), and even more so the £3299 Sony NW-WM1ZM2 reviewed in our Temptations pages this month (page
