If you're looking for a portable audio system for music on the go, you're probably familiar with Sony products. Their gadgets often combine proven sound quality with modern technology. Today, we'll see how the Sony NW-A45HN player works in tandem with wireless noise-canceling headphones — the Sony h.ear on 2 Wireless NC. It seems like the perfect duo for music lovers.
Each item seems like a great choice on its own. The player is compact and has a long battery life, while the headphones promise clear sound and comfort. But it's interesting to see how they perform together. How much does their combined performance improve the listening experience?
We tested this combination in different conditions: in noisy transport, a quiet room, and on a walk. We were interested in everything: comfort, sound quality, how well the noise cancellation works, and how harmoniously the devices complement each other. Did Sony succeed in this business partnership? Let's find out.
A neat little thing
The player itself is a neat bar with plastic inserts. The metal front panel flows smoothly into the sides, while the top and bottom edges are cut off sharply and cleanly. Visually, the new model does not differ from the previous generation of players, the NW-A30. However, this season's colors are less acidic: the lifestyle line sticks to more pastel colors, and the compact players follow suit. As a result, I received devices in a delicate, calm beige-golden shade of Moscow dust for testing. The player was worn out by fate: to the left of the screen, the paint had worn away to the metal, and there were countless scratches on the back. Fortunately, time had only affected the player's appearance, without affecting its functionality.
The back panel, top and bottom edges are plastic, and the front and sides are metal.
On the left side of the NW-A45HN, there is a MicroSD memory card slot (up to 2 TB), covered with a plug and accompanied by an LED indicator. On the right side, there is a battery and buttons: power/screen lock, volume control, three playback control buttons, and a touch screen lock lever. The top edge is empty, while the bottom edge has connectors for headphones and a proprietary cable, as well as a loop for attaching a lanyard or key ring.
Thanks to its rounded design and solid weight, the player fits comfortably in your hand, and its small size allows you to slip it into almost any pocket. The buttons on the side are easy to feel even through jeans, so you can control playback by touch without taking the player out of your pocket. The volume up and pause buttons have dots on them for convenience.
The buttons are easy to feel even through a pocket. 
Next to the slot is a status LED that glows orange.
The front panel features a 3.1-inch touchscreen. The player's interface is minimalistic, simple, and logical. Those who have seen Walkman devices before will understand it immediately, and those who haven't will figure it out in about ten minutes. The touchscreen responds well to touch, and I didn't experience any false positives. The interface icons are large enough that it's not easy to miss them.
For aesthetes, there is an “HR” button on the main screen that compiles a playlist exclusively from tracks in Hi-Res format. In addition, there is sorting by artist, album, composer, genre, year of release, new releases, folders, as well as the ability to view all tracks at once.
The most archaic element is the eyelet for attaching a cord or key ring.
The player is built on Sony's proprietary S-Master HX digital circuit based on the second-generation CXD3778GF chip. The same circuit is used in the higher-end NW-WM1A and NW-WM1Z players. In this system, the incoming PCM signal is converted to PWM (from pulse code modulation to pulse width modulation), amplified, and then passed through a low-pass filter, which effectively extracts the signal from the PWM stream by removing high-frequency interference. Compared to the previous generation of players, the NW-A45HN has an updated circuit board, improving current flow and providing a more stable power supply, and uses lead-free solder, which Sony believes has resulted in more powerful bass and clearer sound.
This generation also adds USB DAC functionality. It only works with headphones and, I would say, provides a noticeable improvement in sound compared to a laptop's built-in audio card, but unfortunately, it can only be used for listening to music, as the signal is delayed by about half a second to a second, making it impossible to watch videos. The sound in combination with a Windows 10 PC and Foobar is slightly different from the player itself and seems a little colder.
Those who like to customize the sound to their liking will have plenty of options to play with — there are quite a few enhancers. There are the signature DSEE HX and ClearAudio, familiar from the Xperia line of smartphones, a six-band equalizer, a phase linearizer, surround sound options, and dynamic normalization. I'll say right away that most of them don't work with a wireless connection.
It is not possible to fold the headphones completely compactly, but they will fit into the included bag, and the player will also fit in there.
It took less than a minute for the player to add approximately 2,000 files (MP3, FLAC, WAV) to the library. In addition to PCM, it supports DSD64 and MQA, but cannot work with .cue files, so only post-track digitizations can be used. There is also a surprising problem with encodings: the player periodically fails to recognize Korean letters. However, it has no problems with Chinese characters, Japanese characters, or Cyrillic.
Wind tunnel
Sony's lifestyle line is not technologically very different from more serious devices that are not aimed at a young audience. Visually, yes, the headphones stand out from the crowd with their non-standard black, white, and gray color scheme with rare wooden inserts. Well, that's what lifestyle means.
Fortunately, the appearance of the wireless h.ear on 2 has virtually no effect on their sound. These are large, full-size headphones, very similar in design to the MDR-1000X, which I got to know this winter. They have large oval ear cups, but unlike the serious MDR-1000X, they are not finished with leather — to switch tracks, you have to stroke the rough, satin-finished plastic. The touch panel, which is used to control playback, is still located on the right ear cup, while the on/off and noise cancellation mode buttons, as well as the connectors (MicroUSB and 3.5 mm), are on the left. I would add that the touch buttons on the h.ear on 2 responded immediately, unlike the MDR-1000X, both when interacting with the NW-A45HN and with a smartphone running Poweramp.
The headphones come with a 1.2-meter cable with a straight plug on one end and an L-shaped plug on the other.
The headphones themselves have a sandwich construction: a metal base of the sliding mechanism is sandwiched between two layers of plastic. The hinges are plastic. When folded, the headphones cannot be called compact, but they take up less space — just enough to fit into the soft fabric bag that comes with them.
Peek-a-boo, speaker!
The ear pads are comfortable and soft, and the headband cushion matches them. You can sit with the headphones on for several hours without any discomfort. The speakers in the gold version are covered with a translucent mesh and shine seductively through it.
The ear cups are equipped with proprietary 40 mm CCAW drivers capable of reproducing frequencies in the range from 5 Hz to 40 kHz. The headphones have three modes of operation: noise cancellation mode, which starts when turned on, Ambient Sound mode, which lets voices through, and normal mode.
The power button is flat, while the mode switch is convex and feels like a mole to the touch.
The noise canceller does a great job of dampening the monotonous low-frequency hum of modern trains and copes well with noisy young passengers without distorting the sound. I couldn't find any information about individual adjustment of the noise cancellation system, and the method used in the MDR-1000X didn't work, so apparently there isn't one.
However, you can only enjoy the benefits of noise cancellation indoors, because in anything other than calm weather, the headphones blow like a wind tunnel. Either the microphones are not physically protected from the wind (they are indeed located somewhat too openly on the outside of the ear cups), or the system cannot cope with processing air gusts, but when noise cancellation is turned on, the wind is transmitted to the speakers by the microphones and seems to be amplified.
Unfortunately, I don't fly every week or even every month, and I don't work in an office, so I need noise cancellation specifically for outdoor use, and our capital has suddenly entered a season of pseudo-hurricanes, which the Ministry of Emergency Situations reports on with frightening regularity, and I really don't want to listen to the eerie howling that any third-rate horror movie would envy.
Fortunately, the problem can be easily solved by turning off the noise cancellation system. The ear cups fit snugly over the ears and block out wind noise, but they also let in all the other sounds of the street. So you have to choose between wind noise and urban noise.
The Sony NW-A45HN player and Sony h.ear on 2 Wireless NC headphones are a great combination for those who want to listen to music with high-quality sound and without wires. The player provides clear audio transmission, and the headphones not only sound good but also effectively block out ambient noise, which is especially convenient on the subway or airplane. Together, they work smoothly, connect quickly, and are perfect for everyday use, whether it's commuting to work or relaxing in the evening. This is not just technology, but a well-thought-out combination where every detail complements the other.
Wireless volume
Lifestyle headphones traditionally emphasize bass, and h.ear on 2 is no exception. However, in their case, the bass is enhanced in a pleasant and elegant way, without a brain-numbing hum. In noise cancellation mode, the bass traditionally becomes more focused, even a little chamber-like.
Noise reduction basically makes compositions more detached on the one hand, and more compact on the other. In standard mode, some tracks can give you the feeling that you are in the middle of a huge festival venue, but with noise reduction, it feels more like you are locked in a box with a soulless drum machine and a Macbook with samples.
And for some tracks — electronic ones, for example — this approach is only beneficial. Listening to Nightwish concerts in this mode is sacrilegious, but some Infected Mushroom recordings and even jazz-hop from BadBadNotGood felt good in such an improvised enclosed space.
As with the MDR-1000X, I liked the wireless sound better. With the cable, the h.ear on 2 seemed both sluggish and pompous, like a fat duke sprawled out on a couch. But without the wire, they were ready to sing, dance, and express the whole spectrum of emotions — from the enthusiasm and cockiness of hip-hop, electronica, and ethnic Maltese blues rock to the depressing glass crunching on your teeth from Nine Inch Nails and their aggression. The wireless sound simply had more volume (especially in the upper frequencies) and life.
The left ear cup has an NFC area that allows you to quickly pair the headphones with the source.
With the NW-A45HN, headphones could be connected via both aptX HD and the proprietary LDAC protocol — this can be selected in the settings. I didn't notice any difference between them. The character of the player is as unbiased as possible and at the same time voluminous, with a fairly tangible soundstage. I feel that it can handle more serious headphones, both in terms of sound quality and amplification reserve. To throw a full-fledged party in my head, I needed 70 volume points out of a possible 120 with hear.on 2, and 55 for relaxed listening. I should add that when connected via a wired connection, the touch area on the right ear stopped working.
Due to active use, I had to charge both the headphones and the player once a week. The player has its own proprietary connector, so in addition to the MicroUSB cable for the headphones, you will need to carry a separate cable for it. According to the specifications, the player will last 35 hours in FLAC playback mode, the headphones with noise cancellation turned on will last 28 hours, and with noise cancellation turned off, they will last 34 hours.
I didn't like the sound enhancers paired with the h.ear on 2: the effect was overly pronounced, artificial, and in no way improved the sound. The enhancers were somewhat useful when working with the included headphones, which themselves have a harsh, elevated treble and strange bass — apparently, these settings exist in the player exclusively for them.
After testing the Sony NW-A45HN and h.ear on 2 Wireless NC headphones, it becomes clear why these devices are made for each other. The player delivers flawless sound quality for your favorite music in high resolution, while the headphones provide a comfortable and fully immersive listening experience. Their synergy is not just compatibility, but a truly powerful union, where the strengths of one device perfectly complement the other.
This tandem is perfect for those who appreciate detailed, clear sound and don't want to compromise even when on the go. Active noise cancellation in the headphones creates your own personal acoustic cocoon, while the compact player provides a high-end music library without relying on a smartphone. Together, they offer a complete and high-quality audio experience.
If you are looking for a reliable pair of headphones for everyday listening that will bring you joy for years to come, this set is an excellent choice. You get not just two gadgets, but a well-thought-out ecosystem where everything works flawlessly and is focused on one thing: your enjoyment of music.
