When talking about the portable audio/video players, we will necessarily think of Sony Walkman, which is a series of digital media players, from cassette player to MP3 player, etc. Without doubt, Walkman player is one of the most suitable devices to play songs and playlists with ease. How about listening to Audible audiobooks on it?
Can a Walkman support Audible audiobook playback? There is no explicitly prompt that Sony Walkman is fully compatible with audiobooks, but Walkman users can play audiobooks on it only if audiobooks are encoded in supported formats by Sony Walkman. As result, if you'd like to sync Audible books to Sonly Walkman, you can convert them to a Sony compatible audio format. Alternatively, you can play audiobooks files via Audible Android app if your Walkman model runs on Android.
View also: How to Download Audible Audiobooks to MP3 Player
Part 1. How to Listen to Audible Books on Sony Walkman via Audible for Android
Audible applied DRM technology to its all AA and AAX audio files to avoid unauthorized sharing. But this protection leads users can't play audiobooks, even purchased legally on unselected devices. Even if your device supports Audible files, you still need to authorized it with Audible app. After that you can start to launch the audiobook playback.
There are a series of Sony Walkman MP3 devices, including NW-A Series, NW-B Series, NW-E Series, NW-S Series, NW-Z Series, NW-F Series as well as W Series. Fortunately, the latest models of Walkman like the W/E/F series as well as the discontinued Z series are powered by Android with Android Marketplace installed.
Audible offers Audible for Android app for users to play audio books over the Wi-Fi network without having to care about DRM protection and format compatibility. Put it another way, if you own one of Walkman MP3 players running Android OS, you can download and listen to Audible books on those Sony Walkman series directly via Audible app.
Part 2. How to Transfer Audible Books to Sony Walkman by Converting
If the Walkman modes are not powered by Android operating system, is there a way to get Audible books onto your MP3 Sony Walkman? Absolutely yes. Just as we mentioned at the article beginning, converting Audible books to common audio format is the alternative way to download Audible books to Sony Walkman devices.
Speaking of the supported audio formats by Sony Walkman, the good news is that almost all MP3 Walkman supports MP3, WMA and AAC audio file formats without built-in DRM protection. So here, let's use AudFree Audible Audiobook Converter for Windows/Mac to convert Audible audiobooks to common audio files, like MP3 and AAC while removing DRM lock together.
Apart from the mentioned powerful features, this smart software also has the ability of splitting Audible books by chapters or fixed time interval and customizing the output audio parameters, like bit rate, sample rate, audio channel, codec, etc. Now, let's see how it works step by step.
- Step 1Add Audible books to AudFree
- Before get started, please make sure you have authorized your Audible account in iTunes app and downloaded all files offline completely. And then, you can drag and drag all downloaded Audible files to the conversion window of AudFree or touch the 'Add Files' button to select favorite audiobooks from iTunes library instead.
- Step 2Set output format as Walkman compatible format
- To define output audio format as Walkman supported audio files, please press the 'audio' icon to launch setting window, in which you can customize the output formats for your Sony Walkman device. To make Audible audiobooks playable on more devices, you'd better to choose MP3 as the option.
- Step 3Remove DRM and convert Audible books
- All customizations have done, the only thing you need to do is clicking the 'Convert' button and AudFree Audible converter will automatically break DRM protection and convert added audiobooks to target audio files you set before. After conversion, you can locate unprotected audio books on your computer by touching the 'file' icon.
- Step 4Transfer converted Audible books to Sony Walkman
- To import unprotected audio books to Sony Walkman, please connect your device to the computer via USB cable. You can locate the destination folder contained Audible AA/AAX files and then you can put Audible audiobooks to your Walkman devices for playing via dragging&dropping action or copying&pasting action.
- Disclaimers: If you use AudFree Audible Audiobooks Convert to convert audiobooks for playback on Sony Walkman, please don't share the converted audio files with others. Generally speaking, it's considered legal to get rid of DRM lock only for personal use.
Part 3. Conclusion and Suggestion
It's easy to put Audible books to Sony Walkman. Right? No matter which way you choose, you can achieve your goal without effort.
If your Walkman model is powered by Android, the first way seems better as it's total free. But if not, the second solution is the only choice for you to transfer audiobooks to Walkman. Although you're required to purchase the full version of AudFree Audible Audiobook Converter, it also comes some other perfect features, such as burning Audible books to CD.
In short, hope you have a nice listening experience when playing AA/AAX audiobooks on Sony Walkman.
Ivan Scott
Staff Editor
