Sony NWZ-S639F RMAA results
Hello all,
I recently purchased a 16GB Sony NWZ-S639F and ran a couple of RMAA tests on the headphone out. Here they are:
Sony NWZ-S639F RMAA results |
.sav
Please note that the Walkman was NOT loaded by a 33 or 330 ohm dummy headphone load during testing. The only load the Walkman saw was the input impedance of the 1212M, which is 10K ohm. These results, then, don't reflect the performance of the player directly driving headphones. Rather, they only reflect what a device with a 10K ohm line-level input (such as a headphone amplifier with such an input impedance, say) would "see" at its input at best.
Also note that although the RMAA report states that polarity is "inverted/inverted", it is the input of the 1212M that is inverted rather than the output of the Walkman.
My testing method:
1) Generated a 44.1kHz, 16-bit .wav file in RMAA and transferred it to the NWZ-S639F using Windows Explorer.
2) In the NWZ-S639F, turned off AVLS, all "sound enhancement" and EQ settings under the "Music Settings" menu as well as context menu found by pressing the "Option" button while playing a song. Volume set to 30/30.
3) Created a session in E-MU PatchMix DSP with "I/O Card In 1L/1R" set to -10 and internal sample rate to 44.1kHz. Created a Physical Source "I/O Card In L/R" strip containing only a Trim Pot insert set at +12.00dB (otherwise the recording maxes out at -13.5dB/-13.7dB relative to 0dB) followed by an ASIO send to ASIO IN 1/2 to send the resulting stream to the recording application bit-perfectly.
4) Connected using a generic 3.5mm stereo mini to dual mono TS cable.
5) Recorded using Sony Sound Forge 9.0e with ASIO and no post-processing other than cutting.
I'm quite surprised by these results as they are absolutely stellar for an MP3 player. The noise floor is low, and the THD and IMD reminds me of the measurements of my old M-Audio Revolution 7.1.
My only concern is the bass boost <500Hz which ramps up to +1.25dB <200Hz, even when all sound enhancements and EQ are turned off. Is it some sort of DSP setting permanently set behind the user interface? It sort of looks like it, but who knows. To a lesser extent the 0.2dB channel imbalance irks me a bit, but a 0.2dB imbalance is hardly noticeable if at all.
All in all, great player. If only it had gapless playback, I'd love this thing.