SONY NW-A30 SERIES | Page 15 | Headphone Reviews and Discussion - Head-Fi.org

fish1050 · Oct 17, 2016 at 10:10 PM

musicphotolife said:
The A35 transfer speed is USB 2.0, which is technically slow compared to dedicated card reader that supports USB 3.0.

You won't see USB 3.0 on any DAP as it requires to much processing power. Besides USB 2.0 tops out at 480 MBPS and the fastest write speed for a microsd card is around 90 MBPS so USB 3.0 at 5 GBPS is massive overkill for writing to microsd cards. You are talking milliseconds difference in writing to a microsd card inside a DAP vs a card reader even with USB 3.0.

BartSimpson1976 · Oct 17, 2016 at 10:21 PM

fish1050 said:
You won't see USB 3.0 on any DAP

Cayin N5?

lbbef · Oct 17, 2016 at 10:46 PM

fish1050 said:
You won't see USB 3.0 on any DAP as it requires to much processing power. Besides USB 2.0 tops out at 480 MBPS and the fastest write speed for a microsd card is around 90 MBPS so USB 3.0 at 5 GBPS is massive overkill for writing to microsd cards. You are talking milliseconds difference in writing to a microsd card inside a DAP vs a card reader even with USB 3.0.

Just a small correction. USB 2.0 is 480 Mbit/s which is 60 Mbytes/s. USB 3.0 is 5 Gbit/s which is 625 Mbytes/s. And that's the theoretical maximum, after accounting for overhead It's going to be lower.

What my main point was that most card readers used in mobile devices are slow. For example, I used a Samsung Pro microSD (80+ Mbytes/s) which is above USB 2.0 max (60 Mbytes/s) but I can only read at 20 Mbytes/s. Bot limited by the USB interface but rather the card reader.

Same thing as my X5 and DX90, the internal card reader is slow (but fast enough for music playback, even big DSD files and hires files won't have a Hugh enough bitrate to saturate the reader). So was wondering if the NW-A30 has a fast or slow card reader.

Honestly, music playback wise, USB 2.0 has more than enough bandwidth. The only reason why I feel we would want USB 3.0 is 1) Faster data transfer rate for faster cards. 2) Higher power draw allowed

spanky310 · Oct 17, 2016 at 10:59 PM

Can you guys confirm if the A30's will have a plastic touch screen or a glass one like those on the phones?

I asked about that earlier on this thread but did not get any reply so I thought I would try again and hopefully by now someone will have info on this little guy's display to share with us.

Even though I'm almost 100% on buying one, it would be nice to know what material the touch screen is made of.

Thanks

Partlys4int · Oct 18, 2016 at 8:16 AM

fish1050 said:
I have been wondering for awhile now what the future of the ZX100 is and its successor if there is one. Sony like major manufacturers follows a yearly product cycle and they seem to have gone to an A series, E Series and WM series designation so that leaves the ZX100 by itself. If they were going to continue with a ZX100 update it should have been announced by now. Not sure what that would mean for product support on the ZX100 if Sony is planning on dropping it. If they don't release an update to the ZX100 it would leave a rather large hole in Sony's DAP line between the A30 series and the WM-1A. I have looked at the ZX100 but it is not available in Canada and the import price is way to high

I think some sort of 'premium' A-series could replace the ZX-100: like a silver A30, slightly thicker (amp) and copper jack. I'm in dire need of a new player but will wait until the end of january.
Sony isn't like many other major companies. They have quite often just released new products haphazardly. If there isn't a successor to the ZX-100 by that time then I would give up.

musicphotolife · Oct 18, 2016 at 10:39 PM

spanky310 said:
Can you guys confirm if the A30's will have a plastic touch screen or a glass one like those on the phones?

I asked about that earlier on this thread but did not get any reply so I thought I would try again and hopefully by now someone will have info on this little guy's display to share with us.

Even though I'm almost 100% on buying one, it would be nice to know what material the touch screen is made of.

Thanks

Sorry for missing out on your query. The touch screen is made of glass.

musicphotolife · Oct 18, 2016 at 10:56 PM

partlys4int said:
I think some sort of 'premium' A-series could replace the ZX-100: like a silver A30, slightly thicker (amp) and copper jack. I'm in dire need of a new player but will wait until the end of january.
Sony isn't like many other major companies. They have quite often just released new products haphazardly. If there isn't a successor to the ZX-100 by that time then I would give up.

My opinion is that Sony never intended for A30 to replace ZX100. The reason why some regions do not offer one model and launch another model is their market positioning strategy. They probably think that the A30 is cheaper and has similar (or better) features than ZX100 so there is no reason to sell ZX100.

Globally, ZX100 is available for anyone to make the effort to buy and ship anywhere around the world. Whether Sony will release a successor to ZX100 depends on how the new Walkman sales perform, whether there are any competitors, and if there is a price segment gap that they need to fulfill.

spanky310 · Oct 18, 2016 at 11:29 PM

musicphotolife said:
Sorry for missing out on your query. The touch screen is made of glass.

Excellent news, you made my night!!!!!!

Thanks!

Subhakar · Oct 19, 2016 at 9:44 AM

So this is the end of Android UI on Sony Walkmans, then? ZX1 and ZX2 were the last to have it and never received an update from Android 4.2. All the new ones went back to Sony UI running on Android, it seems...

fish1050 · Oct 19, 2016 at 10:12 AM

lbbef said:
Just a small correction. USB 2.0 is 480 Mbit/s which is 60 Mbytes/s. USB 3.0 is 5 Gbit/s which is 625 Mbytes/s. And that's the theoretical maximum, after accounting for overhead It's going to be lower.

What my main point was that most card readers used in mobile devices are slow. For example, I used a Samsung Pro microSD (80+ Mbytes/s) which is above USB 2.0 max (60 Mbytes/s) but I can only read at 20 Mbytes/s. Bot limited by the USB interface but rather the card reader.

Same thing as my X5 and DX90, the internal card reader is slow (but fast enough for music playback, even big DSD files and hires files won't have a Hugh enough bitrate to saturate the reader). So was wondering if the NW-A30 has a fast or slow card reader.

Honestly, music playback wise, USB 2.0 has more than enough bandwidth. The only reason why I feel we would want USB 3.0 is 1) Faster data transfer rate for faster cards. 2) Higher power draw allowed

Yes my bad I mispoke but I have USB 3.0 flash drives that barely reach 60 Mbytes per second consistently and my Sony A17 is actually quite fast with data transfers. I don't see enough benefit from taking the microsd card out of the player for music transfers outside of the initial loading of the library. It also helps to keep the library on the computer synced with the library on the player when you do the track transfers with MediaGo vs taking the card out and using a media reader. I was taking the card out initially and then at one point the entire library on my player became unreadable because MediaGo was so out of sync. I had to reformat both my onboard memory and card and reload it again. Since then I do all transfers from inside the player it has been fine for about 15 months now.

I typically load an album or two at a time and mostly 16 bit flac and it would actually take more time overall to take the card out of the player, plug it into a card reader, transfer the files and then put the card back in the player vs directly transferring songs to the player. I also can transfer tracks via bluetooth from my computer to my A17 which I will do sometimes if it is only a few tracks.

lbbef · Oct 19, 2016 at 11:41 AM

fish1050 said:
Yes my bad I mispoke but I have USB 3.0 flash drives that barely reach 60 Mbytes per second consistently and my Sony A17 is actually quite fast with data transfers. I don't see enough benefit from taking the microsd card out of the player for music transfers outside of the initial loading of the library. It also helps to keep the library on the computer synced with the library on the player when you do the track transfers with MediaGo vs taking the card out and using a media reader. I was taking the card out initially and then at one point the entire library on my player became unreadable because MediaGo was so out of sync. I had to reformat both my onboard memory and card and reload it again. Since then I do all transfers from inside the player it has been fine for about 15 months now.

I typically load an album or two at a time and mostly 16 bit flac and it would actually take more time overall to take the card out of the player, plug it into a card reader, transfer the files and then put the card back in the player vs directly transferring songs to the player. I also can transfer tracks via bluetooth from my computer to my A17 which I will do sometimes if it is only a few tracks.

I see! I was just worried transferring to the card directly through the player would be slow.

lbbef · Oct 19, 2016 at 11:47 AM

Was reading through the NW-A30 series Japanese page and realised that the international pages pales in comparison. There is so much more information in Japanese. Some features and information aren't even documented in the International pages.

Partlys4int · Oct 19, 2016 at 12:09 PM

musicphotolife said:
My opinion is that Sony never intended for A30 to replace ZX100. The reason why some regions do not offer one model and launch another model is their market positioning strategy. They probably think that the A30 is cheaper and has similar (or better) features than ZX100 so there is no reason to sell ZX100.

Globally, ZX100 is available for anyone to make the effort to buy and ship anywhere around the world. Whether Sony will release a successor to ZX100 depends on how the new Walkman sales perform, whether there are any competitors, and if there is a price segment gap that they need to fulfill.

But the ZX-100 is in the audiophile segment, a segment that doesn't struggle with prices as much as other segments. Every incremental upgrade is a minor reason to buy a new device amongst many of this segment. There even are people in the ZX100 thread who claim that they hardly hear the difference between an A15 and a ZX100, yet the ZX100 sells to those it caters to. And these people are willing to spend that little more to have a more professional looking device and other features that just 'marginally' improve SQ (not so weird, given that there are audiophiles who pay up to 1000$ for just a better power cable lol) ; I think Sony would be foolish not to exploit the price gap between the A30 and the WM-A1. The A30 might sound good, but it doesn't share bigger amps, protected copper jacks and premium build quality of the more expensive devices.

Anyhow, at the end of the day (end of january actually) I'd have no major qualms over buying a NW-A30 but I would happily spend 200-400$ more for a higher model if it fulfills the above features. By no standards can I be classified as rich, however things like this (audio 'coziness) is where I get comfort from, thus I spend.

fish1050 · Oct 19, 2016 at 1:32 PM

partlys4int said:
But the ZX-100 is in the audiophile segment, a segment that doesn't struggle with prices as much as other segments. Every incremental upgrade is a minor reason to buy a new device amongst many of this segment. There even are people in the ZX100 thread who claim that they hardly hear the difference between an A15 and a ZX100, yet the ZX100 sells to those it caters to. And these people are willing to spend that little more to have a more professional looking device and other features that just 'marginally' improve SQ (not so weird, given that there are audiophiles who pay up to 1000$ for just a better power cable lol) ; I think Sony would be foolish not to exploit the price gap between the A30 and the WM-A1. The A30 might sound good, but it doesn't share bigger amps, protected copper jacks and premium build quality of the more expensive devices.

Anyhow, at the end of the day (end of january actually) I'd have no major qualms over buying a NW-A30 but I would happily spend 200-400$ more for a higher model if it fulfills the above features. By no standards can I be classified as rich, however things like this (audio 'coziness) is where I get comfort from, thus I spend.

Oh I agree the A30 should be a really good buy and I have to believe there will be an improvement in sound from the A17 putting it even closer to the ZX100. The A30 series also has some features that are better than the ZX100

A30 has more power 35 mW per channel vs 15 mW per channel, and higher resolution touchscreen

ZX100 larger onboard memory and better battery life.

Given that 200/256 GB microsd cards are available now for less than the price difference will be between the A30 and ZX100 that leaves the only real advantage for the ZX100 being better battery life and possibly slightly better sound.

So the A30 series certainly makes the ZX100 less relevant than it was in my opinion.

AUDIOBREEDER · Oct 19, 2016 at 6:45 PM

I wonder if A30 will sound better than the ZX100.

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