If you're interested, I can sell my balanced cable I purchased from Sony (never used) for my WM1A. I never had a chance to use them as one of the xba-z5 earbuds broke before the cables arrived :/

Thanks Charlie. Completely agreed, their customer service for out of warranty stuff is extremely poor (and warranty life is short to begin with). Even for their newest flagships ($1.7K) if it breaks the day out of warranty you're out of luck. With the ZBAs I had no ability to fix them at all...

How much would used Z5's go for now? Saw a few previously for $200-250 but not sure if that's the right price range given how old these are now. 1 of the earbuds on mine unfortunately imploded after one year of use. I have a balanced cable and WM1A but been using it with my ultimate ears (2006...

Oh. Interesting, thanks. For some reason I remember the 4.4mm cable being unique to only Sony.

A bit old at this point, but, just as a note I went back and forth with Sony for a month and it seems that post the 1 year warranty, you're basically screwed if any Sony buds break (this includes the newest flagships). Unless its in warranty, there are 0 repair options on its IEMs as Sony does...

The balanced cable port really annoys me. My pair of XBA-Z5's broke on me a year ago and the balanced port on the NW-WM1A is a constant reminder of Sony's crappy customer service on its earbuds :/ Assuming the balanced port is only usable with sony buds?

Lovely pair of headphones. Been using these for the past year with various setups (amp , walkman, directly to computer). The only issue I sometimes have is the left cable will disconnect every now.

No idea, haha. One day it was working fine, the next it started skipping parts of songs and then at some point stopped working all together. Unfortunate that Sony's repair service is poor. May just end up getting a new pair like you're suggesting tho.

Could anyone point me towards where you bring the XBA-Z5's when the drivers go out? The left earbud blew out for me around a year ago, and unfortunately, my pair of Z5s have just been collecting dust since then since Sony no longer offers repairs.

Just purchased a L-Trac (trackball mouse). Hopefully it'll work well. Will go back to using something like the Razer Death Adder if I end up needing more buttons (for both work and games).

Not purchased yet but considering a SE HD 800s for use with the HTC Rift and computer gaming. Swapping to my Sony XBA-Z5s when the girlfriend starts yelling at me for the noise.

Also, is Sony still as bad at firmware upgrades for their walkmans as the articles I've read suggest?

Considering purchasing the 2017 model. Subjectively, would the improvement in sound quality using the NW-ZX2s vs a (dragonfly red w/ Samsung galaxy x6 or Macbook Air '14 and sony xba z5s) justify the cost difference? I could use the funds to purchase a possibly better pair of iems instead.

Thanks!

I've been running a dragonfly red off my Mac on Tidal with a pair of Sony xba-Z5s over the last half year or so and have been loving the sound. Are there any recommended cables to use the dragonfly with an android device (usb to micro usb) like the stock dragontail or would it likely not matter?