I really like the ie600/BTR7 (stock 3.5mm cable) combo as well. Warm and clear, if that makes sense... Plug and play in Windows and Mac, LDAC seems to work well enough too. It's a great little amp to add to the arsenal.

If you like bass, the first gen Aeons are not for you. The tuning felt that shipped with the phones warmed up the sound a wee bit, but for any real boom, you will need to EQ it in.

As my first (only) pair of "true wireless" earphones, the XM4 are exactly what I was looking for in noise-canceling in-ears. I have a set of Custom Art's custom IEM tips installed that provide a decent seal once they are positioned properly on the earbud/in my ear. No connection issues with...

The preorder page doesn't mention Google Play Store access either. Also, a bit of sticker shock for a HiBy product.

AVLS isn't the same as the EU volume cap. All the ZX-507s have AVLS, but the EU units have a software volume cap on top of AVLS (hence no high gain for EU folks).

Using Poweramp, playing a mix of flac and mp3s, I get 10 to 11 hours, depending on how much screen time I have. I haven't noticed a power drain difference between using the balanced and standard ports, but that's probably due to my IEMs not being hard to drive.

Believe in burn in or not, Sony recommends it for each of the connections.

Looks like it'd give about the same shock protection as the TPU case. Doesn't add much for tactile sensations for the buttons though.

Player sounds pretty good with all that crap turned off too. Ended up trying one of the TPU cases with the raised buttons [http://www.cmpg.co.jp/musashino/nwzx50c1/index.html]. The raised buttons are cool and make pocket pressing a bit easier, but I think the leather Sony case gives the...

I have an older 256GB Samsung EVO Plus Class 10 card U3 (up to 100mb/s read, 90mb/s write with UHS-1 interface), and the Walkman app will do a scan of 224GB of music in about 2 minutes?

I mostly run the Topaz off my laptop, so I end up using 2 USB ports for audio and power. I rarely use it on IOS or Android due to the Topaz not providing power to the player. It's kind of a pain in the ass to have to use a powered USB hub keep player and amp charging at the same time. I didn't...

LOL, could you please point out the areas that I should read again?

I read the paper, but I don't really see where it proves your point? From the summary: "Although all PA capacitors exhibit high capacitance and mΩ level low ESR values regardless of the capacitor structures, other electrical performance of PA capacitors depends highly on the capacitor...

For me, the point to having the ZX-507 has been the 4.4mm balanced connection, the player's great sound, a bug/crash-free experience, and a hardware lock switch for the media buttons. If the ZX-507 was my only listening device, the 48khz cap could have possibly turned me away, but listening to...

They probably could if they were so inclined, but in all their promo material, they explicitly stated that only the Walkman app would play higher than 48khz. "When using a music application other than Sony original music player app," High-Resolution Audio is down-converted to 48 KHz/16bit for...

My pipe dream would be a media player with the Xperia 1 specs and a 3.5/4.4mm balanced connection.

It's above average for an Android DAP. My power usage was with WiFi off. I think I was only getting 8 or so hours a charge with the Hiby R6 and the Fiio X7ii (edit: 8 or so hours on the 3.5mm connection, not the 2.5 balanced). I think the advertised long battery life they claim the ZX-507...

Well, today I had about 3.5 hours of usage, with the volume mostly at 60 through the balanced connection, using PowerAmp, and power meter went from 100% to 67%. I top off the battery daily or every other day, so I haven't the foggiest what my cycles will end up being. In all honesty, I'm sure...

The R6's last month or two of life showed varying levels of charge when it would shut down. The last time it shut down it was at 15%, but never powered up again. Edit: Sony lists the ZX-500 charge time as 6 hours, so charging 4 hours quicker is a bonus? LOL

Most lithium-ion batteries only get up to 500 full charges before they start to go out. I think I might have gotten 500 days of use out of my Hiby R6 before its battery gave up the ghost, and it had gone through at least 300 recharge cycles. I doubt any player on the market now will give more...

https://www.sony-asia.com/electronics/walkman/nw-zx500-series/specifications It says USB DAC Mode, then a blank space, meaning no USB DAC Mode, just like there is no digital noise canceling built in, like in the A100 series. Sorry!

On a positive note, I haven’t had any bugs or software issues with anything I’ve installed via Google Play, or with the player in general. I can’t say I had that experience with either Hiby or Fiio. The ZX-507 connects to WiFi with no issues. Bluetooth headphones sound great with a stable...

Connected to the ZX-507, there's not a lot of headroom stock. Through PowerAmp you can enable Replay Gain, setting the RG preamp to -16, and setting the app's EQ to -12 allows full use of the amp's volume wheel. With my standard settings, moving the wheel 1/4 inch would be unbearable. Edit...

I went through a Japanese proxy shipper (https://www.fromjapan.co.jp/) to the USA and paid no fees besides a $7 transaction fee they charge as a proxy and $32ish in shipping. If you're patient, they offer 10% off items ordered from Rakuten a few times a month. I use CFA Equinox IEMs (19Ω...

You can search by All Songs, Artists, Album Artists, Albums by Artist, Playlists, Composers, Genres, and Folders. It's robust. I kind of expected the Sony app to have some/most of these options, but since it does not, PowerAmp works for me. Neutron isn't bad, but I don't navigate its options...