capybara is mine
New Head-Fier
Your impressions are very interesting and wonderful!Portable Audio Touchdown Tour Part 1: The NW-WM1AM2 and NW-WM1ZM2
The WM1A is the DAP that I've used for the last 3 years. It's probably the single longest surviving audio product in my collection, I've sold everything I brought prior to it in one form or another. One of my fondest memories in audio is undoubtedly the first time I ever heard the 1A with my old A12t, it was likely the singular moment that converted me into a believer in sources and began my spurning of objectivist thought. Nostalgia aside though, it's also just a very good player. It has an inherent naturalness of timbre and tone backed up with surprisingly respectable dynamic performance, decay, and engagement for a portable player. I've heard more DAPs than I care to count in my time, and frankly none of them have really dethroned the WM1A in my eyes. Even its older brother, the WM1Z, offered something different as opposed to better; it was extremely warm and gooey sounding by any standards and while I can see some being enthralled with that sort of sound, I personally wasn't. And so the WM1A remained my first and only high end portable player.
Needless to say, I've been pining for an announcement of the second generation of Sony players for a minute and then some. Truth to be told, I've been aware that the project was in the works since the tail end of 2019 and poised for release the year after, but for reasons that need no mention that never came to pass and it was largely radio silence on it until the recent announcement and release. It might not be surprising that I'm more interested in the WM1AM2 than I am the WM1ZM2, but I'm no less eager to hear either regardless. So how do they stack up in practice?
Well, the WM1AM2 (or 1AM2 for short) is, to put it one way, a bit of a letdown. Sony seem to have decided that the WM1A (or OG 1A) was simply not colored enough; in this respect, the 1AM2 is a moderately warm sounding DAP, with softer transients and a somewhat manufactured and artificial sounding gloss to its timbre. With the softer transient edge comes more compression, and also lost is a fair degree of both the slam and nuance that the OG 1A had (which wasn't that much to begin with in the grand scheme of things; DAPs aren't really capable of either). As a whole, it's a bit dull sounding and unengaging; it's not quite as romantically warm and bloomy like the OG 1Z, but it's also not as clear and correct sounding as the OG 1A. What we are left with is not terrible, but not really great or even good either. It's just completely mediocre.
As for the WM1ZM2 (henceforth 1ZM2), things become a lot more complicated. The 1ZM2 sounds quite different from its predecessor, and it seems like it and the 1AM2 have traded places compared to the generation prior in terms of sound signature. The new 1ZM2 is almost (but not quite) the same flavor of neutral as the OG 1A. The main differentiating factors between the two lie in its slight warmth and a similar degree of glossiness to the timbre, though also apparent on the 1ZM2 is some degree of digititus in the treble. The 1ZM2 also retains some of the transient softness from the 1AM2, though it's not nearly as pervasive. As such, the 1ZM2 has most if not all of the dynamism of its predecessors, and it's also quite musical and engaging. There is no doubt that the 1ZM2 is a good DAP.
Herein lies the real question: is it a great DAP, and does it succeed in obsoleting the prior generation sonically? Let's not even talk about being worth the price, because face it, no DAP is worth $3.7K. The answer to both of those questions, in my humble opinion, is an unfortunate and resounding no. To begin with, I really don't hear any tangible improvements in the 1ZM2 compared to either the OG 1A or the OG 1Z. Sure, it has a different flavor of coloration compared to either of the aforementioned, and that coloration might be more appealing than others to someone, but it's not an abject improvement by any metric. On the other hand, there are a greater than insignificant number of actual tangible drawbacks with the 1ZM2 compared to the OG DAPs: the slightly artificial timbre, the softened edges applied onto every transient, the mild but present treble issues that are just enough to break immersion, it all adds up.
And even despite the 1ZM2 being closer to my preferred tonality than the OG 1Z, I struggle to decide if I actually prefer it overall. Yes, I prefer the greatly lessened warmth and bloom, but the OG 1Z was one of the most characterful and unique sounding DAPs on the market. There was a clear reason to buy one compared to the OG 1A, and though I didn’t necessarily agree with it, I was fully capable of respecting it. The 1AM2 and the 1ZM2 end up coming off as more similar than different. Sure, the 1ZM2 is an actual improvement over the 1AM2, but Sony accomplishes this by actively making the 1AM2 worse. We end up with products that exist in two completely different tiers that try to accomplish the same thing, instead of two products that are relatively speaking quite similar in performance, but with opposing goals.
One gains more clarity with such a realization when the DMP-Z1 is introduced into the picture; on immediate comparison it's clear that the DMP-Z1 is in fact the primogenitor of the M2 generation's sound. And while the DMP-Z1 is certainly a very interesting sounding device, it's not one that I would consider normal sounding, though that's a topic for another time. The long and short of it is that I just think that the latest generation of Sony players was a misstep. We have gone from an expression of musicality and naturality in two equal but opposite examples, to a hierarchy of mediocrity tuned to flavor, but not to taste. In a sense, there is not very much differentiating the M2 generation DAPs and the DMP-Z1 from the vast majority of other DAPs in the market in terms of overarching philosophy; coloration and flavoring for the sake of it instead of just trying to sound correct and normal. It's not that I don't get why they've done this either, the market wants this stuff and I imagine the idea of a mini-DMP-Z1 is extremely appealing to a lot of people who aren't me. I just personally couldn't care less for it.
Part 2 & 3 will cover a whole bunch of IEMs and Part 4 will focus more on some other sources.
Is there any significant difference in sound between 4.4mm balanced and 3.5mm unbalanced other than power?
Also, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the DC Phase Linearizer and DSEE HX.