[bland125]

Weird. My Polaris V2 at 17 ohms (1khz that is) don't hiss at all and I mean I hear 0 hissing on 4.4 bal high gain with volume at around 35 to 50/120. I start hearing increasing hissing (on pause) at 90/120 and above with volume clicks as well but it's nowhere near listening levels.

I can't stand hissing and this is the first DAP/DAC/Amp that I own doesn't make the Polaris hiss. Hisses on AQ red, AQ blue, iFi Hip Dac, iFi Zen dac, Nuprime DAC-9H, Ipod classic 5th gen...

Sad to see some people are getting hiss, specially with those TOTL expensive IEMs.

 

[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

I only ever noticed any hiss with the most sensitive of iems in past s-master daps, and it is the least unobtrusive soft type I've encountered so it didn't bother me.
Actually I've naturally moved away from iem's that are that sensitive and nothing in my current collection has any issues, including rose 7BA, sony 3BA, ultrasone iq hybrid, etc.

 

[magicrandy]

duplicate

 

[magicrandy]

@Sonywalkmanuser Is there a Tweak Guide for those of us using the streaming apps such as Amazon Music HD?

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

4min 30sec for measurements.

 

[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

If anyone wanted a Sony Premium Sound SD card (but can't get one since they are discontinued), these are a similar or better replacement:

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/SanDisk/SDSDQED-064G-XI?qs=gZXFycFWdAPuTpJ2z5SQUA==

The reason the sd card is so expensive is because it uses industrial grade SLC nand flash instead of MLC or TLC which most SD cards use.

The difference is that each memory cell only stores 1 bit of information instead of 2 bits (MLC) or 3 bits (TLC).

This means each memory cell only needs 2 different voltage states to store either a 1 or a 0 (1 bit of information).

While MLC needs 4 different voltage states per memory cell to store either a 00, 01, 10 & 11 (2 bits of information).

TLC needs 8 different voltage states per memory cell to store either a 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, 111 (3 bits of information).

TLC is cheapest to produce because you can store the most information per memory cell, and this is what 95% of micro sd cards use.

SLC is best because it has the lowest electrical noise due to minimal voltage states, thicker cell walls, and longest lifespan per cell, among other advantages.

Sony was producing such an SD card but people saw it as a money grab (it was not), people just didn't understand it.

I personally own one of the above linked cards and it sounds a touch cleaner than Sandisk Extreme Pro and Samsung Evo Plus.

Not recommended for people that cannot hear minor differences though.

I also don't want to start an argument with anyone about "it's all digital ones and zeroes so none of this matters". Not interested.

 

[eternalEquilibrium]

After recently experienced a crappy SD card. I agree. It's not just ' ones or zeros ' makes no difference. It simply didn't work properly. £100 for a descent SC card and it's £100 worth it

 

[chrisgtl]

A couple of Q's if you don't mind; Got my ZX507 coming from Amazon Japan (I am in the UK). I am hoping this unit will be a high-gain/uncapped version as it's coming from Japan.

1) Do I need to flash any firmware updates from the Japan support site? If I flash a UK firmware what happens? Do I lose the high-gain forever or will it brick it?
2) I am in the process of buying a Micro-SD card. I will buy either SanDisk or Samsung. What speeds do I need? Looking for a 256GB card.

 

[GRUMPYOLDGUY]

4min 30sec for measurements.

So THD and IMD+N are both 4x worse than the ZX300. That's pretty pathetic comparatively, but really bad as an absolute number itself. At full scale, SINAD estimate would be about 87.84dB. ENOB is about 14.2 bits... giving an estimated dynamic range of about 85.49dB. Note, the assumption is full scale is 2Vrms.

By comparison, THD on the iBasso DX200 is 0.0004% compared to the ZX507 at 0.0047% and can be had for less money. Measures better in other categories as well.

Sony has gone completely over to the snake oil side. That's sad.

 

[GRUMPYOLDGUY]

I also don't want to start an argument with anyone about "it's all digital ones and zeroes so none of this matters". Not interested.

None of this matters.

 

[eternalEquilibrium]

A couple of Q's if you don't mind; Got my ZX507 coming from Amazon Japan (I am in the UK). I am hoping this unit will be a high-gain/uncapped version as it's coming from Japan.

1) Do I need to flash any firmware updates from the Japan support site? If I flash a UK firmware what happens? Do I lose the high-gain forever or will it brick it?
2) I am in the process of buying a Micro-SD card. I will buy either SanDisk or Samsung. What speeds do I need? Looking for a 256GB card.

No need for anything. The boot up goes through language and account settings eg. High gain is in the sound options. I got mine from Japan to UK and booted on wifi

 

[eternalEquilibrium]

A couple of Q's if you don't mind; Got my ZX507 coming from Amazon Japan (I am in the UK). I am hoping this unit will be a high-gain/uncapped version as it's coming from Japan
2) I am in the process of buying a Micro-SD card. I will buy either SanDisk or Samsung. What speeds do I need? Looking for a 256GB card.

I got the samgsun Evo plus and it works a dream

 

[nanaholic]

So THD and IMD+N are both 4x worse than the ZX300. That's pretty pathetic comparatively, but really bad as an absolute number itself. At full scale, SINAD estimate would be about 87.84dB. ENOB is 14.2 bits... glad my entire collection is red book. Yikes.

By comparison, THD on the iBasso DX200 is 0.0004% compared to the ZX507 at 0.0047% and can be had for less money. Measures better in other categories as well.

Sony has gone completely over to the snake oil side. That's sad.

ZX300 measurement stolen from Ohm-image

I don't know what chart you are looking at, because except for the THD and IMD you can see the ZX500 measurements is better than the ZX300 in everyway for the no load condition. FR deviation is much smaller which means a more neutral sound across the freqency range, noise level is much lower, and stereo crosstalk is also significantly lower. Note the areas where improvements are made are also on the dB scale (logarithmic) whereas the 4x percentage differences in the 3rd digit behind the decimal point in comparison are going to be much less significant.

The iBasso might measure better but the software is universially known to be a mess. Measurements don't mean everything, especially when talking thousandth percentage tile differences.

Also the real test is what happens when a load is connected to the player, which the video measurement doesn't show any as it is a straight loopback measurement. If you head over to Ohm-image and look at AK players they measure good with no load but once a load is connect it goes all over the place. Sony's devices are praised for their stability with different load conditions.

 

[T.R.A.N.C.E.]

Sony has gone completely over to the snake oil side. That's sad.

Sounds like this isn't the player for you, go find the player with the biggest numbers written in its spec sheet and be happy.

Personally I'd rather listen to vinyl (dynamic range of 65db) than high resolution pcm (dynamic range of 144db).

Not everything is about specs, for some people it's just about how much they enjoy the sound.

I found I liked ZX507 more than SP1000M, I couldn't care less which one looks nicer on paper, just as I don't care what vinyl looks like on paper, will leave discernation of sound to my ears.

 

[eternalEquilibrium]

People can be so anal in this hobby :/ good music sounds good