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SONY NW-ZX500
Dec 7, 2020 at 12:06 AM Post #6,241 of 8,639
DJ Core said:
The music says it all when you listen vs previous firmware. Just like Hi-Res streaming on or off has an effect on the Walkman App. The built-in 360 reality audio has an effect on the walkman app 100%. I'm not complaining though....my 2 cents.
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It's just that 360 Reality Audio is not something which converts already existing FLAC/etc. audio files, but the song has to be specially made like that.

Saying otherwise is basically contradicting Sony itself. I would say that they know a bit more about their technology than us.

All info is available on their page: https://www.sony.com/electronics/360-reality-audio

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As it says in the picture (from this Sony page), the song has to be specially mixed with their tool. That means taking every separate bit of the song, like individual voices/instruments/etc., assigning them to objects into the 3D sphere, and then doing additional things, like moving those objects around in that sphere, if they want to.

Again, saying that 360RA has any conversion capabilities, that enhances things in already normally mixed songs, is contradicting Sony.
 
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Dec 7, 2020 at 12:45 AM Post #6,242 of 8,639
If high-streaming already adds its own 3D like effect in firmware 3.0, can’t Sony take data from your ear shape and Sony headphone products and through algorithms/acoustic R&D recreate/map out a more authentic sounding virtual surround audio for stereo music? It is not exactly true 360 positional audio, but certainly upmixing stereo audio to virtual surround can be done, and kudos if Sony is able to use AI to do it. Yamaha has a new technology called SurroundAI, which analyses audio streams(2channel or multi channel) to map out a virtual surround audio upmixing that is tailored/more optimized sounding for for their home theatre systems.

https://hub.yamaha.com/what-is-surroundai/

Spatial Audio technology up mixing stereo sound into virtual surround isn’t anything new. Sony’s implementation using your ear shape data and their predefined headphone/iem time domain acoustic response data will likely recreate a more accurate/authentic sounding virtual surround that is tailored to the listener’s hearing.
 
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Dec 7, 2020 at 12:58 AM Post #6,243 of 8,639
Sonywalkmanuser said:
If high-streaming already adds its own 3D like effect in firmware 3.0, can’t Sony take data from your ear shape and Sony headphone products and through algorithms/acoustic R&D recreate/map out a more authentic sounding virtual surround audio for stereo music? It is not exactly true 360 positional audio, but certainly upmixing stereo audio to virtual surround can be done, and kudos if Sony is able to use AI to do it. Yamaha has a new technology called SurroundAI, which analyses audio streams(2channel or multi channel) to map out a virtual surround audio upmixing that is tailored for for their home theatre systems.

https://hub.yamaha.com/what-is-surroundai/

Spatial Audio technology up mixing stereo sound into virtual surround isn’t anything new. Sony’s implementation using your ear shape data and their predefined headphone/iem data will likely recreate a more accurate/authentic sounding version.
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Ok, but that has nothing to do with 360RA, this is what I mean, so why call it that? 360RA works only with specially mixed songs, and it's not doing applying an effect to that song, but rather just rendering how that song was mixed in this format by the music label.

Also, even the ear shape thing (that is made for 360RA) being used for normal songs in some way on these players, is not basically confirmed by Sony anywhere, so it's just speculation.

Imagine that you want to buy a normal music player, but you find out that it has some features that are not advertised anywhere by the company. That doesn't make too much sense, does it? If there are features that are so awesome, why wouldn't they just advertise them? In this way, they could maybe even sell more players.

Also, Hi-Res streaming potentially adding some 3D effect to songs without Sony mentioning it, also sounds a bit wrong. Not advertising the added effect could make people believe that Hi-Res media should always sound like this.

1607320552904.png


This is all they mention about it. Now imagine someone having no idea about it, and then drawing the conclusion that this is how 192 kHz music sounds like. It's a bit wrong/misleading, hence why it's weird that they would do this, but not mention it anywhere.


Regarding the claims that the ear shape thing applies to normal songs as well, what's mainly not ok is that it's just speculation, but it's presented as 100% true info. There's no hint to these claims that they are not actually confirmed anywhere, especially when knowing how 360RA actually works, from the info that Sony themselves made available.
 
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Dec 7, 2020 at 10:08 AM Post #6,244 of 8,639
Any zx507/A105 users can determine for themselves if high res streaming mode On does indeed sounds more 3D over high res streaming mode Off even if these kind of sound differences is never officially mentioned by Sony in any of their guides or marketing materials. So why does some users here in headfi claim Sony walkman different country/region firmware sounds different? Is this regional sound differences ever mentioned by Sony?

Anyway, go make your own judgement if you think @Sonywalkmanuser is just spewing nonsensical claims about all these unpublished effects or you think I am actually making factual impressions of what I am hearing.
 
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Dec 7, 2020 at 4:18 PM Post #6,246 of 8,639
Ok, here is another question on this 360 Reality Audio stuff: if the resulting 48kHz-encoded files have been meticulously engineered with Sony’s proprietary object-based sound mixing software, what is happening to the audio (and to the 3D-positioning of the sound objects) when we have High-Res Streaming ON in the ZX507 (i.e., upsampled to 32b/192kHz)?

I don’t know the answer, but I can say the TIDAL 360RA files I have played on my “bit-perfect” desktop setup sound better than the same TIDAL streams through the ZX507. Now that could just be the quality differences between the hardware, but I think instead it is reason for Sony to abandon this High-Res Streaming source-rate-conversion nonsense and just deliver bit-perfect audio from 3rd party apps (since 3rd-party apps are the only way to get 360RA currently).

Cheers,
Gus
 
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Dec 7, 2020 at 4:22 PM Post #6,247 of 8,639
Gus141 said:
Ok, here is another question on this 360 Reality Audio stuff: if the resulting 48kHz-encoded files have been meticulously engineered with Sony’s proprietary object-based sound mixing software, what is happening to the audio (and to the 3D-positioning of the sound objects) when we have High-Res Streaming ON in the ZX507 (i.e., upsampled to 32b/192kHz)?

I don’t know the answer, but I can say the TIDAL 360RA files I have played on my “bit-perfect” desktop setup sound better than the same TIDAL streams through the ZX507. Now that could just be the quality differences between the hardware, but I think instead it is reason for Sony to abandon this High-Res Streaming source-rate-conversion nonsense and just deliver bit-perfect audio from 3rd party apps (since 3rd-party apps are the only way to get 360RA currently).

Cheers,
Gus
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The 360RA track is being rendered as a two channel one, of course, so that two channel source gets upscaled as any other source from other players except the Walkman one.

Will do a little test tomorrow to confirm this.
 
Dec 7, 2020 at 5:51 PM Post #6,249 of 8,639
Sorry, where can I find what’s new with the 4.0 update? Thanks
 
Dec 8, 2020 at 9:45 AM Post #6,253 of 8,639
goody said:
so how is the new sound from the new firmware does it change the sound to piercing treble ? i like that nice warmish sony sound
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No, nothing of the sort. I did not really note anything to be honest. Still the very good ol' Sony sound. I had to do a full reset shortly after the FW update. My play/pause got all funky, wanted to play music by itself in the form of alarm notes... Full reset fixed it.
 
Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM Post #6,254 of 8,639
Hi All. Brand new to this forum. These posts specifically have been great since I got my new player. Glad to now be part of the zx-507 community.

I've read through as many pages as I can and I think I understand most of the basics. But I'd like to ask clearly if people will indulge me please:

I have the UK/EU version of the zx-507 which doesn't have the high gain setting (as per the Sony instructions that the relevant zx-507 setting is only available in certain regions).
Is there any way to access the high gain setting by changing my firmware/region? My headphones have quite high impedance and 120 volume on low gain isn't quite loud enough for me.

There is a post above with the URL for the files by region? I think 0000 is International for example. Can I set the USA firmware or does it still know somehow that I'm still in the UK? (we've left the EU too...)

Sorry if this is clearly stated somewhere already.
I've watched a chap on YouTube with a Chinese 505 I think, re-flash the international firmware. So the basics look easy enough - not needing to use Odin or anything.
But there are people saying they are able to access that high gain setting and others state there is no way (currently).

Many thanks.
 
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