[goody]

Who remembers the sandisk Fuse plus of old when you initially turn it on it asked you which region you wanted ...if i remember "rest of the world" option was always the loudest

 

[abitdeef]

I'm going to say that the Sony Walkman app sounds better than hiby app, even in usb mode, and neutron app. That includes versions on my phone. My dongles sound best fed with the Sony app.

Haven't tried uapp, but with gesture control the Sony app is just great. If it had the old Sense me, that would be cool. It's also is the best on battery, even running a gnarly dongle like fc6. Truly amazing battery management, considering the tiny cell size.

 

[abitdeef]

Who remembers the sandisk Fuse plus of old when you initially turn it on it asked you which region you wanted ...if i remember "rest of the world" option was always the loudest

That was such a cute little player

 

[AtomicUK]

I've been tied up with computer issues these last few weeks so not had time to respond here to any developments from Sony (or lack thereof!)

I'm still loving my A306 and it kept my ears full of just music as I flew 10 hours to Texas at the weekend.
I used the new pair of Shure SE425s and they kept all other noise out and my ears still felt fresh when I landed.

My wonderful Texan fiancée had lined up a wonderful birthday for me yesterday and surprised me with not only the watch I had wanted for around 4 years, but she had noted I was looking at some Etymotic ER3 in-ears.

I had planned to try these out while I was here, but she went right out and bought me the Etymotic ER3SE (Studio Edition) In-ears which at first I failed to notice the SE on the box and was disappointed in the lack of depth (although I would never have said that too her!)

Only today have I realised that she bought the Studio Edition (SE) so I switched back over to 'Direct' from the EQ I was running to hear their flat frequency response.

Due to my work, I'm fortunate to get a lot of studio demos and advance albums from studio masters, so I've been sitting here listening some to truly hear the more flat Direct response and it is actually really interesting!

I can identify cymbal brands and hear compression kicking in on the bass drum etc, which is super geeky but very cool.

I'm currently playing an album that's not out until the summer with a 17 piece string section recorded at Abbey Road and the layers are amazing.

This tiny A306 really is astounding and opening my ears up to hearing so many things that I have never heard in songs that I thought I had known inside out for 50 years, even when using a 5.1 system!

I'm very curious to know what more higher end in-ears can possibly bring to the table, as the two pairs I now have offer me so much already!

 

[abitdeef]

The iem headphone rabbit hole is really deep. Hybrids, multiple ba drivers up to 50! Planars and on and on. But then somehow you hear a single next generation DD and it blows you away. I'm not afraid to EQ a bit and especially DD respond well, so that dark muddy set suddenly becomes a monster with some EQ.

And you don't have to spend a ton of money to get great sound.

 

[AtomicUK]

The iem headphone rabbit hole is really deep.

And you don't have to spend a ton of money to get great sound.

Sounds like it (no pun intended)

I have dialled in some EQ that works really well on most 'studio' released tracks and I get a nice deep sound with the Shure SE425, but I'm curious to see if I can find some in-ears that give me 'my sound' right out the box.

Could be an interesting, long and perhaps expensive search!

 

[abitdeef]

Sounds like it (no pun intended)

I have dialled in some EQ that works really well on most 'studio' released tracks and I get a nice deep sound with the Shure SE425, but I'm curious to see if I can find some in-ears that give me 'my sound' right out the box.

Could be an interesting, long and perhaps expensive search!

I'm sure you can, there's some sites that have most headphones and lots of iems graphed for frequency response, compared to Harmon curve. Yes I'm past the $$$ route, before my ears went bad I went that route. Brick of a dap and multi thousand dollar iems.

Then you notice the law of diminishing returns and diminishing hearing. Did love the tia's though and the cayin dap with the interchangeable amp modules. Not too badly priced either. But always loved the smaller daps. Actually hiby r5 saber was a nice small dap. I wish the follow up had the same style. Sorry rambling....

But you cant go wrong with Sony. Err I mean you couldn't go wrong with Sony until this mess.

 

[big joe]

Does anybody happen to know if this player lets you make playlists with 1000+ tracks? The A55 doesn't let you add tracks past 999 so I was wondering if that limitation was removed here.

 

[goody]

I've been tied up with computer issues these last few weeks so not had time to respond here to any developments from Sony (or lack thereof!)

I'm still loving my A306 and it kept my ears full of just music as I flew 10 hours to Texas at the weekend.
I used the new pair of Shure SE425s and they kept all other noise out and my ears still felt fresh when I landed.

My wonderful Texan fiancée had lined up a wonderful birthday for me yesterday and surprised me with not only the watch I had wanted for around 4 years, but she had noted I was looking at some Etymotic ER3 in-ears.

I had planned to try these out while I was here, but she went right out and bought me the Etymotic ER3SE (Studio Edition) In-ears which at first I failed to notice the SE on the box and was disappointed in the lack of depth (although I would never have said that too her!)

Only today have I realised that she bought the Studio Edition (SE) so I switched back over to 'Direct' from the EQ I was running to hear their flat frequency response.

Due to my work, I'm fortunate to get a lot of studio demos and advance albums from studio masters, so I've been sitting here listening some to truly hear the more flat Direct response and it is actually really interesting!

I can identify cymbal brands and hear compression kicking in on the bass drum etc, which is super geeky but very cool.

I'm currently playing an album that's not out until the summer with a 17 piece string section recorded at Abbey Road and the layers are amazing.

This tiny A306 really is astounding and opening my ears up to hearing so many things that I have never heard in songs that I thought I had known inside out for 50 years, even when using a 5.1 system!

I'm very curious to know what more higher end in-ears can possibly bring to the table, as the two pairs I now have offer me so much already!

Yep great little player

 

[Lyzar]

I'm excited for tomorrow lol, I finally thought f it and gave in to the hype of the Moondrop Quarks DSP (I mean they are only 15€ lol). Wanna see how they work with the Sony, I mean thanks to the DAP they should sound the same on a phone, but still!

Also the Walkman App is really nice IMHO. Does it do High Res out to USB Dongles too? That would be awesome.
Controllwise the Sony is way easier to use than the Shanling M1 (I mean that one didn't have a touch screen and used Shanlings old os; if I am not mistaken it was their first DAP)

Sadly I need to purchase more CDs, as my own High Res and CD Quality collection is way to small Currently mostly listening to Spotify. But even that sounds awesome. Way better than Spotify via Bluetooth to my Shanling M1

 

[cliffjnr]

you can buy music from bandcamp etc

 

[Lyzar]

you can buy music from bandcamp etc

Recently discovered Quobuz as a platform to buy FLACs from. Experience was pretty solid. I just love CDs and I'm gonna be honest, I have a hard time differentiating between 16bit/44,1kHz and 24bit/92kHz sometimes, so the added cost and storage is not worth it for me most of the time.

I just discovered for example that there is Box Sets of Aretha Franklin Albums for 12,99 on Amazon. That's 5 albums for a price you wouldn't get a high Res album for normally. + I can rip the CD as often as I want

 

[dedero]

Recently discovered Quobuz as a platform to buy FLACs from. Experience was pretty solid. I just love CDs and I'm gonna be honest, I have a hard time differentiating between 16bit/44,1kHz and 24bit/92kHz sometimes, so the added cost and storage is not worth it for me most of the time.

I just discovered for example that there is Box Sets of Aretha Franklin Albums for 12,99 on Amazon. That's 5 albums for a price you wouldn't get a high Res album for normally. + I can rip the CD as often as I want

that's the main reason why I have a mix between vinyl and cd's, sometimes some great versions are so convenient that for me it doesn't worth to pay extra for vinyl.. and many cases you don't even have the vinyl version of such things.. or even the mastering process sometimes sounds better in a cd version compared to the vinyl one

 

[abitdeef]

I'm excited for tomorrow lol, I finally thought f it and gave in to the hype of the Moondrop Quarks DSP (I mean they are only 15€ lol). Wanna see how they work with the Sony, I mean thanks to the DAP they should sound the same on a phone, but still!

Also the Walkman App is really nice IMHO. Does it do High Res out to USB Dongles too? That would be awesome.
Controllwise the Sony is way easier to use than the Shanling M1 (I mean that one didn't have a touch screen and used Shanlings old os; if I am not mistaken it was their first DAP)

Sadly I need to purchase more CDs, as my own High Res and CD Quality collection is way to small Currently mostly listening to Spotify. But even that sounds awesome. Way better than Spotify via Bluetooth to my Shanling M1

Yes walkman app outputs bit perfect, so yes it outputs hI res to dongles.

 

[Lyzar]

Yes walkman app outputs bit perfect, so yes it outputs hI res to dongles.

That is great then I will keep my eyes open for a USB-C dongle that tickles my fancy