[ttt123]

Yea, I noticed that too, with battery care, it still charges to 100%, but it will stop charging there. Bit confused at first, got used to it now. Just speculation, maybe it is trying to do what iphone is doing, slowing the last 20% of charging. Im not very sure, perhaps someone with android 13 phone can answer this.

I am guessing that the DAP is powered off when when you are charging, in which case it will charge to 100%. The DAP needs to be on to engage the battery care.

 

[Zimmy68]

Picked up a pair of IEMs (Hexa Truthear) this week. I have been out of the IEM game for awhile, my last was a a decent pair of Shure (which I can't locate).
I thought that the A306 would be able to drive IEMs better than my closed backs.
I'm a little disappointed because I still have to play at almost full volume (118). That is probably the same when I use my B&W P7W wired. It is loud enough but I could easily go louder.
I still love the player but not sure why they made this such a liability for the price of the player.

It actually sounds the best hooking my Focal Bathys in DAP mode USB directly but then I am not really using the player's hardware for audio.

 

[ttt123]

Picked up a pair of IEMs (Hexa Truthear) this week. I have been out of the IEM game for awhile, my last was a a decent pair of Shure (which I can't locate).
I thought that the A306 would be able to drive IEMs better than my closed backs.
I'm a little disappointed because I still have to play at almost full volume (118). That is probably the same when I use my B&W P7W wired. It is loud enough but I could easily go louder.
I still love the player but not sure why they made this such a liability for the price of the player.

It actually sounds the best hooking my Focal Bathys in DAP mode USB directly but then I am not really using the player's hardware for audio.

Is your A306 a North America ( US or Canada ), EU, or Singapore model? The A306 and the ZX707 are volume capped/no hi-gain in these countries. The cap also affects the regular output, not just Hi-Gain.
The WM1AM2 is only capped in EU, so it caused a lot of confusion, as the A306 and ZX707 were expected to be also uncapped. (The A105/ZX507 were only capped in EU) So it was a surprise to see the new models A306 and ZX707 were capped in extra countries, when they were released.

 

[Livingformusic]

Hello all and Happy New Year,


Work has been a little busy all around for the past few months (with more orders than expected in the last month), as well as with family, in which most of my listening was done with some chi-fi iems and Sony NW-A306 (Japan version) on and off at work from 2023.

Looking forward to what 2024 brings and to all the new upcoming releases of iems, headphones, cables and daps this year.


Following up on some recent posts here, based on my use case with A306 (Japan model) at work, here are some of my thoughts on battery care mode and iems/headphones pairing with NW-A306.

Does the battery care option do what it is supposed to do? I have it enabled, but the device charges past 80%.
Firmware v. 2.00.02

Hi captblaze,

Going by memory with Battery Care turned on my A306 (Japan model / firmware version 2.00.02) for the past month of regular use at work, battery charge has not stayed consistent within the 80% range for the first week.


Sony NW-A306 (Japan model / with Fatbear case)

With my use case at work, I always turn on Battery Saver (with Airplane mode & Battery Care on at all times, and Wi-fi only on at work), to get the most battery life possible for 8 to 9 hours of listening (with short breaks in between listening) at work. Since that first week of using Battery Care, it has continued to charge well past 90% and has charged up to 99% (with Battery Saver turned off at home after work).

From my limited experience, I think it really varies with each unit, as there are other software and hardware related factors that come into play (especially with use case on the go), and also if the battery has been replaced (in which my A306 got its battery replaced with a new one by Sony repair center in Japan, back in July 2023).

Picked up a pair of IEMs (Hexa Truthear) this week. I have been out of the IEM game for awhile, my last was a a decent pair of Shure (which I can't locate).
I thought that the A306 would be able to drive IEMs better than my closed backs.
I'm a little disappointed because I still have to play at almost full volume (118). That is probably the same when I use my B&W P7W wired. It is loud enough but I could easily go louder.
I still love the player but not sure why they made this such a liability for the price of the player.

It actually sounds the best hooking my Focal Bathys in DAP mode USB directly but then I am not really using the player's hardware for audio.

Hi Zimmy68,


As @ttt123 has mentioned from his post to your question, different region models of A306 vary in power output. For the USA version of A306, it only has about 1.1mW of output (in 'normal' gain, as there is no high gain setting on neither USA nor Japan region models of A306), whereas the Japan model of A306 has 40mW of output. With the Japan model, there is some noticeable increase of loudness and overall more discernible presence of sound from low end to mids and highs, but with headphones in general, I tend to find myself increasing & adjusting the volume more often than setting it at a lower volume range & enjoying the music.

Coming from headphones to iems in pairing with A306 (Japan model), listening volume levels are more noticeable in terms of how they are driven and how 'loud' the sound can be heard and perceived differently. Personally, for my preferences and use case, I don't use headphones with my A306 all that much, as I've found its dynamic range and headroom to be lessened down a bit with noticeably less space for panning/staging and imaging of instruments and vocalists from most headphone pairings.

For in-ear monitors, the A306 (Japan model) has no issues at all in driving most in-ear monitors with low impedance (15-32 Ohms). After having listened to my Sony WF1000XM5 wireless earphones (mostly with my phone or laptop) for a while, I recently acquired a new set of Kiwi Ears Quintet (1DD + 2BAs + 1 planar magnetic driver + 1 piezoelectric bone conductor driver) to pair with my A306.





The Quintet (with stock cable in 3.5) and A306 pairing gives a fairly smooth-spacious presentation with decent detail retrieval, and for casual listening, it does fairly well with most classical music and vocals, some contemporary jazz and blues, classic rock and instrumentals, and electronic music. In comparison to some upper end mid-fi and high end iems, the Quintet does not sound as engaging & dynamic as some of the other more 'refined' higher end iems I've owned/heard. Its overall presentation in depth and width falls more along a flat feel of a center-staged plane with a sort of 'squared in' feel. Panning & imaging of instruments and vocals sound and feel as if they are moving in a more fixed manner from one side towards the center to the other, and sounds coming from the outer sides feel a bit angled off with not as much presence of detail. Although the Quintet is not as highly technical performing/dynamic as other iems in the higher end range of mid-fi, it's a fairly enjoyable listen with A306 for a bit of a relaxed & casual listening session.

Despite some of the downsides mentioned, I'll have to spend some more time with Quintet and A306 and see where it stays in my use case & rotation, as I've found some slight changes in tonality and stage of low end and mids when using a different cable with copper and silver. Not sure if a 3.5 balanced cable in a higher wire count will do much of an improvement with A306, but I'm open to trying one out soon (maybe Effect Audio), along with other chi-fi iems and upcoming sources, this year.

 

[Hinomotocho]

I'm hoping to purchase mine tomorrow, the New Years sales in Japan have knocked a bit off and I'll be getting tax free. As I'm in Japan my search for cases produces many options including secondhand at e earphone, but it gets a bit confusing. How many cases are available? Excluding the flap style which doesn't work for my usage - I see a silicon, TPU, FatBear, Musashino hard case and maybe leather? If they have a clear hard plastic case I'd go for that and maybe the FatBear for occasions I might need to up the protection.
As I want to demo some iems my WM1Z, aptly named 'gold brick' left the house for the first time, but due to the weight and bulk including carry case I would seriously think twice about travelling with it next time. Maybe I'll be fine with the straight up A306, but if I was wanting a bit more beef to demo more demanding iems or headphones what are people using for an amp? I think I've seen some people using USB out to a dac/amp, but does anyone amp the 3.5mm? Some of the Fiio options like Q11 are an almost perfect match for size, any others that are a recommend option?

 

[Daniel Johnston]

I'm hoping to purchase mine tomorrow, the New Years sales in Japan have knocked a bit off and I'll be getting tax free. As I'm in Japan my search for cases produces many options including secondhand at e earphone, but it gets a bit confusing. How many cases are available? Excluding the flap style which doesn't work for my usage - I see a silicon, TPU, FatBear, Musashino hard case and maybe leather? If they have a clear hard plastic case I'd go for that and maybe the FatBear for occasions I might need to up the protection.
As I want to demo some iems my WM1Z, aptly named 'gold brick' left the house for the first time, but due to the weight and bulk including carry case I would seriously think twice about travelling with it next time. Maybe I'll be fine with the straight up A306, but if I was wanting a bit more beef to demo more demanding iems or headphones what are people using for an amp? I think I've seen some people using USB out to a dac/amp, but does anyone amp the 3.5mm? Some of the Fiio options like Q11 are an almost perfect match for size, any others that are a recommend option?

Works great with USB C to Mojo2 and Woo WA8. Kills the portability you're looking for a bit. Even without amp, it drives the Z1R pretty well from 3.5. You can get a 3.5 to 4.4 adapter for convenience as well.

 

[rga02]

Picked up the A300 in Sapporo a few days ago. If anything, it is already 100000000x better than the A105, just for battery life alone. It will be primarily used as my commuter DAP, replacing my A55 and A105.

So nearly a year after my A300 purchase, I have to say it is probably one of my favorite devices ever.
It pairs nicely with the Final A3000/4000 and the IER-M7.

 

[FreeTime]

I am guessing that the DAP is powered off when when you are charging, in which case it will charge to 100%. The DAP needs to be on to engage the battery care.

It was power on while charging to 100% with battery care on, think as Mr Walkman mention, Android 13 has the percentage scale change, which the 100% is 90%. So far, no battery drains or abnormal issues. The charging is quite fast too, from 20% to 95% charge takes less than 30 mins with 20W apple charger and it can last 20+ hrs on cable, about 9hrs on bluetooth with DSEE. Quite happy with Android 13, the ram memory usage is lower too from 1.7gb to 1.5gb now.

 

[FreeTime]

Just a quick post of recommendation, if anyone is looking for a new sd card for this cute player, give Samsung Pro Ultimate a shot. I love it so much after trying on ZM2, that I bought a 2nd one for A306. It has a new 28nm host controller that does some magic to both my dap, shall not go into the details of sound improvement as it differs to everyone. I will keep it to one post on sd card as I know it is sensitive issues.

 

[ColdsnapBry]

So nearly a year after my A300 purchase, I have to say it is probably one of my favorite devices ever.
It pairs nicely with the Final A3000/4000 and the IER-M7.

Nice one. Just curious, why not use a phone instead?

 

[Zimmy68]

Is your A306 a North America ( US or Canada ), EU, or Singapore model? The A306 and the ZX707 are volume capped/no hi-gain in these countries. The cap also affects the regular output, not just Hi-Gain.
The WM1AM2 is only capped in EU, so it caused a lot of confusion, as the A306 and ZX707 were expected to be also uncapped. (The A105/ZX507 were only capped in EU) So it was a surprise to see the new models A306 and ZX707 were capped in extra countries, when they were released.

I'm well aware of the volume capped issues of the US model. Hence the reason to pick up IEMs.

 

[Clavier]

Nice one. Just curious, why not use a phone instead?

Good question. I actually thought the A306 will make no difference when used via my Bluetooth/LDAC headphones (Sony WH-1000XM3 & WF-1000XM4) compared to our cell phones here (Samsung S10-5G, S23+). Well, I was wrong. I was really surprised that playback on my headphones was significantly better with the A306 compared to the cell phones (all LDAC). LDAC is only a transmission standard, but before the data can be sent, they have to be compressed (at least files with higher bit rates). The A306’s algorithms for compressing the FLACs down to the LDAC bitrate seem to be significantly better (and/or its BT module is better somehow). With the PowerAmp app (which uses the Android sound system and has no own drivers), however, I don't manage to achieve the sound quality of the Sony Walkman app. Same for UAPP (even with bit-perfect), albeit better than PowerAmp.
Btw, I had a capped EU version (FW 1.02), and have now an uncapped version from Japan (FW 1.02 & 2.00.02). The findings described apply to both.

 

[rga02]

Nice one. Just curious, why not use a phone instead?

Cause I commute by train and sometimes the bus. While my Xperia 1II (probably one of the few Xperia owners in Chicago lol) can play audio just fine, I'd rather not drain the battery, not to mention get constant notifications, etc.

For home, I have the ZX507 that I listen to among other Sony DAPs

 

[psikey]

On the non-Android devices, even though it charges to 100%, the 100% is actually 90%. Maybe it's the same on these players too - it shows 100% on a scale of 0 to 90 instead of 0 to 100.

I've found the OS needs to be on and it will stop under 100% but not 80%, its more like 90-95% for me.

If you have auto power off enabled while charging again it will then charge to 100% as OS not monitoring to shut off early.

 

[psikey]

Good question. I actually thought the A306 will make no difference when used via my Bluetooth/LDAC headphones (Sony WH-1000XM3 & WF-1000XM4) compared to our cell phones here (Samsung S10-5G, S23+). Well, I was wrong. I was really surprised that playback on my headphones was significantly better with the A306 compared to the cell phones (all LDAC). LDAC is only a transmission standard, but before the data can be sent, they have to be compressed (at least files with higher bit rates). The A306’s algorithms for compressing the FLACs down to the LDAC bitrate seem to be significantly better (and/or its BT module is better somehow). With the PowerAmp app (which uses the Android sound system and has no own drivers), however, I don't manage to achieve the sound quality of the Sony Walkman app. Same for UAPP (even with bit-perfect), albeit better than PowerAmp.
Btw, I had a capped EU version (FW 1.02), and have now an uncapped version from Japan (FW 1.02 & 2.00.02). The findings described apply to both.

I find completely opposite. My WF1000XM5 and Fiio BTR7 with IEM's over LDAC at 990 sounds same as from my S23+ LDAC 990 if using Sony in DIRECT as I do, just that way more stable connection with my S23+

If you use any of the Walkman audio tweaks (Walkman app only) then I believe they are effective over BT too. So maybe the sound you prefer with Sony Sound adjustments, or do you use in DIRECT mode?