[nanaholic]

It’s so sad that a company like SONY is now having difficulty creating a simple android or iOS app to control their Walkman because they cannot involve people working in the same building! What a shame. I really feel sorry to hear such childish excuses or complaints... what a disappointment.

It's not a childish excuse, in big companies different team often are not allowed to work across their own team boundaries, and internal politics quite often gets in the way. If you think that is childish, it probably just means you've never worked in a big company.

It's funny you brought up the PlayStation, because Kutaragi is very open about how much trouble he had and the amount of ridicule from the different Sony teams he got when he tried starting that project, because he was making "kids stuff" when the real man are making the important things.

 

[purk]

My ibasso DX50 also got a firmware update recently.

 

[nanaholic]

The last DX50 firmware on iBasso's website is 2016, I'll be very interested to hear what you got.

 

[purk]

The last DX50 firmware on iBasso's website is 2016, I'll be very interested to hear what you got.

And when did iBasso release that player? 2013 is your answer and that's $250 player.

If Sony is so great, why not doing anything to the firmware of the ZX1 and ZX2 and ZX100? They didn't provide anymore firmware upgrade after 9 months. The 1Z and 1A are the only two exceptions with firmware upgrade after 1.5 years. How about the Vinyl processing on my ZH1ES?

 

[Kakki]

It's not a childish excuse, in big companies different team often are not allowed to work across their own team boundaries, and internal politics quite often gets in the way. If you think that is childish, it probably just means you've never worked in a big company.

It's funny you brought up the PlayStation, because Kutaragi is very open about how much trouble he had and the amount of ridicule from the different Sony teams he got when he tried starting that project, because he was making "kids stuff" when the real man are making the important things.

The real value is to make changes that are considered to be difficult. That is my feeling based on more than 10 years of work experience in one of the largest professional consulting firm in the world.
It’s funny that you brought up Kutaragi-san that he is one of the true leaders who changed this world. He could bring different companies together to make evolution... when Sato-san is having difficulty to get an engineer from a team next door.
I will bring up Linn again but they are releasing iOS remote control app for their network player. They are originally just a hardware company and had no engineers for app development. On the other hand SONY is releasing 10s of iOS apps and of course they are creating Xperia and related apps.
What you mentioned only suggested that how Sato-san is small as a leader and has no power to bring changes to this world...
If you don’t think his excuses are childish then it probably just means you've never worked in a big company and have no experience making big changes.

 

[Whitigir]

And when did iBasso release that player? 2013 is your answer and that's $250 player.

If Sony is so great, why not doing anything to the firmware of the ZX1 and ZX2 and ZX100? They didn't provide anymore firmware upgrade after 9 months. The 1Z and 1A are the only two exceptions with firmware upgrade after 1.5 years. How about the Vinyl processing on my ZH1ES?

Your Dx200Ti is coming tomorrow . Hope you are excited over it lol

 

[nanaholic]

And when did iBasso release that player? 2013 is your answer and that's $250 player.

If Sony is so great, why not doing anything to the firmware of the ZX1 and ZX2 and ZX100? They didn't provide anymore firmware upgrade after 9 months. The 1Z and 1A are the only two exceptions with firmware upgrade after 1.5 years. How about the Vinyl processing on my ZH1ES?

Please don't lie - the ZX1 was released in 2013 and it received its last update in 2015, which is 2 years full support, the ZX2 being really no different than the ZX1 build upon it so it already had a fully working firmware. Also the comparison to begin with is apples and oranges - the ZX1 and ZX2 are Android devices with full Google Play support, Sony has been very clear why they dropped Android with Play is because it requires certification from Google, which adds cost. It's also another reason why you now see almost no DAPs with Android with Play Store support, that's just the fact of the industry. They did drop the ZX100 likely because it didn't sell well and was a dead end (non-touch), but in terms of stability the ZX100 was solid and didn't lack anything.

Again the ZH1ES is a different team product, take it up with that team.

 

[nanaholic]

The real value is to make changes that are considered to be difficult. That is my feeling based on more than 10 years of work experience in one of the largest professional consulting firm in the world.
It’s funny that you brought up Kutaragi-san that he is one of the true leaders who changed this world. He could bring different companies together to make evolution... when Sato-san is having difficulty to get an engineer from a team next door.

If you work as a consultant then I'm even more surprised you think just grabbing resources from another team is easy. Based on my 5+ years working at one of the largest Japanese electronics company and 10+ years in Japan in general, not being able to grab another person/resources from another team is pretty much par for the course, as each project/team is supposed to manage their own resource and budget so no division head will just let you grab their person and have them work on another project on their budget - this simply won't fly. You either hire your own staff on your own team budget, or the other team will bill you for the manhours internally for borrowing their staff to work on your project - even if that programmer is originally doing nothing but twirling his thumbs - this is extremely par for course.

Also Kutaragi was known to be a big douche - his story regarding how he made the PlayStation was that he basically black-mailed everyone around him to get things done, it paid off once for the PS1 but only because a majority of the people at Sony was doing it out of spite because Nintendo pulled the rug under them by cancelling their order for the PlayStation add-on, so they just sucked it up with the crap Kutaragi was giving them and united against Nintendo the external enemy. Then Kutaragi's head got stuck in the clouds and ride the wave for the PS2 and he screwed up big time for the PS3 and lost 2 generations worth of massive video game income for the company. He's hardly someone to be held up with such high regard in terms of working ethics and achievements. Someone revolutionary but keeps a nice friendly profile will be like Miyamoto-san of Nintendo.

 

[purk]

I own the ZX1 and ZX2 and paid nearly $2k for both. They are very lackluster now in term of operation and deserve a software update. Pleaee don't give me those certification excuses. How about a native DSD playback for zx100, ZX1, and 2?

Whether u like my opinion or not, that's how I feel about those two players. You seem to think that the Walkman team can do no wrong and that's where we really differ. Myself on the hand is one of Sony's biggest fan, but I am not afraid to call them out when they are shortchanging their customers when I see one. Have u worked at Sony at one point?

 

[Kakki]

If you work as a consultant then I'm even more surprised you think just grabbing resources from another team is easy. Based on my 5+ years working at one of the largest Japanese electronics company and 10+ years in Japan in general, not being able to grab another person/resources from another team is pretty much par for the course, as each project/team is supposed to manage their own resource and budget so no division head will just let you grab their person and have them work on another project on their budget - this simply won't fly. You either hire your own staff on your own team budget, or the other team will bill you for the manhours internally for borrowing their staff to work on your project - even if that programmer is originally doing nothing but twirling his thumbs - this is extremely par for course.

Also Kutaragi was known to be a big douche - his story regarding how he made the PlayStation was that he basically black-mailed everyone around him to get things done, it paid off once for the PS1 but only because a majority of the people at Sony was doing it out of spite because Nintendo pulled the rug under them by cancelling their order for the PlayStation add-on, so they just sucked it up with the crap Kutaragi was giving them and united against Nintendo the external enemy. Then Kutaragi's head got stuck in the clouds and ride the wave for the PS2 and he screwed up big time for the PS3 and lost 2 generations worth of massive video game income for the company. He's hardly someone to be held up with such high regard in terms of working ethics and achievements. Someone revolutionary but keeps a nice friendly profile will be like Miyamoto-san of Nintendo.

I'm really shocked to hear that, in the largest Japanese electronics company, there is no proper approval process to get budget / resources for new projects!!

Getting new projects / resources approved is not that big deal if you can write a good project plan / business cases to convince the management members in your company.
That is... at least how my clients are getting external resources like me. Even young manager level members can get 1 million-dollar size of budget approved if there is a good reason starting the projects. It seems that you have very limited experience doing this kind of process after 15+ years of work experience...

Since there are AK Connect, Hiby Links and Chord Poly in the market (and also, SONY is already selling Bluetooth remote control hardware for Walkman...) it will NOT be that difficult to get a project approved to create a remote control app for Walkman. and also, there are people keep requesting such an app in the HiFi events and in this kind of HiFi forums.

 

[krayzie]

Japanese company or not it really depends on how bad you need that resource and who's heading the project.

Look at Toyota, when they couldn't get the 86/BRZ FA20 engine to make 200hp and rev beyond 7000rpm during development they managed to get the engineer in charge of engine development for the Lexus LF-A to lend a hand and figured things out. But then the 86/BRZ was Toyota CEO's pet project (i.e. success at all costs).

I forget which Sony book I've read, either Made in Japan or Digital Dreams: The Work of the Sony Design Center; but I thought at one point Sony upper management actually encouraged dialog and idea exchange between teams across normal company boundaries, then again that was decades ago.

Anyway I look forward to that possible DSD Remastering Engine firmware update for the NW-WM1.

 

[Whitigir]

LFA is still Toyota, isn’t it ?

 

[krayzie]

LFA is still Toyota, isn’t it ?

Yes and that was also the CEO's pet project so nobody's gonna say no when it comes to resource sharing, they must have a special cost center of unlimited funds lol!

I'm wondering if this DMP-Z1 is filling in the niche gap of yesteryear's CDP-R1/DAS-R1 or CDP-R10/DAS-R10 or SCD-1 type of product. Sony's personal audio group never really had a product of this price point in the past and now that the disc spinner is a sunset technology which merits no further development. I've read on the web a while back that a very expensive desktop unit that could be priced at 5 digits was going to be launched, this is probably the very product rumored.

I think they must have something else up their sleeves for the Walkman 40th anniversary. This can't be it.

And this IER-Z1R is the new non-customized Just.Ear that was rumored for a while now too I take it.

 

[addyg]

I listened to dmp-z1 during the hk show. I also compared to most of the pricest dap like the Cayin N8, hifiman R2R2000, (wm1z , sp1000 three versions). And also top of the show Audio Technica L5000 desktop sets x2, Sony's own desktop amplifier set.

 

[Whitigir]

I listened to dmp-z1 during the hk show. I also compared to most of the pricest dap like the Cayin N8, hifiman R2R2000, (wm1z , sp1000 three versions). And also top of the show Audio Technica L5000 desktop sets x2, Sony's own desktop amplifier set.

And I suppose it should kill all of those DAP as it is 2.5x in price