[novasol]

I believe I've found a serious fault with the previous version Sony's. At volume levels between 21-30, the Clear Bass creates a volume inconsistency....BADLY. It's as if the song is going up and down in volume....like turning your amplifier knob up and down rapidly every second to create a loud,soft, loud, soft effect. The higher the Clear Bass, the worse the effect. Turning off the Clear Bass fixes the problem and restores loudness to a level volume. In fact, the entire equalizer has issues. With it off, the volume is at it's appropriate loudness. Going to a custom eq setting without making any adjustments..the sound level drops a few decibels. Strangely enough, I find some songs to be worse than others. Green Day-Boulevard of Broken dreams is terrible, as is Nickleback-Someday. And no it is isn't the tracks, it is apparent on the demo ones as well. Listening to the player through the docking cable with headphones plugged into the computer eliminates the problem entirely, even if I have the Clear Bass on +3. I assume this is because it's bypassing the EQ.

I discovered this only after getting some Altec IM716's..the higher impedance made it necessary for me turn up the volume past levels I would normally listen at. It's pretty much driving me crazy now..I even went to a Sonystyle outlet and confirmed the problem on one of their store demos..

So hopefully others can try this. Use high impedance phones, crank the volume up as close to 30 as you can stand, turn up the Clear Bass, and listen.
An alternative is to plug into computer speakers or the comp itself, max the volume on the player, and you'll hear it at moderate listening levels. Try switching between EQ presets to hear the loudness difference as well. Presets with higher Clear Bass are the worst.

Please tell me I'm not crazy

 

[tstarn06]

BINGO! I thought I was nuts. I attached the 716s, turned on the A816, and the volume was going up and down (with clear bass turned to +2 and the volume in the range you specified). To check it, I hooked up the SA6s, and no such problem. What are we going to do about it. It's clear that there is some strange interaction with the 716s and the Axxx line, I just thought it as me. Now, I know better. Anyone else who has both pieces of gear needs to try it out. The 716s are unmodded. I noticed it with my last pair as well. I am going to try it with the 616s and see if it happens too. No doubt has something to do with the attenuator pod.

 

[RoadHazard]

Haven't noticed anything like that with my Denon AH-C551s plugged into my A818. I usually keep the EQ completely flat though, since the phones sound so great on their own, but I have played around with the EQ settings and Clear Bass of course - especially with the included MDR-EX082s, which really need a bass boost.
But then again maybe I shouldn't if only happens with your 716s. Why would it only happen with certain phones, though? Is it just because of their higher impedance, or...?

 

[ShinyFalcon]

I have owned two A818s, and I think I notice a difference between the two A818s that I owned. Headphones used is the Denon C700.

My first A818, which I sold to a member here on Head-fi, bought from Amazon during Christmas, has a not completely flat screen. It has a flat curve about 1mm in length on the side, so a screen protector will not fill up the sides completely. When I tested this A818 with a song from the Ultrasone test CD (track 14), the striking of the chimes has a powerful attack. You can hear the *thud* and the *ding*. It sounded so cool! I have not heard this effect with my laptop or my other MP3 players, where I just hear the *ding*.

My second A818, bought from BHPhotoVideo, seems to have a completely flat screen. I can't find any dips on the edge on the screen. This A818, when testing with the same file, does not have the powerful attack that I was expecting. It was a simple *ding* without the *thud*. It sounds the same with my laptop + DAC, and my Meizu SL.

I did not amp my first A818, but when I amped my second A818, I can hear the volume discrepancy when I put Clear Bass at +1, volume max. It occurs at max volume, but does not seem to occur when the volume is around 18. When I hear a bass boom, the volume "lowers" and then normalizes back up. Dynamic normalizer is off. The same happens when I use the SHure volume attenuator.

I don't know if the same thing happens with the first A818, since I never put the volume that high.

 

[novasol]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadHazard /img/forum/go_quote.gif Haven't noticed anything like that with my Denon AH-C551s plugged into my A818. I usually keep the EQ completely flat though, since the phones sound so great on their own, but I have played around with the EQ settings and Clear Bass of course - especially with the included MDR-EX082s, which really need a bass boost. But then again maybe I shouldn't if only happens with your 716s. Why would it only happen with certain phones, though? Is it just because of their higher impedance, or...?

tstarn it's not the phones. I tried them with some full size Sony cans(high impedence and same thing...also hook the headphone out to a laptop or directly to computer speakers with volume maxed on the player and you'll hear it. It happens with the stock phones as well...it's just that we probably aren't using them above 21 vol....I just cranked them to 30(ouch on the ears) with Clear Bass and it's just as bad.

For the record, I have a flat screen a818..well seems flat to me anyway. ShinyFlacon could you elaborate on the different screen a little..Do you mean the screen wasn't a perfect rectangle, or not perfectly flat? If you look at the bottom pic(not my player), it looks like the screen bevels towards the edge...like that?

 

[ShinyFalcon]

Here's a rough sketch of the screens... with a touchpad:

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n...n/screen-1.jpg

Left screen is the first A818 I owned, and the right screen is the one I have now, the flat screen.

This is from memory, and I am certain that the two screens are different. The note you see is where the "Now Playing" info you see, and is raised compared to the adjacent smaller rectangles.

 

[novasol]

A quote from a reviewer on Cnet

"Let's just say that at first I was a little freaked out. I had it on the user EQ setting with the "CLEAN BASS" setting at "MAX" with the volume turned all the way up. All at once the volume started to "breathe". The "CLEAN BASS" feature seems to not only boost the bass but to cut the interfering frequencies around it to allow the bass frequencies to cut through cleanly. When the setting is too high, and the volume is at max, the volume of the surrounding music goes up and down to the beat of the kick drum (or synth, bass guitar, whatever). I can't believe none of the reviews I read mentioned this!"

I went back listened again and yeah looks like Clear Bass is doing exactly this....suppressing the higher and mid frequency volume to allow the very low frequencies to be more apparent. Music gets loud on the off-beat, and low on the bass heavy on beat. The heavier the bass hits, the more the mid/high gets suppressed. A cheap trick IMO

I am not happy

 

[Veggie_Musician]

I own a 818 and a 805

On the 818 I do get the problems mentioned by the OP which I dont get on my 805. I found the problem... dissable Dynamic normalliser on the 818 - everything sound fine now. BTW Dynamic normaliser works on the 805 so its a bug in the 818's firmware.

I must agree that the 805 sounds better than my 818. The 805 has a punchier sound with bit more "fizz" in the sound. Saying that I use my 818 all the time now and its still a fantasic sounding player - selling my 805.

 

[shigzeo]

wow tsarn, i was so confused. you plugged your 716 into your 816 - ? haha, now i get it.

 

[novasol]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veggie_Musician /img/forum/go_quote.gif I own a 818 and a 805 On the 818 I do get the problems mentioned by the OP which I dont get on my 805. I found the problem... dissable Dynamic normalliser on the 818 - everything sound fine now. BTW Dynamic normaliser works on the 805 so its a bug in the 818's firmware. I must agree that the 805 sounds better than my 818. The 805 has a punchier sound with bit more "fizz" in the sound. Saying that I use my 818 all the time now and its still a fantasic sounding player - selling my 805.

Are you sure? Makes no difference to me. Also Shiny Falson stated above he has the problem wiith dynamic normalizer off.

 

[toxicsweet]

I got the same problem guys. With Dynamic Normalizer on, it really modifies the gain kinda "on the fly" - which really annoys me with certain types of music. Club music for example - at the beginning of the track/set I hear vocals, not bass at all. They sound pretty good, loud enough and after a moment - starts the bass. And what happens? The bass is powerful enough but the mids and highs are suppressed, so I hear the vocals at lower level, though they aren't really lowered in the recording! Crap.

Turning off D.N. and setting Clear Bass on 0 or +1 really improves the situation sometimes, though it doesn't really help in loud environment, where I need the D.N. on and bass boosted to +2 or 3 sometimes. I guess the problem won't affect me that much when I upgrade the headphones with some more sensitive IEMs/canalphones - I won't have to turn up the volume over 20 and will have somewhat better isolation than with the stock canalphones I currently use.

Are the C700 sensitive enough? They're about 104db/mW, right? The stock 'phones are around 100 I believe. Will these 4db + the slightly better isolation be enough to not turn the volume over 20? I'm currently listening to between 20 and 24, sometimes up to 30 at noisy places.

 

[omph]

I was about to jump on the A818 deal until I read this thread. If there is a bug in the firmware as it seems so far from user reports on the thread, I might just get the A728/A828 instead.

Any head-fiers out there with the A728/A828 that also share these similar issues?

I would really like to get a Sony flash DAP but without the issues. Thanks in advance!

 

[toxicsweet]

omph, its not a bug in the firmware, I think the engineers wanted to give the maximum possible output in every situation, but the power of the Sony is not as much as Cowon D2's, so at a certain point you reach the maximum of the DAC's digital input and you can't go higher. The engineers decided to keep the difference between the bass, mids and highs(done by the EQ) by doing the opposite - bringing down some parts of the music. That won't really matter much when you change the stock canalbuds(or whatever) with something better with higher sensitivity - 108db/mW and more will be fine, IMO. Such an issue is definitely NOT a dealbreaker, at least for me, as I'm upgrading the 'phones soon.

I'm keeping A818 for sure.

 

[RoadHazard]

Quote:

Originally Posted by toxicsweet /img/forum/go_quote.gif Are the C700 sensitive enough? They're about 104db/mW, right? The stock 'phones are around 100 I believe. Will these 4db + the slightly better isolation be enough to not turn the volume over 20? I'm currently listening to between 20 and 24, sometimes up to 30 at noisy places.

Volume at 24-30? Man, that's incredibly loud. I know the stock phones (EX082) isolate pretty badly, but that still seems really loud. I'd be afraid of seriously damaging my hearing at that volume.
With my C551s (similar to the C700s, sensitivity is the same) I never need to put the volume over 13-14 (15 at the most, but that feels too loud most of the time). Some background noise does leak in (they're not super-isolating IEMs after all), but pretty much everything in the music can be heard clearly. So yes, the better isolation and higher sensitivity of the C551s (and the C700s, since they are similar) definitely helps, though I would personally never go over 20 with the stock phones either.

 

[ShinyFalcon]

I still think the A818 is good, despite the "problems" listed here. The A818 still sounds good with anything regardless of my comparison. The problem with suppression of mids and highs for bass was probably supposed to be like that from the start, like toxicsweet says. With the C700s I never go past 15 anyways. As long as you don't listen above 20, you won't run into problems. It may be a problem for those who want to amp the A818, as you can't amp them with Clear Bass on.