[HeadphonesRock]

Does this mean you Don t use the pc windows media player , Library, etc. Take it the highest files I use at 192 kbs are way down the quality of flac ?
If always used media player. And got far to many cds on pc and back ups to change now... They don't sound to bad to be honest...using speakers , or headphones...home or on the move.

I only use the Sony's Media Centre because it works perfectly with my NW-A45. Haven't had any problem so far with it finding album covers. It just seemed like the logical software to use with Sony products.

I notice the difference between FLAC and 192kbps coding, but the Sony WH-1000XM2's are fairly good in their own rights.

 

[mhitchcock]

Does this mean you Don t use the pc windows media player , Library, etc. Take it the highest files I use at 192 kbs are way down the quality of flac ?
If always used media player. And got far to many cds on pc and back ups to change now... They don't sound to bad to be honest...using speakers , or headphones...home or on the move.

I've only just started to get back into my music recently when my wife bought me the very nice B&W PX. I am just investigating which is the best option for playing my music apart from direct from my Arcam cd player and Nad amp.
So far I think I have decided to get the Sony NW A45 and a 128gb SD card.
And see how that goes. I know I could pop it in my phone but I would like to keep that desperate as I do have quite a lot of apps.
I've also decided that having my pc for music is not the best idea as I won't have it with me in the same room all the time.
I guess there isn't the one best option like high quality lots of storage and streaming from Tidal or Spotify.
I will see how it goes with the NW A45. That one seems to fit my needs apart from missing Spotify.
I will try looking on my laptop for the best option for ripping CDs.

Enough rambling from me for now

 

[mhitchcock]

Does this mean you Don t use the pc windows media player , Library, etc. Take it the highest files I use at 192 kbs are way down the quality of flac ?
If always used media player. And got far to many cds on pc and back ups to change now... They don't sound to bad to be honest...using speakers , or headphones...home or on the move.

To be honest I've only just recently got back into my music since my wife bought me the b&W PX headphones. As yet I haven't started ripping CDs to any device because I am still researching which is the best way to go. I do have an Arcam cd player that I play through my Nad amp.....it does sound very nice. I play it through my b&W 620i floorstanders. Ancient I know but still sound nice.

That's partly why I am looking at the Sony portable players. I do have some wired headphones that I can plug into the audio player hence the reason I am looking at the nwa45. I have decided that the zx 300 is too much and I probably won't appriciate it fully.

Regarding copying I will just go for the highest quality I can . I may download a cd ripping program and rip at the best quality available. I will post when I do.
I have used windows media player in the past and found it ok at the time.

What I would really like is a media player that has a large storage capacity that has an app for browsing my cd collection that also connects to my av receiver and also does things like tidal and Spotify with bluetooth so I can connect to my headphones. I am sure something like it existsi but will also cost a small fortune.

 

[mhitchcock]

Sorry folks,

I didn't think my earlier post had posted so I re wrote it lol. Funny how when you think you have said the same but it only ends up vaguely similar.

 

[bandario]

Given that you will be using bluetooth and your headphones have a built-in amp anyway, you can't really go wrong with the NW-A45. With the price of microSD cards these days, your concerns over storage space will disappear into the sands of time. I found at present that the price point of the 256gb Sandisk cards is the sweet spot - everything larger than that still attracts a hefty premium.

I just got back from a month of travel with my NW-A45...I charged it once before I left, and once whilst I was on the road and kept it turned off when not in use. Worked a treat.

I will also say that once you start finding yourself on planes, boats, buses etc the noise-cancelling of the sony 1000xm2 really comes into its own.

I sat 2 seats away from a screaming baby on one flight, and once I let the noise cancelling configure to my environment I never heard another second of that nightmare. I was in my own little world with flight attendants bringing me drinks. It was fantastic.

As far as using windows media player to rip your cd collection...I would strongly advise you look into other options. It has been a lot of years since I was in the habit of ripping cds (it is quicker, easier and more reliable to just download a FLAC copy) I know that the results I used to get out of windows media player rips VS an application that comes configured to use the LAME codec were worlds apart.

Hydrogen Audio rings a bell?? maybe. I can't remember.

I'm not going to put the sites on here as I will probably be banned but there are several good sites to find FLAC content that is already encoded at a bitrate suitable for LDAC playback on good headphones. Since you are using APT-X HD you might settle for 320kbps mp3s, but make sure they are well encoded!

There's also plenty of sites to find probably all of your albums in this format, and if your internet connection is half respectable it will take far less time and effort to just download them.

The way I see it, if you already bought the CDs then there is no crime taking place but I guess my logic is fairly flexible on IP law.

Good luck.

 

[mhitchcock]

Good points thank you. I will have a look and try to find out what you suggest. I understand about SD card storage being quite reasonable now.

At the moment I can see it's a bit of a minefield regards to streaming and listening options. I do have a marantz available 1608 receiver that's also coupled with my Nad amp for non headphone listening. Works great.

Ordered a nw-a45 and zx300 but will probably return the 300

I don't mind ripping my CDs to my pc hard drive or storage card. Part of it I guess.

I don't even know where to look for in the not quite legal sites anyway.

Appreciate your ideas

 

[dannydj]

@mhitchcock

I have the A45 and the PXs, used daily for since June and extremely happy with the combo. As others have said the PXs DAC will be doing all the work and what a mighty fine job it does with Apt X HD.

As I have said on other threads ... Do not get fixated with Kbps numbers, it is the quality of the DAC and how it deals with the incoming signal that counts, also the stability of the incioming signal. Yes LDAC has a higher rate then Apt X HD but it is not as stable ... I actually bought a pair of sonys 1000mk2 to test LDAC and the PXs sounded much better using Apt X HD ( Flac 16 + 24 1400kbps +) that it wasn't even a close call imo (probably prefer the PXs presentation of sound though )

If numbers are your thing then the PXs upscale all incoming signals to 700 something kbps. Whatever the PXs do in dealing with the signal Flac (and even MP3) files sound phenomenal for a set of BT headphones. Also the way the PXs deliver the sound with the angled drivers are stunning.

Regarding the micro SD. I started with 128 three months ago and just this week purchased a 400gb. So basically buy the biggest you can afford as they fill up quick ( 90% of my library is Flac ).

Happy listening ... Btw the PXs really to get better with time.

 

[mhitchcock]

I think I will download dbpoweramp and give that ago. I have also got 3 months of B&w s society of sound as well with my PX so look forward to trying a couple af albums from there.
You've got me thinking now about the 128gb card I've ordered..maybe I should have ordered the 256gb instead when it was on offer? Oh well

Right off to try some cd ripping after I have made tea.

Thanks

 

[nampramos]

Does anyone know if the USB DAC on the A45 has been tested against other dedicated DACs?

I'm on the market for a DAC but if this little A45 is a great performer at that, then I'll just skip it.

One DAC I'm considering is the Massdrop x Grace Design Standard DAC that has the following specs:

• DAC chip: AKM AK4452
• Audio formats: Up to 24 bit/96 kHz
• Frequency response, 20Hz–20 kHz: +/-0.02 dB
• THD+N at 20 Hz -0.15 dBFS: 0.0013%
• THD+N at 100 Hz, -0.15 dBFS: 0.0013%
• THD+N at 10 kHz, -0.15 dBFS: 0.0024%
• IMD CCIF, -6.03 dBFS, 19/20kHz, 24/96k: 0.0005%
• IMD SMPTE -6 dBFS, 24/96k: 0.0015%
• Noise, A-weighted: -105 dBu
• Dynamic range, A-weighted: >114 dB
• Linearity, -90 dBFS: -0.07 dB
• Crosstalk at 1 kHz, -10 dBFS (3.5mm jack): -102 dB
• Sum of jitter components at 11,025 Hz, -1 dBFS: -133 dB
• Maximum output: 2.15VRMS
• USB controller: XMOS XU208-128-TQ64

Thank you for your help.

 

[jamor]

My Sony NW-A45 has a loose jack now What are my options? Does Sony actually cover this kind of thing cover under warranty?

 

[Gosod]

My Sony NW-A45 has a loose jack now What are my options? Does Sony actually cover this kind of thing cover under warranty?

This is a complex issue, as you usually have to give it to the test.

 

[jamor]

Okay well I guess I'll call Sony tomorrow and see what happens.

 

[headpiece747]

Just got the NW-A45 and love it so far but the one thing that wasn't really talked about a lot until I tried it then looked it up on Google searches and this thread is that it doesn't support .cue sheets for FLAC. Just started ripping my collection from CD to single file FLAC with .cue so will have to split all of them. Can't believe my Sansa Clip+ and Colorfly C3 can do this and the NW-A45 can't.

 

[jamor]

Usually Walkman will have different ports and might be different from which you are using.

You need to connect Headphone Out (Stereo Mini-jack).

Are you using the supplied cable?

This seems like that the headphones your are trying to use are not compatible with the walk-man.

As you can see the initial part of our conversation was quite bad. Didn't think this was going to go well. But after a few minutes of explaining she began to understand and talked to her supervisor who approved my RMA.

You have to be firm and not let them treat you like a dummy.

I am sending it back and they are sending me a new replacement.

Thank you SONY!

 

[Uncle_Leon]

As you can see the initial part of our conversation was quite bad. Didn't think this was going to go well. But after a few minutes of explaining she began to understand and talked to her supervisor who approved my RMA.

You have to be firm and not let them treat you like a dummy.

I am sending it back and they are sending me a new replacement.

Thank you SONY!

I've also had this for a while now Going to contact customer service now.