[BadReligionPunk]

I read 2-5 ohms, but It for sure could be 10 ohms which is teetering on What territory. One thing for sure is that multi BA IEMS and some of my earbuds sound completely different on Sony then other daps. I mainly purchased for the BT and it has performed beautifully with 1000mk2.

 

[Ddhead]

Here's a opinion by me.. Something I found out to be better.. Worth the try
For all Sony Walkman including those ZX or A series here.. I tried it all.. All stock Walkman with Equalizer turned off sound like the 60hz boosted, 400hz lowered, 2.5khz boosted, 6.3khz boosted

Turning off Equalizer makes music sound thin and piercing. Vocal sound very bad.

The solution I accidentally found was...
Turn off all other built in enhancements like DSEE and DC Phase Linearizer except Equalizer

TURN ON EQUALIZER BUT SET ALL VALUE TO ZERO!

Try it.. You'll notice the bass is not so bloated as before , low mid 400hz become better.. Thicker body Vocal.. The 2.5khz frequency sharpness hiss disappeared too, or else the word T or S sound like a sharpened edge knives sisss... Pain and piercing.

In the end the music sounded more natural and flat and accurate!

Is just my opinion , but you can try and see if you liked it

The gears I used to test
Walkman A45 Vol 97 + Fiio L16 cable to Fiio A3 High Gain Vol <5 + Audio Technica M40x

 

[N0BOX]

Heh, I guess I'm like one other person posting here: I bought the A45 at Crutchfield and popped in here to see if there was anything else that was interesting to learn about it after charging it, loading it up with some music, and tweaking the settings to get it sounding just right... only to find it's a new product. Well, I guess I got in on the ground floor by accident.

I listened to it in the store with my Noble 3 universal IEMs, so I knew it was going to be worth the cost, even if it only paired well with them. Turns out it drives my HD 650s just great without an amp, so I'm completely happy with my purchase as far as sound quality is concerned and that it plays well with all the equipment I already own. My only gripe so far is that it won't detect any of the music I have on the microSD card I normally keep in my phone for music/video/images. I hope I don't need to reformat the card and move all that stuff back, but i guess I'll do that if it will work. Sadly, Sony doesn't give us any true microSD troubleshooting suggestions, nor do they even bother to tell us what the requirements are for microSD cards to work in the DAP.

 

[symo]

Heh, I guess I'm like one other person posting here: I bought the A45 at Crutchfield and popped in here to see if there was anything else that was interesting to learn about it after charging it, loading it up with some music, and tweaking the settings to get it sounding just right... only to find it's a new product. Well, I guess I got in on the ground floor by accident.

I listened to it in the store with my Noble 3 universal IEMs, so I knew it was going to be worth the cost, even if it only paired well with them. Turns out it drives my HD 650s just great without an amp, so I'm completely happy with my purchase as far as sound quality is concerned and that it plays well with all the equipment I already own. My only gripe so far is that it won't detect any of the music I have on the microSD card I normally keep in my phone for music/video/images. I hope I don't need to reformat the card and move all that stuff back, but i guess I'll do that if it will work. Sadly, Sony doesn't give us any true microSD troubleshooting suggestions, nor do they even bother to tell us what the requirements are for microSD cards to work in the DAP.

You will need to create a Folder named Music in the root directory of the SD card and Transfer all your music into that directory. That is just one of the Sonys little quarks.

 

[N0BOX]

You will need to create a Folder named Music in the root directory of the SD card and Transfer all your music into that directory. That is just one of the Sonys little quarks.

Ahh, thanks! I'll try that out, then. Right now my music is all in the "media" folder because I also load videos on the card from time to time. I'll just rename the folder and I should be set

 

[defbear]

I have a NW-45. I usually use it via Bluetooth. I got curious and bought a set of the IER-NW500N/NE headphones. Score! So that’s what the ClearAudio+ is for Big sound. The Noise Cancelling and Ambient Mode work quite well. A very good sounding and versatile set of earbuds I would buy again. Does anyone have any experience with the MDR-NW750N/NE? They seem an older set.

 

[bandario]

I have a NW-45. I usually use it via Bluetooth. I got curious and bought a set of the IER-NW500N/NE headphones. Score! So that’s what the ClearAudio+ is for Big sound. The Noise Cancelling and Ambient Mode work quite well. A very good sounding and versatile set of earbuds I would buy again. Does anyone have any experience with the MDR-NW750N/NE? They seem an older set.

Really? I'm interested. I mean, they're expensive but not stupid expensive and they are designed to match with this player apparently. Unfortunately there are a lot of reviews in completely the opposite direction, how highly do you rate your ear?

 

[rsfaisal]

I have a NW-45. I usually use it via Bluetooth. I got curious and bought a set of the IER-NW500N/NE headphones. Score! So that’s what the ClearAudio+ is for Big sound. The Noise Cancelling and Ambient Mode work quite well. A very good sounding and versatile set of earbuds I would buy again. Does anyone have any experience with the MDR-NW750N/NE? They seem an older set.

I bought A46 version just to have that NW500N included. And yes you're right. Clear Audio+ works very well.

 

[defbear]

Really? I'm interested. I mean, they're expensive but not stupid expensive and they are designed to match with this player apparently. Unfortunately there are a lot of reviews in completely the opposite direction, how highly do you rate your ear?

I rate my ear quite high. Almost six feet off the ground. I have been enjoying my NW-A45with a set of Shure SE846’s and Sennheiser IE800’s. When I ordered the NW500 headphones, I assumed they would be a nice match to the Walkman and terrible with everything else. Time for a quick test. So to keep it simple, I got out my trusty Pono Player and the A45. I listened to the Pono with the IE800’s. Super! I then tried the NW500’s in the Pono. Atrocious, unlistenable. I listened to the same tracks on the A45 with the IE800’s Wonderful! I then plugged in the NW500’s into the A45 and chose them in Setup. Played the same tracks. Just great. Wide soundstage great bass and treble. My favorite IEM with this player. A completely different headphone now. So if you have a compatible Sony Walkman they might be a great set to try. But perhaps useless with an iPhone etc.

 

[507447]

Is it common knowledge that you can enable playlist creation on the A45?
I know that people are aware that you can remove the volume cap using SonyNWDestTool, but it's also possible to enable line in recording and playlist creation

I wrote about it here, showing before and after pictures.
https://jtm.gg/walkman-create-playlists/

Hi, the link isn't available anymore. How can I enable line in recording and playlist creation on a NW-A45?

 

[QsTree]

Follow the link
https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SonyNWDestTool

You need to download the tool (both, win & linux are available) and you need to follow the instruction to remove the volume cap by changing the language area.

I have tried Japan as language --> worked fine. Line in rec and playlist creation is activated in parallel by switching to "J".
Maybe it also works to select "East Europe" but I have not checked.

 

[507447]

Follow the link
https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SonyNWDestTool

You need to download the tool (both, win & linux are available) and you need to follow the instruction to remove the volume cap by changing the language area.

I have tried Japan as language --> worked fine. Line in rec and playlist creation is activated in parallel by switching to "J".
Maybe it also works to select "East Europe" but I have not checked.

Hi, thanks for the reply. Tried with "J" and "CEW", those have the same result: They display the "new" features but I can't make playlists. I've rest all the settings like I was told by the guide but it throws an error everytime I try to create or delete a playlist.

EDIT:
Now everything is working fine. I think there are some issue with my SD card, its a 200GB San Disk. For some reason if I drop all the songs in the MUSIC folder it won't create any playlist but if I put them in a sub folder (like MUSIC/Songs) it works just fine.

It even displayed me 0 bytes of free of storage in windows for some reason but with a check of the disk it fixed itself without losing any data (I think it was just windows that was dumb)

 

[formyears]

I use 2 sd cards that I swap which is tedious at best. using the a45's usb directly to my stax d10 works out nice its very portable and hold many hours of my hi res files.
used the audio out in the beginning and that was ok. the best control of the a45 was directly on the sony ta zh1es using the Walkman cable, and z1rs. I'm a sony fan.

 

[Typhoon1944]

Hi

Thanks for the input. I have ordered the Fiio m9 as it seems to fit my requirements pretty well so ilI' see how that goes. Yes they do cost more, but I do like the idea of all in one place.
If it's not what I want then I will probably give up for now and use my laptop or phone for listening.
As I have said I do only have wireless bluetooth headphones and although I can use them wired they wont apparently make much difference as they are designed for wireless listening rather than wired.
I would like to be able to compare my B&W PX with some quality wired headphones say the hd600 series for example to see if I notice much difference with those.

Did the M9 work with the PXs? I recently had to return an Audioquest Dragonfly Red to Amazon as they hissed something awful when connected with the 3.5mm audio cable. Spoke to Audioquest and they said it was a known problem with the DSP of the headphones introducing aliasing. I'm considering getting a dedicated Hi-Res audio player instead of a DAC connected to my phone but don't want to get stung again with poor audio quality.

 

[mhitchcock]

Hi

Yes it worked fine with my Px and I was also able to install Spotify easily. I tried tidal premium as well.
In comparison to my phone ( Moto z play )
that is aptx hd compatible I am not really sure if I could tell any real difference in sound quality with bluetooth. I did try the px wired as well, but couldn't j if it was better or not. Possibly my ears being 50 lol.
While I was using the m9 I didn't notice any hiss.
I did like the fiio, but returned it as I couldn't really justify keeping it as it wasn't a big enough upgrade in sound quality from my phone. Whether that is because of aptx hd from both phone and headphones I am not sure.
The build quality was good and felt like it would last, although I did on occasion find it was a bit laggy.
One other thing I tried, but couldn't get it to work was airplay to my marantz nr1608 available receiver. Bluetooth did work though.
I did also ask a question about using the px wired, but from what I understand is the px have a built in dac so using an external dac will probably have little effect.. correct me if I am wrong.

I think if I was wanting to get an improvement in audio quality I would try some open backs say hd660s and a decent dac and amp.
I think it would be interesting to try a comparison, but I wonder if I could really tell any difference in audio quality.

Overall I am very pleased with my Px and phone so will stick with that for now.

Sorry for the rambling