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Sony NW-A50 Series
Feb 22, 2019 at 10:51 AM Post #346 of 2,411
phower said:
I would say DAP market itself is dead. People in the real world don't even know what DAP means. I had to say "MP3 player" to make sense.
I doubt whether Sony sells even 500K or million units of each revision. Most of the Chinese DAPs have a production run of 10K or 25K units.

Head-fi and audiophilia(?) are a tiny, tiny,tiny segment of the real world.
Don't expect it to get better since the younger generation has moved on to Bluetooth headphones fully, and smartphones serve them without any issue that seems to affect only audiophiles:thinking:
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No there are some pretty active threads, check out the Fiio M6, Hidizs AP80 and a few others the M6 is so popular you can find it in stock anywhere. My Shanling M0 is selling very well also, if anything the DAP market is gaining more traction with phones doing away with headphone jacks and going to non-replaceable batteries. While working at a clients location with my M0 5 people asked to try it and 4 bought their own, the other bought a Fiio M7 as they wanted a bigger screen. They all told me they bought the DAP's because they are tired of upgrading their phones and want them to last as long as possible. Having a small audio only device reduces their phone use and battery drain.

I think the A55 is dead because of lack of availability especially in North America.
 
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Feb 23, 2019 at 2:19 AM Post #348 of 2,411
fish1050 said:
I think the A55 is dead because of lack of availability especially in North America.
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That is exactly my point. A55 is unavailable because of a lack of demand not the other way.
Ever since I got a LG G6, I stopped using my FiiO X3. The G6 measures the same or better objectively as a DAP. It can drive high impedance cans, I can listen to Spotify, use Bluetooth headphones using AptX or LDAC. Also,has an output impedance of 1 ohm. It has everything that I look forward to in a DAP except insane output voltage which is never required in practice.
It is true that not all Android phone manufactures pay attention to audio but LG still does care about audio.
 
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Feb 23, 2019 at 5:24 AM Post #349 of 2,411
Good players like the Sony NW-A55 have nothing to worry about from phones.

Phones have crappy battery life today as it is. As for phones like LG, try to use a high end full size headphone with it and the battery dies pronto.

If a manufacturer was serious about making a phone into a workable high end player, they'd make a thicker phone with a smaller screen, physical buttons for playback control, dual replaceable batteries and dual micro SD cards.

As it is, the LG DAC features are just a sales bullet point - and LG is failing as a phone manufacturer.
 
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Feb 24, 2019 at 10:03 PM Post #351 of 2,411
My LOD just came in, directly plug it to Watson amp, I found that the vol is not working (its a LOD!) however the function of EQs, Clear Audio+ etc. are still works.
P_20190225_105901.jpg
 
Feb 26, 2019 at 2:10 AM Post #354 of 2,411
phower said:
That is exactly my point. A55 is unavailable because of a lack of demand not the other way.
Ever since I got a LG G6, I stopped using my FiiO X3. The G6 measures the same or better objectively as a DAP. It can drive high impedance cans, I can listen to Spotify, use Bluetooth headphones using AptX or LDAC. Also,has an output impedance of 1 ohm. It has everything that I look forward to in a DAP except insane output voltage which is never required in practice.
It is true that not all Android phone manufactures pay attention to audio but LG still does care about audio.
Click to expand...

Lack of demand for one single DAP does not mean lack of demand for all DAP's. I have a smartphone but I still prefer a separate audio device for better sound quality. Also I don't want to use up a ton of phone memory with 6000 songs. Smartphones are really only good for streaming and I have no interest in it so a DAP is what I want and need. More and more people I know are of the same mind now that you can't get replacement batteries for DAP's. Several people I know bought DAP's after hearing mine so the more you expose people to them the more people will appreciate them and want them especially now that many support wifi and streaming like the Fiio M9 and M6.

Sony doesn't typically release their DAP's in North America until around May. So if the A55 isn't available for sale at that point then we can talk about lack of demand.
 
Mar 1, 2019 at 7:33 AM Post #355 of 2,411
Hello, I just got an NW-A50 and I'm enjoying it A LOT.

Even if I own various headphones, it's my first serious Dap and find it amazing in regard of both design, usabilty and sound quality. It's just leaps better than my iPhone 6s and drives beautifully Senn HD25, MDR-7506 and K141, other than obviously lower impedance phones like K550 and SR80e.
Also, palying around with equalizer is cool because it's really effective and doesn't degrade sound quality a bit.

I wonder if there is somewhere a full manual detailing all settings as seemingly I can't find it.

Also I was wondering about DSD playback, I suppose NW-A50 converts DSD to PCM before playback, right? Because you have settings about DSD to PCM conversion which apparently affect sound when you playback DSD. Is it the same on all Walkmans or upper models do native DSD playback?

At the same time, apparently NW-A50 can stream DSD over USB via DoP or even RAW DSD which is quite a rarity. Unfortunately I still can't try this function as I'm waiting for the USB output cable to arrive. Once I'll got it, I will try connecting to Marantz HD-DAC1 hoping it will work and do native DSD playback.
 
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