[Sonywalkmanuser]

There are obviously many knowledgeable audio folks on this forum who have discussed the new Sony Signature Walkmen and how it works with 3rd party Android streaming Apps.

I'm a 100% Tidal hi-res streaming user and unfortunately despite my best efforts, a simpleton when it comes to audio technologies. I've followed the forum but have been unable to decipher whether or not the new Walkmen will play Tidal music in a way that would take advantage of Sony's quality sound. I would certainly appreciate it if someone could explain in laymen's terms how and if the new Walkmen would be a good resource for listening to tidal Hi-res. Thanks in advance for your help.

Ok I explain in the most laymen terms possible.

It’s like the show Pimp my ride. You are taking your car and sending it to Xzibit and it gets tuned up and revamped according to what you want but Xzibit gets the final say on how your car will be souped up and looks.

In this case, your tidal audio data is sent to Sony’s software DSP like DSEE Ultimate and DC Phase Linearizer and gets outputted via the S-Master HX digital DAC+Amp chip. During this process, you will discover that your tidal music will sound quite different from your conventional smartphones or other daps. It gets the Sony house sound treatment.

Sony is known for making digital music sound more refined and palatable to the ears through the magic of their software DSP along side their industrial semiconductor hardware design know how.

Sony has been in the audio business for eons, especially since the CD Audio technology and DSD technology all have Sony’s research and design involvement. Their latest technology is 3D sound mapping and use of Artificial Intelligence to enhance music experience.

Ok sorry for sounding like a Sony fanboy. I am not getting paid by Sony for this.

One thing however is that Sony still has its faults like for example a lack of social media presence, no community manager will talk to you at all. Good luck getting any response or immediate address or fixes from them.

 

[steveweeve]

That's really helpful, thanks.

 

[steveweeve]

The more I learn the more it seems like where MQA (at least in theory) is an effort to get closer to what the sound engineers intended runs in the opposite direction from the Walkmen where Sony's engineers are using DSP to shape the music through AI (or whatever) to be more pleasing. Probably an oversimplification (and certainly not a judgement) but it seems like I would need to be comfortable with the effects of the Sony "house sound" and not get too hung up on audio accuracy. I'll have to think about that one.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

For those who wish to understand more about the technical operation design behind the S-Master HX chip can refer to this pdf file, specifically from page 5 onwards. This pdf is about the older S-Master Pro chip for their home theatre but most of the operation processes still exist on the mobile S-Master HX chip:

https://docs.sony.com/release/ES_STR_05_Final.pdf

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

The more I learn the more it seems like where MQA (at least in theory) is an effort to get closer to what the sound engineers intended runs in the opposite direction from the Walkmen where Sony's engineers are using DSP to shape the music through AI (or whatever) to be more pleasing. Probably an oversimplification (and certainly not a judgement) but it seems like I would need to be comfortable with the effects of the Sony "house sound" and not get too hung up on audio accuracy. I'll have to think about that one.

What is accurate sound? It’s pretty complicated when the music being recorded and mastered is often a big variable itself.

What is the quality of the recording sound equipment is used by the musician? Are they using top of the line 6 $ digit studio equipment or just your regular audio interface you buy from amazon?

Are they using top of the line microphones or just some cheap microphones?

How is the placement of the microphones by the recording sound engineer? Did he place them at the correct position to capture all the nuances of the cymbals and drums?

Are they using real drums or just some computer synthesised instrument samples?

Are the Analog to digital conversion chips converting extra electrical noise into the music signal too? Is the Analog conversion to digital totally free from errors like jitter?

Is the mastering engineer proficient enough? Is he able to find the right balance between having detailed sound and acceptable music loudness? Is he able to tune overall frequency balance and instruments vs vocal loudness balance right?

Ok that’s about what I can think of now. Good luck getting the true audio accuracy.

 

[steveweeve]

Good luck indeed, there's always a risk in oversimplifying anything as complex and subjective as listening. Given the limits of my knowledge in the area......

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Good luck indeed, there's always a risk in oversimplifying anything as complex and subjective as listening. Given the limits of my knowledge in the area......

Not to mention our ear canal, our ears are all of different shape and sizes, the frequencies loudness curves and brain auditory senses like space and height differs from person to person due to that.

Also as we age we lose higher frequency hearing too.

Some people due to occupational hazards or other heath reasons have hearing issues as well.

So there you go… my advice is try the Sony Walkman for yourself. If you enjoy the sound, sorry about your wallet.

 

[steveweeve]

Thanks for all the help and of course you're right. I've learned (the hard way) that all sensory perception is just that - perception. Had Covid a year ago and never regained my sense of smell. Things I now smell don't smell at all as I recall them which has made me wonder how others smell the same things I've always thought of as universal. In any case I'm sure your last advice is the best advice - listen for myself (and maybe start saving).

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

One more piece of important advice from me, avoid gathering your opinions from “science”/measurement sites like this:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ny-nw-wm1a-review-digital-audio-player.18099/

They don’t even bother to listen to the Walkman and give a detailed subjective opinion.

Also there are doubts about the accuracy of their measurements too:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-yggdrasil-impressions-thread.766347/post-14289631

 

[Quadfather]

One more piece of important advice from me, avoid gathering your opinions from “science”/measurement sites like this:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ny-nw-wm1a-review-digital-audio-player.18099/

They don’t even bother to listen to the Walkman and give a detailed subjective opinion.

Also there are doubts about the accuracy of their measurements too:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-yggdrasil-impressions-thread.766347/post-14289631

That site really liked the Lotoo Paw Gold Touch.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

@steveweeve

You can follow this YouTube channel to learn more about Audio:

Mr Hans explains it all in very easy to understand manner and his words can be trusted in my opinion.

 

[nc8000]

One more piece of important advice from me, avoid gathering your opinions from “science”/measurement sites like this:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ny-nw-wm1a-review-digital-audio-player.18099/

They don’t even bother to listen to the Walkman and give a detailed subjective opinion.

Also there are doubts about the accuracy of their measurements too:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-yggdrasil-impressions-thread.766347/post-14289631

Measurements are fine as one parameter in the search but they will almost never tell how something actually sounds and even if they did any given individual my actually like how something that measures poorly sounds, it’s all up to if one likes the sound and feature set of a given product and then it doesn’t really matter what others think of a product

 

[goody]

Received my WM1AM2 today then. Here it is in between the Shanling M9 and ZX2.

Looking forward to properly comparing it against both once it’s had time to ‘age’ a bit!

how much did it cost you shipped to uk ?..any customs payment

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

This is quite interesting experiment which measurements graphs can’t compare, a blind listening test(using 3 preselected music tracks) between a Sony Walkman ZX505 and Shanling M6 from 3min 30sec onwards:


The gist of the video for those who don’t understand mandarin is that he prefer the sound of the second unit for all 3 tracks.

He finds the second unit to sound more gentler even though he thinks both units are equally as resolving,

He finds the human voice on the first unit to have treble issues and fatiguing to listen.

The second unit felt more warm and comfortable to listen to.

The second unit has good harmony between vocal and instruments

The first unit makes vocals and instruments sound like they are fighting with each other

First unit: Shanling M6
Second unit: Sony ZX505

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

https://vannuys.co.jp/e311/

Not cheap though 17050yen