[User9876]

So we can say that most of these dap manufacturers are more like Systems Integrators, just taking recommended reference designs from ESS/AKM/TI/THX/ROHM, "mix and match" Opamps, make a smartphone like chassis and call it a high quality DAP?

Whereas for Sony, they likely take a much more careful and longer design planning, with more trial and error to look into custom-ordering, custom designing every single component like custom capacitors, custom resistors, custom solder leads, custom crystal clocks or anything in the chain that affects sound reproduction to produce an unique high standard, high performing statement piece product?

I said the same thing a couple of weeks ago, you need to quote me as original source or I will sue you.

 

[564070]

It happened to my ZM2 few days ago for the first time, with the noises and little pop sounds, I was a little shocked. I am using Samsung latest sdcard - pro endurance (confirmed legit as i bought it from Samsung online store)

I only use those as well (Samsung Pro Endurance). Especially for my car's dashcam where there are hundreds of write (not read) cycles a day. Only the last 10 minutes are kept and then overwritten again. They have never let me down so far

 

[Whitigir]

Digital systems do have many layers of error corrections to ensure that data transmissions are reliable. Many layers of CRC Checksum error correction happens along the chain, from corrections at the Operating system level to the hardware itself. Error correction systems usually works robustly well enough inside modern electronics that the end user won’t encounter noticeable performance/data accuracy or corruption issues.

Howeever error correction system is not always a given standard feature that exist at the hardware level. Take for example most consumer PCs do not come with ECC RAM. Certainly a single bit error won't noticeably affect your game or your video playback or sound playback, but if the bit errors are very cumulative or involves multiple consecutive bits, it either will crash the system, stop the smooth flow of the video/audio or cause lag spikes to the digital transmission or cause your photos to look corrupted or cause your programs to have compile errors. As Digital Audio Playback is a time critical data stream, it does not function like in the case of file copy using the Operating System where there's additional checksum/error correcting measure in place in the OS level after the data is written. Also error corrections do come implemented in different algorithms, the more stronger ones can detect and correct many types of errors while the weaker ones might just miss out on multi-bit errors completely, the stronger algorithms will require more cost/computational complexity to implement.

For Digital Audio Playback, the audio data bits is immediately streamed from the microSD and transmitted on to the memory buffers and then into the DAC, it does not have additional time to do file copy type of post write error detection and corrections. You are solely reliant on the MicroSD card's own hardware error detection and correction layer and whatever the data transmission protocols error correction algorithms is able to detect/correct before the bits reaches the DAC Chip(which is a garbage in garbage out device, no error corrections at this end)

Digital audio systems like CD players do make use of simple interpolation to correct missing/incorrect bits on the fly but if there's too significant amount of bit errors on the fly, it can result in noticeable degradation to sound quality for highly critical listeners with high performant sound equipment.


http://artsites.ucsc.edu/EMS/music/tech_background/TE-16/teces_16.html

Error Correction​

Even with these techniques, the bits are going to be physically very small, and it must be assumed that some will be lost in the process. A single bit can be very important (suppose it represents the sign of a large number!), so there has to be a way of recovering lost data. Error correction is really two problems; how to detect an error, and what to do about it.


Fig. 5 Effects of data errors

The most common error detection method is parity computation. An extra bit is added to each number which indicates whether the number is even or odd. When the data is read off the tape, if the parity bit is inappropriate, something has gone wrong. This works well enough for telephone conversations and the like, but does not detect serious errors very well.

In digital recording, large chunks of data are often wiped out by a tape dropout or a scratch on the disk. Catching these problems with parity would be a matter of luck. To help deal with large scale data loss, some mathematical computation is run on the numbers, and the result is merged with the data from time to time. This is known as a Cyclical Redundancy Check Code or CRCC. If a mistake turns up in this number, an error has occurred since the last correct CRCC was received.

Once an error is detected, the system must deal gracefully with the problem. To make this possible, the data is recorded in a complex order. Instead of word two following word one, as you might expect, the data is interleaved, following a pattern like:

words 1,5,9,13,17,21,25,29,2,6,10,14,18,22,26,30,3,7,15,19,27 etc.

With this scheme, you could lose eight words, but they would represent several isolated parts of the data stream, rather than a large continuous chunk of waveform. When a CRC indicates a problem, the signal can be fixed. For minor errors, the CRCC can be used to replace the missing numbers exactly. If the problem is more extensive, the system can use the previous and following words to reconstruct a passable imitation of the missing one. One of the factors that makes up the price difference in various digital systems is the sophistication available to reconstruct missing data.

​

Too much science will blow the minds of the skeptical. Please don’t be to harsh on them. If they are serious about this hobby aka “trusting what they hear” and then curious about why/how, they would have found out these same informations. Hence, nowadays, I don’t response much to those posts

great find there , friend!

 

[Whitigir]

I said the same thing a couple of weeks ago, you need to quote me as original source or I will sue you.

Are you pulling a Carey Mariah ?

 

[psikey]

seems rather odd to think that you are using a decade old IEM and then think there will be a new version of M9 coming out...
i will describe the M9 as warmish neutral, tons of details, while the 7550/EX800 as more shouty. you will never hear sibilance from the M9 while that may be an issue with the 7550. M9 is definitely more 'boring' compared to the livelier 7550.
the ablity to change cables will be a major plus for the M9. the construction of the M9 is more robust too.

M9 description I agree with, not heard others. I have a livelier set to complement them for some music.

 

[564070]

It happened to my ZM2 few days ago for the first time, with the noises and little pop sounds, I was a little shocked. I am using Samsung latest sdcard - pro endurance (confirmed legit as i bought it from Samsung online store)

Forgot to ask, you did format the SD card inside the player as indicated in the Sony manual ?
https://helpguide.sony.net/dmp/nwwm1m2/v1/en/contents/TP1000464538.html

 

[FreeTime]

Forgot to ask, you did format the SD card inside the player as indicated in the Sony manual ?
https://helpguide.sony.net/dmp/nwwm1m2/v1/en/contents/TP1000464538.html

o, yes, i did, im quite careful on that. I admit only funny thing i did was applying deoxit gold on it, my habit on connectors. But it was working fine for some time, only once recently the noise and little popping came, i paused it immediately. After relaunch app, it worked fine till now.

The reason for this habit is becos Singapore is a quite humid and warm country, and i live near seaside, metals oxidze and rust pretty fast here.

 

[SebaE2012]

In my opinion, It worked extremely well for me back when I was using the ZX2 Walkman. The mood of the generated playlist matched accordingly. A very well implemented unique system that I believe only a few companies like Sony is able to produce with such amazing results.

Yeah, I concur in missing the SensMe feature. In my ZX2, which still sees quite a bit of action as a travel device, works great. I really love the way it picks songs and organizes them in "mood-matching" playlists. Despite 1AM1 having a slightly less practical version of it, it still works well. I don't really see why Sony decided not to include it in the M2.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Too much science will blow the minds of the skeptical. Please don’t be to harsh on them. If they are serious about this hobby aka “trusting what they hear” and then curious about why/how, they would have found out these same informations. Hence, nowadays, I don’t response much to those posts

great find there , friend!

It requires one to be open minded enough to consider contrariant views points as something to be worthy of further deep dive investigations rather than to be immediately dismissed as tomfoolery or out of logic.

Also it doesn't help when Google promotes such featured snippet as top search results, which in general is a correct statement for regular audio devices like smartphones but it is not a correct statement for the context of extremely high fidelity digital audio reproduction where the absolute strict reliability, timing and accuracy of every bit in the data storage and streaming data transmission matters.

 

[justsomesonyfan]

trading extreme modded r2r2000 black for uncapped wm1am2 if anyone's interested (shameless plug)

 

[564070]

It requires one to open minded enough to consider contrariant views points as something to be worthy of further deep dive investigations rather than to be immediately dismissed as tomfoolery or out of logic.

Also it doesn't help when Google promotes such featured snippet as top search results, which in general is a correct statement for regular audio devices like smartphones but it is not a correct statement for the context of extremely high fidelity digital audio reproduction where the absolute strict reliability, timing and accuracy of every bit in the data storage and streaming data transmission matters.

So why hasn't Sony addressed this in their FAQ or other ressources:
https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/...yers-nw-wm-series/nw-wm1am2/articles/00162965
Anyway, Sony engineers should have the correct answer, so I have just launched a support request on their website in order to find out, "Your case ID is: 24889257".
Let’s see.

 

[CodenameBK201]

Does anyone here have any suggested leather case alternatives to Dignis for the nw-wm1am2? Seems they're just about all sold out on their website. Trying to track down either their patina brown case or otherwise something in basic black that isn't the official sony case.

 

[Doug2507]

Miter.

Also..

https://www.accessoryjack.com/produ...wm1am2-wm1zm2-3-colors?variant=40009464348760

1st hit on Google.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

So why hasn't Sony addressed this in their FAQ or other ressources:
https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/...yers-nw-wm-series/nw-wm1am2/articles/00162965
Anyway, Sony engineers should have the correct answer, so I have just launched a support request on their website in order to find out, "Your case ID is: 24889257".
Let’s see.

Question is why do they even need to address this?
Almost any modern good quality microsd cards will play audio files fine on the walkman without any drop outs or issues unlike the Lexar card. Though the question of sound quality is going to be a varying experience, not everyone has the same hearing abilties or the same audio gears.

Sony already made their point that microsd card matters for sound quality when they specifically approved the production of audiophile microsd back in 2015, although they already discontinued the product, as far as I have searched, Sony Engineer Mr Hiroaki Sato(who designed this M2 Walkman and this Sony Premium Sound Microsd) has never publically backtracked or deny microsd's card sound quality effect.

Also from a technical point of view, Industrial Microsd draw much less idle power than consumer cards. If you have some understanding of electrical engineering, any additional power draw on the battery does contribute to more noise effect on the other digital electronics in the chain.
https://goughlui.com/2021/02/27/experiment-microsd-card-power-consumption-spi-performance/


SanDisk Ultra: 1.25mA


Verbatim Premium: 1.45mA


Delkin Devices Industrial card: 0.15mA


There are also others who have heard microsd card affecting sound quality but it's your choice to believe him or view it as a case of sunk cost fallacy or whatever:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the...ge-all-welcome.957426/page-2309#post-17135890
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the...n-first-page-all-welcome.957426/post-17136444

also this post from @ttt123 is worth a read:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the...n-first-page-all-welcome.957426/post-17137498

 

[rcoleman1]

@CodenameBK201

AliExpress. Don't know this merchant but I'll try it and report back.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256...Zy&mp=1&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa&_randl_shipto=US