[touzeen]

Finally got my unit in hand after a 2 month long wait. Jap Unit bought from e-earphone.

 

[klyzon]

I think I have come to a conclusion on choosing which DSP to use for the WM1AM2.

DSEE Ultimate and DSD Remastering Mode both sound great from enjoyment factor point of view.

DSEE Ultimate has stronger, faster transients, more layering, more surround effect, more pin point accurate imaging. Music has beat and tempo, or what audiophiles commonly refer to as PRaT(Pace, Rhythm, and Timing).

DSD Remastering has a more smoother and more incremental feel to it's transients and better continuity to the flow of the music. There's something very alluring about the sound of DSD specifically on this Sony Walkman, which makes you want to turn on DSD Remastering, as there's a feeling of harmony and serenity when listening to this DSP.

I would recommend to use DSD Remastering mode for when you want your music to relax your mind while DSEE Ultimate is recommended when you want your music to entertain your mind.

Also in my opinion, this new DSD Remastering mode is really a strong reason for those still on ZX2, ZX300, ZX507, WM1Z or WM1A to upgrade over to the M2 Walkmans. A new type of music enjoyment experience for sure.

that is precisely how I use my m2 too.

DSEE Ultimate with DC Phase to really feel it, some vinyl standard too

DSD remastering when i'm just lazing around and wanting to fall asleep haha

 

[maceto]

Ok so a good memory card can impact sound, as reading speed, noice and more can impact sound. From digging through some measurements and not even knowing there was some memory cards as expensive as this. Sony have some too… I wonder if all the small things in the Z vs A has less noise and that’s what people describe as clearer and more open, in some songs that would sound very good and in others not as good. Like a dark vs light IEM… it’s not so much the gold or cable makes the sound better as it’s less interference and clearer signal, which all combined does some minor improvements to the overall sound.

I am trying to justify the extra $2000 and not be able to afford the IEM’s to go with it… as I suspect I should get some Sony’s to go with it to max out the benefits. I just can’t see myself go $5000… for both. So I was considering the lower priced Walkman and some IEM’s or just the high end Walkman… but then just use what I have which are U12T’s and some Sure 846 etc.

Help! Lol.

 

[maceto]

Errors in data processing do not necessarily cause the digital system to fail/stop all at once.

Not all errors are sequential, they can be very randomised in its occurrences. Errors can start to show small symptoms without the user noticing or start to progressively develop more glitches as more error occurs. It’s really unpredictable in how digital systems will react to these errors in the data as there’s so much interactions and tolerances involved.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch

Electronics glitchEdit​

An electronics glitch or logic hazard is a transition that occurs on a signal before the signal settles to its intended value, particularly in a digital circuit. Generally, this implies an electrical pulse of short duration, often due to a race condition between two signals derived from a common source but with different delays. In some cases, such as a well-timed synchronous circuit, this could be a harmless and well-tolerated effect that occurs normally in a design. In other contexts, a glitch can represent an undesirable result of a fault or design error that can produce a malfunction. Some electronic components, such as flip-flops, are triggered by a pulse that must not be shorter than a specified minimum duration in order to function correctly; a pulse shorter than the specified minimum may be called a glitch. A related concept is the runt pulse, a pulse whose amplitude is smaller than the minimum level specified for correct operation, and a spike, a short pulse similar to a glitch but often caused by ringing or crosstalk.


Here’a an example of how errors that can slip pass error detection and correction which allows the already corrupted photo file to be considered as readable by the photo software and OS but shows glitches in the image loaded:

http://www.konraddwojak.com/blog/20...d-cards-errors-and-corrupted-files?format=amp

A bit like this? https://www.atpinc.com/blog/ecc-dimm-memory-ram-errors-types-chipkill

See how electrical interference plays a part in high end memory used in virtually all mission critical systems. Not in cheap consumer cloud where you can rip and replace once you spot some problems, but in closed high end systems.

 

[Vamp898]

Errors in data processing do not necessarily cause the digital system to fail/stop all at once.

It does with FLAC and MP3, and the was the point

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

It does with FLAC and MP3, and the was the point

Well please explain.

 

[Vamp898]

Well please explain.

Explain what? The basics of data compression and FLAC?

How about you learn how things work before talking about them

With decent error correction, depending on algorithm, it can be possible to decompress corrupt files, but the result stays bit perfect.

But I highly doubt that the Walkman supports that. I just checked it. Open an FLAC with an HEX editor and manipulate an random part and the Walkman App just refuses to play it, obviously. There is just Zero sound, he doesn't even try.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Fixing FLAC audio corruption​

Corruption related to the audio stream is often the most difficult to fix.

First, try listening to the file.

If you notice a problem in the audio, then it’s most likely you’ve got an unrecoverable problem. To get back to a byte-for-byte faithful reproduction of the original music you will need the original music. For example, you’ll need to re-rip a CD and re-encode with flac. If you’re lucky to have the original .WAV files you can encode from them without any nasty physical spinning discs.

If you don’t notice an audio problem, things are a bit more subjective. If you do have to hand the original music it’s probably best to re-encode, as above. If you don’t, and you’re happy to live with a suspected unfaithful reproduction of the original music, you can simply re-encode the FLAC file.

But beware, you might be storing up problems - what if you get a better hi-fi in a few years where you can hear the difference?

https://www.blisshq.com/music-libra...c-files/#repairing-structural-flac-corruption

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

The contents of music files, such as MP3s, are arranged according to a strict specification. Sometimes music files can contain errors that means the specification is not necessarily 100% adhered to, and this can lead to undesirable characteristics such as undisplayable album artwork or skips and pops when playing-back.

How can you diagnose and fix these errors?

MP3 files (and other digital music files) seem fairly straightforward when you first start working with them. You download or create them from rips, you copy them around, maybe to your mobile music player, and you double click on them and play them. They seem pretty black box.

In reality, things are much more complicated. There are a set of clearly defined rules that determine how an MP3 file is structured internally. Add in tagging (which was always an after thought for MP3) and you have a complex data structure. Basically there are a lot of things to go wrong and you can be sure they will do at some point!

It turns out MP3 corruption, and the integrity of your music files generally, are something any music library organizer has to content with.

Back in April I exchanged a series of emails with a user of bliss who had added artwork but the artwork did not display. The reason was not initially clear, so I asked him to upload one file and I checked it out.

Interestingly, using bliss it was clear that the artwork was present inside the file. I tried it with some music players and some showed the artwork, some didn't. All of the music players played back an audible 'pop' when the track was started. It was clear something was wrong with the file.

Solving MP3 corruption​

You guessed it: it turned out this file was suffering from MP3 corruption. While the file was generally correctly encoded, it was not 100% correct (purists will argue that means it simply isn't correctly encoded, which is true, but in reality music players often offer a level of tolerance).

The way I found this out was by running the file through a piece of software called MP3 Diags. This open-source project is an ingenious piece of software that checks your MP3s for adherence to the strict letter of the MP3 specification.

The interface of MP3 Diags is quite complicated and overall it is aimed at the technical user. Here's what the author of MP3 Diags himself has to say:

This program is not really meant for those who want to push a button and have everything fixed automatically, but rather for people who have some technical background, who are rather picky about what's in their MP3 files, and who are willing to spend some time to get them right.

https://www.blisshq.com/music-library-management-blog/2012/10/16/mp3-repair-fixing-mp3s/

 

[Vamp898]

If you would use the time you use to Google to actually learn how things work, you would understand why this is unrelated

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

If you would use the time you use to Google to actually learn how things work, you would understand why this is unrelated

I think that's it, I shall not waste my time trying to change your point of view. Stick to what you think is correct.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

It seems that Audio formats have varying levels of resiliency for error detection and correction, FLAC does have CRC checks and offers optional(not all flac files are encoded with it) MD5 check summing. It also seems like some decoders can detect errors or can do damage control by gracefully drop bad audio data blocks(ignoring bad data by muting output for that short window time of the error) to allow for the streaming playback to be uninterrupted although this means the decoder is no longer producing true lossless 1:1 audio reproduction(also whether one can really notice these dropouts will depend on quality of audio equipment and how discerning one ear's are). Also some decoders do not pro-actively check for errors and just decodes errors as it is(which likely results in random noise like soft clicks or pops, whether this is noticeable, is also debatable).

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,122094.msg1008187.html

Doing some bit-flipping, I cannot reproduce all the claims in the wiki's lossless comparison. TTA seems worse than the wiki indicates; Monkey's-by-way-of-ffmpeg seems slightly better than the wiki indicates on signals ffmpeg can handle and otherwise worse.

I have boldfaced the discrepancies. Please fill in any corrections.

Also, WavPack / OptimFROG have implemented ultra-fast integrity checking without decoding. So, when you have copied a big failing hard drive and want to check for any corruption, the slowest codec would check faster than the fastest - unless FLAC has some neat option I don't know about.
And since there has been such a discussion over using 3rd party tools to rectify reference decoders' limitations: If you seriously are considering ALAC, then https://foobar.hyv.fi/?view=foo_audiomd5 is your friend for files where AccurateRip verification is not an option.


TTA Like Monkey's below, this becomes a discussion of format vs reference decoder.
(-) Reference decoder will not detect errors? The wiki's criterion is detect & warn and play on. At least I get no warning decoding with the exe (using tta-2.3-64bit-sse4 for Windows). But ffmpeg decoding will scream "Invalid data found when processing input".
(-) The reference decoder thus produces loud static. It can be from a few hundred samples to a second. (ffmpeg decoding will drop the entire frame, which is slightly above a second.)

Monkey's Audio. This has a history about whether the format is resilient.
(+) Can detect it - but only by running a decoding? (-v consistently takes the same time as decoding, could be a lot on a big drive).
(-) Official Monkey will abort - but official SDK (fb2k tested) can seek to position right after the error and play from there. But to salvage anything past the error, one must resort to 3rd party decoders.
(!) 3rd party recovery with ffmpeg: Yes, even for "Insane". Don't expect miracles, dropouts could be > 20 seconds on Insane (likely more if you feed it less-than-CDDA-resolution) - but, salvaging anything at all out of insane is better than the wiki indicates (with the reservation it takes).
(-) 3rd party decoders tools support a limited number of formats (although recent ffmpeg has fixed 24-bit support). So with non-CDDA it is not sure you can even salvage "Fast" .ape. That is worse than the wiki indicates.

WavPack / OptimFROG: These have gotten a new feature that is IMHO quite valuable. Especially for OFR, which decodes slowly. Also, the damage control is valuable.
(++) Can detect - and can even detect without decoding, much faster than any decoded format. Can also optionally use md5.
(+) Damage control: Appear to mute a broken block.
(-) Dropout might be a bit (? seems to be half a second-ish for WavPack, more for OFR)

FLAC
(+) Can detect it - but only by running a decoding? Even if FLAC has blockwise checksums, there is no other tool than decoding to check?
(+) Damage control here too, it seems? Only tried a few, appears muted.
(+) Can play and decode through errors. Dropout = one block. (4096 samples/ch by default.)
(!) It seems like ffmpeg salvages more, as it doesn't drop the block. But, ffmpeg decoding does not notice the corruption.

TAK
(+) Can detect it - but only by running a decoding? Like FLAC here?
(+) Damage control here too, it seems? Only tried a few, appears muted.
(+) Can play and decode through errors. Dropout seems to be around 1/4 second?! More than FLAC, less than WavPack/OFR, but:
(!) Like for FLAC, ffmpeg salvages more audio than Takc.exe does.

ALAC in MP4
(-) As well known, it cannot detect.
(+) Happily decodes through errors of course, and apparently doesn't lose much: foo_bitcompare would report only a few samples wrong - and among a handful of attempts, I had one with six samples wrong and one with just one sample wrong (both at -90.31 dBTP!)
Dropout could be audible, but nothing like TTA. Actually, only FLAC's short mute could qualify as less annoying. And then I have presumed that FLAC always mutes.

 

[Doug2507]

This thread feels like it's heading into the sound science section...

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

This thread feels like it's heading into the sound science section...

Some may view these discussions as nonsensical but some will enlighten by discussing what really goes on deep within this Walkman’s electronics, software/firmware and its related components/accessories like the microSD card, DSP functions and how it may or may not affect the sound quality/enjoyment level of your Walkman. And also it may involve joining the cult of cursed audiophile/audiofool hobbyist.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

At the end of the day, my point is this M2 Walkman has a very high performance S-Master HX digital amplifier. I believe the Sony engineers has already done their research and design to reduce noise, distortion and errors to the best of their engineering know how.
Sony even created the DSEE Ultimate using AI to try and transform lousy quality audio to more higher quality audio
But does it mean that just solely relying on Sony’s expert engineering is enough to ensure the best sound quality? I don’t think so.

Garbage In Garbage Out

From my own experiences trying many different microSD cards, I have found that the Sony digital Walkman’s final sound quality can still be very much influenced by the very data source that it is fed with. And the differences is not insignificant to me but very much noticeable. Some microSD cards can cause audible distortions and some will change the tonality of the Walkman and some will even make lossless pcm files sound more like lossy MP3.

Not everyone will be after or will notice these differences but I am putting out my observations and experiences for those who wish to head down this path of exploring the sound changes that can happen when you swap different types/brands of microSD cards on your Sony Walkmans.