[Quadfather]

Shure SRH1540 are 45-46 ohms and work great with my Sony NW-WM1A.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

I think the selection between high gain and low gain depends on two factors:

First is your listening preferences, high gain tend to sound more brighter or have a tendency to be more simbliant as the dynamics increases.

Although there's also a tendency for low gain to sound duller as the high frequency take a hit.

Second is your audio gear. Some gear require high gain in order to deliver it's full potential while more sensitive gear don't require so much power.

In my opinion, if you are running single driver IEMs, low gain should suffice. Multi driver IEMs and headphone can switch to high gain if you find low gain to be too dull or lack volume/dynamics.

 

[etlouis]

He as I have way too much music to fit in hires on one 1TB. I have about 2TB music but have diwnsapled all my hires to 16/44 or 16/48 and then I can just fit it on one 1TB card plus the internal memory (I want to have everything with me and am willing to sacrifice a little bit of sq for that but the internal memory holds my dsd albums). In my home rig I have a 2GB ssd in the Auralic streamer

What sdcard is everyone using? I've tried sandisk ultra 128Gb and samsung evo 512gb. There are some sonic differences between the two. I prefer the 128g with the slower transfer speed... seemed to have to do with "air" and decay of notes. The faster the speed, the faster the decay and the perceived sharpness of notes. It sounded almost like a DAC chip lowpass filters. Anyhow this made me on a quest to find the largest sdcard with the slowest transfer speeds. Some difficulty because the more expensive a card is, the larger the storage and speed, at the same time.

Anyone know of such a product?

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

I think there's not much choices when it comes to high capacity cards with low read speeds.

The only one I can think of is the Sandisk High Endurance 256GB. They are designed for constant writing in dashcam and high operating temperature. They are pretty slow when it comes to data transfer.

You should also consider Industrial Grade Microsd cards. They are probably designed better internally as they have to work in medical grade life saving devices and etc, thus the manufacturer will build them with better read/write controllers and error management systems.

For me I use ADATA pro 128GB microsd card. I find it to offer better sound quality over the bog standard sandisk or Samsung Evo that I have tried.

 

[Ravenous]

Wait, so SD card size and transfer speed affects sound quality playback?

 

[Gamerlingual]

Well, on my way to test the TA along with other headphones for the 1A and 1Z. E-Earphone feels like my second home

 

[cosplayerkyo]

Well, on my way to test the TA along with other headphones for the 1A and 1Z. E-Earphone feels like my second home

Ever since this pandemic, I miss going to e-earphone so much spent so much time there just having fun listening to everything

 

[nc8000]

What sdcard is everyone using? I've tried sandisk ultra 128Gb and samsung evo 512gb. There are some sonic differences between the two. I prefer the 128g with the slower transfer speed... seemed to have to do with "air" and decay of notes. The faster the speed, the faster the decay and the perceived sharpness of notes. It sounded almost like a DAC chip lowpass filters. Anyhow this made me on a quest to find the largest sdcard with the slowest transfer speeds. Some difficulty because the more expensive a card is, the larger the storage and speed, at the same time.

Anyone know of such a product?

Sony used to sell an audiophile microSD card but can’t remember specs and don’t know it they are still acailable

 

[nc8000]

Hey guys, need your honest answer. When using either the MDR-Z7M2 and MDR-Z1R, what volume output is your player at High Gain when using the 4.4mm? Is it 80 or 75? I find that 45 is comfortable when using either the IER-Z1R and MDR-1AM2. If someone can let me know, this might help me find the right volume to use to get the best performance for those cans and perhaps understand why they felt underwhelming in performance when using the 1Z and 1A. Might be that I just didn't put in enough volume juice but want to make sure I don't go deaf.

From my 1Z i use high gain 50 for the IER and high gain 60-70 for the MDR

 

[Duncan]

From my 1Z i use high gain 50 for the IER and high gain 60-70 for the MDR

It is interesting, and aware that impedance plays a part here, the Z1R is 40ohms at 103db/mw - the FH7 is 16ohms at 111db/mw and I sit between 65 and 85, high gain...

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Wait, so SD card size and transfer speed affects sound quality playback?

Even though the walkman is very well shielded from external interference, there's also internal interference in the form of electrical noise being generated by the walkman's own internal electrical components, which includes the micro sdcard.

When the sdcard is being accessed by the walkman, there is electrical noise being generated. This noise varies according to the sdcard's internal design(how much shielding, SLC, MLC, TLC and etc). Usually the bigger the capacity, the more power required to read/write, and also the more faster the transfer speeds, the more likely that more electrical noise is being generated.

Basically the electrical noise generated from the microsd can have an adverse effect on the walkman's internal electrical components(clock oscillators, power supply). This may cause additional jitter to the overall sound.

Now whether you can hear this electrical noise pollution will depend on how golden your ears are and the grade of gear you have. Usually there are other sound quality bottlenecks in lower grade gears/dap/audio systems thus you won't be able to hear the difference in sound quality between sdcards for most people.

However when you talk about the high grade WM1 walkman and the kind of high grade audio gear owned by the golden ear audiophiles in this forum, I am very sure there are people here who can hear the sound differences between different brand/models of microsd cards. That is along with people who can hear the sound differences between a Loss-less highly compressed FLAC vs PCM .WAV files being played on their system.

For those interested in this topic, here's a related video by Mr Hans which explains how electrical noise and clock jitter affects audio:

 

[Vitaly2017]

Even though the walkman is very well shielded from external interference, there's also internal interference in the form of electrical noise being generated by the walkman's own internal electrical components, which includes the micro sdcard.

When the sdcard is being accessed by the walkman, there is electrical noise being generated. This noise varies according to the sdcard's internal design(how much shielding, SLC, MLC, TLC and etc). Usually the bigger the capacity, the more power required to read/write, and also the more faster the transfer speeds, the more likely that more electrical noise is being generated.

Basically the electrical noise generated from the microsd can have an adverse effect on the walkman's internal electrical components(clock oscillators, power supply). This may cause additional jitter to the overall sound.

Now whether you can hear this electrical noise pollution will depend on how golden your ears are and the grade of gear you have. Usually there are other sound quality bottlenecks in lesser grade systems thus you won't be able to hear the difference in sound quality between sdcards for most people.

However when you talk about the high grade WM1 walkman and the kind of high grade audio gear owned by the golden ear audiophiles in this forum, I am very sure there are people here who can hear the sound difference between microsd card. That is along with people who can hear the sound differences between a Loss-less highly compressed FLAC vs PCM .WAV files being played on their system.

I can hear a difference between 1z internal memory vs sandisk extreme pro vs sandisk ultra...

The difference goes same from ultra to pro then to 1z internal memory.

Bass get tighter sound transitions are faster. It feels slightly more dynamic. Its extremely subtle but its there to shew your brain lol once you heard it!

 

[frost15]

Like others mentioned, headphones impendance is key to volume listening levels. In my case the Shure 1540SRH, at 46ohm, have low impendance. Besides I generally enjoy long listening sessions with moderately low volume levels. Paired with my 1Z I listen to most stuff in the range of low gain 50-64, then for more dynamic genres such as classical and jazz I can go up to low gain 75-80. Very rarely I feel the need to go full epic mode (specially with movie soundtracks) and I can reach the 95-100 range, but that's very rare lol.

 

[nc8000]

Like others mentioned, headphones impendance is key to volume listening levels. In my case the Shure 1540SRH, at 46ohm, have low impendance. Besides I generally enjoy long listening sessions with moderately low volume levels. Paired with my 1Z I listen to most stuff in the range of low gain 50-64, then for more dynamic genres such as classical and jazz I can go up to low gain 75-80. Very rarely I feel the need to go full epic mode (specially with movie soundtracks) and I can reach the 95-100 range, but that's very rare lol.

Apart from impedance driver efficiency also has to be taken into account. At the extreme you have some of the early HiFiMan planars that had very liw efficiency and therefore required loads of power

 

[Gamerlingual]

I can hear a difference between 1z internal memory vs sandisk extreme pro vs sandisk ultra...

The difference goes same from ultra to pro then to 1z internal memory.

Bass get tighter sound transitions are faster. It feels slightly more dynamic. Its extremely subtle but its there to shew your brain lol once you heard it!

I decided to get the Z7M2! It was amazing with the TA and DSD!!