[kaikai1805]

Talk with those folks at Music Sanctuary. They obviously are not a Sony dealer, but do internal wire mods to both the 1A and 1Z. They may know of used around.

There is not even a sent of info on a new player. Not even a spy photo.

Tried FB msging MS, sadly its a no. Tempting much, but maybe i should hold on for another month till Sept to see if Sony announce anything?

 

[Quadfather]

Tried FB msging MS, sadly its a no. Tempting much, but maybe i should hold on for another month till Sept to see if Sony announce anything?

Perfect would be 500mw/32 ohms or possibly 1,000mw/32 ohms. That is the only thing they really could change.

 

[NaiveSound]

Buddy selling me is getting the ak1000, I heard it briefly, which nice sound I don't like ak products much, but anyways, after the 1z and ak1k, you can't go further can you?

 

[FortisFlyer75]

Just going back to the SE into 4.4 conversation briefly I take it then a 2.5 female balanced to 4.4 male adaptor would be safe to use on the 1A?

 

[Quasimodosbelfry]

Just going back to the SE into 4.4 conversation briefly I take it then a 2.5 female balanced to 4.4 male adaptor would be safe to use on the 1A?

Yeah, balanced ---> balanced = ok.
I have a couple of those adapters.

 

[nc8000]

Just going back to the SE into 4.4 conversation briefly I take it then a 2.5 female balanced to 4.4 male adaptor would be safe to use on the 1A?

Yes going from any balanced headphone into 4.4 is OK as is going from any balanced headphone into single ended

 

[gerelmx1986]

Trying out the xivero to see how much dsd 256 sonic changes on the WM1A can I detect

 

[FortisFlyer75]

Yeah, balanced ---> balanced = ok.
I have a couple of those adapters.

Yes going from any balanced headphone into 4.4 is OK as is going from any balanced headphone into single ended

Cheers guys, much appreciated, I thought it was but just wanted to make sure after learning about the 3.5se to 4.4 bal restriction as I will now get my skates on and order an adaptor so I can listen to my Meze premium cable which they terminate in 2,5 bal.

Is there one in particular that's worth going for at all?, (I thought Norne Audio done a Eidolic 2.5 to 4.4 adaptor but couldn't see it unless I imagined it a while back whilst browsing.)

Cheers anyway guys, hats off ; )

 

[Quasimodosbelfry]

Cheers guys, much appreciated, I thought it was but just wanted to make sure after learning about the 3.5se to 4.4 bal restriction as I will now get my skates on and order an adaptor so I can listen to my Meze premium cable which they terminate in 2,5 bal.

Is there one in particular that's worth going for at all?, (I thought Norne Audio done a Eidolic 2.5 to 4.4 adaptor but couldn't see it unless I imagined it a while back whilst browsing.)

Cheers anyway guys, hats off ; )

There are quite a few options available. I have the following and can recommend them:

Musashino Label

Astrotec

PW Audio

Ended up with 2 of the straight adapters because I was caught out once without an adapter and thought I had lost the Astrotec.
The pigtail from Musashino Label was bought at E-earphone in Akihabara. Saw it and thought it was a good idea to relieve stress on the Pentaconn connector.

 

[nc8000]

There are quite a few options available. I have the following and can recommend them:


Musashino Label


Astrotec


PW Audio

Ended up with 2 of the straight adapters because I was caught out once without an adapter and thought I had lost the Astrotec.
The pigtail from Musashino Label was bought at E-earphone in Akihabara. Saw it and thought it was a good idea to relieve stress on the Pentaconn connector.

Yes I have a 3.5 to 4.4 RA Musashino adaptor that does a good job but it was expensive to get to Europe, but when I got it, it was virtually the only option

 

[kingdixon]

I find it puzzling why single to balanced adapters exist,

Or is it all balanced female to balanced male but people just plug single end headphones to it.

 

[FortisFlyer75]

There are quite a few options available. I have the following and can recommend them:


Musashino Label


Astrotec


PW Audio

Ended up with 2 of the straight adapters because I was caught out once without an adapter and thought I had lost the Astrotec.
The pigtail from Musashino Label was bought at E-earphone in Akihabara. Saw it and thought it was a good idea to relieve stress on the Pentaconn connector.

Thank you for that info QBelfry, had just been looking on Amazon to see what Prime options there was here in UK but all there was is two Chinese sounding straight adaptors, one by Hzjundasi
with no reviews at all and a Geekria which has had one poor review regarding been one channel down so think I will stay clear of them.

I like the look of the PW audio one for it's smaller footprint which looks like something I can lose easy enough! The Astrotec looks nice also. Not sure about having another type of cable in the chain with the Musashino adaptor good as quality build as it looks I will only have the player static on the settee anyway listening to my Meze classics. Think I will head over to Astro and PW first and put an order in for one of each so got that back up spare also. Still could of sworn I had seen Eidolic done one unless they discontinued it as on their site they seem to have discontinued some of the connectors to make way for newer versions by what i can tell possibly...

Adaptors are so much fun! Cheers again for the recommendations ; )

 

[gerelmx1986]

as per @Whitigir request I converted some of my files (both 16/44 and 24/88) to DSD256 using xivero as test mode.

This is what i heard and i think the WM1x walkmans are already too good at decoding PCM in 16-bit and 24-bit. I heard the DSD256 had less resolution than the originals untouched, even for 24-bit FLAC these sounded fuller than their DSD-up conversion counterpart.

The DSD upconversions lost resolution through the frequency range (from bass to highs), you could note for example bass having less bite and slam power in the DSD256 upconverts, some high and mids frequencies details easily noticiable as less prominent or gone. However there is a thing that struck me. In contrast to Weiss engineering Saracon tool which made the resulting PCM sound darker and less refined. The xivero made the resulting DSFs sound brighter and sometimes out of tune! and less refined or with some artifacts like warbling, "birdies", mettalic whine.

AT times with certain files there was no difference at all mostly organ or orchestral. But hell listening to a Monteverdi madrigal from his Ottavo libro dei Madrigali, made inmediately noticeable, the prominent Bass man singing had less prominence and sounded dull on the DSD256, switching to the original 16/44 his deep voice rumbled and hit deep low.

so A) WM1 walkmans are already too good at decoding signals that you get the minimum amount of imperfections listeneable during playback.
B) perhaps DSD512 is different or C) his iBasso DX200 (priced about the same as my WM1A) is either fooling him with a DSP or it is not as good as the Walkman.

 

[fiascogarcia]

I find it puzzling why single to balanced adapters exist,

Or is it all balanced female to balanced male but people just plug single end headphones to it.

Adapters have balanced female and either balanced male or SE male plugs. You can go from balanced to SE, but you can't plug an SE plug into a balanced female adapter. Remember that 3.5mm plugs can be either balanced or SE. Some adapters may be all SE, to change from 3.5mm SE to 6.4mm SE, or vice versa.

 

[Whitigir]

as per @Whitigir request I converted some of my files (both 16/44 and 24/88) to DSD256 using xivero as test mode.

This is what i heard and i think the WM1x walkmans are already too good at decoding PCM in 16-bit and 24-bit. I heard the DSD256 had less resolution than the originals untouched, even for 24-bit FLAC these sounded fuller than their DSD-up conversion counterpart.

The DSD upconversions lost resolution through the frequency range (from bass to highs), you could note for example bass having less bite and slam power in the DSD256 upconverts, some high and mids frequencies details easily noticiable as less prominent or gone. However there is a thing that struck me. In contrast to Weiss engineering Saracon tool which made the resulting PCM sound darker and less refined. The xivero made the resulting DSFs sound brighter and sometimes out of tune! and less refined or with some artifacts like warbling, "birdies", mettalic whine.

AT times with certain files there was no difference at all mostly organ or orchestral. But hell listening to a Monteverdi madrigal from his Ottavo libro dei Madrigali, made inmediately noticeable, the prominent Bass man singing had less prominence and sounded dull on the DSD256, switching to the original 16/44 his deep voice rumbled and hit deep low.

so A) WM1 walkmans are already too good at decoding signals that you get the minimum amount of imperfections listeneable during playback.
B) perhaps DSD512 is different or C) his iBasso DX200 (priced about the same as my WM1A) is either fooling him with a DSP or it is not as good as the Walkman.

Thanks for observing the differences. Walkman and DSD are different technologies . There is no way to tamper with DSD unless you down convert it into PCM, which Zx2 did, and DX200 does no such thing. The matter of DSD would come down to Analog Filters, which is capacitor arrays and the amplification sections.

Now, Walkman and S-Master is what called Direct Digital. It is similar to Non-Over-Sampling DAC which don’t apply Sigma/Delta modulation in the process. With a good implementations, the NOS systems has a more organic flows and feeling than Sigma/Delta. But Sigma/Delta shall always have better dynamic than any NOS (as in what I hear from both of my desktop systems and even in theory). I am not sure why you lost the Dynamic slams ? Which makes no senses as Xivero applies Sigma Delta at the utmost precision and negates out the timing errors.

It also makes no senses that the Capacitors arrays in the Dx200 is to be better than Walkman either. Because, if the capacitors arrays and amplification sections are better on dx200, then the Dx200 should outperform the Wm1Z in Dynamic (given that ES9028Pro has a dynamic range of 129Db and measured to be 125Db on Dx200) when I was comparing PCM on both, which was not the case.

The only explanation I can speculate here is that Walkman and S-Master with it choices of DSP interface was not meant for DSD Native. PCM has always been better on Walkman than any DSD. Perhap, Sony did not play Native DSD but rather DOP in a senses of DSD over PCM, and somehow during the process, the sound degraded (probably the clocking systems that can’t keep up). Not all DAC or system can play Native DSD at a good performances, and as I just said, the interface could degrade it. It is a good thing to confirm that DX200 and even my lks004 can do wonderful with Native DSD. Thanks to the newest generation of Sabres, ES9028Pro and ES9038Pro

Again, thanks @gerelmx1986 . This gives me a confirmations to ES Sabres Pro line to have an excellent engineered DSD Bypass and internal clocking system. I can not wait to find out how to do DSD1024 on my LKS004 with ES9038Pro