[Redcarmoose]

No, what YOU are describing is an ALL or NOTHING design choice as you are only using whether the device is able to properly drive a full size planer as the ONLY passing criteria while ignoring all the other benefits of the design choice of the device - namely it is still portable and offers unrivaled battery/playback life while running extremely cool even when playing high demanding hi-resolution lossless files (and DSD). Again, it's a balancing act of choosing TWO factors out of THREE but you can't have ALL three at the same time.

If using your method of argument - I can also setup a hypothetical situation where none of the other DAPs can win except the Walkman. Here's how it would go - I want a device that will last me a cross Pacific Ocean direct flight from Tokyo to New York on a single charge (15+ hours) driving a pair of fairly standard 8/16/32ohm, 105dB/mW sensitivity CIEM, and that includes waiting time at the airport lounge and transportation to and from airport etc playing nothing but FLACs which means I need at least 25 hours playback (yes it most certainly does provide 25 hours playback time for FLACs on Direct Source as it goes 40hrs on mp3s - I've frequently reach that playback time where I travel and not even need to charge the device once), if I have to plug it in even once then it fails. And it has to stay cool as to not burn my crouch when I keep it in my pocket. Oh look only the Sony Walkman wins that challenge! Guess all the other TOTL DAPs made "poor design decisions".

See how silly this kind of argument is? Yet that's the kind of argument you are making regarding hard to drive headphones and the Walkman. Yet I'm more confident that long playback listening is going to be a much more common usage scenario than someone trying to use an open-back planer on a portable device on the move.

Right, we are seeking balance here. Long battery life, small form factors and low distortion. We don’t want the units to even get warm and they don’t. Call us delusional or call us Sony Fans...... that’s OK. The Sony 1A and 1Z are perfectly powerful for most on this thread. There will always be the small percentage outside the norm that want something else.

In fact the 1Z and 1A are just powerful enough. But......obviously a desktop or other portable unit may drive full-size headphones better. The Sony engineers were making a DAP for IEMs I feel. We here don’t want anything else. And......there is a small but highly important component in my response here that almost takes precedent over all............Naturalness In Sound Quality. There is a sound here with these units which is different than others. We are most concerned with sound quality. Even other units that are more powerful don’t sound like the 1A or 1Z. People that fail to appreciate this single aspect most likely can’t hear the sound quality or don’t have IEMs to hear it.

It’s fine to want a more powerful DAP to use with a specific application. But you will find pretty much 100% of the users in this thread find the Signature Series powerful enough for their use. The only issue we have might be a slight issue with the music search engine in the software. But if put on a scale of value that single knock against the Walkmans is very small. That’s not to say that someday there will be a grand improvement doing everything the Walkmans do today with a smidge more power......anything is possible......but it’s not out there at this time.

IMO

 

[nc8000]

What you are stating here is an ALL or NOTHING design choice. That is not what is needed nor realistic. The WM1A/Z is under powered, most agree, and this greatly effects it's performance. There are many planars that present a low impedance load and can be driven REALISTICALLY with a suitable DAP or amp to an enjoyable volume level and still provide 8-10 hours of battery life. I for one do not expect 20+ hours of battery life (and the WM1A/Z does not provide that) but I do expect an adequate power level to enjoy listening with other than "hearing aid" sized headphones. The "magic in design" is to balance these competing priorities and deliver a device that fulfills the expectations of the target market.

The 1Z can drive all my headphones and iem to ear splitting volume. I use the Sony Z1R full size and iem and never go over 90 on low gain on the volume (JH13 are at about 50 low gain). Yes it could not drive HE-6 to acceptable volume but I never expected it to. And it easily does 20+ hours playing 16/44 flac on sound direct between charges and that is a major buying criteria for me. I charge mine once a week To 90% and play 2-3 hours a day and never turn it off.

 

[nanaholic]

Right, we are seeking balance here. Long battery life, small form factors and low distortion. We don’t want the units to even get warm and they don’t. Call us delusional or call us Sony Fans...... that’s OK. The Sony 1A and 1Z are perfectly powerful for most on this thread. There will always be the small percentage outside the norm that want something else.

In fact the 1Z and 1A are just powerful enough. But......obviously a desktop or other portable unit may drive full-size headphones better. The Sony engineers were making a DAP for IEMs I feel. We here don’t want anything else. And......there is a small but highly important component in my response here that almost takes precedent over all............Naturalness In Sound Quality. There is a sound here with these units which is different that others. We are most concerned with sound quality. Even other units that are more powerful don’t sound like the 1A or 1Z. People that fail to appreciate this single aspect most likely can’t hear the sound quality or don’t have IEMs to hear it.

It’s fine to want a more powerful DAP to use with a specific application. But you will find pretty much 100% of the users in this thread find the Signature Series powerful enough for their use. The only issue we have might be a slight issue with the music search engine in the software. But if put on a scale of value that single knock against the Walkmans is very small. That’s not to say that someday there will be a grand improvement doing everything the Walkmans do today with a smidge more power......anything is possible......but it’s not out there at this time.

IMO

Even then, some over head dynamic headphones can be played quite well with the Walkman, it isn't just "hearing aid" IEM.

For example, Campfire Audio Cascade works beautifully on the Walkman - not really surprising as it's no secret the guys at Campfire has a lot of respect and love for Walkmans (many of the guys at CA personally own the new Walkman players - so much for poor design decisions). A pair of Cascade on balance out of a WM1A or even a ZX300 is quite a fine travelling setup. I once traveled a week with nothing but a ZX300 and a pair of Cascade riding trains across the west of Japan, not a moment that it left me underwhelmed as I look out the window enjoying the scenery while listening to music frequently taking 4 or more hours just to get between cities, and I don't even have to worry about not having enough juice left unless I forgot to charge the player for 3 days straight.

A lot of the portable Ultrasone headphones that were designed to play straight from iPhones and iPods like the Edition M or the Edition 8 also works beautifully as Walkmans obviously has a much better and more powerful output than iPods.

I can listen to Focal Clear on the Walkman just fine. Does it sound better on my desktop rig? Sure. But it's hardly unlistenable on the Walkman either.

Also eyeing Audio Technica headphones - especially the more recent ones such as the new portable ATH-WP900, beautifully crafted portable wood headphone with 53mm drivers which sounds pretty fantastic even out of an A series Walkman.

There are so many headphones to choose from besides planers out there. If you must use planers, then you know what the pre-requisite is then the mistake is you chose the wrong tool for the job in which case the failing is in you, not the tool. Because if you bought a super bike and then complain that it doesn't also tow your trailer, you ain't gonna get much sympathy from your friends and family either.

 

[Aeskualpio]

The 1A drives my Focal Clears quite nicely.
When I want time with the Dan Clark Audio Aeon 2s then I hook it up to the SMSL SP200 THX AAA 888. For portable use I bring the portable Monolith THX or I switch to the RHA CL2s.

 

[purk]

What you are stating here is an ALL or NOTHING design choice. That is not what is needed nor realistic. The WM1A/Z is under powered, most agree, and this greatly effects it's performance. There are many planars that present a low impedance load and can be driven REALISTICALLY with a suitable DAP or amp to an enjoyable volume level and still provide 8-10 hours of battery life. I for one do not expect 20+ hours of battery life (and the WM1A/Z does not provide that) but I do expect an adequate power level to enjoy listening with other than "hearing aid" sized headphones. The "magic in design" is to balance these competing priorities and deliver a device that fulfills the expectations of the target market.

You see, that’s why I also steer clear of planar headphones. My WM1Z does a good job driving the HD800 and that’s more than good enough for me. It also work wonder on those Focal headphones.

 

[gerelmx1986]

I recently tried the focal clear, they sound nice, nice bass rumble and details.

Then i tried sennheiser HD800, didn't sound that much different from my MDR-Z1R, perhaps lighter bass texture.om the sennheiser, had to use HG.

Then i tried some Audezes connected to a beyer dynamic amp. I wasnt impressed by the soundstage and the clamping force

 

[gerelmx1986]

But then neither of those options are actually listening to DSD natively, listening through 3.5 converts to PCM, no? Likewise, disabling DSD via 4.4. means it is not DSD being played...

Yes you're right, it is "downsampled" to PCM 352.8 kHz either 24 or 32 bit, not so sure. But it is the only way of applying EQ to DSD without having to buy an external EQ.

Reading further on the DSD topic, DSD can only ve edited with simple effects like volume changes and fades. We are still unable to edit DSD data with complex tools like EQ, panning etc. In fact many labels do record in pcm, edit and upsample to DSD or they record in DSD, downsample to DXD (352.8/24), edit and reconvert to DSD for final delivery

 

[ttt123]

What you are stating here is an ALL or NOTHING design choice. That is not what is needed nor realistic. The WM1A/Z is under powered, most agree, and this greatly effects it's performance. There are many planars that present a low impedance load and can be driven REALISTICALLY with a suitable DAP or amp to an enjoyable volume level and still provide 8-10 hours of battery life. I for one do not expect 20+ hours of battery life (and the WM1A/Z does not provide that) but I do expect an adequate power level to enjoy listening with other than "hearing aid" sized headphones. The "magic in design" is to balance these competing priorities and deliver a device that fulfills the expectations of the target market.

The WM1x DAPs are clearly wrong for you, as they do not meet your usage requirements. You should not consider it, or buy it.
This scene from Star Wars summarizes the situation: "These are not the droids you are looking for"

 

[auronthas]

Yes you can as long as you have the battery save feature on. That will prevent the battery from over charging. However, if you really want to do it "right", you want to give some time in between to let your analog circuit turn off - like one day on, one day off. Over stressing your caps is not good either.

I went straight 100 hrs, then did normal listening for the other 400 hrs.

IMO, I don't want to waste 100 hours ... part of battery life span, I will utilize the burn-in period to listen to any kind of songs..

Every penny counts since WM1A/1Z not cheap; every seconds, minutes, hours and patiently wait while enjoying my music.

 

[nc8000]

I recently tried the focal clear, they sound nice, nice bass rumble and details.

Then i tried sennheiser HD800, didn't sound that much different from my MDR-Z1R, perhaps lighter bass texture.om the sennheiser, had to use HG.

Then i tried some Audezes connected to a beyer dynamic amp. I wasnt impressed by the soundstage and the clamping force

To me the HD800 is very near the polar opposite to MDR-Z1R and while I can understand the qualities of HD800 they are not for me

 

[kingdixon]

The 1Z can drive all my headphones and iem to ear splitting volume. I use the Sony Z1R full size and iem and never go over 90 on low gain on the volume (JH13 are at about 50 low gain). Yes it could not drive HE-6 to acceptable volume but I never expected it to. And it easily does 20+ hours playing 16/44 flac on sound direct between charges and that is a major buying criteria for me. I charge mine once a week To 90% and play 2-3 hours a day and never turn it off.

I don't know but i couldn't convince my self to use low gain at all, on wm1a i always feel the high gain to have more engaging sound and tighter bass even at low volume, so i end up using high gain all of the time.

 

[nc8000]

I don't know but i couldn't convince my self to use low gain at all, on wm1a i always feel the high gain to have more engaging sound and tighter bass even at low volume, so i end up using high gain all of the time.

I only detect very minor if any difference in sound so go with low gain for longest battery life. 99% of the time I use my 1Z with the IER-Z1R

 

[Whitigir]

@gerelmx1986 . To answer your question regarding the DSD-Remastering vs DSEE-HX. I like DSD-remastering better On DMP.

DSD-remastering has a much better weight and authenticity in the resolution within a timbre body. This weighty energy is what giving emotions from the music and connect the listener. I never recalled this feature to be this good on the TA-ZH1ES. But I love it with DMP

 

[Damz87]

@gerelmx1986 . To answer your question regarding the DSD-Remastering vs DSEE-HX. I like DSD-remastering better On DMP.

DSD-remastering has a much better weight and authenticity in the resolution within a timbre body. This weighty energy is what giving emotions from the music and connect the listener. I never recalled this feature to be this good on the TA-ZH1ES. But I love it with DMP

Agreed, DSD remastering is much better on DMP compared to TA. It doesn’t really do much at all on the TA, But on the DMP it‘s a very noticeable improvement.

 

[amham]

No, what YOU are describing is an ALL or NOTHING design choice as you are only using whether the device is able to properly drive a full size planer as the ONLY passing criteria while ignoring all the other benefits of the design choice of the device - namely it is still portable and offers unrivaled battery/playback life while running extremely cool even when playing high demanding hi-resolution lossless files (and DSD). Again, it's a balancing act of choosing TWO factors out of THREE but you can't have ALL three at the same time.

If using your method of argument - I can also setup a hypothetical situation where none of the other DAPs can win except the Walkman. Here's how it would go - I want a device that will last me a cross Pacific Ocean direct flight from Tokyo to New York on a single charge (15+ hours) driving a pair of fairly standard 8/16/32ohm, 105dB/mW sensitivity CIEM, and that includes waiting time at the airport lounge and transportation to and from airport etc playing nothing but FLACs which means I need at least 25 hours playback (yes it most certainly does provide 25 hours playback time for FLACs on Direct Source as it goes 40hrs on mp3s - I've frequently reach that playback time where I travel and not even need to charge the device once), if I have to plug it in even once then it fails. And it has to stay cool as to not burn my crouch when I keep it in my pocket. Oh look only the Sony Walkman wins that challenge! Guess all the other TOTL DAPs made "poor design decisions".

See how silly this kind of argument is? Yet that's the kind of argument you are making regarding hard to drive headphones and the Walkman. Yet I'm more confident that long playback listening is going to be a much more common usage scenario than someone trying to use an open-back planer on a portable device on the move.

With all due respect, you are WRONG and I am RIGHT...end of discussion... and Happy Holidays!!! (now, that is one method of internet forum discussion)