[touzeen]

I don't know if this has been covered in this thread before (I searched 'wart' and got no results) but is everyone charging their zx300 via wmport->usbport? Like, usb on your PC or laptop? Anyone using a wall wart AC charger? Sony doesn't list one on their N. American page and the English manual AFAIK only says charging by USB, but the Sony Japan website does list several AC chargers as accessories on the zx300 page. AC-NWUM-60 is 5V/800mA, AC-U501AD is 5V/1A, and AC-UD20 is 5V/1.5A. Which leads me to believe any 5V AC adapter with an amperage of 1.5A or less and with a USB port could be used to charge the zx300. But I'm one of those 'dammit, let's go!' kind of people sometimes. Am I wrong? I've got an old original Zune charger that'll probably still be functioning when the sun goes supernova, and it's 5V/1.5A.

Using my wall Sony Mobile 2A charger to charge the ZX300 without any problems.

 

[Jstn01]

Can I ask how this compares to the ak70?

I have never had the opportunity to test out any of Sony's gear and am thinking about possible upgrading/changing

 

[Hinomotocho]

I charged my A15 for 2 years and my ZX100 for 1 year using a 2A wall charger - always had good battery life

 

[psikey]

I use a Samsung 2A charger with no issues.

 

[ailean]

3 days in and loving my ZX300. One concern though is the fact it's a specific Sony cable, I've been used to just grabbing one of the many standard micro USB cables knocking about the house, I have to make sure to keep this one safe in one place, plus buy a couple of spares!

A little confused on the volume. I'm finding I need to have it up around 80+ for reasonable volume, this is on standard 3.5 using Sennheiser IE8 - have to push it up over 100 to drive my HD650s, is this normal? Files all FLAC, some of which are hi-res.

There are some cheap wmport cables around so not difficult to get spares, I have the wmport/usb adapter too but had to source that from Japan.

Not used my IE8's in years so can't remember what they were like for power need, my shure IEMs are at around 60, they are easy to drive. Do you have the ZX300 uncap'd? Not used HD6xx before but for most DAPs I've had people seem to reconmend hi-gain settings for those, there is also more power available on the balanced port if you can get the right cables.

 

[kms108]

Like someone has mentioned, the adapter is usefull for not carring a extra cable around, I have about 3 adapter, with a bit of searching on the net they are easily found, although I did get mine from Japan during my visit, I don't even use the supplied cables.
I just have one cable for both type C and WM port, my iphone uses wireless charging, and I only charge that once every 1-1 and1/2 weeks.

 

[kms108]

I use a Samsung 2A charger with no issues.

Any USB charger will do, anything from 500mAh and up, power brick, wall or PC.

 

[Mathieulh]

There are some cheap wmport cables around so not difficult to get spares, I have the wmport/usb adapter too but had to source that from Japan.

Not used my IE8's in years so can't remember what they were like for power need, my shure IEMs are at around 60, they are easy to drive. Do you have the ZX300 uncap'd? Not used HD6xx before but for most DAPs I've had people seem to reconmend hi-gain settings for those, there is also more power available on the balanced port if you can get the right cables.

His unit is probably capped or/and he is using his headphones on the SE output, I have my Sennheiser HD650 connected to my Japanese NW-ZX300 over the Balanced output on high gain, I usually crank the volume between 30 to 80 depending on how loud I want to listen to and the track I am listening to (I listen at louder volume to tracks with a higher dynamic range for example) , anything higher than 80 even on high dynamic range tracks starts being painful to my ears. Of course if your unit is capped, if you are on low gain or if you are using SE, using a 300ohms pair of headphones like the HD650 is a bad idea, those are meant to be listened to at high power on high gain (people generally use an external amp to drive those), while the NW-ZX300 can drive those fine while uncapped over balanced, the SE or using it capped does not provide enough power to drive these, keep in mind that SE power output is 50mW while the balanced output is 200mW, that's 4 times as much power. You would need at the very least 150mW@16ohms to drive the HD650 efficiently, considering the capped version of the unit is restricted to a maximum of 4,2 mW regardless of the output, using the HD650 over a capped unit is not even an option.

There is also the fact that I strongly believe unlike the WM1A/Z the limitation on the EU unit isn't only software but hardware based as well (which is why there is no tourist unit available as the EU service center probably does not have replacement boards for uncapped units), this is strongly suggested by people who mentioned how some 150ohms headphones (like the HD660S) remain hard to drive on their EU units even after being uncapped through the rockbox destination tool (that's on high gain over balanced) while the factory uncapped ZX300 does not have any issue driving 300ohms headphones using the same configuration. While the software uncap does alleviate some of the issues, such as providing high gain on EU units, I do not believe it entirely removes the limitation, of course the only way to be sure would be to compare a formerly capped and a factory uncapped unit side by side with the same headphones at the same volume or to compare both motherboards. This is also why I do not believe the 1.6-4.2mW specification displayed on sony's website (https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/walkman/nw-zx300/specifications) to be a typo of any kind, this kind of strict limitation (we are going down from 50mW and 200mW respectively to 1.6-4.2mW) isn't only enforced by software, (most likely the capped units have an extra resistor somewhere or a different power regulator), unfortunately I cannot compare units myself, but until we know for sure, I would strongly advise not to purchase the capped version of the unit sold in Western Europe even if you can remove the software limitation.

 

[Mathieulh]

I don't know if this has been covered in this thread before (I searched 'wart' and got no results) but is everyone charging their zx300 via wmport->usbport? Like, usb on your PC or laptop? Anyone using a wall wart AC charger? Sony doesn't list one on their N. American page and the English manual AFAIK only says charging by USB, but the Sony Japan website does list several AC chargers as accessories on the zx300 page. AC-NWUM-60 is 5V/800mA, AC-U501AD is 5V/1A, and AC-UD20 is 5V/1.5A. Which leads me to believe any 5V AC adapter with an amperage of 1.5A or less and with a USB port could be used to charge the zx300. But I'm one of those 'dammit, let's go!' kind of people sometimes. Am I wrong? I've got an old original Zune charger that'll probably still be functioning when the sun goes supernova, and it's 5V/1.5A.

The unit is rated at 500mAh, so you need a 500mAh or higher AC adapter, this is the exact specification as defined by the NW-ZX300's USB descriptors:

USBConfiguration: # interfaces = 2, config val = 1, config string = , attr = 0x80, maxPower = 500mA

Unless you are using a very old/out of spec AC adapter, all USB AC adapters will never output any higher current than the value defined by the device's usb descriptor, it therefore does not matter if you are using something rated higher than 500mAh (such as 2A) as it will always output 5V@500mAh to the device, as such, the charging speed will not change either.

 

[kms108]

I like to add, the purpose of Sony bringing out all their walkmans (hi end ones) is to promote the pentaconn connection, and to get people to use them, the 3.5 is just a added bonus, sony will try to remove tit if they can, but it's a bad idea to do so with billions of people still using it.

I'm sure majority of sony's release in the near future will include the 4.4 pentaconn as a alternative to the 3.5.

 

[Bepli]

His unit is probably capped or/and he is using his headphones on the SE output, I have my Sennheiser HD650 connected to my Japanese NW-ZX300 over the Balanced output on high gain, I usually crank the volume between 30 to 80 depending on how loud I want to listen to and the track I am listening to (I listen at louder volume to tracks with a higher dynamic range for example) , anything higher than 80 even on high dynamic range tracks starts being painful to my ears. Of course if your unit is capped, if you are on low gain or if you are using SE, using a 300ohms pair of headphones like the HD650 is a bad idea, those are meant to be listened to at high power on high gain (people generally use an external amp to drive those), while the NW-ZX300 can drive those fine while uncapped over balanced, the SE or using it capped does not provide enough power to drive these, keep in mind that SE power output is 50mW while the balanced output is 200mW, that's 4 times as much power. You would need at the very least 150mW@16ohms to drive the HD650 efficiently, considering the capped version of the unit is restricted to a maximum of 4,2 mW regardless of the output, using the HD650 over a capped unit is not even an option.

There is also the fact that I strongly believe unlike the WM1A/Z the limitation on the EU unit isn't only software but hardware based as well (which is why there is no tourist unit available as the EU service center probably does not have replacement boards for uncapped units), this is strongly suggested by people who mentioned how some 150ohms headphones (like the HD660S) remain hard to drive on their EU units even after being uncapped through the rockbox destination tool (that's on high gain over balanced) while the factory uncapped ZX300 does not have any issue driving 300ohms headphones using the same configuration. While the software uncap does alleviate some of the issues, such as providing high gain on EU units, I do not believe it entirely removes the limitation, of course the only way to be sure would be to compare a formerly capped and a factory uncapped unit side by side with the same headphones at the same volume or to compare both motherboards. This is also why I do not believe the 1.6-4.2mW specification displayed on sony's website (https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/walkman/nw-zx300/specifications) to be a typo of any kind, this kind of strict limitation (we are going down from 50mW and 200mW respectively to 1.6-4.2mW) isn't only enforced by software, (most likely the capped units have an extra resistor somewhere or a different power regulator), unfortunately I cannot compare units myself, but until we know for sure, I would strongly advise not to purchase the capped version of the unit sold in Western Europe even if you can remove the software limitation.

1. No there is no internal difference between any ZX300.
2. The Tourist version was not available in the first months but will be available sometime later on.
3. The Impedance of a Headphone does not directly transfer on how much power you need. The efficiency is way more important, the HD660S is only a little bit more efficient than the HD600 and HD650.
4. The output on the site is not a typo but also not the output of the headphone jacks.

Also what ever you think about the power needed on the HD650, 150mW@16ohms will only be achieved at like 110/120 volume since the volume does not raise linear but logarithmic (the difference from 1/120 to 2/120 is very small compared to 119/120 to 120/120).

The European version will output the same power as a uncapped version if the EU Volume limit is removed like on the Rockbox page.

 

[kms108]

Sony centre Japan say there will be no tourist version (as of december 2017), but you can buy the Japanese version as a tourist status at the sony store with tax free and international warranty as long as you have temp status stamp on your passport, but then it's Japanese language only according to sony store.

 

[ccschua]

I am thinking of upgrading.

1. should I buy a pha-2a and pair with zx300 to drive my hifiman 400i or

2. sell the zx300 and buy a WM1A to drive the hifiman directly ?

total cost for item 1 and 2 are about the same

 

[Bepli]

Sony centre Japan say there will be no tourist version (as of december 2017), but you can buy the Japanese version as a tourist status at the sony store with tax free and international warranty as long as you have temp status stamp on your passport, but then it's Japanese language only according to sony store.

As of december 2017, thats 2 months old. A Sony rep already confirmed there will be a tourist version, a date is not clear yet.

I am thinking of upgrading.

1. should I buy a pha-2a and pair with zx300 to drive my hifiman 400i or

2. sell the zx300 and buy a WM1A to drive the hifiman directly ?

total cost for item 1 and 2 are about the same

I always like separating stuff so I would go for the PHA-2A, but if you like a bigger screen go for the WM1A

 

[kms108]

I know it's 2 months, thats why I mentioned about the date, they told me this during my visit. but upto now it's still not available, so until they actual release it, i'm still correct.