[The Fife Flyer]

Anyone know if the Walkman BT remote will also work with Sony phones or any phone really.

It doesn`t connect to my OnePlus5T or my wifes LG G5 but does connect to my Denon AV X4300H

 

[psikey]

It doesn`t connect to my OnePlus5T or my wifes LG G5 but does connect to my Denon AV X4300H

Strange how it seems to be all over the place with phones. As I said above, fully works with Samsung S7 and iPhone SE. Will also try with my old Z5 compact later.

 

[ailean]

The 3 clip options are also excellent idea. I'm using the small cable holder for my SE846's and the large one for my HD660S (have spring clips on them both already to clip to my top etc.)

You can usually count on Sony to design stuff really well. I just need them to bring out a high-end DAP with 4.4mm balanced and Tidal/Spotify bitperfect streaming/offline support.

Clipped to my Shure SE846's with the standard Shure 3.5mm cable (memory wire removed & re-glanded)

Tut tut not using balanced cable on the Shures!

 

[psikey]

Tut tut not using balanced cable on the Shures!

I have a Sony Kimber 4.4mm balanced for my SE846's, but the Dragonfly Red only has 3.5mm but still excellent anyway.
I returned the ZX300 itself as mostly use Streaming services for my audio these days so sticking with my iPhone SE/Dragonfly Red for now. Sounds as good as the ZX300 balanced anyway.
Sold the official case that only arrived yesterday on the forums and the remote only just arrived a couple of hours ago which I'm keeping.

SE846's with my Kimber balanced

 

[abitdeef]

Has anyone compared the sound of the zx300 and the wm1a?

Yes, quite a few people have in this thread, and they say they're very close. That's one of the appealing features of the zx300,.

 

[JerryHead]

I have a Sony Kimber 4.4mm balanced for my SE846's, but the Dragonfly Red only has 3.5mm but still excellent anyway.
I returned the ZX300 itself as mostly use Streaming services for my audio these days so sticking with my iPhone SE/Dragonfly Red for now. Sounds as good as the ZX300 balanced anyway.
Sold the official case that only arrived yesterday on the forums and the remote only just arrived a couple of hours ago which I'm keeping.

SE846's with my Kimber balanced

I'm surprised you were still able to return the ZX300 after all of this time. Pretty amazing return policy wherever it is you got them. I like your idea of pairing down to only what you need, but a disadvantage of using a DAP to stream Tidal (such as the ZX2) is that you'll always need wifi to stream or download new music. Connecting a DAP to your cell phone means you can always do so on the go. Also, I don't believe the DFR will play DSD, and it doesn't provide the balanced connection. Who knows though, once Sony puts out a new ZX300 with Tidal on it, I may be wishing I'd waited too.

 

[JerryHead]

I had the A15 and ZX100 and always got close to the estimated battery life. I have my brightness on the lowest, direct source on, balanced - high gain 30-50 volume playing mostly flac and a bit of hi-rez and by 1 bar goes after about 2 hours. I do surf my tracks a bit but the screen time is minimal. Maybe the start up process and creating database drain more than previous models?

I'm getting same battery life, but my brightness is on full, and I'm playing (about half high res) ALAC/FLAC, and at times am even connecting my iPhone X (but not charging the phone through the ZX300) to play Tidal. Also, my 90% battery saver is on. It's not great, but these days I never have time to listen for more than an hour or two. Did you purchase yours early on from Japan like me? Just wondering if some of those units could have a battery issue..

 

[terrosa]

I have both, they sound very very CLOSE (on balance), at least to my ears. Only some tracks/albums that I have, brings out the gap favouring the WM1A.

Has anyone compared the sound of the zx300 and the wm1a?

 

[psikey]

I'm surprised you were still able to return the ZX300 after all of this time. Pretty amazing return policy wherever it is you got them. I like your idea of pairing down to only what you need, but a disadvantage of using a DAP to stream Tidal (such as the ZX2) is that you'll always need wifi to stream or download new music. Connecting a DAP to your cell phone means you can always do so on the go. Also, I don't believe the DFR will play DSD, and it doesn't provide the balanced connection. Who knows though, once Sony puts out a new ZX300 with Tidal on it, I may be wishing I'd waited too.

A double

Its my 2nd one from Amazon. I'm very indecisive !! I just create a new account then still return within the 30 day Window.

I have DSD & higher than 24/96 flac but to be honest, only a few and 95% now just listen to Tidal FLAC/MQA streamed/offline. I can't hear difference or minimal difference once your at 24/96 anyway.

In flight mode the iPhone SE/DFR combination with battery saver mode set and in flight-mode (except BT) will still last me all day for music playback. Even if streaming over wifi it last me the day.

I know Balanced is the new "Black" but to be honest, the DFR sounds better than the ZX300 via SE and nearly as good as ZX300 Balanced (ZX300 has even blacker background with high sensitivity IEM's). ** To My Ears **

That's why I'm finding best compromise of sound quality, size, weight, battery, usability for Streaming service music is an iPhone SE 128GB with DFR for Tidal online/offline without any scaling issues. With the Sony BT remote it just got perfect. I use the iPhone SE purely as a music player (no SIM) and my phone is still the S7 until my S9 arrives.

When my new cable arrives it will be even more portable friendly replacing the USB3 CCK adapter.



When new cable arrives + a small USB to micro USB converter

 

[JerryHead]

ZX300 DAC DSD Streaming

Ok, since I like to figure out this kind of stuff I went down the DSD/DoP (DSD over PCM) rabbit hole today. After reading various documents this is the conclusion I came to. I am by no means an expert on this one so I might be totally wrong but hey this is the internet so feel free to flame me to a crisp.

TL;DR;

Windows: DAC Streaming up to DSD256 works if you install the additional driver and use an ASIO compatible audio player

Mac: DAC Streaming works only up to DSD128 <period>

Detailed explanation

Find a more technical explanation and historical summary here DOP Open standard guide.

MAC:
The MAC USB driver stack only provides PCM audio output via CoreAudio, so no native DSD streaming is possible. To be able to stream native DSD to the DAC DoP must be used.
The ZX300 provides a maximum sample rate of 384 kHz which allows for a DoP transfer up to DSD128, anything higher will not work. In theory CoreAudio could send higher sample rates BUT the DAC has to support it as well.
There are solutions from other DAC vendors which use custom ASIO drivers and compatible applications to enable native DSD streaming.
In our case this would require a dedicated driver from sony and an ASIO capable application. I highly doubt that we will see this happening given the niche market sony would cover this way.

So with the ZX300 “only” native DSD128 is possible right now.


Windows:
Out of the box the windows usb 2.0 audio driver only support sample rates up to 96kHz so you always require a custom driver for hi-res audio. In this case Sony provides an ASIO compatible driver for the ZX300. With this driver and an ASIO enabled application native DSD streaming is possible and you can indeed stream up to DSD256 to the ZX300

Kind regards,

Mike

So, no way to stream Tidal MQA from a mac to the zx300?
Also, what cables/adapters are needed to play any Tidal from a Mac on the ZX300? Thanks..

 

[Maru-san]

So, no way to stream Tidal MQA from a mac to the zx300?
Also, what cables/adapters are needed to play any Tidal from a Mac on the ZX300? Thanks..

What I explained is only touching DSD playback.
MQA decoding is according to Sony (mentioned in a post further up) not enabled/possible when it is being streamed. MQA will play as "normal" flacs without unfolding. Of course it does work if the MQA is played from the walkman itself.

On the "positive" side the included USB cable is all you need to stream audio from your computer to the DAC.
On the MAC no additional drivers are required for hi-res playback, for windows you need the additional driver.

 

[JerryHead]

Wo

When you are on the EQ screen and you press [toolbox] menu.. a pop up will show Tone Control. If you want to revert back to the EQ screen the procedure is the same.

.

would you have a link to purchase the case pictured in your post here? It appears to be real leather..

 

[kms108]

Wo

would you have a link to purchase the case pictured in your post here? It appears to be real leather..

Try search in amazon.co.jp

 

[superuser1]

Wo

would you have a link to purchase the case pictured in your post here? It appears to be real leather..

There you go:
https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B077GRLTNP/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[Mathieulh]

I have finally managed to play DSD256 and higher in f00bar2000 using the ZX300 as an external DAC. It turns out the sacd component for f00bar ( https://sourceforge.net/projects/sacddecoder/files/) only outputs in DoP mode rather than DSD but the NW-ZX300 is limited to DSD128 using DoP as an input, you need to install the DSD transcoder ( https://sourceforge.net/projects/sacddecoder/files/dsd_transcoder/ ) , the asio plugin ( https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_out_asio );
then you need to setup the transcoder driver in ASIO so it converts the DoP input into native DSD and select the ASIO device as "Sony Audio Driver" and select "DSD : ASIO : DSD Transcoder (DoP/Native)" as the output device, make sure to set the output data format to 32-bit, obviously make sure to select DSD or DSD+PCM in the SACD component.

The results speak for themselves