[Vitandus]

Hi all, I need some help – I’ve recently got the Sony NW-ZX300 and am struggling to notice how much better it is than playing from my iPhone!

Balanced. With IEMs like the iSine 20 - high gain, balanced, and EQ'd up? Oh man, the difference is night and day. Hell, night and the next day over. Really.

With my Fiio FH5 on SE, the difference is not as noticeable - unless, again, you EQ a bit.

 

[philipsony]

One word ..... BALANCED!

are all ciem capable of receiving balanced output?
only requirement is to have the right cable?

am considering zx300 for my next dap , its the first time i come across this balance output thing

 

[sweppe]

Cheers guys! I've ordered these - should be here tomorrow... I hope you're all right I'll let you know

 

[Sonic Ecstasy]

Cheers guys! I've ordered these - should be here tomorrow... I hope you're all right I'll let you know

Interested to read how you get on with the 4.4mm cable, goodluck.

 

[MattTCG]

I need to make correction for a comment I made earlier. The zx300a (joybuy) does NOT have a hardware volume cap. I compared it today directly against a Japan issues unit both on low and high gain. Both units output the exact same SPL level. My apologies for the earlier comment that was in error.

 

[sweppe]

Interested to read how you get on with the 4.4mm cable, goodluck.

That doesn't sound promising! I'll let you know... would you recommend a type of cable?

 

[Sonic Ecstasy]

That doesn't sound promising! I'll let you know... would you recommend a type of cable?

I owned shure se535 a few years ago but never took the balanced route since the baldur mkii cable was 'the thing' for se535 back then.

 

[hemipowered007]

Hi all, I need some help – I’ve recently got the Sony NW-ZX300 and am struggling to notice how much better it is than playing from my iPhone!

I’ve got the Shure SE535’s (had them for 7 years ish now) and have been using it on my iPhone 7 plus with the cable adapter and mainly use Musicloud (which has plenty of my FLAC, WAV and MP3’s on with a great equaliser) or I just use Spotify at I hope 320kbs.

I’ve been listening to the ZX300 with my Shure’s for the past 5 days or so now and played around a lot with all the sound settings and honestly can’t tell a huge difference (well – to justify the £475 price mark that goes with it).

I’ve noticed 2 main improvements - the detail and clarity and how the sound stays so crisp at really high volumes.

Detail and clarity – this is generally noticeable on my DSDs and good quality FLACs. The soundstage is a bit wider and the mids and highs seem more separate. However, I don’t notice a big difference.

High volumes – when I say high volume I mean above 100 (on low gain) and above 80 (on high gain). I don’t know if anyone else uses the ZX300 with the SE535s but those kind of levels are high (I’d get tinnitus in no time am sure) but the sound at these levels are really impressive. To me they sound the most complete – bass, mids and high come together.

If I were to do a blind test with the ZX300 v iPhone I’m not sure the ZX300 would win every time which to me doesn’t justify its price tag. What I want to ask you guys is - am I missing something? Should I not be waiting for a moment of ‘wow’ these are amazing – have I already mentioned the reasons why these are so good already or do I need to wait further into the burn in period? Should I get the balanced cable for the Shure’s? it’s only been around 9 hours, but I’m struggling! Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

Not sure how revealing the Shure is I've never heard them. BUT, you also have to remember, the SE side is said to sound a whole lot worse without burn in, the balanced side supposedly improves but I recall reading the SE side improved much more after burn in. Now, I can also say, the difference between se and balanced is incredible, I won't say night and day, but, it's a gooD amount of improvement in all areas. I noticed it on my ex1000, denon d2k, and t50rp build, pretty big difference. So, burn in aND go balanced, it's an amazing dap.

 

[superuser1]

are all ciem capable of receiving balanced output?
only requirement is to have the right cable?

am considering zx300 for my next dap , its the first time i come across this balance output thing

Yes absolutely.

 

[spoonbright]

I want buy the zx300 but I really don't know or understand anything about how headphones or cable or both need for...
the true I feel lost.

 

[kms108]

I want buy the zx300 but I really don't know or understand anything about how headphones or cable or both need for...
the true I feel lost.

You really don't need to know a lot, just the basic, listen, if you like the sound quality, that's good enough, everyone hear and expectations are different.

Just post here what headphones or iem you are interested, and people will comment.

 

[YCHANGE]

The ZX300 really doesn't need any mention on how great it sounds balanced with a decent iem like the Vega. On the flip side I'd like to mention the SE output with budget iem; the Zhiyin Z500 for 50$. Out of all the chifi iems I tried, the Z500 paired best with the ZX300. On other Daps the treble of the Z500 sounded tizzy. ZX300 took that away and seemed to boost dynamics, clarity, and soundstage. I used high gain on the SE with volume between 80 and 90. Even early on in the SE burn in process I enoyed the pairing so much that I listened in shuffle mode. Balanced or SE this is one of the best daps I've had in my life.

 

[Fatter-than-Olaf]

Can anyone recommend other overhead headphones that work well with the ZX300?

I am currently using 1AM2 which work well given its light weight. It worked well on most genres of music but with orchestra a more analytical headphone might be better. But many of the bigger headphones need to be driven by headphone amp.

 

[jonathane40]

Does anyone know how many volts the zx300 can output? I ask to see how well the zx300 can drive the HD6XX. According to google, it seems that the HD6XX need about 2 volts RMS (5.7 volts peak-to-peak) for wide dynamic range music at realistic levels.

The HD6XX sound great on high gain out of the balanced output but I don’t know how much I’m missing since I don’t have a more powerful dac/amp to compare. It gets pretty loud but since I know the HD6xx have huge impedance swings I’m not sure if they are being under powered by the zx300.

 

[Vitandus]

are all ciem capable of receiving balanced output?
only requirement is to have the right cable?

CIEMs? No audioexpert, but they should as long as there's a sep cable to each earpiece.