[Richard Wray]

Upgraded to 1112 today. Still an issue on the first track a listen to. Then it seems to settle down.

That will teach me!

Factory reset my 507 and now cannot redownload any version of apple music!

Goes to the app beta page but has no download button

 

[smilealittlebit]

That will teach me!

Factory reset my 507 and now cannot redownload any version of apple music!

Goes to the app beta page but has no download button

Just download an APK from the internet. You don't need the play store for that. It's Android, not an iPhone.

 

[emilsoft]

Anyone managed to enable high bitrate LDAC? When I got to developer settings it keeps reverting to adaptive best effort.. which is disappointing.

My Fiio M11 Plus beats the ZX507 with the WF1000XM4 - the improvements are quite large; the earphones just sound smoother, wider, cleaner, calmer - take your pick it'll do it better on the m11 plus (using LDAC on both).. of course iphone sounds like trash so the ZX507 is ahead here.

 

[rmkjr]

Anyone managed to enable high bitrate LDAC? When I got to developer settings it keeps reverting to adaptive best effort.. which is disappointing.

My Fiio M11 Plus beats the ZX507 with the WF1000XM4 - the improvements are quite large; the earphones just sound smoother, wider, cleaner, calmer - take your pick it'll do it better on the m11 plus (using LDAC on both).. of course iphone sounds like trash so the ZX507 is ahead here.

Settings -> Connected devices -> Connection preferences -> Bluetooth -> Wireless playback quality. That one seems to stick where the one in developer options doesn’t.

 

[emilsoft]

Settings -> Connected devices -> Connection preferences -> Bluetooth -> Wireless playback quality. That one seems to stick where the one in developer options doesn’t.

Ah thank you! Thats awesome.. and a bit hard to understand why Sony would opt by default for a lesser quality LDAC bitrate on their audiophile DAP, and make the option fairly hidden to change it.

I've tested it again now, seems a little better but still m11 Plus comes out on top by a fair margin, so it's obvious to me it's not just the codec that plays a part.

 

[smilealittlebit]

Ah thank you! Thats awesome.. and a bit hard to understand why Sony would opt by default for a lesser quality LDAC bitrate on their audiophile DAP, and make the option fairly hidden to change it.

I've tested it again now, seems a little better but still m11 Plus comes out on top by a fair margin, so it's obvious to me it's not just the codec that plays a part.

Yeah, that's called the placebo effect. If the codec settings are the same, it shouldn't matter what device you're using, as it's the headphones DAC being responsible for reading the signal.

 

[emilsoft]

Yeah, that's called the placebo effect. If the codec settings are the same, it shouldn't matter what device you're using, as it's the headphones DAC being responsible for reading the signal.

Right.. then why do we have expensive usb decrapifiers, cd transports and super precision digital clocks for dacs - bits are bits right? Except that they aren't when streaming audio data; jitter can play a significant part especially if a DAC doesn't have sophisticated jitter elimination built in.. anyway this has been discussed in length all over the webz

Not saying jitter is the culprit here with different bluetooth players, I don't know for sure, but certainly there is a difference in the wf1000xm4 audio from these two players. If it was placebo effect I will have loved it for it to be in favor of the ZX507 as that's my darling player, unfortunately that's not the case

 

[nanaholic]

Yeah, that's called the placebo effect. If the codec settings are the same, it shouldn't matter what device you're using, as it's the headphones DAC being responsible for reading the signal.

It may not be - as there are parameters in codecs which can affect the performance of the codec which even shows up in measurements. For example - AAC codecs varies greatly between smartphones, and unsurprisingly, Apple's implementation of AAC buries that of Android makers as Apple is a contributor to the AAC codec:
https://www.soundguys.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-bluetooth-headphones-aac-20296/

 

[smilealittlebit]

Right.. then why do we have expensive usb decrapifiers, cd transports and super precision digital clocks for dacs - bits are bits right? Except that they aren't when streaming audio data; jitter can play a significant part especially if a DAC doesn't have sophisticated jitter elimination built in.. anyway this has been discussed in length all over the webz

Not saying jitter is the culprit here with different bluetooth players, I don't know for sure, but certainly there is a difference in the wf1000xm4 audio from these two players. If it was placebo effect I will have loved it for it to be in favor of the ZX507 as that's my darling player, unfortunately that's not the case

How is your player's DAC relevant, if it's the headphones DAC that does all the job in case of Bluetooth playback?

 

[smilealittlebit]

It may not be - as there are parameters in codecs which can affect the performance of the codec which even shows up in measurements. For example - AAC codecs varies greatly between smartphones, and unsurprisingly, Apple's implementation of AAC buries that of Android makers as Apple is a contributor to the AAC codec:
https://www.soundguys.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-bluetooth-headphones-aac-20296/

Everyone knows how the AAC implementation in Android works - it's not a secret that it's the Apple's default codec. How is that relevant to LDAC, though? If you force it to work in high quality mode, there should be no difference whatsoever. Please point me to the result of studies that prove otherwise.

 

[rmkjr]

May just be a signal quality thing. Either because the Bluetooth implementation on the M11 Plus is newer, better antennas, or because it has less in the way of its antennas. LDAC, even at high quality settings, would need to be slightly variable in its bitrate to maintain a connection with varying conditions (or at least effective bitrate taking retries into account). It is a re-encoding scheme.

The M11 Plus is also a newer version of Android. So, perhaps there were some improvements to the LDAC piece there. Even though it's odd that Sony wouldn't being keeping it up to snuff, they did create LDAC.

Past transmission and encoding differences, I agree. I can't see how clocks and anything else related to the analog half would matter. It's digital until the headphones, a fully separate circuit system, themselves convert it.

Transmission and/or encoding, all on the digital side, must be slightly different if there's a notable difference. Not that I have a M11 Plus to hear it myself, so take it for a guess.

 

[ttt123]

Yeah, that's called the placebo effect. If the codec settings are the same, it shouldn't matter what device you're using, as it's the headphones DAC being responsible for reading th

Ah thank you! Thats awesome.. and a bit hard to understand why Sony would opt by default for a lesser quality LDAC bitrate on their audiophile DAP, and make the option fairly hidden to change it.

I've tested it again now, seems a little better but still m11 Plus comes out on top by a fair margin, so it's obvious to me it's not just the codec that plays a part.

It is my experience also that Bluetooth implementations sound different. There are different qualities of hardware and how they are implemented, so it should not be a surprise that they can sound different. Every engineering design/implementation has tradeoffs, so there are many variables that can affect the end result.

Previously, I had not paid a lot of attention to this area, and used what I had on hand, and wanted to carry around, which was a ZX507, and recently an NW-A105 with BT earphones (WF1000XM3, M&D MW08). I had noted that using the ZX300 BT, the sound was not as "alive", pace seemed slower, but as the ZX507/A105 were my preferred players, I did nor worry about it.

Recently, I had occasion to look into this more closely, with a much more resolving setup. Using BT LDAC sound quality preferred, from the various Sony DAPs, driving a HifiMan HM1000 Red (r2r)-> Sony ier-m9

- ZX300 - the sound was as I noted previously. OK, but not involving. Not bad, not great. I was never attracted to using BT earphones with the ZX300, when I tried it before, though back then, I did not have a good BT earphone.
- A105 - remembering that the A105 and ZX507 are more recent DAPs, with more recent and up to date BT implementation and reading that people had said the ZX507 BT sounded better, and both actually sharing the same firmware, I tried the A105 feeding the HM1000 over LDAC. The big difference was that this combination was more alive and immersive. I was pulled into listening, which the ZX300 could not do. So that firms up my choice, that I would use BT from either the A105 or the ZX507 to drive BT earphones, or something like the HM1000
- ZX507 - tried this very quickly, and noted that it had similar characteristics to the A105, and that I liked the sound from this better than from the ZX300.
So that's what I observed.

BT is a complex transmission system, just as complex as the other "systems" in a DAP, and it's components, and implementation can be done differently, with results that can be better, or worse. So, unfortunately, it is not possible to just treat it as "BT is BT", and they all sound the same. Wish it were that simple, as we could then eliminate a variable/cost from the equation.

But then, we already know that "everything matters" in a system. Why would Bluetooth be different/an exception?

 

[emilsoft]

It is my experience also that Bluetooth implementations sound different. There are different qualities of hardware and how they are implemented, so it should not be a surprise that they can sound different. Every engineering design/implementation has tradeoffs, so there are many variables that can affect the end result.

Previously, I had not paid a lot of attention to this area, and used what I had on hand, and wanted to carry around, which was a ZX507, and recently an NW-A105 with BT earphones (WF1000XM3, M&D MW08). I had noted that using the ZX300 BT, the sound was not as "alive", pace seemed slower, but as the ZX507/A105 were my preferred players, I did nor worry about it.

Recently, I had occasion to look into this more closely, with a much more resolving setup. Using BT LDAC sound quality preferred, from the various Sony DAPs, driving a HifiMan HM1000 Red (r2r)-> Sony ier-m9

- ZX300 - the sound was as I noted previously. OK, but not involving. Not bad, not great. I was never attracted to using BT earphones with the ZX300, when I tried it before, though back then, I did not have a good BT earphone.
- A105 - remembering that the A105 and ZX507 are more recent DAPs, with more recent and up to date BT implementation and reading that people had said the ZX507 BT sounded better, and both actually sharing the same firmware, I tried the A105 feeding the HM1000 over LDAC. The big difference was that this combination was more alive and immersive. I was pulled into listening, which the ZX300 could not do. So that firms up my choice, that I would use BT from either the A105 or the ZX507 to drive BT earphones, or something like the HM1000
- ZX507 - tried this very quickly, and noted that it had similar characteristics to the A105, and that I liked the sound from this better than from the ZX300.
So that's what I observed.

BT is a complex transmission system, just as complex as the other "systems" in a DAP, and it's components, and implementation can be done differently, with results that can be better, or worse. So, unfortunately, it is not possible to just treat it as "BT is BT", and they all sound the same. Wish it were that simple, as we could then eliminate a variable/cost from the equation.

But then, we already know that "everything matters" in a system. Why would Bluetooth be different/an exception?

I'm finding the zx507 LDAC Bluetooth sounding somewhat lower bitrate compared to the m11 Plus, even when I set LDAC high performance option, I went to developer settings to check and there I still saw best effort/adaptive so I'm not quite convinced I'm hitting the highest setting, or even if possible at all

Interestingly I noted the m11 plus when set on best quality ldac, it forces 96kHz for all music, perhaps they know something we don't

 

[smilealittlebit]

I am not talking about "Subjective feelings".
People on this forum have claimed that security updates change the sound signature on their devices, so it's complete madness in case of some of our colleagues.

Can you point me to a study that confirms that there is a sound quality difference between devices, even though it's the headphones DAC that is responsible for processing the data? Yes or no?

 

[emilsoft]

I am not talking about "Subjective feelings".
People on this forum have claimed that security updates change the sound signature on their devices, so it's complete madness in case of some of our colleagues.

Can you point me to a study that confirms that there is a sound quality difference between devices, even though it's the headphones DAC that is responsible for processing the data? Yes or no?

There isn't specific to jitter over bluetooth study that I know of but plenty on usb/spdif > dac, similar if not the same rules apply.. where the dac is responsible for processing the data, but as I mentioned the way the data packets arrive and how accurate is the timing of the individual bits all impacts the processing.. mind you some DACs do their own high quality re-clocking and don't care about the source too much like my Apogee Element - I can put a crappy chromecast dongle on optical in vs a high quality spdif decrapifier, it will sound the same.. but try this on another DAC, say the ifi micro and immediately one can tell. Same goes for the wf1000xm4 - it's an eye opening difference between zx507 and m11 plus, even my half deaf grandma can probably hear the difference - it just turns an quite good TW iem into a proper audiophile grain free wide smooth and dynamic listen.. i prefer to listen to it instead of my Sony IERM7 wired on the 4.4mm Fiio output (which sounds a bit too forward aggressive to my gentle ears)