[simon740]

Your choice but I don't recommend it. iBasso, Fiio , Hiby and A&K offer better products at similar or lower price points. Especially WM1A is insanely overpriced.

And while Sony is a huge company, these other brands have better customer support and help. There must be a reason why all departments of Sony except PlayStation are losing.

..
I have Fiio M11. And sell it in 10 days. This is not for me. Plus battery drain...on all this Android devices.. .Slow, bad updates ..Many such and different bugs..
I wanna Sony with a reason.

 

[ahossam]

I have sold all of my Fiio, Ibasso DAP, even DX200ti. I'm tired of their inconsistency in their product quality.

 

[sander93]

Your choice but I don't recommend it. iBasso, Fiio , Hiby and A&K offer better products at similar or lower price points. Especially WM1A is insanely overpriced.
And while Sony is a huge company, these other brands have better customer support and help. There must be a reason why all departments of Sony except PlayStation are losing.

$1700 AK 100 DAP was nothing against $1100 sony's wm 1A in terms of sound quality. ant AK's idiotic design with sharp edges... but AK has no issue with sd cards. u dont need to format it to fat32 to use it with walkman.
in terms of battery life and portability (form factor) sony wins the competition. there is nothing small as zx300 or zx500 that offers at least the same sound quality.
sound signature is subjective.
fiio m11 is bright (cold) dap. sony offers warm/neutral daps.
both m11, ak100, ak kann kube, sony wm1a/1z are to big to be put in the pocket for portable use.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Like I said before. Sony is more expensive because of better build quality, sound quality and design. Seldom do you encounter walkman users posting about quality or interface issues with their walkman vs other chifi brands.

@atahanuz
Have you heard the WM1A before? I don't think it's overpriced for the battery life, build quality and sound quality.

S-Master walkman are power limited due to its all in one semiconductor design, but it's sound quality for use with IEM and portable headphones is still better than most other dap.

Sony has an unique house sound, which works really good across all genres of music. There are other digital audio player brands with their own house sound but I find that it only sound nice for certain genres and underperforms for other genres.

Also sony own iems and headphones seems to be perfectly tuned to their walkman. My IER M9 on balanced is able to showcase the soundstage height of the ZX507 DSEE HX in a very impressive manner.

There's a reason why in the audiophile community, there are so many loyal Sony fans in Japan, Singapore and other parts of South East Asia. That's because Sony walkman is top of it's game in portable audio.

 

[nanaholic]

Your choice but I don't recommend it. iBasso, Fiio , Hiby and A&K offer better products at similar or lower price points. Especially WM1A is insanely overpriced.

They really don't.

Out of all these companies, only Sony makes their own chips at the silicon level, the rest uses off the shelf parts. So in terms of pricing, it is Sony that's the one selling their gear with the most value because they spend millions on R&D alone.

Also one visit to any of the other maker's threads, except AK and Sony, is plagued with complains about poor and faulty software. That is not a sign of a quality product.

If AKM and ESS stop making DAC chips tomorrow, iBasso, Fiio, Hiby and AK will have no parts to make DAPs, whereas Sony can still make Walkmans and keep pushing their technology further.

And while Sony is a huge company, these other brands have better customer support and help. There must be a reason why all departments of Sony except PlayStation are losing.

Wrong, the audio and visual department is actually doing well.

 

[salanos]

What is better on ZX1, more exactly?

I'm honestly not too sure... I hadn't enough time to really get a feel of the ZX500, but the initial impression was that my ZX1 had more treble sparkle and definition with a wider sound, placing the furthest sounds ... well, further away.

Don't take my impression of the ZX500 sound too seriously... I had a bad testing environment and certainly not enough time to have an accurate impression. I don't even trust my memory to be accurate!

 

[cfc7]

Your choice but I don't recommend it. iBasso, Fiio , Hiby and A&K offer better products at similar or lower price points. Especially WM1A is insanely overpriced.

And while Sony is a huge company, these other brands have better customer support and help. There must be a reason why all departments of Sony except PlayStation are losing.

Which AK is better than Sony at a lower price?
While I can't speak about Hiby, I've tried many Fiios and I just couldn't like their sound compared with Sony. More than that, the battery life is ridiculously shorter than Sony. Same for the iBasso bricks.
I just can't find something better regarding SQ, price, battery life and portability.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

When it comes to soundstage and imaging, only a handful of iems and headphones are able to get it right as in having the stereo image not sounding closed inside your head.

Your audio source also contributes to how the stereo image is rendered. Usually balanced audio improves this but not all balanced audio is well implemented, some just over-widens the soundstage and sounding flat in depth.

the playback music file's microphone recording and studio mastering quality matters alot. Aka garbarge in garbarge out.

Soundstage Width, Depth and Height:
It's easier to find iem/headphones with good width
Depth is more prominent on better designed iem/headphones
However when it comes to height, this property is something that is missing or barely showing up in most headphones and IEMs.

On headphones, open back headphones offers better soundstage over closed ones but good soundstage on closed headphones do exist.

So far I only found great soundstage height with HD800 and IER M9.

And your source must be good enough able to render the soundstage. For example if you use Apple iPhone dongle plugged to the IER M9, the soundstage will sound collapsed.

if you use the ZX507 DSEE on balanced with IER M9, you will straight away understand what is soundstage height with well recorded music.

 

[doolittle27]

Been thinking about getting either IER-M9 or IER-Z1R but concerning of the power output of the ZX507. Any recommendations from you guys?

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Sony’s sound philosophy
I wanted to know why Sony decided to make such a physically large player. To answer that question, Tomo started with some back story. Like most things Sony – it all started with the sound.

Do you have a specific sound signature?

Our sound policy has always been the same. We deliver a very wide soundfield, with clear, defined sound position.

I got a chance to hear Sony's new flagship IER-Z1R Signature Series in-ear headphones, and that’s what I noticed – that massive soundstage, with spot-on imaging.

Yes, that is our company’s sound policy.

And for portable players, the S-Master HX digital amp gives you that kind of sound?

That digital amplifier has very special stereo separation. It is very good. It completely separates every channel, just before headphone output. You could have three violins playing at once, and with that amp you can pick out in your mind where each sound is coming from — you can practically 'see' the three instruments.

https://www.crutchfield.com/learn/interview-tomo-sato-sony-walkman.html

 

[purk]

Been thinking about getting either IER-M9 or IER-Z1R but concerning of the power output of the ZX507. Any recommendations from you guys?

The ZX507 does a really great job with the IER-Z1R. Low gain for me... no need for a high gain output.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

@purk

How's the burn in going. My zx507 is still showing abit of improvement after 200hours but mainly it's more of a small refinement in high frequency.

 

[doolittle27]

The ZX507 does a really great job with the IER-Z1R. Low gain for me... no need for a high gain output.

That’s good to hear. Thought I’d have to crank the volume up max to get it to be loud enough.

 

[Damz87]

The ZX507 does a really great job with the IER-Z1R. Low gain for me... no need for a high gain output.

That’s good news. For reference, what volume/gain do you normally use with your WM1Z with IER-Z1R?

 

[sander93]

The ZX507 does a really great job with the IER-Z1R. Low gain for me... no need for a high gain output.

hello
you are the one that I need. u said that u have all 3 sony's DAPs!!!
I am considering buying zx300 or zx500. I listened only to wm1A.
thus I am waiting for ur review about sound quality, comparison.
I hope u will help me to make the best decision.
thanks