[Audiophile2019]

My friend, who demoed this in japan, told me zx500 is just a zx300 + android, no "audible" sq improvement, worse battery life.

If that's the case, then no point saving money for ZX500. I'll stick with my ZX300 & wait for WM1A's replacement (don't know when actually?).

Or even venture into Astell&Kern's midrange DAPs eg. futura SE100 or Kann Cube (something totally different) even though that's quite tough personally for Sony fanboy like me..

 

[Whitigir]

If that's the case, then no point saving money for ZX500. I'll stick with my ZX300 & wait for WM1A's replacement (don't know when actually?).

Or even venture into Astell&Kern's midrange DAPs eg. future 100SE or Kann Cube (something totally different) even though that's quite tough personally for Sony fanboy like me..

Astel&Kern uses 0 Electrolytic caps. Some is POS CAPS, which is great but not excellent....at least not as much as PML of Film caps like Sony is doing. On top of that A&K do not use Electrolytic capacitors, and is a fan of using Ribbon cables with 2.5mm.

Not sure what A&K resistors are using, but it look like Vishay of some kinds which is great....but Sony is using F-resistors.

So, for the hardware point of view, I don’t see A&K being a competitors to any of Sony build.

Now, let’s move on to the sound quality : give both brand a try, and decide for yourself . I did, and to build something the way A&K is doing, there are many China based that is also building excellent Products. Cayin N8 is excellent....then Ibasso DX220...I am loving Dx220 platform for my daily usage with hd800S and Sendy-Aiva.

better than everything is DMP-Z1 and that is that

 

[Ascariss]

Hello everyone, I believe I have identified the SoC in the new ZX and A series.

It appears to be a NXP i,MX 8M Mini Quad. I have a full write up and how I came to this conclusion on the blog.

Here is the chip.
https://www.nxp.com/products/proces...x-a53-cortex-m4-audio-voice-video:i.MX8MMINI?

https://thewalkmanblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/what-soc-is-sony-using.html

 

[muteness]

no

Hello everyone, I believe I have identified the SoC in the new ZX and A series.

It appears to be a NXP i,MX 8M Mini Quad. I have a full write up and how I came to this conclusion on the blog.

Here is the chip.
https://www.nxp.com/products/proces...x-a53-cortex-m4-audio-voice-video:i.MX8MMINI?

https://thewalkmanblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/what-soc-is-sony-using.html

how does this affect sound quality?

 

[muteness]

If that's the case, then no point saving money for ZX500. I'll stick with my ZX300 & wait for WM1A's replacement (don't know when actually?).

Or even venture into Astell&Kern's midrange DAPs eg. futura SE100 or Kann Cube (something totally different) even though that's quite tough personally for Sony fanboy like me..

fiio m11 pro looks pretty good on paper

 

[Audiophile2019]

fiio m11 pro looks pretty good on paper

Yes, bro.. Would love to demo it since I already tested regular M11 few months back.. But read somewhere they had "quality control" issue in the US (5 out of 20 on the shelves returned).. Hope FiiO can resolve this soon..

 

[xenoVa]

Yes, bro.. Would love to demo it since I already tested regular M11 few months back.. But read somewhere they had "quality control" issue in the US (5 out of 20 on the shelves returned).. Hope FiiO can resolve this soon..

Did you read the offical explonation from FiiO?

He said that the units were not found defective at all, the users returned it due to "poor battery life, device gets hot" although these are normal for DAP.

 

[Audiophile2019]

Did you read the offical explonation from FiiO?

He said that the units were not found defective at all, the users returned it due to "poor battery life, device gets hot" although these are normal for DAP.

Yeap, I read Fiio's explanation.. But seems funny to me is that if poor battery & hot device are common issues, why are customers purposely returning their purchase for M11 Pro units only? Do you think this is an act of sabotage, etc? Could this be just for US market? Or is this a genuine technical problem?

Maybe it's too early to say. Let's give few more weeks or months to stabilise or cool off. I've demo'ed M11 earlier & it's a respectable DAP with good sound quality, I must say..

 

[xenoVa]

Yeap, I read Fiio's explanation.. But seems funny to me is that if poor battery & hot device are common issues, why are customers purposely returning their purchase for M11 Pro units only? Do you think this is an act of sabotage, etc? Could this be just for US market? Or is this a genuine technical problem?

Maybe it's too early to say. Let's give few more weeks or months to stabilise or cool off. I've demo'ed M11 earlier & it's a respectable DAP with good sound quality, I must say..

Speaking of the FiiO DAPs, M15 will be released in December. It looks very promising, it will have AK4999EQ (same DAC with Astell Kernn SP2000 !)

I want to buy a DAP for my Focal Elegia but none of the current generation DAPs are good enough for me. I will wait for the next generation products and will choose the best one. Candidates: Fiio M15 , M15 Pro, Sony ZX500, Hiby R8

 

[emrelights1973]

There is always a next generation

 

[tomaster]

Hello everyone, I believe I have identified the SoC in the new ZX and A series.

It appears to be a NXP i,MX 8M Mini Quad. I have a full write up and how I came to this conclusion on the blog.

Here is the chip.
https://www.nxp.com/products/proces...x-a53-cortex-m4-audio-voice-video:i.MX8MMINI?

https://thewalkmanblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/what-soc-is-sony-using.html

That's very interesting, good work.

 

[kova4a]

Hello everyone, I believe I have identified the SoC in the new ZX and A series.

It appears to be a NXP i,MX 8M Mini Quad. I have a full write up and how I came to this conclusion on the blog.

Here is the chip.
https://www.nxp.com/products/proces...x-a53-cortex-m4-audio-voice-video:i.MX8MMINI?

https://thewalkmanblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/what-soc-is-sony-using.html

That's interesting. Sony are surely not expecting anyone to play any android games or something on the new walkmans. Honestly, the only implementations of nxp i.MX CPUs I've seen is in ereaders where they have been pretty popular. Actually NXP bought Freescale few years back. The Kindle and Kobo ereaders use them but with less cores - for, stance, the Oasis 3 has a dual core i.MX7.

 

[Ascariss]

That's interesting. Sony are surely not expecting anyone to play any android games or something on the new walkmans. Honestly, the only implementations of nxp i.MX CPUs I've seen is in ereaders where they have been pretty popular. Actually NXP bought Freescale few years back. The Kindle and Kobo ereaders use them but with less cores - for, stance, the Oasis 3 has a dual core i.MX7.

Playing and streaming music does not require much cpu power, and youtube should run fine, the screens are only 720p but the SoC is able to handle up to 1080p60.

I will mention this, in one youtube video from IFA, a user was skipping songs on the device, and it did look a bit slow at times, maybe early software but still a bit worrying.

Here is a video of the new A-Series UI in action


ZX500 here


the UI does seem response, but I am not expecting SD855 smooth. Anyways, odd how Amazon HD music is 24bit/48Khz or 96khz, when Sony in an interview said all streaming music will be downgraded to 16bit/48khz. Hopefully this is released in North America, otherwise I will need to import, either A or ZX.

 

[kova4a]

Playing and streaming music does not require much cpu power, and youtube should run fine, the screens are only 720p but the SoC is able to handle up to 1080p60.

I will mention this, in one youtube video from IFA, a user was skipping songs on the device, and it did look a bit slow at times, maybe early software but still a bit worrying.

Here is a video of the new A-Series UI in action


ZX500 here


the UI does seem response, but I am not expecting SD855 smooth. Anyways, odd how Amazon HD music is 24bit/48Khz or 96khz, when Sony in an interview said all streaming music will be downgraded to 16bit/48khz. Hopefully this is released in North America, otherwise I will need to import, either A or ZX.

Well, I'm sure it will run them decently. It is a very weak SoC, but doesn't seem worse than something like the SD425 that is inside DAPs like the hiby r6. I guess I just expected better from Sony but it's not only their fault - none of the DAPs on the market have proper current gen SoC. I find it hilarious when people start arguing which Android-based DAP is faster and bash on ibasso and compare it to hiby and fiio, when they are all slow entry-level chips. Even the new Hiby R8 advertising itself as being the fastest DAP with the fastest SoC is cracking me up.

Don't get me wrong - these are DAPs intended for music and they don't need to match the performance of my ROG 2 phone or an iphone, but I see a lot of people on different forums who expect to play games on these and they are disappointed afterwards because they expect from a full-fledged Android device at this price to be able to match their phones, especially given how now there are $200-300 phones that can handle any app without a hiccup

 

[udesign48]

Nice.. but it doesn't upgrade that much from ZX300.