I have a chance to try out the ZX1 today at Sony press event in my country.
The UI is very fluid although it runs on very old Texas Instrument SoC with 1 GB RAM. I plugged in my MDR-EX800ST and listen the same Nora Jones's song as the one in Ginza and other songs in it.
I think the sound signature is like F800 I'm using but with more bass and detail. The stage is also a little wider than my F800. Compare to Fiio X3 which I used to listen. X3 has slightly more bass than ZX1. Mid is also thicker but both of them have less detail than ZX1.
ZX1 sound meets my expectation. Now I'm going to save money and buy it when it will be released around next February.
More is not necessarily better in this case. The DX50 also has more bass output than my F807, but it does not go quite as low. I prefer bass notes to be as natural as possible and not accentuate likes most DAPs & Headphones out there. Thanks for your impression.
"In a word, good sound flat with no coloring as much as possible. I aimed to make use of a sound personality of various headphone in the world. However, since portable audio only, it is not considered that the main big headphones, open-air type, such as use at home, mainly intended for the mobile environment, and we elaboration the sound while listening to some of the other companies as well as Sony was. I think Hi-Fi sound blood of pure audio, such as those containing the personality's ZX1."
and:
"I wanted to remove the parts in front of the headphone output of coupling capacitor in ZX1, you have chosen a method to create a waveform in both positive and negative power.
It is possible to supply sufficient current in the braking resistance is enhanced by applying a pulling force of the "negative", not only the force for pushing the "positive", and equipped with four power further driving force rises than ever I became a powerful sore Te. Stereo stands out due to its the L / R independent source that it is possible to sound firmly over headphones Thereby, the completely separated in order to prevent signal contamination of the L / R time.
Increase in the number of power supplies can lead to cost up to susceptible to power supply noise as compared to analog amplifier, to obtain the power of high-grade "S-Master", but we preferred the sound quality to the last."
That latter quote is particularly interesting considering what has been said earlier in this thread, about the soundstage sounding (subjectively) quite spacious and wide. .
Unless they're doing something beyond accurate, the neg can't 'pull' on a stereo headphone with a 3 conductor plug. He probably means they have a good ground and there's less cross contamination with his switching amp like their can be in floating ground linear designs. Not a huge issue in the better linear amps but every little bit helps. Next time somebody gets a listen, see if it's a bit flat. I do believe it's wide as described but I tend to find switching amps a bit flat and dry. Doesn' mean that this one is.
This is shaping up nicely.....though I'm so content these days packin' the DX50 around with me. Great bang for the buck....I think I'll for sure buy this if it comes close to AK120 territory. High faith in Sony heh.
Nice to see a D-777 in the background in that pic on page 3...
Hiroaki Sato [sound design]
"Because it is a digital audio, clock the underlying is very important. Sound is the clean quality of the waveform is improved by using a crystal oscillator that spits out the frequency with high accuracy, (a time lag of the signal waveform) jitter becomes less. That it was possible to set up a dedicated is a major strength of the ZX1."
Thank for the link there, very interesting despite pigeon hole translation to English. Just wets the appetie a bit more seeing new photos with packaging & a case.
I
Long time coming for us all, as if they (Sony) have been listening to us all along maybe?
I'm starting to wonder if maybe they will eventually put the playback buttons back on top of the player and re-introduce in line lcd remotes if the Walkman R&D team are listening on the features/ aesthetics side.
I am happy if they have designed it primarily for iem's over bigger ohm cans as that this is after all it's design goal for what it was born to do but will be interesting to see if it will pair well with the likes of the MDR-Z1000/ 7520 & MDR-1R as even though they are only 24 ohm and although it had enough ceiling on the volume with the Z1070 Walkman it felt like there was still not enough current to drive them properly and with a bit more power in the ZX1 might just be enough to use those cans sufficiently with the ZX1 without the use for an amp.
I have put my order in for the ZX1 so will report on how they sound with those Sony Z1000/ 7520/ 1R's and also for anyone interested how they pair with the JH16pro's which is my big moment for the ZX1 (not forgetting my Heir 5.0's to try with them).
Still cannot see the coffee maker switch on this though?!
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