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The Official Sony NW-WM1Z/ NW-WM1A Flagship DAP (Live From IFA 2016)
Feb 1, 2022 at 11:27 PM Post #1,083 of 1,101
Seems like sony hk is about to announce Nw-wm1a/z successor next week
 

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Apr 24, 2022 at 6:41 AM Post #1,089 of 1,101
rsbrsvp said:
Which portable player which has streaming has the most similar sound to the Sony?

Full bodied, musical style????
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None! Sony is unique in it own house sound. The closest I can find is Cayin, and Shanling, but because we have no choices.....even when I say they are close, they are not exactly close.
The uniqueness comes from S-Master and the way they are processing PWM. If you want musicality, Cayin N8ii, though it is Not Warm

Instead of using one master clock for references, and a lot of computational prowess to generate square waves, with transistors and chips switching in a deliberate manner, the ringing effects are a Lot more obvious. So they countered this with a very aggressive low pass filter , which filtered out a lot more meaningful details in the bandwidths. Doing this, it increase the odd harmonic distortions, similar to solid states vs tube sound.

Sony on the other hand is using S-Master, which generate the PWM with the pulses from Crystal oscillators. Instead of switching on and off, these Oscillators vibrates back and forth which generates a more rounder, smoother signals. In trade off, we have a much more full body, natural and musical even harmonic with more meaningful details achieved.

Though, what most important is the output switching of the class D. Sony could always do analog amplifications output, but they choose to stick with class D, and it is again a switching transistors, even though they carefully implemented the output, the S-Master has it limitations due to physics. So, pure S-Master has never had improved output power. It stops at 250mW a channel. Anything higher and it would be noisy.

The only powerful S-Master I have heard up-to this moment is TA-ZH1ES. But it isn’t pure S-Master, it is a Hybrid! But thanks to Sony, they do have a preamp out, and this is Pure S-Master, but under analog amplifications topology (yes, Sony could have always done this to Walkman too, but they choose to stick to class D)

If you pay attentions, all other stuff that is Non S-Master, never had this uniqueness of liquidity and musicality that the S-Master have.....even the DMP-Z1, yes Sony flagship of signature series. They tried to voice it warm and musical, but it isn’t Walkman or TA-ZH1ES in the end. Even Chord, they love PCM and PWM, but they are relying on the master clock rather than doing what Sony is doing with S-Master. .... because S-master is kept proprietary to Sony

in fact, the best of Sony house sound is when you can use an S-Master and amplifying it with External amplifier. Walkman ZX2 Japan edition has this line out, and TA-ZH1ES also have this. Due to the architecture of the 2 pieces being different in category. It is logical that TA-ZH1ES is the best candidate for a Desktop system that is consisting of Sony house sound :)

I am almost so sure that the DMP-Z1 M2 is coming soon ...lol
 
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