Focux
1000+ Head-Fier
A105 is that close huh..
Does the lack of output power (35+35) cause a dip in performance for IEM’s tho? Presumably yes I suppose compared to say the 4.4 on ZX500
The Sony 40th Anniversary Walkman Thread
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A105 is that close huh..
Does the lack of output power (35+35) cause a dip in performance for IEM’s tho? Presumably yes I suppose compared to say the 4.4 on ZX500
abitdeef
Formerly known as ihatepopupads
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Depends on impedance and sensitivity of the iems. Most iems will be driven great by 105.
i'm still using my ue tf10pro which i believe is very easy to drive, the a105 handle it with no problem
fish1050
Headphoneus Supremus
NW-A105 and ZX507 along with A55 now on sony.ca
Price for the A105 is very high at $480 CDN. A55 is $299 so might give it a listen when it comes to town.
Price for the A105 is very high at $480 CDN. A55 is $299 so might give it a listen when it comes to town.
Marconelly
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I wanted to buy the A100-TPS from Ebay store that ships from Japan. I got the order in a month ago, but now the seller is telling me that it's a pre-order product and that it's not released in Japan yet. However, I see here that some of the owners claim that they have the 40th anniversary TPS model imported from Japan? On the other hand, I also can't seem to find any confirmation that this was actually released in Japan anywhere online, so I'm not sure what's going on. Should I ask for a refund while I'm still covered by the buyer's protection?
Also, is it safe to assume at this point that the TPS model won't be released in the North America, considering that they've released regular A100, but there's no mention of the TPS decorated one?
Also, is it safe to assume at this point that the TPS model won't be released in the North America, considering that they've released regular A100, but there's no mention of the TPS decorated one?
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Jotaro
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in Japan releassed on 1 Nov and TPS on 14nov. And TPS version is just paying 40 euros for a case.
abitdeef
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nanaholic
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Your seller isn't lying - the TPS model is a pre-order only model and delivery began last month.
Sony is fulfilling the order on a first-come-first-serve basis and the demand for it is huge, ordering a month ago probably means your order won't be filled until next year unfortunately.
clastorder
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Got this player last week, Asian version, also blue. Really like the blue color.
The good: it sounds really good. Like, the presentation is maybe not to everyone's taste (bass is more of a rumbly growl than a fast thud sometimes and the mids are warm) but overall good stage, separation, very good. I don't think I've heard better at this price, but I don't have too much portable experience and I end up comparing to desktop dac setups. Sony really nailed it; I don't know or care too much about the exact architecture of this thing but it is well built, well made, and at the thing it was designed to do, which is play music, it's in good to exceptional territory.
The bad is...
..well, it's Sony. They're like the H&K of electronics.
Fundamentally all they had to do to improve on the A55 was to make it sound better and do away with the proprietary connector. They _did_ do this. They however also did a bunch of other stuff that I am just mind boggled by. Sony seem either committed to the idea that they know what's best for the user or simply didn't think too much about the user experience.
For example, Android. The A105 features full fat, full version stock android with one or two tweaks. The music player is an app. I understand the decision to go for full Android - everyone's doing it these days, and the way people access their music with Tidal/Spotify meant that Sony must have thought Android was a must. However, in an amazing display of not really getting it, it feels incredibly crowbarred in. The A105 is tiny; bordering on cute. The screen is not large enough for the full Android experience. A customized version of software that takes into account what it's like to actually mess with a smartphone UI on a screen that's like a third the size of most major flagship phones today would have been very much appreciated. Second, many of the A105's post-processing, clear-audio, augmentations and hi-res upscaling to the sound straight up don't apply to using any other apps to play music. So playing Spotify or Tidal doesn't take advantage of any of the cool music features that Sony built into the thing. So why even have Android in the first place?
Another example is the battery. Android has so much stuff running in the background that the only way to really conserve battery is by turning on airplane mode. Which makes wifi/bluetooth and all the fun wireless connectivity and streaming things the player can do an exercise in puzzlement. You can do it, sure, but it will drastically run down the battery life. Which is again, acceptable for a smartphone, but the A105 is not a smartphone.
Notably, the A105 lacks QuickCharge. Think for a moment about what that means; for every 5 hours of playback from streaming or wi-fi you'll need to charge it for at least an hour and a half. My phone can get up to full charge from nothing inside of half that time. I'm not sure why this decision was made - either Sony don't want to license the technology or thought it was unneeded in a music player. But then again, why use Android at all if this is the case?
Even worse, using the player while charging it results in significant electrical noise that I can hear with a couple different IEMs. It's loud and obvious enough to be distracting. Okay, so sensitive IEMs aren't the way to go with this player, right?
But the A105 is hot garbage for driving anything that's at all thirsty. I kept wanting it to give more _more_. It wasn't that the sound was thin - in fact, the default presentation is a lush and warm sound, but I kept wanting _more_ from it when driving anything that wasn't an IEM. Jacking up the volume often simply raised the volume without adding the increase in texture that I was desperately missing when comparing it to desktop amps.
It's a very good portable player, and I will be keeping it. The build is impeccable, the size is just right, and it sounds great. But man alive, Sony are a company built entirely off the back of engineers, and it's almost fun to see how in 40 years Sony persist in thinking they know better than the consumer when it comes to consumer electronics. Sometimes it leads them to build great things, and the market understands it in due time. The rest of the time, it really makes me want to wonder - does Sony test their products for usability at all? In real world conditions, with people who aren't on the Sony payroll?
The good: it sounds really good. Like, the presentation is maybe not to everyone's taste (bass is more of a rumbly growl than a fast thud sometimes and the mids are warm) but overall good stage, separation, very good. I don't think I've heard better at this price, but I don't have too much portable experience and I end up comparing to desktop dac setups. Sony really nailed it; I don't know or care too much about the exact architecture of this thing but it is well built, well made, and at the thing it was designed to do, which is play music, it's in good to exceptional territory.
The bad is...
..well, it's Sony. They're like the H&K of electronics.
Fundamentally all they had to do to improve on the A55 was to make it sound better and do away with the proprietary connector. They _did_ do this. They however also did a bunch of other stuff that I am just mind boggled by. Sony seem either committed to the idea that they know what's best for the user or simply didn't think too much about the user experience.
For example, Android. The A105 features full fat, full version stock android with one or two tweaks. The music player is an app. I understand the decision to go for full Android - everyone's doing it these days, and the way people access their music with Tidal/Spotify meant that Sony must have thought Android was a must. However, in an amazing display of not really getting it, it feels incredibly crowbarred in. The A105 is tiny; bordering on cute. The screen is not large enough for the full Android experience. A customized version of software that takes into account what it's like to actually mess with a smartphone UI on a screen that's like a third the size of most major flagship phones today would have been very much appreciated. Second, many of the A105's post-processing, clear-audio, augmentations and hi-res upscaling to the sound straight up don't apply to using any other apps to play music. So playing Spotify or Tidal doesn't take advantage of any of the cool music features that Sony built into the thing. So why even have Android in the first place?
Another example is the battery. Android has so much stuff running in the background that the only way to really conserve battery is by turning on airplane mode. Which makes wifi/bluetooth and all the fun wireless connectivity and streaming things the player can do an exercise in puzzlement. You can do it, sure, but it will drastically run down the battery life. Which is again, acceptable for a smartphone, but the A105 is not a smartphone.
Notably, the A105 lacks QuickCharge. Think for a moment about what that means; for every 5 hours of playback from streaming or wi-fi you'll need to charge it for at least an hour and a half. My phone can get up to full charge from nothing inside of half that time. I'm not sure why this decision was made - either Sony don't want to license the technology or thought it was unneeded in a music player. But then again, why use Android at all if this is the case?
Even worse, using the player while charging it results in significant electrical noise that I can hear with a couple different IEMs. It's loud and obvious enough to be distracting. Okay, so sensitive IEMs aren't the way to go with this player, right?
But the A105 is hot garbage for driving anything that's at all thirsty. I kept wanting it to give more _more_. It wasn't that the sound was thin - in fact, the default presentation is a lush and warm sound, but I kept wanting _more_ from it when driving anything that wasn't an IEM. Jacking up the volume often simply raised the volume without adding the increase in texture that I was desperately missing when comparing it to desktop amps.
It's a very good portable player, and I will be keeping it. The build is impeccable, the size is just right, and it sounds great. But man alive, Sony are a company built entirely off the back of engineers, and it's almost fun to see how in 40 years Sony persist in thinking they know better than the consumer when it comes to consumer electronics. Sometimes it leads them to build great things, and the market understands it in due time. The rest of the time, it really makes me want to wonder - does Sony test their products for usability at all? In real world conditions, with people who aren't on the Sony payroll?
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abitdeef
Formerly known as ihatepopupads
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All sonys eq/sound effects are available system wide. The wifi battery life is weak on wifi, like my sr15. But using the Sony app really extends battery life- although yes it drains much faster streaming.
And the A series has always been pretty much for iems and easy to drive stuff- not enough room to get the extra caps and stuff to boost the digital amp for balanced out.
Yep the screen is small for sure. But luckily I don't have any problems making things out in general use. But yes it's small for android.
And the 507 doesn't really have a bigger screen with that blank bottom, but it does have balanced out though. Sony is Sony for sure. I wish they would have made it a touch bigger than the normal A series and put a bigger battery and balanced out, but well....
And also I guess the battery life on the 507 is weak when streaming also. Oh, I've been using anker battery bricks to extend my battery time when streaming and I don't hear any electrical noise.
Oh and btw someone made an extensive guide for disabling and tweaking the a105 and zx507 a few pages back and it does help battery and standby time. Just search the thread for battery tweaks.
Oh and I've looked for a small full android dap and the R5 is more complete and has more power, but it just doesn't sound as good to me. Neither did the sr15, even though it had more power on the balanced out it just doesn't sound as lively and realistic as the Sony.
And the A series has always been pretty much for iems and easy to drive stuff- not enough room to get the extra caps and stuff to boost the digital amp for balanced out.
Yep the screen is small for sure. But luckily I don't have any problems making things out in general use. But yes it's small for android.
And the 507 doesn't really have a bigger screen with that blank bottom, but it does have balanced out though. Sony is Sony for sure. I wish they would have made it a touch bigger than the normal A series and put a bigger battery and balanced out, but well....
And also I guess the battery life on the 507 is weak when streaming also. Oh, I've been using anker battery bricks to extend my battery time when streaming and I don't hear any electrical noise.
Oh and btw someone made an extensive guide for disabling and tweaking the a105 and zx507 a few pages back and it does help battery and standby time. Just search the thread for battery tweaks.
Oh and I've looked for a small full android dap and the R5 is more complete and has more power, but it just doesn't sound as good to me. Neither did the sr15, even though it had more power on the balanced out it just doesn't sound as lively and realistic as the Sony.
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Sonywalkmanuser
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It's unfair to compare a battery powered compact size digital audio player to desktop class setup. Desktop amps don't have to deal as delicately with considerations like thermal constraints, limited power supply, space constraints and as well as total bill of materials(LCD screen, battery, processor, memory, flash memory, Bluetooth, Android licensing etc).
If you want more power then you have to go with balanced output digital audio players or get those that are as big as a brick.
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nanaholic
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The decision to go with a full stock Android and build apps on top of it is because this allows Sony to quickly get full Google certification which allows them to access the Play Store directly and not via some side-loading method the other manufacturers are using. This actually means Sony IS taking into consideration what the general user is thinking because your average consumer are not computer geeks - the vast majority is much more likely to know how to use the Play Store instead of side-loading apks.
Customising Android adds several more layers of cost to the device - you have to get more engineers (Sony Music department don't share engineers with their mobile phone department - typical of your large co-operation structure), hire more testers (again, they don't share resources with their mobile phone department), as well as having to spend more on getting Google certification (you fundimentally change something in Android you are likely going to break something which may slip pass QA, and when Google catches it they throw it back at you > time and money needed), and all of that would be passed onto the customer if they were to maintain a healthy profit margin for the device (which pays the salary of all these people you just added to the project). The decision here is actually very rational if you know the reasons behind it.
Customising Android adds several more layers of cost to the device - you have to get more engineers (Sony Music department don't share engineers with their mobile phone department - typical of your large co-operation structure), hire more testers (again, they don't share resources with their mobile phone department), as well as having to spend more on getting Google certification (you fundimentally change something in Android you are likely going to break something which may slip pass QA, and when Google catches it they throw it back at you > time and money needed), and all of that would be passed onto the customer if they were to maintain a healthy profit margin for the device (which pays the salary of all these people you just added to the project). The decision here is actually very rational if you know the reasons behind it.
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Marconelly
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Oh, I see. That's good to hear - I was starting to wonder if they even released it there at all, or if the seller is just speculating that it will be released soon. I have no problem waiting, as long as I know it's coming for sure.
And yes, I know it's a regular A100 model with a case and a print on the back, but I *really* like that case, and print on the back
auronthas
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also could it be Sony launch their new high res streaming music "Sony Mora" for Japan market ?
auronthas
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Wonder if there is any Sony A105 DAP casing with opening to match the cassette screensaver size?
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