[fish1050]

Sony baffles me once again,

If you go to the sony.ca website you will find the A55, A105, and ZX507 listed and apparently available as they do not show Coming Soon, great start. Then you click on the Where To Buy button for any of the 3 devices and it takes you to gentec.ca. The only Sony DAP listed for sale on gentec.ca is the ZX2 believe it or not, none of the others are available. Then you go to amazon.ca and low and behold the A55 and A105 are available for sale, fulfilled and shipped by amazon.ca, no importing from Japan necessary. Why oh why would Sony in their infinite wisdom not link the Where To Buy button to amazon.ca where they are actually available for sale? Once again it leads me to think that Sony is actually trying to get Canadians not to buy their DAP's.

Also Bay Bloor Radio in Toronto has the A105 and may have the ZX507. My favorite store to demo gear. I would love to do a nice long demo session with the A105 if I could

 

[Sp12er3]

the only reason I can possibly think of is because Amazon has history of not committing to Sony's guideline and sells their product overseas, where warranty is most probably not covered as what Sony give is local ones.
and the link actually does point to http://www.shopgentec.ca/products/productdetail/part_number=NWZX507/S/15646.0.1.2

507 page, but for some reason it seems to not be up thus it defaulted back to home page. Might be someone's cuck up?

 

[fish1050]

the only reason I can possibly think of is because Amazon has history of not committing to Sony's guideline and sells their product overseas, where warranty is most probably not covered as what Sony give is local ones.
and the link actually does point to http://www.shopgentec.ca/products/productdetail/part_number=NWZX507/S/15646.0.1.2

507 page, but for some reason it seems to not be up thus it defaulted back to home page. Might be someone's cuck up?

I have contacted Sony Canada just to see what they say and they have no idea about availability what dealers do or don't carry their DAP's. It is just frustrating when the manufacturers have no idea what is going on. I have found the A105 in stock on baybloorradio.com which is a Canadian dealer and would be able to provide warranty coverage. Gentec is at this point Sony Canada's primary online seller or so Sony Canada has told me but they have very few Sony products actually for sale. I have also talked to gentec directly and they have no idea if and when they will have these units for sale on their site. The customer service rep I spoke to actually told me they have very little direct information from Sony about which products will be made available to them to sell. Seems kind of stupid to not provide your primary online seller with up to date information on the products they can sell.

 

[cbw]

Finally!

Tempered glass protector and crystal clear cover out of the box...

Today I test it.

What Tempered glass protector did you order?

 

[Kal El]

What Tempered glass protector did you order?

Hi! I purchased it on Amazon.it, the brand is Yocktec. I’m very impressed because I hadn’t any expectation about it (it costs €8,50 and comes with the crystal clear cover that you can see in my photos).

 

[anemotoad]

Quick question - how does this battery life compare to the NW-A55?

 

[Kal El]

Quick question - how does this battery life compare to the NW-A55?

I don't have the A55, but I can confirm that the battery of the A105 has bad life, even worse if you stream.

 

[frnziii]

I don't have the A55, but I can confirm that the battery of the A105 has bad life, even worse if you stream.

How Bad (especially with bluetooth headphones)?
Some say they can only listen for 3-4 hours and some say 7-8 hours.

When I listen 1-2 hours of music per day. (BT, flac files,Sometimes streaming)
do I really have to charge every day/ every second day?

 

[anemotoad]

I don't have the A55, but I can confirm that the battery of the A105 has bad life, even worse if you stream.

That's a real shame - the player looks pretty great otherwise. What sort of life are you getting under normal conditions?

 

[Kal El]

How Bad (especially with bluetooth headphones)?
Some say they can only listen for 3-4 hours and some say 7-8 hours.

When I listen 1-2 hours of music per day. (BT, flac files,Sometimes streaming)
do I really have to charge every day/ every second day?

If you listen 1-2 hours per day I think you will have to charge it once every 2 days.
I have been using it for 2 days and charged it this morning. In this quarantine period I'm listening to a lot of music. I have used it about 3-4 hours yesterday (half of time streaming from Tidal), and today after 2 hours (from sd card) battery was at 30%. I've tried it with IEMs, over-ear headphones and bt tws.
I will let you know about battery life after a week of usage.

 

[fish1050]

How Bad (especially with bluetooth headphones)?
Some say they can only listen for 3-4 hours and some say 7-8 hours.

When I listen 1-2 hours of music per day. (BT, flac files,Sometimes streaming)
do I really have to charge every day/ every second day?

I guess you could argue that if you don't need streaming and you use bluetooth headphones is it worth getting the A105 over the A55. How much if any difference would you hear between the two if you are using bluetooth headphones. If you aren't a streamer like me then the A55 might be a better fit with the big difference in battery life.

 

[Kal El]

I guess you could argue that if you don't need streaming and you use bluetooth headphones is it worth getting the A105 over the A55. How much if any difference would you hear between the two if you are using bluetooth headphones. If you aren't a streamer like me then the A55 might be a better fit with the big difference in battery life.

You are right.

 

[cbw]

How Bad (especially with bluetooth headphones)?
Some say they can only listen for 3-4 hours and some say 7-8 hours.

When I listen 1-2 hours of music per day. (BT, flac files,Sometimes streaming)
do I really have to charge every day/ every second day?

I usually get 5-6 hours bt local flac using the walkman app. The battery life will depend on what app and what type of files you are using.

 

[frnziii]

I guess you could argue that if you don't need streaming and you use bluetooth headphones is it worth getting the A105 over the A55. How much if any difference would you hear between the two if you are using bluetooth headphones. If you aren't a streamer like me then the A55 might be a better fit with the big difference in battery life.

I do use Spotify quite a lot but also often in offline mode.
Changing between phone and player is just annoying, so a player I can also stream Spotify with seems very appealing.
(I own the Sony a35 which now has some technical issue)

I'm currently testing the FiiO M9. The sound is fantastic with acoustic music or pop/rock music. But electronic music is somehow too lifeless. the mid sounds very present but the lower frequencies feel too much in the background. It does sound warm and very clear but also some kind of boring sometimes.(using shure se425)
when turning the eq on, the player loses loudness and sounds less powerful so this is no option for me. Before the A35 I had the Fiio x1 which showed the same 'issue'.

Also I love the size and weight of the Sony a35 and I'd like my new player to be not much bigger or heavier.

I'm also considering the Hiby r3pro, using airplay to stream from my phone to the player (and control the app on the phone with the player). But I can't test its sound since it's not available in my area

 

[fish1050]

I do use Spotify quite a lot but also often in offline mode.
Changing between phone and player is just annoying, so a player I can also stream Spotify with seems very appealing.
(I own the Sony a35 which now has some technical issue)

I'm currently testing the FiiO M9. The sound is fantastic with acoustic music or pop/rock music. But electronic music is somehow too lifeless. the mid sounds very present but the lower frequencies feel too much in the background. It does sound warm and very clear but also some kind of boring sometimes.(using shure se425)
when turning the eq on, the player loses loudness and sounds less powerful so this is no option for me. Before the A35 I had the Fiio x1 which showed the same 'issue'.

Also I love the size and weight of the Sony a35 and I'd like my new player to be not much bigger or heavier.

I'm also considering the Hiby r3pro, using airplay to stream from my phone to the player (and control the app on the phone with the player). But I can't test its sound since it's not available in my area

Yeah streaming is really the deciding factor on which DAP to get. I really like my Fiio M9 after 5+ months. I will admit it has some annoyances but 90% have been ironed out through firmware updates. For the genres I listen to the M9 is a great fit though again I could use more battery life. Fiio has released the M7K which as far as I can tell only adds wifi which the last firmware for the M7 activated. Also now the just released M3 Pro to compete with the Shanling Q1 though it doesn't have bluetooth like the Q1.

I do still miss my old Sony A17, mostly for the ability to scroll horizontally through the track library. I would love to see other DAP makers implement that feature. It is kind of ironic, I have been harping about the lack of Sony DAP's availability and now the A105 is available at my favorite gear seller and I can't demo it thanks to Covid-19. I could order the A55 from amazon.ca but shipping of non-essential items sucks right now. I ordered some items from amazon that were all in stock, fulfilled and shipped by amazon and eta is almost 4 weeks.

Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.