Ultimate Sony Android Walkman Sound tuning and DSP guide

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Heads up on the future planned updates of guide:

Further tuning/tweaking recommendations
4.4mm grounding adapter opinions
Further expansion of MicroSD section
New section on S-Master HX amp

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Version 2.1 of guide updated:

Added New Section on S-Master HX
Added opinions on 4.4mm Grounding Adapter

 

[ttt123]

Heads up on the future planned updates of guide:

Further tuning/tweaking recommendations
4.4mm grounding adapter opinions
Further expansion of MicroSD section
New section on S-Master HX amp

I am leaning towards the opinion that you should put enough detail on microSD cards to allow people a basis to choose what cards to use, and to guide their purchase decision. After all, the list will have affordable cards, in addition to expensive cards. So can be useful to most people. Or not. it's their choice.
Your guide is:
- A sharing of what you have learned. It is an opinion, and a guide, including subjective and objective observations.
- People can read it, or not. Follow some of the recommendations, or none. It's their choice.
- Opinions and recommendations cannot be based upon whether people agree or not. Otherwise, nothing can be said, as there will be people who disagree with every subject.
- The microSD can make a significant change, for some systems, and some users. So not discussing it seems like the wrong thing to do, and avoiding just because some people disagree, would be a loss of knowledge. And a win for the "Nattering nabobs of negativism" (quote from Spiro Agnew, Nixon's VP)
- Yes, it's a divisive topic, but it will be useful to some people. Those people who get ulcers from reading opinions contrary to their beliefs, they can disregard it. People do not have a right to dictate what other people read, write, or believe.
- And if we avoid all divisive topics, then many more ideas will need to be suppressed. A short list: cables, hi-res, Firmware, language, debloating, Deoxit, Grd adapters, etc., etc.

We are not yet in the world of 1984. Though closer than we ever thought we would be. And social media and the negative use of same is doing what we were afraid governments would do.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Version 2.2 updated

Section on S-Master HX has been updated.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

I am leaning towards the opinion that you should put enough detail on microSD cards to allow people a basis to choose what cards to use, and to guide their purchase decision. After all, the list will have affordable cards, in addition to expensive cards. So can be useful to most people. Or not. it's their choice.
Your guide is:
- A sharing of what you have learned. It is an opinion, and a guide, including subjective and objective observations.
- People can read it, or not. Follow some of the recommendations, or none. It's their choice.
- Opinions and recommendations cannot be based upon whether people agree or not. Otherwise, nothing can be said, as there will be people who disagree with every subject.
- The microSD can make a significant change, for some systems, and some users. So not discussing it seems like the wrong thing to do, and avoiding just because some people disagree, would be a loss of knowledge. And a win for the "Nattering nabobs of negativism" (quote from Spiro Agnew, Nixon's VP)
- Yes, it's a divisive topic, but it will be useful to some people. Those people who get ulcers from reading opinions contrary to their beliefs, they can disregard it. People do not have a right to dictate what other people read, write, or believe.
- And if we avoid all divisive topics, then many more ideas will need to be suppressed. A short list: cables, hi-res, Firmware, language, debloating, Deoxit, Grd adapters, etc., etc.

We are not yet in the world of 1984. Though closer than we ever thought we would be. And social media and the negative use of same is doing what we were afraid governments would do.

I guess we might as well open this pandora’s box. Keeping it closed doesn’t make things better or worse.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Version 2.3 updated:

Updated S-Master HX section with more information on:
Sony C-PLM
Sony Clean Data Cycle
Sony S-TACT

 

[InvisibleInk]

I guess we might as well open this pandora’s box. Keeping it closed doesn’t make things better or worse.

I need just enough from my microSD card to ensure smooth performance, and quick rendering of album art, etc.. I'll leave it to golden ear-ed friends to talk about sound, as I'm unlikely to have an opinion about that.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

I need just enough from my microSD card to ensure smooth performance, and quick rendering of album art, etc.. I'll leave it to golden ear-ed friends to talk about sound, as I'm unlikely to have an opinion about that.

This is my discovery after testing many microSD cards on my Walkmans(ZX2, ZX507 and WM1AM2)

The degree in which microSD selection affecting the sound of the walkman should not be underestimated.

With a bad performing card it can make the Walkman sound very hazy, almost like listening to FM radio, with a hazy faint background noise that heavily affects the clarity and smoothness of musical notes, especially for string instruments where it becomes very grainy and grit like. Listening fatigue will set in much faster with a bad card.

 

[MrWalkman]

One more interesting thing about how these players work when it comes to sound effects is that when you enable the EQ, the audio volume is much lower by default internally, while the HW volume is upped by about 20 levels.

I guess this is how you can up the bass to +10 without having any kind of distortion.

If you can find a way to enable the volume increase while Direct Source is On, you'll get a much higher volume output from your player - however, with Direct Source on, it distorts the audio when you get to around 100.

It should basically all be like this:

Here is an example, on my previous EU capped A306:​

Though it may seem otherwise, in the video Direct Source is actually On, and I enabled EQ (with all bands at 0) in order to trigger the volume increase.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Version 2.4 updated:

Add more information on Deoxit Gold section
Microsd section expanded.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

V2.5 updated:

Microsd section further expanded.

 

[ttt123]

Version 2.3 updated:

Updated S-Master HX section with more information on:
Sony C-PLM
Sony Clean Data Cycle
Sony S-TACT

Good information on the S-Master Clean Data Cycle, C-PLM, S-Tact. I spent quite a bit of time to try to understand how they were reducing jitter by sampling the pulse interval over time, and using that to derive the correct pulse stream timing, and using it to correct the output pulse stream/remove jitter. Very elegant, and I believe it is a testament to how Sony engineers go above and beyond, in the pursuit of sound, with their innovations.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Good information on the S-Master Clean Data Cycle, C-PLM, S-Tact. I spent quite a bit of time to try to understand how they were reducing jitter by sampling the pulse interval over time, and using that to derive the correct pulse stream timing, and using it to correct the output pulse stream/remove jitter. Very elegant, and I believe it is a testament to how Sony engineers go above and beyond, in the pursuit of sound, with their innovations.

I wonder why Sony didn’t go the multi-bit sigma delta route that other dac manufacturers do like ESS and AKM. 1 bit design has so much more problems to deal with. But then again this is Sony who likes to go about making its own unique methods.

 

[ttt123]

I wonder why Sony didn’t go the multi-bit sigma delta route that other dac manufacturers do like ESS and AKM. 1 bit design has so much more problems to deal with. But then again this is Sony who likes to go about making its own unique methods.

I like to think that Sony would have/must have, tried the Delta Sigma route. They have the resources, and engineers, so they would have tried DS, felt that they could do better, and then proceeded to work on their own solution.
The S-Master was probably much harder, and cost a lot more in time and money, than if they had just used a Delta Sigma solution.
We can be thankful that they had the corporate approval to do so. And that is what makes Sony different from other companies.

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

Version 2.6 updated

Further expanded the Foobar2000 FLAC/AAC/MP3 File optimization section.