At the end of the day, people just buy what they like
People who likes FiiO's feature set will buy FiiO
People who like Sony's feature set will buy Sony
It could be multiple reasons, availability, form factor, user interface, trust
Sony in my opinion went through a very lean phase just after the demise of their little 20gb DAP's around 10 years ago. However in recent times they seemed to have re-discovered their old magic. The WM1A is for me a simply stunning music player. It is well designed, well built, nice fluid software, has enough power (once the EU lock is removed) to power the kit I have and most importantly the sound is sublime.
Now of course this all my personal opinion but I have over the last few years owned a variety of mid to high range players and fond that every one of them lacks in at least one department. I've also tried and owned various DAC/AMP options and again although they sound good none of them for my ears can match the Sony WM1A. I'm sure if I spent £3000 on an A+K I might feel differently but for the money I paid the Sony Walkman is top notch.
Sure the features on paper look better but it’s the execution and implementation. Basically, the whole package. People just have better experience with it at the end of the day. Also the prestige of the brand name and customer service.
I have a couple Sony IEMs and they’re ages old in terms of release date but they smack everything I’ve listened to below $1000/$500 respectively aside from the Andromeda. They’ve been in the music business for a long time and they know what they’re doing. High praise for their new IEMs too despite being very pricy. I’d probably be on top of a Sony DAP if they had TIDAL offline but that’s not happening.
I purchased it due to the size and price. It was $150 and sounded good. I have since tried to like the entire upper FiiO line but didn’t care for the sound signature.
I have the WM1A and WM1Z and am really into how they sound. Other than that the batteries last forever and the user interface works well. I either listen to the 1A or 1Z about 4 hours a day, every day.
It’s that simple, they sound the way I would expect. Having both they end up being complementary. The 1A is detailed and relatively flat. The 1Z has both a bass boost and a treble boost. The other main difference comes from the different soundstage the 1Z offers. The 1Z soundstage is more forward more in-front and in-back. The 1Z sound is slighly thicker due to these differences.
Folks also will use the different enhancements only Sony offers. They offer a vinyl sounding filter, also analog amp modeling and a process that offers a style of upscaling lower quality sound files like 320kbps. I don’t use any of the above but find the players make a wide range of sound files sound nice.
The next level is if someone was interested in getting into the whole ecosystem Sony offers. A big option is the $260 Sony Kimber cable. The cable can fit both players and the TA desktop with 4.4mm Pentacon 5 pole balanced mode. So you have a single cable that allows the owner to use the Z1R full-size headphones from the portable DAPs or at home with the desktop amp. Also the same cable fits the Z7 and Z7MK2 and adds improvements across the board.
Next you can bring in the DAPs as file source players with a dedicated dock to listen to the TA desktop with files in contrast to using a computer or CD player. Sony also includes a USB cable to simply connect the DAPs digitally to the TA desktop DAC/amp. Somehow the DAPs enhance the sound quality from simply choosing TOSLINK SPDIF RCA from a CD transport or computer USB output. Don’t ask me why it’s better I don’t know?
So your portable and home files are both in the same place. Put in a 400 gigabyte card in both players and you have 800 gigabytes of songs in addition to the internal memory on the DAPs.
With firmware updates the players both send and receive Bluetooth and act as outboard DACs if needed.
The DAPs don’t get even a degree hot, are built like tanks and feel great in the hand. Seriously I couldn’t ask for more.
But probably the main reason I like them is the involvement when listening.
If all I owned was the Walkman 1A and a pair of $199 DM6 IEMs I would be perfectly happy. The 1A and 1Z power the Z1R and Z7 full-size headphones to ear bleeding levels though the TA is slightly more powerful arraigning slightly better bass detail in the end.
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The 1A and 1Z power the Z1R and Z7 full-size headphones to ear bleeding levels though the TA is slightly more powerful arraigning slightly better bass detail in the end.