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Sony's 70th Anniversary Signature Series Product Test;
Sony's 70th anniversary trilogy: bright, steady and low-key WM 1Z and WM 1A high-quality portable players.
Sony's 70th Anniversary Trilogy: Super Flagship Headphones MDR-Z 1R has an overwhelming sense of air in the closed design.
Sony's 70th Anniversary Signature Trilogy: Sony's first desktop amplifier TA-ZH 1ES specially designed for headphones.
ZX300 test piece:
It embodies the essence of Walkman's portability and absorbs the essence of WM 1A's high sound quality. It is played on Sony Walkman ZX300.
Leading the Soul of Modern Audio Products
Mr. Akira Sato studied the field of car audio in his early days, and joined the Walkman team to participate in the development after Z 1000. Starting from ZX 1, he provoked the high-level walkman technology to take the responsibility of product project leader, and led the development of Sony's high-level walkman models. He participated in the use of S-Mastex MX, ZX 1, F880, ZX2 and even WM 1A in Z 1000.
Mr. Sato Akira said that in the digital era of walkman, the electronic design of audio is more complicated. Not only the traditional acoustic architecture, including wireless module, system and even frame structure, will also have a great impact on the sound. The purpose of the Signature series is to realize the "air sense" in the portable player and earphone system, so as to achieve a broad and natural timbre and vast momentum, and at the same time, to present a delicate and elegant atmosphere.
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S-Master technology that subverts the traditional class D amplification has been launched for more than two years, and these two models have been introduced into the second generation S-Mastertex HX? CXD-3778GF？ In fact, the related technologies and functions of chip models have been fully reported at that time. However, if Mr. Sato introduces them again, there will still be many little secrets that consumers don't know. Unless engineers are willing to share, there is almost no chance to understand.
The picture shows Mr. Sato Akira's activities at the consumer briefing on June 20, 65438/KLOC-0. The S-Master HX chip used by WM 1 and ZX300 is not only a specification upgrade. Mr. Sato said that in recent years, Sony audio engineers actively participated in major exhibitions, interacted with consumers, and redesigned them after absorbing consumers' opinions to meet the needs of a new generation of mobile listening. In the balanced mode, the native DSD decoding ability is added, and the balanced output provides a higher sense of output and space. At the same time, the timbre of pocket monster S-Master HX is re-tuned in view of the consumer's excessive "digital sound".
Different from the commercial DAC chips used in other factories, Sony, which has semiconductor design capability, has planned its own patented S-Master digital amplification architecture based on Class D. Although the Class D amplification chips in the general market have high efficiency but poor sound quality, Sony's S-Master not only retains the advantages of Class D amplification and minimal conversion, but also attaches importance to sound quality performance. The Walkman team also re-adjusted this technology for portable devices to achieve unique timbre and technology.
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Realization of independent single-ended balance line in compact walkman: WM 1Z? One side is the balanced architecture of the circuit board, and the right side is the single-ended architecture. If we pay attention to the power differences of Sony WM 1Z, WM 1A and ZX300 under single-ended and balanced architecture, we will find that Sony has indeed achieved the theoretical difference of twice the power and four times the output under single-ended and balanced architecture, rather than the difference of two times in other factories. Theoretically, the difference between single-ended and balanced output can also be realized, because Sony uses completely different lines in single-ended and balanced, while competing products are completely based on balanced architecture, and single-ended outputs are connected in series with left and right channel ground wires.
Although competing products can increase the single-ended output to twice that of the general single-ended, the power consumption will be the same as that of the balanced output because the architecture is fully balanced, and because the ground wires of the balanced lines are connected in series, crosstalk interference is more likely to occur, which makes the noise unable to be cancelled like the balanced lines. However, the class D amplifier architecture and circuit design of Sony S-Master HX can still use the left and right channel independent lines in the single-ended circuit, and can also achieve the effect of low noise floor.
Another special feature is that WM 1Z, WM 1A and ZX300 support native DSD decoding, but only under balanced output. Mr. Sato said that this is because when the S-Master architecture runs at a single end, due to the different formats of clock and DSD, although it can theoretically support native decoding, it will produce noise in some specific sounds. However, balance does not have this problem. Although the native DSD decoding can be realized at a single end by adding a signal conversion chip, Sony does not want to transcode the signal from analog to digital many times in order to emphasize the native DSD, so it only supports it in the sound security balance mode.
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The gold plating of WM 1Z is not for visual effect, and its frame structure is slightly different from WM 1A due to the material characteristics.
There are also some interesting stories about frame design. The designer didn't want WM 1Z to be plated with gold. Mr. Sato Akira said half jokingly that designers think gold is a bit vulgar, but in order to pursue the ultimate timbre and electrical effect, plating 24K gold with low impedance and oxidation resistance is the best choice. At the same time, the general gold plating process will require nickel plating, but after nickel plating, it will produce adverse magnetic effects. For this reason, Sony added three layers of non-magnetic alloy coatings to the electroplating process to achieve perfect results.
At that time, consumers who were concerned about WM 1A and WM 1Z should also know that the fuselage of these two models was made of metal with twice the original weight, and it is generally believed that since they are dual machines, although the materials are different, they should be processed into the same internal mechanism in order to simplify the design, but if you look closely, you will find that there are slight differences inside, which is also because of WM 1Z and WM/Kloc.
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Concentrate the essence of WM 1 and reproduce the essence of "Walkman" ZX300.
When talking about the ZX300 released last year, Mr. Sato Akira showed an embarrassed expression, saying that he had developed too many advanced models. But looking at WM 1A and WM 1Z, although they present the ultimate sound performance, they lack the advantage of being easy to take out. For example, he takes WM 1Z with him on every business trip, and he is often stopped for inspection when he goes through the customs. The ZX300 can be said to be a "new walkman" that inherits the new generation of high sound quality of WM 1 series and the dual characteristics of ZX 100.
Although it is located under WM 1, it is bound to compromise on specifications and technology. However, some new practices, components and functions have been introduced in ZX300. For example, this time, in cooperation with PCB manufacturers, the solder of S-Master HX chip was soldered on the PCB. Similarly, the lead-free solder for audio developed by Sony was used as the connecting wire to replace the lead-free solder produced by traditional PCB, which further improved the sound quality.
In addition, we also consider the miniaturization of the fuselage and the use of miniaturized synchronous oscillators. At the same time, although the backplane is not as good as the gold-plated oxygen-free copper of WM 1, we still use the aluminum alloy backplane with low impedance, and the backplane is still gold-plated oxygen-free copper. In addition, we have added USB DAC mode which is not available in WM 1 series.
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The ZX300 is single-ended due to the size of the fuselage, but the balanced output is as horizontal as possible WM1a..
Other materials are similar to WM 1A, and the bottom plate for mounting the circuit board is still high-purity oxygen-free copper. The OFC cable is also used to connect the motherboard and the headphone output hole, and the FT-CAP acoustic capacitor is used to balance the output (but the single end is a second-order PRO-CAP), and it is also equipped with copper-plated resistors for high-order machines since ZX2, so that ZX300 is not a simple low-order version of WM 1.
Comparing the front and back of WM 1 series (larger) circuit board and ZX300 circuit board, we can see that the single-ended capacitor is changed to PRO-CAP. However, for consumers with sensitive ears, it should be found that although the performance of ZX300 in balanced output is quite close to that of WM 1A, the performance of single-ended output is quite different. Mr. Sato said that the main reason is that almost all players in WM 1 series report balanced output, and single-ended interfaces are rarely used. Considering the thickness of the body of the ZX300, PRO-CAP is used as a compromise. Mr. Sato also said that balanced lines should be used as much as possible to give full play to the strength of the ZX300.
Although Mr. Akira Sato did not choose to visit Taiwan Province in the week when the new product was launched, and even spent a lot of time introducing the WM 1A and WM 1Z of the Signature series, it also means that Sony is not regarded as a consumer product that can be replaced in a short time in the high-end Signature product line, and if we look at it, Sony's designer team has been actively contacting Japanese and overseas consumers recently as a way to receive and integrate consumer opinions.