[abitdeef]

I don't need steaming.

thanks for the help

Just a heads up, but joybuy has the zx300A usually for around 350.00 and the only difference is the internal memory is 16 gigs not 64.

 

[akãjerovia]

Honestly never tried video on any DAP. Always have a large screen phone for that, currently S10+.

Thanks man

 

[510751]

Is there a A105 owner who has tried Fiio Q5 and can do a comparison?
Would be much appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[fish1050]

So my favorite Audio Dealer will be carrying the ZX507 but not the A105 or the A55

Apparently they don't feel there is enough margin on either of the A series to make it worthwhile to carry them. Sony locks down the MSRP in Canada so they can't charge more than Sony allows. There is never more than a $20 discount on any A series models, you still buy the A20 series for the same price it was when first released including the A27 at $520 CDN, give me a break. This lack of price flexibility and low margins could go a long way to explaining why so few Canadian dealers carry Sony DAP's especially the A series. I wouldn't be surprised if I have to order either A series DAP from Amazon to get to demo them. Still hoping one or more of the Canadian dealers that use to carry the A series will carry the A55. The A45 is non-existent right now so hopefully this bodes well for carrying the A55.

 

[Pewterlocks]

So my favorite Audio Dealer will be carrying the ZX507 but not the A105 or the A55

Apparently they don't feel there is enough margin on either of the A series to make it worthwhile to carry them. Sony locks down the MSRP in Canada so they can't charge more than Sony allows. There is never more than a $20 discount on any A series models, you still buy the A20 series for the same price it was when first released including the A27 at $520 CDN, give me a break. This lack of price flexibility and low margins could go a long way to explaining why so few Canadian dealers carry Sony DAP's especially the A series. I wouldn't be surprised if I have to order either A series DAP from Amazon to get to demo them. Still hoping one or more of the Canadian dealers that use to carry the A series will carry the A55. The A45 is non-existent right now so hopefully this bodes well for carrying the A55.

It looks to me that there are those that do still mark up the prices compared to what is charged elsewhere such as the USA and Asia. Please let me know where you found a dealer. All I can find is Amazon and Bay Bloor Radio which has amazing service and let's you try before buy

 

[fish1050]

It looks to me that there are those that do still mark up the prices compared to what is charged elsewhere such as the USA and Asia. Please let me know where you found a dealer. All I can find is Amazon and Bay Bloor Radio which has amazing service and let's you try before buy

Bay Bloor is the dealer I was talking about. It is my favorite dealer to demo gear at for sure. Over the last 20 years I must have demoed dozens of headphones their and bought my B&W P5S2's from them and you can haggle with them on price. Unfortunately they are one of the few high end dealers in Toronto that carry DAP's and usually only the the Sony ZX and WM series. They did carry the A35 and some Fiio DAP's a few years ago but now only sell the Sony's higher end models. Headfoneshop on Yonge street carries several DAP's and headphones you can demo but the place is tiny so not ideal.

Still to early to gauge availability, probably looking at 2 to 3 months before it will be available. Canada Computers carries or did carry all the A and ZX Series DAP's off an on so they would be a possibility but usually only special order and their return policy sucks. Gibby Electronics has carried the A series so hopefully they might. You can always order from sony.ca, click on Where To Buy and it takes you to gentec.ca. If Sony offers any kind of price drop gentec will have it.

It really doesn't matter as all dealers will sell it for the same price so you might as well go with amazon. I like to demo my DAP's but none of the usual Sony dealers are close to me and Canada Computers doesn't let you demo products.

I spoke to a Sony sales rep last year and he told me they were looking to make amazon their exclusive online dealer in Canada. So it will be interesting to see if that is true when it becomes available here.

 

[fish1050]

Anybody using Sony Media Centre, crashes every time it scans for tracks?

So a friend bought his first DAP an A45 and asked me to help get it setup so he could load tracks on it. I downloaded and installed the latest version of Media Centre released January 2020 I believe. About 45% of the way through scanning his music library on his Windows 10 computer it crashed. I Closed the program and restarted it, same thing happened when scanning his library so I uninstalled it and reinstalled it. Tried scanning again and it crashed at 48% scanning his music library, gave up and uninstalled it. Downloaded MediaGo and installed it, scanned his library with no problems. But when I tried to sync his tracks to the A45 MediaGo converted all his flac files to mp3. I checked the settings and I had the automatic format convert disabled. After deleting all the tracks from the A45 I tried a few tracks again, it converted them to mp3 again. Uninstalled MediaGo as well so I couldn't get either Sony app to work properly with Windows and the A45.

I remembered seeing a device profile for the A45 for Mediamonkey on the site. I have the device profile loaded for the Fiio M7 which also works for the Fiio M9 at home and it works great syncronizing tracks and playlists for both devices. I installed Mediamonkey and loaded the A45 device profile then scanned all his 3500+ tracks. Synced all his tracks and a couple of test playlists to the A45 128 GB microsd card and internal memory. Worked like a charm and all the tracks and album art work flawlessly as do the playlists. So now he has to use a third party program to do what Sony's software should be able to do with a Sony DAP. He could just copy and paste his music to the A45 but he is a newby so better he uses Mediamonkey to avoid any tagging issues.

Out of curiosity when I got home I tried to install Media Centre on my Windows 7 computer. Again it scanned less than half my library and crashed so I uninstalled it. I still use MediaGo to play music because I like the interface and I can throw my music from my computer to my Sony receiver with MediaGo. I get track info and artwork with MediaGo as well but I don't use it to sync music as it started doing the same thing converting flac files to mp3 even with the autoconvert options disabled. I was hoping to be able to use Media Centre instead of MediaGo to throw my music to my receiver since it has the DSEE HX algorithm but unfortunately not an option if it can't scan my music library.

Is anybody else having problems with the Media Center software, and is there anything I could try to get it working?

 

[HungryPanda]

All I did was put my microSD card in a usb adapter plug into computer. format and create a folder called music on card then just copy music to that folder

 

[fish1050]

All I did was put my microSD card in a usb adapter plug into computer. format and create a folder called music on card then just copy music to that folder

Yes and I am very comfortable doing that but some people like my friend are not that savvy when it comes to doing this stuff. Plus he is coming from iTunes and is use to managing his library with a program. And he likes to create playlists and it would be much easier to create them in Media Centre and sync them to his SONY DAP. Kind of the point having a program to do this in the first place, to make your life easier. I had a hard time getting playlists to work on my A17 manually and had to use MediaGo to get them to work. It is more the frustration of Sony offering a program that is suppose to be compatible with Windows 10 but actually isn't. The Windows 10 troubleshooter tried starting Media Centre in Windows 8.1 mode and it still crashed every time.

If Mediamonkey can do it properly why the heck can't Sony make their own software work properly with their own devices? Just one more thing that makes me think twice about buying a Sony DAP.

 

[nm626]

A105 & ZX507 do sound great and I had no issues with BT or WiFi. Only sent the ZX507 back as EU volume capped one and terrible low volume compared to the import A105 I had.

I was curious about a question that I think you had about changing the firmware on the EU ZX507 to the JP version. On the Sony Asia site, the latest firmware is labeled as
"Firmware update to version 1.10.03 for NW-ZX500 series / NW-A100 series". This seems to suggest that both models are using the same firmware and even has both listed in the "Applicable models" section. https://www.sony-asia.com/electroni...eries/nw-a100tps/downloads/00016520#download2

If this is the case, would it be possible for the latest firmware for the a100 (linked in previous posts) to be uploaded in the ZX? Maybe there's model specific differences in the firmware that I am not considering but it could be worth testing.

 

[psikey]

I was curious about a question that I think you had about changing the firmware on the EU ZX507 to the JP version. On the Sony Asia site, the latest firmware is labeled as
"Firmware update to version 1.10.03 for NW-ZX500 series / NW-A100 series". This seems to suggest that both models are using the same firmware and even has both listed in the "Applicable models" section. https://www.sony-asia.com/electroni...eries/nw-a100tps/downloads/00016520#download2

If this is the case, would it be possible for the latest firmware for the a100 (linked in previous posts) to be uploaded in the ZX? Maybe there's model specific differences in the firmware that I am not considering but it could be worth testing.

I did install the Japanese firmware but no good. The hardware itself must have an internal flag at a lower level than the firmware.

 

[HungryPanda]

Media centre is not compatible with W10

 

[davidcotton]

Shame about the volume cap. Amazon uk has the black in for £259 atm which would be very tempting if it weren't for the abysmal battery life and the volume cap

 

[fish1050]

Media centre is not compatible with W10

Then why does the download page show it as compatible? With support dropped for Windows 7 what good is an app that looks to only be compatible with what Windows 8.1. I had the Windows 10 troubleshooter try running it as 8.1 and 7 and it crashed with both. Why is Sony telling their customers to use it if it doesn't work? Link to the Media Centre download page - https://musiccenter.sony.net/en/downloads/ says it works with 10/8.1 even with the latest version released last month still isn't compatible apparently. It's a dog, take it behind the barn and shoot it Sony and let us go back to MediaGo. At least it's able to properly scan music libraries in Windows 10.

 

[wowser]

My Japanese A105 arrived the other day. Nice orange colour. Using IE800 and Polaris 2 – the Sennheisers sound lovely with it, while the Campfires... not sure. Maybe it's a question of experimenting with the tips again. Finding Direct Source to sound "best" for me. And new firmware seems to be available today! Will see how things go.