RMAA: Panasonic SJ-MJ500 16-bit

July 24, 2018 ohm

RMAA: Kenwood DMC-S55 16-bit
RMAA: SHARP MD-DS8/9 16-BIT
RMAA: Sony MZ-E55 16-bit
Minidisc VLOG - 03: Hiss ranking
Minidisk VLOG - 02: Sharp MD-DS8/9
Minidisk VLOG - 01: Elegant lies

The soft spot I have for Panasonic portable MD players is big, squishy, and quite frankly, TMI. What makes it so? Panasonic make it so. In general Panasonic built their portable MD units nice and tight. In my opinion, they are second only to Sony. Solid metal, hard-braced corners, recessed bolts, solid buttons, and sturdy battery compartments.

RMAA: Kenwood DMC-S55 16-bit

July 23, 2018 ohm

RMAA: SHARP MD-DS8/9 16-BIT
RMAA: Sony MZ-E55 16-bit
Minidisc VLOG - 03: Hiss ranking
Minidisk VLOG - 02: Sharp MD-DS8/9
Minidisk VLOG - 01: Elegant lies
BACK TO THE FUTURE FRIDAY: PORTABLE MINIDISC

Face-on, Kenwood's players look good. Contrasty and/or pastel colours, interesting masks and a nice mix of soft and hard materials; and where available, precise engraving are unique to Kenwood. Dayum!

RMAA: Sony MZ-E55 16-bit

July 20, 2018 ohm

Relevant links:

RMAA: SHARP MD-DS8/9 16-BIT
Minidisk VLOG - 02: Sharp MD-DS8/9
Minidisk VLOG - 01: Elegant lies
BACK TO THE FUTURE FRIDAY: PORTABLE MINIDISC

From 2007 until about 2011, and then again from 2014 until now, I've collected personal thoughts, RMAA and square wave measurements, and more, regarding various portable and desktop/rack MD units. The MZ-E55, which came out in 1998, and which does neither MDLP, nor bears an HD digital amp, is my favourite sounding. It was my favourite sounding hours after picking it up last week, and, with a few provisos, remains my favourite. It also tests well, though its amp shows serious weakness against modern Sony DAPs as well as iPods and the like.

RMAA: Sharp MD-DS8/9 16-bit

July 19, 2018 ohm

Relevant links:

Minidisk VLOG - 02: Sharp MD-DS8/9
Minidisk VLOG - 01: Elegant lies
BACK TO THE FUTURE FRIDAY: PORTABLE MINIDISC

Great battery life, viper-like one-touch eject functionality, and a bevvy of sound enhancements do not a great player make. Neither does a noise floor that rivals Astell & Kern's best DAPs a good-sounding player make. Sharp's MD-DS8/9 marketing bowled over a fast-tribalising MD market, who needed motivational support for their assertions of MD's superiority. The DS8 was the first 1-Bit portable player on the market. It and its recorder brethren were also the first mass market portables which sported balanced headphone outputs. In the right hands, those things were instantly marketable, and instantly gained apologists. I tried to explain that in Fauxtaku Lounge's latest YouTube video.

RMAA: Sony ZX300 24-bit

February 26, 2018 ohm

Sane-ish price, beautiful industrial design, good performance, and an interface that embarrasses most of the competition, the ZX300 is a phenomenal DAP. Like the Sony NW-WM1Z it hisses, but not horribly. And, it doesn't break the 16-bit ceiling in any meaningful way. But it nails DSD decode and playback, runs smoothly through albums/songs/artists, and with an artful UI to boot. I love this thing.

RMAA: Cowon Plenue J 24-bit

February 18, 2018 ohm

The Plenue J makes about as little line and hiss noise as the Plenue D. It sounds great, holds signal well across most metrics, and is easy to use. It is more responsive than the Plenue D, slimmer, and has a slightly better screen.

RMAA: Audirect Whistle 24-bit

January 23, 2018 ohm

Audirect's Whistle sounds great. I mean I love the sound of its name. And it sounds good. From an audio perspective, it is more than worth its 99$ price tag. It gets louder than an iPhone (even approaching high-end DAP territory), keeps THD and IMD to inaudible levels, and does so with amazing unloaded performance. Even loaded it does remarkably, again approaching high-end DAP territory.

Below you'll find charts comparing it to both an iPhone SE and other Lightning dongle DACs.

RMAA: Astell&Kern AK70 MKII 24-bit

November 28, 2017 ohm

I love the AK70 MKII’s new volume pot. I dig its new lines. I even dig the new colour accents. However, I’m not ecstatic about its measured performance, especially when compared back to back with that of its predecessor. I can confirm that the AK70 gets similarly loud, that its boot up screen is smooth, and that, like its predecessor, its signal is cleanest at a setting of 136, where stereo crosstalk, which tops out around -87 at max volume, breaks -100dB. Of course, the MKI measures -118dB without load, and -75dB connected to an Earsonics SM2. As far as I can tell, that is the only improvement the MKII brings.

RMAA: Fiio BTR1 24-bit

November 28, 2017 ohm

I get over 7 hours on a single charge, and notice very little hiss at all. It shows a certain amount of frequency oscillation, and moderate levels of jitter. Next to Astell&Kern's more expensive XB10, both are minimal. The BTR1 sounds, and measures, good.

RMAA: Sony NW-WM1Z 24-bit

September 11, 2017 ohm

Outside it's gold, inside it's a mix. On high gain, the NW-WM1Z's single-ended out measures better than an iPod nano 7G, but not by much. And, it doesn't appear to get much louder than an iPhone 6. On high gain and in balanced mode, it owns the nano, sounding crisper and clearer. Either out is the sort of sound that goes really well with JVC's HA-FW02 and Astell & Kern's AKT8iE MKII and less well with mid-bright earphones like the Grado GR8/e and Beyerdynamic Xelento.