This is a review and detailed measurements of the Sony NW-WMA1A DAP (digital audio player). It is on kind loan from a member. The cost is -- are you sitting down? -- US $1,199. It is available on Amazon however for US $999 including Prime shipping.
For that money you get by far the best industrial design and feel I have seen in a DAP:
You can see the level of quality from the treatment of the output jacks:
The unit is quite heavy which helps with the hefty balanced headphone cable I have. Not so great if I had to carry this in my pocket.
The controls take that theme of great execution to well past anything available in other DAPs and certainly smart phone:
Sadly the main connection to the unit is a proprietary multi-pin connector. Why oh why? The connector is very delicate and losing the adapter cable to USB means the device becomes useless since you can't charge it or transfer files to it.
I did not play much with the unit but did suffer though a pain in a neck issue: every time you power the thing in, or plug it into the PC, it goes through "creating database" that lasts some 20 seconds. It does this over and over again. First of all, this is a very user unfriendly message. Second, why does it rebuild the database every time?
It was a relief to see it not running Android. If I want Android, I use a phone. A media player should be an optimized engine for this use, not some "app" in Android.
While the NW-WM1A is plug-and-play on Windows as far as acting as a USB DAC, it must be doing something strange as it did not at all show up in ASIO4ALL wrapper I use to send test signals to it. So I was limited to static measurements.
Sony NW-WM1A Measurements
There are two output settings: normal and high. Let's start with the normal output for unbalanced headphone jack, driving the unit through USB:
As you see, the output is quite anemic at 0.6 volts. Switching to high mode gave out a bit more output but no more than a $9 phone dongle:
Switching to balanced output in high mode thankfully produced 2 volts out:
This is still quite low though and surprising for such a chunky and heavy device. We have little dongles that weigh nothing which produce far more power:
Since power availability is just about everything when it comes to serious portable headphone listening, the above is quite a miss. BTW, I looked over and over again but could not see any power specifications from Sony. Must not have been a focus of theirs.
Back to the dashboard, the output impedance is very low and hence good, 1.3 ohm. Distortion dominates the SINAD which even with balanced output at 93 dB, is worse than the CD's 16 bit let alone anything high res:
It is kind of Ironic that Sony was the co-inventor of the CD and some 40 years later, they still can't produce a portable product that provides transparency to its format!
Dynamic range is thankfully decent:
Multitone representing "music" is good as well for a portable product:
Sony NW-WM1A Listening Tests
In high mode using balanced output, I was pleasantly surprised that there was enough power to drive my inefficient Ether CX 25 ohm headphones. The sound was very clean and detailed with good bass. Switching to Sennheiser HD-650 in low gain mode was disappointing. There was no dynamics and bass was suffering. I did not try it in high mode but that should make a good difference.
Conclusions
Sony nails the look and feel of a digital audio player with NW-WM1A. It is the Sony that I know (which I worked for years ago) which sadly lost that touch for years. Alas, software execution could be better and performance simply is not there. You can do better with a used LG phone or many dongles. I realize some people like DAPs due to better usability. The Sony has that but not the requisite performance for what they are asking.
If you are going to buy the Sony, I highly recommend getting balanced cables for your headphones to get the much higher power (and lower distortion) it produces.
Overall, I can't recommend the Sony NW-WM1A. It gets a few things right but is far short of what a perfect DAP should be. And at $1000, I expect perfection.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
For that money you get by far the best industrial design and feel I have seen in a DAP:
You can see the level of quality from the treatment of the output jacks:
The unit is quite heavy which helps with the hefty balanced headphone cable I have. Not so great if I had to carry this in my pocket.
The controls take that theme of great execution to well past anything available in other DAPs and certainly smart phone:
Sadly the main connection to the unit is a proprietary multi-pin connector. Why oh why? The connector is very delicate and losing the adapter cable to USB means the device becomes useless since you can't charge it or transfer files to it.
I did not play much with the unit but did suffer though a pain in a neck issue: every time you power the thing in, or plug it into the PC, it goes through "creating database" that lasts some 20 seconds. It does this over and over again. First of all, this is a very user unfriendly message. Second, why does it rebuild the database every time?
It was a relief to see it not running Android. If I want Android, I use a phone. A media player should be an optimized engine for this use, not some "app" in Android.
While the NW-WM1A is plug-and-play on Windows as far as acting as a USB DAC, it must be doing something strange as it did not at all show up in ASIO4ALL wrapper I use to send test signals to it. So I was limited to static measurements.
Sony NW-WM1A Measurements
There are two output settings: normal and high. Let's start with the normal output for unbalanced headphone jack, driving the unit through USB:
As you see, the output is quite anemic at 0.6 volts. Switching to high mode gave out a bit more output but no more than a $9 phone dongle:
Switching to balanced output in high mode thankfully produced 2 volts out:
This is still quite low though and surprising for such a chunky and heavy device. We have little dongles that weigh nothing which produce far more power:
Since power availability is just about everything when it comes to serious portable headphone listening, the above is quite a miss. BTW, I looked over and over again but could not see any power specifications from Sony. Must not have been a focus of theirs.
Back to the dashboard, the output impedance is very low and hence good, 1.3 ohm. Distortion dominates the SINAD which even with balanced output at 93 dB, is worse than the CD's 16 bit let alone anything high res:
It is kind of Ironic that Sony was the co-inventor of the CD and some 40 years later, they still can't produce a portable product that provides transparency to its format!
Dynamic range is thankfully decent:
Multitone representing "music" is good as well for a portable product:
Sony NW-WM1A Listening Tests
In high mode using balanced output, I was pleasantly surprised that there was enough power to drive my inefficient Ether CX 25 ohm headphones. The sound was very clean and detailed with good bass. Switching to Sennheiser HD-650 in low gain mode was disappointing. There was no dynamics and bass was suffering. I did not try it in high mode but that should make a good difference.
Conclusions
Sony nails the look and feel of a digital audio player with NW-WM1A. It is the Sony that I know (which I worked for years ago) which sadly lost that touch for years. Alas, software execution could be better and performance simply is not there. You can do better with a used LG phone or many dongles. I realize some people like DAPs due to better usability. The Sony has that but not the requisite performance for what they are asking.
If you are going to buy the Sony, I highly recommend getting balanced cables for your headphones to get the much higher power (and lower distortion) it produces.
Overall, I can't recommend the Sony NW-WM1A. It gets a few things right but is far short of what a perfect DAP should be. And at $1000, I expect perfection.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/