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Sony NWZX300 - quick measurements

coastpunk

Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2019
Messages
6
Likes
18
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my Sony NWZX300 – a beautiful (yet flawed) little beast. Great interface, stunning build quality, snappy performance... but significantly underpowered. Also, there's no "Enqueue" or "Add to playback queue" function, which is a real shame! And beware that buying one means inadvertently paying a licensing fee to MQA. Sigh.

I thought it would be a good first candidate to test with the Clarett 2Pre, having finally set it up as a decent amateur audio measurement device. (You can see my measurements of the Clarett itself here.)

Test setup:
  • NWZX300 configured in low gain, maximum volume
  • Balanced output via 4.4mm Pentaconn to 2 x 3-pin XLRs
  • XLRs to input 1 and 2 of Clarett 2Pre

o1jxsPr.jpg



I started by playing a test signal to match the channel inputs, and then output the RMAA test file at 24-bit, 96kHz:

mrbJ7Yr.jpg


C0SOBus.png


zspjYkU.png


Great overall results, but the performance doesn't really match up to the price tag - particularly with measurement-aware companies like Fiio knocking at the door. And the lack of raw power means it only really shines when driving IEMs, making the balanced output (which may have been a tempting proposition to drive full sized cans) somewhat redundant.

Nevertheless, they'll have to claw it out of my cold, dead hands. Love this thing.
 

Jimshoe

Active Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2020
Messages
196
Likes
379
Location
London UK
Do you know which version of the firmware you are using?

Output is limited in some countries but ca be addressed by hacking the firmware to 'relocate' the unit.

I'm in the UK and changing my location to the US gave me much greater output flexibility.

D
 
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