Hey everyone! Lachlan here from Lachlan Likes A Thing. Recently I was invited by Sony Australia
to attend a demonstration of their Hi-Res Audio products for 2014.
Sony invited bloggers,
musicians and fans of the company and Koji Nageno, the Chief Sound Engineer at Sony even
flew in from Japan to talk a bit about the new line-up. "Good Evening ladies and gentleman.
My name is Koji Nageno. I am from the V&S Division of Sony Corporation. Thank you very
much for attending today." For a Sony audio fan like me, seeing the chief sound engineer
on stage is a bit like seeing a rockstar. But I think for a lot of people, the star
of the show was going to be the NWZ-ZX1, Sony's 35th Anniversary Walkman. The ZX1 is a 128
gigabyte premium music player running Android, that supports almost all current generation
high resolution lossless file formats. The event was too loud to get a good impression
of the sound quality of the ZX1, but I can tell you that in the hand the ZX1 feels like
a serious piece of kit. Aluminium unibody construction, both touchscreen and physical
hardware music controls, and a speedy Android interface with a custom Walkman music app.
The back of the ZX1 has a pronounced hump to house the amplifier components. It makes
for a slightly unusual but still pocketable shape. Here's a comparison with my iPhone
5. The ZX1 supports audio files with bit depths up to 24 bits and sample rates up to 192khz,
though you'd know from my Pono hangout video that I'm a little sceptical about the practical
improvement these kinds of high resolution files will provide, especially in a portable
listening environment. I'm more enthusiastic about the possibility that Sony's new focus
on audio will mean a push for better mastering quality. This is a sensible direction considering
that Sony has both the recording artists to make the music, the online infrastructure
to sell it, and the hardware to play it on. And people definitely like the hardware part;
Koji Nageno let us know that the ZX1 has been pulling some pretty impressive figures in
Japan. "This media player is one of the key products that have surpassed our expectations.
It sells on average over 3,000 pieces per month in Japan alone. In Australia the ZX1
is up for pre-order and at $699 including a bonus pair of MDR-10RC headphones, Australia
is actually getting the ZX1 for the lowest retail price in the world, sold directly and
exclusively from Sony Australia. I'm not sure whether I'm going to pick one up myself but
let me know in the comments or on Facebook if you'd like to see a review. Another surprise
appearance was the new MDR-ZX750, which is a portable headphone that I was really excited
to see because there's virtually no information out there about this headphone. It looks like
a kind of lovechild between the ZX600 and the MDR-10R. I got some ear time with the
ZX750 and while it was only a short impression in a very very noisy environment, I felt fairly
positive about what I heard. The ZX750 feels comfortable and light weight, and it looks
like it might be a worthy entry into the market of good value portable headphones. The biggest
highlight of the evening for me was a chance to talk to Koji Nageno himself. It's an awesome
opportunity as a headphone enthusiast to talk to the chief engineer who decides the house
sound for an entire company, and Shane, Tom and I took this rare chance to talk to an
idol. I didn't record the conversation, but we had a long discussion and there are a few
tidbits about various Sony products that are worth reporting. With his permission I've
posted some of the details of our conversation on my Facebook page, and you can follow the
link in the description of this video if you'd like to read that. Another opportunity of
the evening was a chance to listen to the XBA-H3. One of the Sony executives had her
own personal pair on hand and she let me have a listen towards the end of the night when
things were quieter. It's unknown at this point if the H3 will be available in Australia,
but after listening to it, I know I'm probably going to try to get a pair one way or the
other. This hybrid monster combines the lush and liquid bass and vocals of the XBA-40 with
the clean detail of the 7550 and EX1000, and while I only had a short time with it I came
away seriously impressed. And one last surprise: at the end of the evening everyone took home
a show bag with a pair of MDR-10RC's, the compact on-ear version of the MDR-10R. Listening
to them this morning I can tell you I Iike these more than the 10R's, so click the like
button and subscribe for my review. Thanks to all my regular subscribers, I'm looking
forward to your comments. And as always, happy listening!