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Author Topic: Sony PHA-1 Impressions  (Read 3274 times)

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Marvey

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Sony PHA-1 Impressions
« on: October 14, 2013, 05:42:52 PM »
I have always had a soft spot for Sony. I remember my grandmother using an ancient Sony tape recorder which seemed to last forever. I recall my family's first color TV in the 1970s, a Sony Trinitron. A late 70s 20W Sony Receiver (broke.) I myself owned two Sony Walkmans (tape), Sony ES CD players (both broke), a Sony widescreen CRT TV, etc. Currently I own a Sony X Walkman - I like how it sounds.

Upon hearing that I would possibly be interested in the PHA-2 (appears to be the same thing as PHA-1, but with a different DAC chip to handle DSD), Zero sent his PHA-1 to me as a public service.

Sadly, I must say the Sony PHA-1 is a piece of shit. (Tried HE-400 and Paradox)
 poo poo poo
Never have I heard music that's had so much its life and soul sucked from it. This is the device to use if you want to put people to sleep. In fact, I am getting sleepy already while listening to it.
  • The brick is fricking huge.
  • The USB DAC / built-in amp combo sucks.
  • The built-in amp sucks. I tried using the line-in from the PWD2. It really wasn't that much better than the built-in USB.
  • No additional drivers for USB on Windoze. That's cool.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2013, 05:49:54 PM by purrin »
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zerodeefex

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Re: Sony PHA-1 Impressions
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2013, 05:54:47 PM »
Also the output impedance is high enough that it does funny things to my JH-16 FP version.

And you hit the nail on the head. It feels really lifeless. They obviously spent all their time/effort on getting idevice support and forgot to listen to it.
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Marvey

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Re: Sony PHA-1 Impressions
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2013, 05:57:01 PM »
It supports iPhone?
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zerodeefex

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Re: Sony PHA-1 Impressions
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2013, 06:03:50 PM »
Yup, that's the major draw.
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funkmeister

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Re: Sony PHA-1 Impressions
« Reply #4 on: October 14, 2013, 07:14:34 PM »
Has there ever been a good amp built around that chip? I can't think of one, but I can think of some crappy bits.
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CEE TEE

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Re: Sony PHA-1 Impressions
« Reply #5 on: October 14, 2013, 07:21:00 PM »
I have a soft spot for Sony too.  Will have to see how the 35th Anniversary player sounds.  Thanks for the PSA on the PHA.   :(
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sound soft harmonics rich bile rich rhyme

kiteki

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Re: Sony PHA-1 Impressions
« Reply #6 on: October 27, 2013, 11:18:32 AM »
Thanks for confirming that, I've always liked Sony a lot too, but when I saw the insides of the PHA-1 I felt rather hesitant on the parts they selected. 

After trying the XBA-3 and XBA-4 fairly, they put a real dent in my Sony love, actually after the XBA's I really lost a lot of interest in Sony as an audio company, I haven't even looked at their latest headphones, but Rin Choi confirms they're all really weak compared to Sony's older headphones like the CD-3000 and SA-5000.

There was some CEO at Sony that fired a lot of Sony audio engineers, I'm sure they've all moved on to other Japanese companies now like JVC, Pioneer or whatever.

As far as IEM's are concerned, the Ocharaku Flat-4's and Vsonics are the only true Sony products left.

The EX800ST and EX10000 were pioneering however, and paved the way for more dynamic driver IEM's, which were overlooked (and still are) in contrast to Knowles and Sonion balanced-armatures.

Whatever Sony is releasing now is made by a fresh audio team with sometimes really weak sound, and un-sony-like sound, however they are investing more into advertising than in the past and that tactic is working from what I can tell.

I'm tempted by the ZX1 for sure http://www.sony.jp/walkman/lineup/zx1/, however from a sober point of view I don't think the amp section will compete at all with an iBasso PB2 http://ibasso.com/en/products/show.asp?ID=70, let alone a HDP-R10, however the ZX1 does win in the looks department.

« Last Edit: November 16, 2013, 12:48:53 AM by shipsupt »
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altrunox

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Re: Sony PHA-1 Impressions
« Reply #7 on: October 28, 2014, 12:30:17 PM »
Sony love seens to be gone for while...

 popcorn :-DD :spank:
« Last Edit: October 28, 2014, 12:54:45 PM by altrunox »
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I really don't know what I'm talking about
#7x1neverForget

kothganesh

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Re: Sony PHA-1 Impressions
« Reply #8 on: October 28, 2014, 12:54:40 PM »
Quote from: altrunox on October 28, 2014, 12:30:17 PM
http://www.head-fi.org/products/sony-pha-1-headphone-amp/reviews/11791

 popcorn :-DD :spank:

Yep, its hilarious, Marv is succinct as usual. Man, the hyperbole on HF is amazing.
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Marvey

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Re: Sony PHA-1 Impressions
« Reply #9 on: October 28, 2014, 05:39:35 PM »
PHA-1 is not a "real" Sony in terms of there's very little internally developed. Sony is a strange company where if they really want to do shit right, they can. Although I have doubts as of 2014 since Sony's chased out most of their old engineers who really knew how to do shit right.

chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/assetDownloadController/PHA1%20Block.pdf?path=Asset%20Hierarchy$Professional$SEL-yf-generic-153707$SEL-yf-generic-153750SEL-asset-362534.pdf&id=StepID$SEL-asset-362534$original&dimension=original

A huge issue lies with the TPA6120 headphone amp chip. 10ohm output Z at least. That chip is pretty ubiquitous. Every implementation I have heard sounds flat, boring, and flaccid. PHA-1 is no exception.
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