NW-A1000's EQ is colored?

[LittleGhost]

NW-A1000 has a few EQ options:

None

Jazz

Pop

Heavy

Custom 1

Custom 2

The setting 'none' should be EQ-less. However when i compared the Custom 1 setting with everything set to flat to the 'none setting', they sounded different significantly. With the 'none setting' on, the mids and lows are slightly boosted, while the Custom 1 Setting with everything flat sounds, well, flat!

Did Sony "do" something to the original sound? Did they intentionally colored the sound quality?

Thank You in advance for your help.

[cauldron]

Even though it may seem colored, the EQ-off sound is the standard, default sound for an A1000. The apparently "neutral" sound of setting all EQ bands to zero is not the original sound on this player.

Now that you mention this, I think these days Sony products are rarely mentioned as having a neutral sound. In media reviews and blogs and forums, Sony players are often described as sounding energetic, lively, fun, but usually not neutral. If not always, then over the last few years.

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

I think, in practise, your best shot at working this out .. without getting into audiophile'esque 'looking for flaws for looking sake' type testing (and yes, there are those who have been hammering the NW-A series on that basis out there in the world), is to simply..

Take a reference file, maybe pick one of the test files used for reference testing for ReplayGain volume levelling scheme (there are WAV and mp3 versions of the file as i recall, try Google for where to get them).

Then, and it's only a rough approach mind, connect the deck's output (in phones out setting) to the line-in of a soundcard and sample/measure/asses after getting a reference level, and try the eq's mentioned.

Then, and if you've done the adjust to soundcard input right, then compare the suspected 'coloured' setting from a 'line out' setting on the deck through the sound card and compare.

You'll need to adjust the deck and line-in levels (aka the vol output on the deck and mixer level on the soundcard) to try to get a near levelled comparision and it'll be imperfect at best, but since technically the EQ is not-enabled out the line-out mode, this should equate to a no-EQ bypass tonal output (aka flat) when the audio is passed via line-out mode.

If the phones out audio, in 'normal' or 'custom' (and eq zeroed as you described) differs, it could be due to many things not just artificial discrete EQing, but it could be partly artificial discrete EQing going on.

Clearly the method is a little flawed, but it's good enough for a basic idea.

When i say artificial discrete EQing may be going on, i am talking about a basic factory-applied eqing that may be preset and the manual adjust is over and above this - a lot of decks suffer this 'quirk' on their phones output mode.

Also, make allowances for (particularly if your normal ref on DAP's is based on older gens of misc mp3 units) that there is often a sense of sound often being a touch more distinct (hard to say quite how, as it's subjective) out of the later Sony units - a bit like the diff between the output of a pretty ordinary high-street brand CD player vs say a 1st-2nd gen audiophile grade CDP. It's hard one to describe, but it's noticable when do you hear it.

I noticed it, the apparently perceived more-detailed sounding output of the D-NE20 and D-NE1 (haven't got around to comparing line-out of audio on the NW-A yet) and NW-NH1 of HQ encodings sort of sounding (in lossy audio terms) vs a ref of a pretty typically popular item (iRiver H300) using similarly equal sound ref encodings - it was a little like hearing audio played from an 1st-gen Arcam Alpha CD deck vs a pretty a.nother generic high-street brand Audio CDP.

Now anyone will tell you that even though a 1st-gen Arcam Alpha is 'low tech' by CDP standards, it certain reproduces audio more distinctly than a lot of non-AP grade CDP's, and it's in that sense i kinda though that the lossy audio output of the later Sony units felt a bit vs a.nother generic DAP's.

Ok, that's a hard one to follow - disregard it if you please, as it's kinda subjective, but the point of the comparision is...

When i listen to most generic high street brand CDP's, they sound 'coloured' vs the output of the Arcam (and remember, when talking line-out this shouldn't be the case unless the decode is doctored somehow) - so i can see where the OP is coming from with the 'is it coloured' question.

Maybe, maybe not - it could simply be a perception thing due to the digital amp in the Sony unit doing things a bit like the oversampling etc in the Arcam is. This can, sometimes, have a discrete effect on the tonal output that can sound a bit like what you may describe as slight-coloured output - it can also, more so sometimes, account for what sometimes can sound (on one deck) a brighter (ambiently brighter, clearer.. or cleaner seemingly rather than discrete eq lifted) output like i probably hear on the Arcam.

Will be interested to see what you lot find and determine by your own tests.

Sadly, i have way too much on my plate these days taking up too much time - to get back into the testing process. The restoration backlog is growing....

Be Cool Always

'Tom Kat'