Xperia or Walkman for Hi-Res Audio?

[Mstansmith]

Folks,

New to the community but been a Sony fan for many years with lots of products bought.

Over the last year I have been converting my vinyl collection to DSD on the PS-HX500 and listening to it on my Xperia XZ1 native walkman app which seems to do an impressive job through a set of Hi-Res headphones. 

My question is just how much better is the Walkman range of devices than the Xperia for this?

I am partially aware of the capabilities of the chipset in the Xperia but would dearly love an in depth explanation of the differences beteween the two and an honest opinion about the benefits of the standalone Walkman.

Here's hoping.

[Sean_Mc]

Hi there,

Welcome to the Sony Community.

I would recommend checking out the range at your local store to check the quality for yourself. Perhaps another member in the community that is already using a Sony Walkman may be able to advise you further. 

Best wishes,

Sean Mc

[Sonyvores]

Walkman will win in any regards over the Xperia but the gap depends of the series

A series will be better in terms of performance & sound quality

On the Xperia Qualcomm chipset will convert the sound and send out sound. Thing is the chip also does other thing within a noisy environment (wifi/bluetooth etc) so the sound will be degraded once it's output

While in the walkman, the S-Master HX chip already adjusts the volume digitally (cleaner) but the signal follows a very clean path and has an amplifier stage with more relevant capacitors. Battery and the body have better isolation and other improvement to minimise distorsion and noise.

ZX & Signature series is not even comparable, it's night & day