Review: FiiO E6

I cannot stop writing... several articles today. Well, all three articles I published prior to this one were really only one article written weeks ago that I today split into three seperate, updated articles. This article however is different for I won´t be talking about vintage portable CD players. I´ll talk about my beloved FiiO E6 instead, the one amplifier I´ve used the most during the last eight months. I´ve been using it for every review I´ve written so far for this blog, I´ve used it for every single one of my portable CD players, I´ve used it for my Sansa Clip+, I´ve used it at home, I´ve used it when I was outside, I´ve even used it with my ASUS Xonar Essence ST. The FiiO is the only thing during those months that was able to make me truly happy without showing any flaws whatsoever. I therefore fear that this review will be quite short (after finishing writing it: no, it turned out to be longer than expected); I cannot talk about its sound quality that much just because there´s nothing to talk about. For those of you who don´t know what the FiiO E6 is: it is a portable headphone amplifier aimed at improving audio quality of your portable player or mp3-capable cellphone. Many people actually seem to desire such a convenient device; roughly 200 people reviewed it on Amazon.com alone. IMO this is quite the number, I never imagined that there was that much need for a portable headphone amplifier.

FiiO E6

Is there any specific reason for it to exist? Yes, there exists not only one but several reasons why a gadget like this comes in handy. For one, the headphone outputs of most portables players can reach a very low amplitude only - most headphones won´t be loud enough with these outputs, not even when playing Loudness-War-music. Most portable players or cellphones have been designed with the understandable goal of conserving as much battery power as possible; everything concerning audio is supplied with a minimum amount of power that only barely enables it to function properly. To make a complex thing short I will make it easy for myself and suggest you read NwAvGuy´s excellent article about gain. The FiiO achieves roughly 8 dB gain boost, this should be enough gain for most occasions or headphones. With for example my Sony D-NE1 it still wouldn´t be enough, it is rated at 0.5 mW (!) output power... this is of course completely useless and one of the reasons why I use line-outs all the time; they simply are a bit louder beside having better sound in almost all cases.

The second and probably most important reason to use an external headphone amp for me is the problem of impedance matching. I´m sure you´ve read about or experienced this yourself: people describing the headphones you yourself know to be sonically extremely balanced are described as being distorted / coloured instead. Sometimes it´s because these people aren´t experienced; they perceive something that´s sounding perfectly neutral as sounding horribly distorted. Most of the times however it´s because the headphone amps inside their (or your) player has a high output impedance. This high output impedance may be responsible for a coloured sound signature because some headphones change their sonic characteristic when driven by amplifiers with high output impedance. Such an impedance mismatch may occur when your headphone has an impedance less than 8x the impedance of the output it is connected to. This is just a short summary, another two excellent articles by NwAvGuy explain headphone amps and impedance much better I´d be able to.

FiiO E6 from below

That´s where the FiiO comes into play: it´s high input impedance gets rid of every impedance mismatch error a headphone amp might produce. Its own output impedance is just 0.25 Ohms (according to NwAvGuy´s measurment) which should be perfect for any headphone and certainly doesn´t pose any problem for my Sennheiser HD-448 or my Superlux HD-668. Yes, I have only two headphone amplifiers able to power these two headphones without changing their sound: the FiiO and the Soundblaster X-Fi HD USB. The amp of the E-MU 0202 USB is not suitable for any headphone (output impedance of over 30 Ohms combined with weak output power) while the amp of my Xonar Essence ST is incredible powerful, its output impedance of 10 Ohms however is perfect for high impedance headphones as my Sennheiser HD-600 only. Speaking of which, the FiiO is even capable of delivering enough gain for that headphone - with severe distortions on transients though; while it gets loud enough there doesn´t seem to be as much power available as the Sennheiser desires. And while it can be connected to the line-out of stationary CD or network players I´d advise against it; as I´ve explained in this article some sources have more power on their line outs: instead of the quasi standard 2.0 V (which the FiiO adheres to) they sometimes output with 2.2 or 2.5 V, leading to severe input distortions when used with the FiiO. The low-gain-setting necessary for line-outs can be turned on by switching the "On"-button three times, it cannot be used together with the built-in equalizer settings (activated with the same switch; on the picture above it´s on the left side). BTW, the equalizer is relatively functional: while the first setting EQ1 amplifies bass beyond enjoyment the second setting EQ2 is useful. On trains for example where bass tends to be overlaid by surrounding noises it is able to make it audible again. At home I only use the two flat settings of course. Exceptionally convenient is that you can use it while it´s connected to an USB port for charging its internal battery (no, you won´t get better sound quality compared to pure battery power).

FiiO E6 from the side

Now I could write about measurments but I refrained from doing them because NwAvGuy already did them perfectly and with attention to detail, his measurments cannot be improved in my opinion. While his review of the FiiO most of the time concentrates on measurments and bickering about build quality, some measurments & convenience it nevertheless is an excellent article, you really should read it. I cannot find any flaws myself, the disadvantages described in the aformentionend article are no disadvantages for me. I´m not disturbed by the plastic body since the build quality is decent enough given its price of only $ 25, I also find the multi-purpose button quite ingenious (it keeps the design simple and elegant). According to NwAvGuy measurments are a mixed bag; while it indeed does have remarkably low output impedance it might add some distortion to audio, shows some odd clipping behaviour (not in my case however) and ultrasonic noise (way above our hearing range).

Since I got the FiiO I´ve often wondered about its sound: how can something that´s so cheap manage to sound so extremely well? In the beginning of this article I´ve written that my descriptions of sound quality will be short. Witness for yourself... I cannot find any audible flaws. It doesn´t colour, it doesn´t change timing, stage or character of the recording. It behaves exactly like any amplifier should do: it is sonically invisble. I can easily discern the quality differences of my portable CD players, the same amount of differences are audible with the recordings I usually do with my E-MU (virtually transparent when used as recording device). There might be some tiny little obstacles though: the FiiO seems to warm up the sound ever so slightly, it also sometimes appears to destabilize the staging a bit. Both are so rarely audible though that I might be listening to a placebo. If you want an example of a gadget that sounds neutral and almost invisible go buy the FiiO, it doesn´t even change the characteristic of my perfectly balanced Xonar Essence ST when connected to its line-out (with slightly diminished volume of course due to the input of the FiiO overloading). Here are my ratings for the FiiO E6:

Sonic Balance:

Dynamics:

Resolution:

Stage / Ambiance:

Character:

FiiO E6

The FiiO is an incredible bargain: for its price it sounds revolutionary well simply because it doesn´t 'sound' at all. It will be suited for any headphone rated from 16-150 Ohms, it will drive them to their optimum sound quality. Can you drive expensive headphones like the Beyerdynamic T50P with it? Of course you can, it is ideally suited with its impedance of 32 Ohms! The biggest problem this combination poses is the price differences: many people (even you?) won´t accept or believe that an amp for $ 25 will be able to drive a headphone costing ten times as much. In reality however the Beyerdynamic will sound like its true self with this amp, no other amp will be able to improve on that. Now you might read at places like head-fi that no person shall attempt to combine such a lowly amplifier with cans as kingly as the Beyerdynamics... sorry, but that´s Bullshit! Anyone writing that only some particular amplifier (one that is guaranteed to be much more expensive; the price range must fit, no?) is able to power the T50P simply has no idea of how a combination of amp / headphones works. The advantage this particular person might claim to hear has several possible reasons:

1. the reviewer might have been paid for by either Beyerdynamic or the company producing that particular amp (yes, that happens over there)
2. the amp / phones combination might produce an impedance mismatch effectively hiding some possible sonic flaws of the amp / phones
3. the person reviewing it might have fallen for an expectation bias; if it´s more expensive it must necessarily be better, expectations are therefore creating the advantage where in truth none exist

BTW, this is not only true for the FiiO but also for other amps. I´ve read a thread at head-fi where some person asked if one can combine the Xonar Essence ST ($ 200) with the Sennheiser HD-800 ($ 1300) and several people answered that it would need an amp similarly expensive to make the Sennheiser 'shine' and to reduce its sibilance. That´s of course Bullshit too - the Xonar Essence is perfectly able to drive the Sennheiser, its built-in, supposedly 'weeny' amp is the famous, ultrafast and ultrastable TI 6120A2*1, developed especially for high impedance headphones like the expensive Sennheiser. People are obviously influenced by the fact that the IC itself costs just two dollars - which is not even that cheap for an electronic part and is used by many companies in much more expensive headphone amplifiers. Another reason is the impression that a soundcard cannot be good enough by principle, only a seperate headphone amplifier will be good enough according to these audiophiles. Admittedly it´s partly true: an external headphone amp might reduce noise and distortions by not residing inside a relatively noisy PC environment. With the Xonar Essence ST the situation is very different though: it has been constructed with that environment in mind (it´s even shielded) and it gets its power by an extra molex connector directly from the power supply itself and not from the PCI-bus (as other cards do). I won´t even mention its pristine Burr Brown D/A converters and their equally perfect surroundings. The result is an audio card that belongs to a (small) exclusive group of soundcards exhibiting extremely low noise & distortions. The last reason is the supposedly sibilant sound of the HD-800; while I haven´t yet heard it myself I doubt that it´s sibilant. Reason: Sennheiser engineered it to be as neutral as possible, it took them years developing it and they consider it to be the best dynamic headphone ever constructed (of course they do). In this case I dare to believe them because my experience tells me that if people normally belonging to the common audiophile crowd describe it as sounding sibiliant it´s because the recording it plays is sounding that way. Many extremely neutral devices make the impression of being 'cold', 'lifeless' or 'sibilant' to the these people, just because they are accustomed to devices that colour music in an effort to present it with more 'life' or 'warmth'. Sure, this can be nice, just think about my review of the Sony D-121. But remember that it´s not the ultimate truth and shouldn´t be regarded as such. 

I might not like it very much but I myself belong to this group of audiophiles too because the effect of something appearing to be supposedly sibilant also happened to me: when I got my Xonar Essence ST three years ago it sounded horrible to me upon the first listen. Every piece of music I played with it sounded so unexpectedly different; some pieces I remembered to sound perfect suddenly turned cold & harsh while other pieces I once perceived to be badly recorded now sounded perfect. It took me a few weeks to discover that the Xonar Essence was the first sonically invisible device I´ve ever encountered. If music sounds like shit the Asus simply presents it that way, if it sounds gorgeous it does the same. I was baffled that I now could hear every tiny change I did to the equalization of some pieces during my own "remastering" attempts, something impossible for me to perceive before. I also discovered how good my HD-600 actually is because it followed the improvement the Xonar Essence ST was making with effortless ease.

By now it should be clear to you, dear reader, that you won´t necessarily need an ultra-expensive headphone amp in order to experience sonic bliss, the FiiO E6 will do just nicely with headphones ranging from 33 to 150 Ohms. You shouldn´t trust someone who describes the FiiO being inferior to other amps because of its low price. I cannot imply you to buy it, you have to make that decision yourself. Will you like the additional little box attached via another cable to your portable player? I myself don´t mind but what about you? I´m afraid you have to find out for yourself. You might be in for a sonic surprise, a surprise you maybe won´t like: with high output impedances my HD-600 for example produces a lot of bass that is absent with output impedances close to 0 Ohms. The exaggerated bass has its reason in the impedance curve of the Sennheiser, many people will prefer this huge amount of bass to something that is truly neutral (perceived to be 'thinner' in this case). The same could happen to you if you decide to buy the FiiO; bass you were expecting from your iPod may now be absent just because the problem of mismatching output impedances has disappeared. In my opinion however you should try it out anyway, $ 25 won´t really hurt and you might be eternally rewarded with something you´ve never experienced before with portable players: perfectly invisible neutrality, nice design and more gain than ever before.

Tweaking portable CD players (or everything else)

Have you ever thought about 'tweaking' your vintage portables? No, I´m not talking about replacing parts by soldering new, supposedly improved ones onto the mainboard. I´m talking about improving things already there without changing anything. Now you might wonder what will be ahead while it´s actually quite simple: I´m writing about shielding, to be precise, shielding of electronic parts like ICs. Almost equally idiotic as soldering better (or more expensive) parts onto the mainboard I wanted to try this for a very long time. Some high-end manufacturers like Marantz have been using shielding inside their more expensive players for quite some time and others have shielded the whole body of their players with copper. I´ve tried to search for information about shielding achieved with copper but I couldn´t find any. I´ve found plenty of advice on how to change electronic parts with soldering though. But I´ve already said that I perceive this to be stupid, I don´t want to destroy one of my players. The engineers of these little beautys knew what they were doing and so I´m going to trust them. Furthermore, a more expensive part doesn´t necessarily make the sound better as you can read on NwAvGuy's blog.

Sony D-725 lower body

On the picture above you can see that Sony already covered a part of the body with copper foil, this part is directly below where the IC401 (control chip for power, sled motor, spindle motor and focus/tracking) and some other parts have been placed on the underside of the mainboard. After seeing this the first time I disassembled the unit I decided to purchase self-adhesive copper foil. It has several advantages to exchanging parts: it was cheap (5,- € for 2 meters length / 80 mm width) and can be removed very easily again should that be necessary. Anyway, I decided to use it thoroughly and to cover every IC on the mainboard with it. The result looks like this:

Sony D-EJ 725: IC602 (RAM)

Sony D-EJ 725: IC401

Sony D-EJ 725: IC601 (D/A-converter)

Sony D-EJ 725: mainboard underside

Just so you know what these chips are responsible for: IC401 is the players' control chip, IC351 is the headphone amplifier, IC602 is the players 4MB of RAM and IC601 is its D/A-converter which is a CXD-3028R. This chip is manufactured by Sony (it´s still available) and also reveals several functions of the player. It´s an 8x oversampling pulse width modulating converter with a maximum bit-depth of 20 bit, with a built-in memory controller (-> IC602) and built in servo block. From the information about the chip I know that it reads discs with 4x speed, performs the error correction, jitter rejection, the mega bass function, digital deemphasis etc. As I said above it also has a built-in RF-amp which I suspect to be responsible for the line-out on the European model. While I don´t know exactly which one of the chips was responsible for the players' improved sound after the shielding I strongly suspect it´s this one. Yes, you´ve read that right, the player sounds better and also measures slightly better after shielding.

Sony D-EJ 725 measurments before & after shielding

Note the IM distortions: they have dropped significantly while all other measurments are the same as before. Soundwise the amount of control is still very apparent, but after I shielded the chips the stage improved considerably, instead of being wide and flat it now is almost on par with the reference, showing the stage with more depth and spaciousness. The dynamics have improved too: now attack, transients and decay are finally present, immediate and powerful. Resolution and crispness are back and it finally is able to present the sonic colour of the recording convincingly, the 'grey' sound I´ve talked has almost disappeared (the reference is still superior). But there´s one thing that still bothers me: the lack of bass. With the now crisper treble it becomes crystal clear that this player is relatively bass light, it´s now an example of an analytical player combined with almost perfect balance. Don´t get me wrong, I very much prefer this to the boring sound it had before but some people will not like it. There´s also something else: while the shielding indeed improved something it´s apparent only when the player is connected to the external power supply; on batteries it sounds as grey as before. I don´t know the reasons for this, maybe using more power (batteries: 3 Volt, power supply: 4.5 Volt) causes the parts to emit more radiation which in turn could affect neighbouring parts stronger if the shielding wasn´t present.

Before:

Sonic Balance:

Dynamics:

Resolution:

Stage / Ambiance:

Character:

After:

Sonic Balance:

Dynamics:

Resolution:

Stage / Ambiance:

Character:

I´ve also tried to shield the ICs of my Technics SL-XP 490; I´m not sure though if it had any effect. Since I long have deleted the test files done for its initial review I wasn´t able to compare if the shielding changed the sound. I also failed to do a new recording for a before/after comparison. Soundwise I´m under the impression that the stage has improved, it´s more stable now. But this could very well be a placebo. The only thing I did was to make new measurments; the differences to the first ones are not so huge as to merit giving them the pronounciation 'considerable' but I´ll include them nonetheless:

Technics SL-XP 490 first measurments

Technics SL-XP 490 measurments shielded

But wait, there´s more. I´ve told you about the soft rubber dampers of the Sony D-335 which are holding its drive in place... wait, I actually have to reach out a bit further. Before I decided on shielding I tried to tweak the sound of the D-EJ 725 by hardening its rubber dampers. For that I used the small dampers from the D-EJ 100 and added them to the original dampers which hardened the suspension of the drive considerably. But to no avail, the sound turned wider but also flatter. I reversed the addition and then got the idea of shielding with copper. I still had these spare rubber suspensions lying around and so I tried to improve the dampening of the D-335. Guess what, the same stage widening effect that happened with the D-EJ 725 also happened with the D-335, surprisingly without reducing the depth with the result that the virtual stage now sounds huge without loosing cohesion. I´ve subsequently used another trio of rubber suspensions on my Sony D-220 and that reduced the strange centered stage I´ve described in my initial review.

You mustn´t do this yourself, you can think of me what you will. Yes, regarding my little hobby I´m definitely a nerdy geek like countless others playing WoW or going to Star Trek Conventions. But if a hobby gives one pleasure, why should I not bathe in it? I´m also aware that my descriptions of the sonic characteristics of these players must sound gigantic to you. Trust me, they aren´t. I´ve told this many times before: the differences between modern CD players are small if they aren´t an example of a sounded player (the D-335 being such a player). So in case you´re willing to try one of these things for yourself don´t be disappointed. Give yourself some time instead and please do comment on your experiences, I´d be very interested in reading them.

Review: Sony D-121, Sony D-EJ 250, Sony D-EJ 725 & Sony D-335

Hallo, meine Süßen! It´s that time again, the time for more vintage portable CD players! What? You are bored? Oh well... then go away and google for cute kittens; come back when you´ve cooled off ;). My last article about vintage portables was written on April 1st, since then I´ve acquired several new portables: the Sony D-335, Sony DE-J 725, Sony D-202, Sony D-121 and the Sony D-EJ 250. I also did something incredibly stupid to some of them and to others from my collection... you may remember that I talked about prolonging their life for as much as possible; in order to achieve that I cleaned their drives and their mainboards (when necessary). Cleaning of the CD drive proved to be the crucial part because that´s where I failed: instead of using my specially bought silicone based fat for relubricating moving parts I used oil intended for sewing machines. Why? Because one reason is that my silicone based fat has a viscosity to high for some drives (-> Sony D-465); the other reason is that one can read all over the net that sewing machine oil is equally well suited. From all the comments I´ve read this oil is truly wondrous to behold: it has the perfect mixture of viscosity, doesn´t affect plastic or metal and it has an extremely high creep capability... BANG - and that´s what´s problematic: it doesn´t stay where it´s supposed to be, it creeps everywhere instead. From the cogwheel and the splined shaft (called "sled assy" by Sony) it creeps into the laser block and from there into the optics, the laser and the photocells, subsequently destroying them. Have a look:

Sony D-335 drive

The picture above shows the CD drive of the Sony D-335, look at the darkened spot on the right side of the drive. Directly under the barely visible square-like hole sits one of two cogwheels vital for the laser sled. After I lubricated it with sewing machine oil - just one tiny drop on its bearings - the oil was hurled towards the bottom of the CD player when the cogwheel turned, to the left (onto the sled assy), to the right (the sled motor) and to the top of the housing. When I discovered this during the photo-post I swiftly went into panic mode and tried to save what could be saved... but I was too late already, the CD player had changed its sonic signature into muffled combined with confused staging. I had to buy a new drive, the much used KSM-331CAN, costing just 14,- Euros. Luckily, I didn´t even need to re-calibrate the CD player. But what about the other players I´ve treated with the oil? Yes, they still play everything except CD-R but they have changed their sound signature as well. So far I´ve deduced that I destroyed my Sony D-465, the Sony D-NE1 and the Sony D-EJ 250. If you read my blog regularly you will remember that I was baffled why the D-NE1 sounded so different with my E-MU 0202 USB and my FIIO E6 during my last review. The reason is clear to me now: after I cleaned and lubricated it I auditionend it with my E-MU and afterwards (an hour later) I heard it with my FIIO; by then the oil had crept into the laser/optics (partly blinding them), hence the different sound. Needless to say that I´m genuinely embarrased - in an effort to preserve my little darlings I achieved an idiotic opposite by destroying their most vital part. Has something as dumb as this this ever happened to you?

And furthermore: what to do? During the last three weeks I have been searching for replacement drives in good condition. Thankfully I have been the successful bidder for a Sony D-EJ 100, it shares its laser and sled motor with the D-NE1 and during the last week I was able to restore it back to full function again. I´m not surprised that it doesn´t change sonic character anymore, regardless if its been used with the E-MU or the FIIO. I could have used that laser for the D-EJ 250 too but the D-NE1 was a bit more important to me. But don´t worry: the D-EJ 250 was subsequently repaired too; I´ve purchased a Sony D-EJ 361 and used its parts to replenish the D-EJ 250. The drive for the D-465 however is something else since there aren´t many portable CD players around using the same laser (DAX-11E). But I still had another D-465 laying around, a functioning player that has been used only for spare parts - I´ve used its laser (now garbage) for my other D-465 I subsequently tested and photographed for this blog; it was in better condition and was able to read more CD-Rs reliably. So today I put the old laser back into the destroyed CD drive during a three hour long operation which I also used to thoroughly clean the drive. I don´t know how many Q-Tips and Isopropylic alcohol I had to use but it was awful... and after all was said and done I lubricated all moving parts with just a tiny little bit of my silicone fat. I was successful: it works again like a charm, during the last two hours I´ve been listening to a lot of CDs and they play without skipping - the player now sounds again like I´ve described in my first article. Just in case however I´ve acquired a used Sony D-E 441 since it uses the same drive as my D-465 and I plan to exchange its drive again should it be in better condition. But now on the reviews, shall we? Oh, before I forget... the reviews up ahead are going to use my new ratings for the first time, I hope you´ll like them.

Sony D-465 - fully functional again (don´t you just love its blue display?)

Sony D-465

--------------- Sony D-121 ---------------

Sony D-121

The Sony D-121 was an inexpensive portable player released by Sony in 1993 if I´m correct. You can find one on eBay for little money, most of them are however in an extremely bad state, you have to be lucky to find one that looks as pristine as the one above. Don´t be fooled by its outer appearance though: some parts apparently have been suffering over the years, probably because of long exposure to heat (which will quickly age the condensers / SMD parts on the mainboard), they are likely responsible for the player not accepting any CD-Rs. Which means that I cannot measure it, I can only describe its sound. 

Sony D-121 front

Its build quality reveals its price range because the used plastic feels rather cheap, it also makes funny noises when I open the lid. It isn´t very feature heavy, not even the display is illuminated. But boy, the headphone output is powerful, it´s in fact the most powerful headphone output I´ve ever encountered. I don´t talk about headphone outputs often because in 95% of all cases I use the FIIO E6 connected to the Line-Outputs of my portable CD players. In this case I will make an exception though - the sound of it comes very close to the sound of its Line-Out. But don´t you dare turning on the Mega Bass for it will immediately distort everything, even on lower volume levels. 

Sony D-121

How does it sound with its line-out? Compared to my reference files it misses crispness, timing and dynamics. The timing is interesting because while it´s slower, especially at bass frequencies, it never seems to miss a hit, everything is presented neatly packed inside a wide and spacious sphere with lots of ambience. Amount of bass is almost on par with the reference files but much less tight and controlled, effectively sounding a bit bloated. The whole frequency band misses attack - but without sounding boring or uninteresting. All in all a rather dark but engagingly lush sounding player, not the original but very characteristic. Be sure to grab one in good condition, it´s a hidden gem.

Sonic Balance:

Dynamics:

Resolution:

Stage / Ambiance:

Character:

--------------- Sony D-EJ 250 ---------------

Sony D-EJ 250 - not very beautiful

The Sony D-EJ 250 was released in 2003 if I´m not mistaken and if my assumption is true it would be the most recent portable CD player I own. I stumbled upon it when I was searching for other players on eBay and when I saw it I became curious because of the metal parts. Yes, give me metal and I´ll buy it! Whatever, it´s one of the last players equipped with a line-out (shared with the headphone output, configuration can be changed via the menu). It´s also one of the few players unable to play mp3-CDs - that doesn´t disturb me since I have a Sansa Clip+ for playing lossy stuff in high quality. The build quality of the D-EJ 250 is quite decent considering its price range (it cost just 100,- €), the used plastic feels sturdy enough. And yes, it indeed has metal parts on and inside its body. The display sitting on the lid is encapsulated inside a metal shell, the big round button in the middle is made out of metal too. The mainboard doesn´t contain any parts from Sony (different to every other player in this review) and is quite small which actually bothers me: the engineers could have easily designed a smaller body, it´s fairly huge considering its young age. Its headphone output is useless because it doesn´t have enough power for almost any headphone - but that doesn´t disturb me either since I always use my FIIO E6 connected to the line-outs.

Sony D-EJ 250 measurments (+ 8.3 dB amplitude)

Sony D-EJ 250 jitter

As you can see measurments are decent throughout: jitter is almost absent and RMAA doesn´t show anything out of the ordinary. What you cannot see however is the ripple in its frequency response, I have never seen anything like this with a player from Sony. THD and IM distortions are ok but not too good either, both players below measure better. The total harmonic distortions could be an explanation for its slightly coloured sound but I´m not sure. I always enjoy reading through the service manuals of my players but sadly I´ve been unable to find one for this player; it either doesn´t exist or isn´t very popular. I suspect however that it was released in Europe only, I cannot find it in the U.S. or Canada.

Sony D-EJ 250 - the drive that was broken but now is fully repaired

The sound of this player is surprisingly good. Why surprisingly? Because more recent portable CD players from Sony (since 2000 or so) aren´t particularly highly regarded when it comes to their sound. This is something I´ve never understood: why should a more modern player be any worse than a player 15 years older? It´s very likely that it is the other way round; a more recent player should sound better because of technical advances or developments. Sure, it´s headphone output sucks sonically but when used as a line-out the player transforms into a very tasty beast. It indeed comes quite close to my digital originals, it even manages to convincingly change the sound by adding some euphonic colour. Dynamics and balance aren´t on par with my references; music seems a bit slower, it also adds a bit of bass and diminishes treble beyond 10 kHz ever so slightly. But oh... how lovely the stage is... I´ve rarely heard a stage as precise as this, it seems to turn any recording into one that has been closely miked. Sure, this diminishes the overall impression of reverb tails, combine this with the ever so slightly recessed high frequencies and you have a player being the polar opposite of my Sony D-NE1. But all of this doesn´t disturb me when the overall sound is presented that well and convincingly. If you own this player you can count yourself lucky, if not I advise you to purchase it.

Sonic Balance:

Dynamics:

Resolution:

Stage / Ambiance:

Character:

Sony D-EJ 250

--------------- Sony D-EJ 725 ---------------

Sony D-EJ 725

Released in 2000, this player features the newer G-Protection (ESP with switchable lossy compression), a handy optical output, CD Text (for special MD-Recorders or the remote from my D-NE1). The "CD Walkman" moniker still in use with the series from the year before (my D-EJ 915 for example) has disappeared, here it says only "Walkman" instead. The D-EJ 725 is a middle-range player judging by its build quality; it´s made out of relatively durable plastic and also looks & feels decent enough. The display isn´t illuminated which is a disappointment, on the other hand it reads every CD I´ve given it to play so far. One major advantage compared to other, thinner players is that you´re able to use normal batteries instead of gumstick batteries that became so typical for Sony since 1995. If that wouldn´t be enough the D-EJ 725 also was equipped with a cable remote control (3.5 mm plug) and an attachable external battery case.

Sony D-EJ 725 from behind

Measurments don´t reveal anything out of the ordinary. Jitter is equally low as are distortions (except IMD), the frequency response however shows a bass dropoff which should be audible. Aliasing rejection works as it should, imaging artifacts are almost absent too - the converters' 8x oversampling is working. The amount of quantization noise is relatively high at frequencies beyond 20 kHz but it couldn´t be any different since the player uses a noise-shaping 1-Bit converter. BTW, I´ve reviewed the European model here; the version for the States will probably be and sound a bit different. For one it uses a whopping 16 MB RAM for the G-Protection (Europe: 4 MB), secondly it has an additional IC - an RF-Amp - on its mainboard, used for the audio output perhaps. The European model uses the amp already built into the D/A-converter.

Sony D-EJ 725 measurments

Sony D-EJ 725 jitter peformance: very good

Sony D-EJ 725 CD drive

The sound? Disappointing because it always sounds bored and uninterested yet a bit grungy (IM distortions maybe?). Stage is wide but constricted, flat and not very airy. While it sounds very much in control with tight bass and excellent timing bass and transients are missing impact and attack. Overall dynamics are decent (except bass and treble) while decay suffers, due to its constricted stage. At the first listen it appears relatively balanced, after longer exposure however I realized that it misses a bit brilliance and a bit more bass, the latter probably responsible for its precision. Most disappointing is its lack of sonic colour; while the originals show a perfect sense of colour (as in 'sonic colour', engineered into the music itself) this player almost sounds 'grey'. I´ve never heard a player until now lacking so much sonic colour or stage depth, it´s almost like it turns a colourful painting into one that is black & white. Granted, it really is 'dead', it´s just a machine playing back digital media but with this one I once again was painfully aware that HiFi components cannot interpret music (as people like me sometimes believe).

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--------------- Sony D-335 ---------------

Sony D-335

I admit, it´s not very beautiful but I can´t help it finding it wonderful to look at. It feels very good to the touch too, the lid is made out of metal while the rest of its body is fashioned out of thick and durable plastic. There´s one drawback: the hinge holding up the lid seems a bit fragile, it´s not very sturdy. The D-335 I got from eBay also has a crack on its display cover; while this doesn´t hinder it to function perfectly it doesn´t look very nice. But that´s the only blemish I can find because everything else is in perfect condition. BTW, the pictures reflect its true, slightly purple colour and depending on the light it looks either grey or slightly violet. Even the 'Discman' moniker is tinted accordingly, in my opinion it shows the care with which the Sony engineers designed it in 1994. Trust the Japanese to come up with a player like this, combining the best of two worlds: in Japan the colour violet is associated with wealth & power, in our Western culture a dark grey has the same meaning. I don´t know if it was top-of-the-line back then but it surely was one of the more expensive players 18 years ago while I myself got it for surprisingly little money (13,- €), surprising because I´ve never seen it before on eBay. There may be several reasons for this: A) it could be a very rare player (likely the case in Europe or the U.S.) or B) it´s so good that people hold on to it for a long time (also very likely as you will read soon).

Sony D-335 closeup

For a player of its time it has many features: ESP (10 seconds), optical digital output, cabled remote control with display and a lovely carrying case made out of faux leather. Even though the ESP holds ten seconds of data it still skips when the player is moved quickly for a relatively short amount of time, the reason possibly being the very soft rubber dampers holding the drive in place. On later ESP-equipped models (for example my D-465) they became harder (until they disappeared in 2002) and in effect more stable. These soft dampers may also be a reason for its considerably weaker sound quality when ESP is switched on, it´s in fact the only player behaving like that. Measurments are decent, again not something worthy to pay attention to. BTW, nothing changed after I replaced its drive, it now measures exactly like it did when I just had received it (perhaps less distortions - but I can´t be sure since I only did one initial test).

Sony D-335 measurments

Sony D-335 jitter

What a beautiful, violet bum, don´t you think?

You probably guessed already that it sounds incredible, didn´t you? In fact, I´ve never heard a portable player like this before. While crispness and precision could be a bit better - treble appears to be slightly rounded - it doesn´t loose details or definition, with this player I´ve heard things in a recording I´ve never heard before. I don´t know how it achieves this; most CD players showing this level of resolution sound a bit edgy or even strident - not this one, it stays pleasant all the time. Attack, pace and dynamics are a bit faster and slightly more forward throughout all frequency bands compared to the reference, resulting on the other hand in a slight loss of control. But never too much, it´s always very balanced out. The most wonderful thing however is its stage impression; while not very wide it´s incredibly layered showing a mindboggling depth. You can literally see the instruments and how they are placed right in front of you; another sonic trait differentiating it from the reference. Even the height of the virtual stage (yes, that is possible too) is better. Reverb tails are incorporated very well, I´m even able to follow them jumping around, this player shows without much fuss how microphones are placed.

Sony D-335 front

Does this player show the truth? No, because a reference like the one I use stays a reference - always. Magazines nonetheless will tell you that it is possible, with a statement like that they are confessing that they aren´t interested in the truth but in a pleasant lie instead. Although this might sound bad it isn´t, yet if you as their reader haven´t been made aware of it you´re easily fooled with some possible disappointment following later. My reference is THE perfect copy, unchanged from its source on CD while a CD player, regardless of its talents, can either transport this truth or disregard it in favor of its own colourization. Does this player has disadvantages? Yes. It sometimes glosses over the timbre of instruments ever so slightly, its range seems limited with some material and the stage can be too compact at times. Why it is so good then, you might ask? Because it is the only player I own that deceives so well without myself recognizing it. Key to its sound is its musicality, every colourization or change is so perfectly balanced out with other things that you simply won´t notice its flaws. I hate to say it but it´s the only player I´ve ever known that comes close to being described as interpretative, it somehow seems to say "Hey, I´m alive". Of course, it still is one thing and one thing only: a machine. For heavens sake, grab it while you can!

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