YAY!!! The NWZ-A845 is finally launched in the most parts of the Asia Pacific region. That includes Singapore. Although it's only stated as ''coming soon'' on the Sony Singapore website, it's a good sign that the model is really reaching Singapore finally or that the model is already in Singapore but they have yet to be done with quality control tests or Sony haven't produced enough Walkman units to be sold. Anyways the good news is that it has 4 Clear Audio Technologies, 2 Superior Sound Technologies and 1 pseudo Surround Sound Technology.
The 4 Clear Audio Technologies are namely, Dynamic Normalizer, Clear Bass, Clear Stereo and Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE). Dynamic Normalizer helps to reduce volume difference in between songs to solve the problem of constant volume changing. Clear Bass enhances the low frequency signals and lets the bass pump even at high volumes with minimal distortion ensuring the playback of the audio file to be still at high precision. Clear Stereo enhances the Left-Right channel of the compressed file as during compression signals would get weaker so as to get a small size for playback. Thus, Clear Stereo helps to enhance the signal that was lost during compression of the file. DSEE enhances the overall signals of the file that was lost during compression of the file. This signals are important so as to ensure high fidelity playback.
The 2 Superior Audio Technologies like S-Master Digital Amplifier and Digital Noise Cancelling are simply awesome. Let's start with the S-Master Digital Amplifier. It's a full digital amplifier which means less distortion when music is being played back. On a conventional portable media player (PMP), it uses a D/A converter which is actually a digital to analog converter for playback. Analog means that there would be more distortion and music playback would not sound that good. Digital on the other hand, solves these problems, it ensures a full compatibility with the source, in this case, the compressed file which was ripped from the CD. It is of a digital signal source therefore if it's being played back with another digital amplifier like the S-Master, it'll ensure no loss in quality. Even an analog to digital source will have a loss in quality during playback. Therefore a full digital playback is the best. The S-Master Digital Amplifier appeared on the Sony home theater systems and Hi-fi sets. Therefore a technology such as the S-Master appearing on a Walkman is pretty incredible. Digital Noise Cancelling technology on the other hand, does not enhance the audio quality during playback. Instead it helps to cancel out ambient noise as the name suggests (self-explanatory). But what's the difference? Digital helps to cancel noise better as it's more stable compared to noise cancelling of its analog counterpart. I myself ain't that sure of what's mainly the technological difference, but all is said is that the technology is superb. No doubt about it. Although people think that digital is better then analog (which is pretty true), digital has its drawbacks such as it being unstable when it was first started off. It takes a longer time to stabilize compared to analog. But of course the results from digital once the technology has been grasped properly, the possibilities are probably endless. Although currently, the technology is designed to cancel out only low frequency sound waves, I believe that Sony'll create it in a way next time that it would cancel the higher frequency sound waves next time effortlessly. That's up to Sony.
The last technology which makes the Sony higher-end series Walkman different from its conventional counterparts and other MP3/MP4 players is the fact that there is a pseudo surround sound technology that is called (VPT) Surround Sound. VPT stands for Virtual Phones Technology. Sony Electronics has worked with Sony Pictures Entertainment to learn from them how the surround sound in cinemas are created vividly and how to create the ''surround sound'' from a stereo headphone or a stereo source. A conventional PMP lets the listener listen to the music as if the music is coming from within their head. The Sony proprietary (VPT) Surround Sound technology allows an ''out-of-the-box'' listening experience. This gives the listener many more choices on how to listen to his/her music. These includes Studio, Live, Club, Arena, Matrix and Karaoke. These technologies allow the listener to listen to the song mimicking of the respective venues of the technology. This sets apart the Sony Walkman away from the over-rated American iPod, which sucks plainly. Or should I say it in a less painful way? iPod's good. But Walkman is AWESOME! Haha, yeah I know I'm an elitist.
Time to save up the money for the NWZ-A845 my current dream Walkman. The prices range from $360, $370, $416 and $499 from different countries in the Asia Pacific region. (I forgot the countries sorry :x) Anyways, I calculated the mean and it tells me $411.25. By the way, all the amount are already converted into Singapore Dollars (SGD). Hehe, let me calculate the Standard Deviation. 54.887 (3 sig. fig.). Therefore, my conclusion is that I'm hoping the price would fall between S$400-500 only but judging from the wide spread it's hard to judge. :(
Haha that was a pretty long post I typed I suppose. Let's make our way to Genting people!
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