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Sony WH-1000XM5 Retail Packaging Leak Confirms Headphones Redesign [Update: May 12 Announcement Confirmed]

Ace008 said:
What most people don’t understand about the horrible name is that Sony - with regards to decisions being made with large markets like the US in mind - is doing what a lot of Japanese companies do. The same thing Acura started doing with its car models after the model names took off on their own wings. They choose names that force consumers to also say the name of the brand.
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I was mostly just kidding with the Honda comparison, but I don't think you're right about that being an example of something that is uniquely Japanese... my understand of that trend in the auto industry is that it was meant to ape the German luxury car naming convention, to position Lexus/Acura/Ininiti as substitutes to BMW/MB/Audi

Ace008 said:
Sony wants to capture the idea that everything the brand makes is consistently very good and then we’ll see cool names for their product models.
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Sony is already there, and many/most of their consumer products have normal, non-stupid, and often fantastic names. Walkman, Playstation, Vaio, Bravia, Trinitron, Xperia, Betamax, and most importantly the mighty Dream Machine!! lol.... I honestly think that whoever runs their headphone division is actually being punished for some past dishonor.
 
Only $50 dollar increase supposedly. Thought the increase might be much more. Hopefully it launches at a maximum of $399.
 
ojwk said:
I have the XM3. Great set of headphones, noise cancellation was way ahead of the competition when I got them a few years ago. Haven’t tried anything since that would convince me to upgrade. I have AirPod Pros that I use at the gym and for phone calls.

The issue with both is the lack of lossless over Bluetooth. 320Kbps sounds pretty terrible when you are used to Tidal or FLAC.

You can get around that using wired input on the XM3s. The onboard DAC is pretty good, and no point using an external high res DAC like the dragonfly cobalt as the headphones will invariable downsample the signal with its onboard DAC.

Long story short the next version of Bluetooth REALLY needs a ton more bandwidth if we’re to have CD quality (never mind lossless) audio wirelessly.

That’s likely to be the time I next upgrade.
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I wouldn't worry about it, most people cannot tell the difference between high quality encoded (such as apple music) vs lossless anyway, it's mostly a red herring.
 
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JoshuaBru said:
Wait, if I have my X3s wired through an external DAC they’ll downsample the signal? Seriously?
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At least for the XM4, that is not true as far as I know.

Sony is using their S-Master HX combined DAC/Amp for these headphones and the DAC part gets circumvented when using them wired. Sony is not very clear about this though.

The headphones are certified as Hi-Res Audio, I‘m not sure if that would be possible if all signals got converted again by the ADCs in those headphones.
 
triton100 said:
highly anticipated? This is a great range of Sony headphones but I don’t see people salivating and fainting in anticipation for an iterative upgrade.
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Speak for yourself, i've fainted two times and soiled my pants just while reading about these new sexy bad boys coming to stores!
 
So if anoucement is expected on 5/12, does that mean actual release is much further away? I have a few international trips coming up soon. Would like to get my hands on these as soon as the release is made.
 
RedWeasel said:
At least for the XM4, that is not true as far as I know.

Sony is using their S-Master HX combined DAC/Amp for these headphones and the DAC part gets circumvented when using them wired. Sony is not very clear about this though.

The headphones are certified as Hi-Res Audio, I‘m not sure if that would be possible if all signals got converted again by the ADCs in those headphones.
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I would really like this to be true. Is there anywhere where it is confirmed that the DAC gets circumvented while in wired use? I strongly suspect the analogue signal must get downsampled by the onboard DAC to 44.1khz for the active noise cancellation to work.
 
ojwk said:
I would really like this to be true. Is there anywhere where it is confirmed that the DAC gets circumvented while in wired use? I strongly suspect the analogue signal must get downsampled by the onboard DAC to 44.1khz for the active noise cancellation to work.
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This is not really official, but at least it's something:

Sony WH-1000XM4 Wired and Bluetooth differences

I'm not sure if I marked the right place to ask this question. When we connect our headphones with bluetooth, headphone's dac and amplifier in headphone itself doing the job for music. What happening when we listen with wired connection? Is the dac in our computer used or is it still used in the...
community.sony.co.uk community.sony.co.uk

Note how for actual Hi Res you need to disable Ambient Sound Control.

Now, noise cancelling does not modulate the useful signal (e.g.) but just adds the outside noise phase inverted to the useful signal.

So the outside noise needs to digitized (obviously), but adding it to the useful signal can be done in the analog domain, at least in theory. What Sony actually does they don't say openly unfortunately ;)
 
AgeOfSpiracles said:
I was mostly just kidding with the Honda comparison, but I don't think you're right about that being an example of something that is uniquely Japanese... my understand of that trend in the auto industry is that it was meant to ape the German luxury car naming convention, to position Lexus/Acura/Ininiti as substitutes to BMW/MB/Audi


Sony is already there, and many/most of their consumer products have normal, non-stupid, and often fantastic names. Walkman, Playstation, Vaio, Bravia, Trinitron, Xperia, Betamax, and most importantly the mighty Dream Machine!! lol.... I honestly think that whoever runs their headphone division is actually being punished for some past dishonor.
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It wasn't a guess. I posted about something I know a lot about but hey you're welcome to your opinions.
 
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Ace008 said:
Google is your friend, willful ignorance is not. Good luck. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding - Al Ries & Laura Ries
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Can tell me what page it says that if your company is based in Japan then you should use nonsense confusing product names until you've dominated the market?
 
AgeOfSpiracles said:
Can tell me what page it says that if your company is based in Japan then you should use nonsense confusing product names until you've dominated the market?
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Apparently, you have a lot of free time. Put it to use. Again, you're welcome to choose whatever opinions you desire. Again, good luck with that.
 
Ace008 said:
Apparently, you have a lot of free time. Put it to use. Again, you're welcome to choose whatever opinions you desire. Again, good luck with that.
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Wow, so no? The way you whipped that reference out, I would have thought you had it memorized; and not just remembered selling back at the used textbook store.
 
AgeOfSpiracles said:
Wow, so no? The way you whipped that reference out, I would have thought you had it memorized; and not just remembered selling back at the used textbook store.
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Apparently, you have a lot of free time. Put it to use. Again, you're welcome to choose whatever opinions you desire. Again, good luck with that.
 
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