SONY advertises "high quality sound solder" in their Walkman

[ebastler]

Copper is not exactly a tough material, so it's likely totally scratched after one day of careful use.

SONY is overly creative in their marketing, catering to audiophools, but their engineers are not stupid. What I gather from the fluffy descriptions is:

The "gold-plated OFC copper" piece is the internal chassis/frame, which holds things in place and probably has some shielding functionality. I can't see much value in the gold-plating, OFC, or copper for that matter, but I don't doubt that this will do the job. The outer shell is aluminum, with "gold-colored" anodization. Nothing special, but tough enough.

[AVGresponding]

Copper is not exactly a tough material, so it's likely totally scratched after one day of careful use.
For this price, I'd expect a gold anodized Titanium casing with maybe copper coating on the inside

Surely a TiN coating is the one you want? On the outside, I mean. Then, Au plating on the inside.

[Haenk]

Surely a TiN coating is the one you want? On the outside, I mean. Then, Au plating on the inside.

Great idea! Add sapphire display glass and then we are talking

[Whales]

Oh my god the headphone jack is non-standard.

4.4mm balanced connector

Yes apparently this is a thing.



I've never had interference pickup problems with headphone cables.  Balanced is completely overkill for this length of cable + current levels.

If I did have interference problems with ordinary headphone cables: that's a great diagnostic tool to tell me that something is serious wrong in this room.  Like a broken transmitter (or a microwave oven with door open and microswitches defeated).

Maybe they're trying to avoid headphones pickup up >1MHz, injecting it back into the music player, rectifying it and you hearing it back?  EDIT: Why am I bothering to justify this     We have EMI immune opamps for a reason.

[Ed.Kloonk]

The only reason I thought of was for someone to plug a backing track into mixer/recorder while playing an instrument. All these different things plugged into SMPS used to cause problems.

[Kim Christensen]

Oh my god the headphone jack is non-standard.
<SNIP!>
Maybe they're trying to avoid headphones pickup up >1MHz, injecting it back into the music player, rectifying it and you hearing it back?  EDIT: Why am I bothering to justify this     We have EMI immune opamps for a reason.

There's a good reason for the non-standard headphone jack: Special overpriced headphones... 

[tszaboo]

Balanced is completely overkill for this length of cable + current levels.

If I did have interference problems with ordinary headphone cables: that's a great diagnostic tool to tell me that something is serious wrong in this room.  Like a broken transmitter (or a microwave oven with door open and microswitches defeated).

Maybe they're trying to avoid headphones pickup up >1MHz, injecting it back into the music player, rectifying it and you hearing it back?  EDIT: Why am I bothering to justify this     We have EMI immune opamps for a reason.

Balanced cable makes sense for high impedance headphones, if you drive it balanced. Not because of noise, but because of the voltage levels you need to drive a 300-600 Ohm headphone. And DAC outputs are already balanced, so it's not even that much more opamps, 4 instead of 3 for example.

[MrMobodies]

SONY is overly creative in their marketing, catering to audiophools, but their engineers are not stupid. What I gather from the fluffy descriptions is:

That just reminded me of this video:
EEVblog #719 - Sony Low Noise Audiophile SDXC Memory Card 7 years ago

3:26 look they've pulled some graph out of
their ass look at this what the hell is
it they've got like megahertz on the
x-axis in DB microvolts or some sort of
EMC thing trying to prove that it's
producing lower you know spectral
density or some like that what
the hell has that got to do with anything.

3:47 when you've got a complete digital
system ones and zero's between your
memory card and your DAC if your product
is going to be influenced by a slightly
less EMC somehow radiated by your memory
card then you haven't designed up your
product correctly.

4:03 It's just complete and utter bullshit but
they need some sort of crap in here to convince
the audiofools that it's going to sound better.

So after seven years of this nonsense and now they have come up with a version for the Walkman.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Nothing, if not consistent.

[SL4P]

If this s an official SONY document, I promise there was a room full of engineers choosing those words - and laughing over them.

If it was from an independent importer or agent, SONY HQ will have them for lunch tomorrow.

I worked for SONY in the early 90s… they have a great sense of responsibility and quality, but they also have a subtle sense of humour as long as it doesn’t affect business.

[v81]

Feeling a bit slow... only just read about this...

This part got me confused....

In what way can an inductor replace a capacitor?
They perform literally opposite jobs.

[Bud]

Replacement likely not in topological sense. Increasing inductance to reduce power rail ripple perhaps, but inductors cost more and have ohmic resistance, so an inductor with more turns may cause efficiency loss.

[Kim Christensen]

Feeling a bit slow... only just read about this...
This part got me confused....
In what way can an inductor replace a capacitor?
They perform literally opposite jobs.

It is a confusing sentence, but I don't read it as "replacing capacitors with inductors" but rather:

• Replacing laminated capacitors with "better" capacitors.
• Winding coils in the digital block power supply. (About this, I have no idea what they mean and I don't think Sony marketing does either)

[coppercone2]

I still like the gold solder

it pops right off turns into it pops right off when you work just a little harder