Sony ZX300

Discussion in 'IEMs and Portable Gear' started by Stuff Jones, Jun 21, 2018.

  1. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    My experience with Sony DAPs is that the jpgs need image size tags in the EXIF properties. Otherwise the embedded album art won't display. So before you embed an album cover jpg, open the image in an editor and make sure the image size X and Y dimension fields are filled. If they aren't, (re)saving the file usually writes them in.

    But since you've already done your whole library, my suggestion is to load up the ZX300 and see which album covers don't display. You'll then have to remove those covers and re-embed them with EXIFed images as described above. I went through this process just recently. It's a PITA, but my OCD thanks me.
     
  2. Rockwell

    Rockwell Friend

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    That is very specific and helpful thank-you. Assuming I understand you correctly if I open a cover image in Preview (I'm using a Mac), look up the properties and find it lists a set of dimensions (say 512 x 512) then I should be ok?
     
  3. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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  4. Rockwell

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  5. Rockwell

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    Loving the ZX300 so far. Does anyone know how the "Saved Sound Settings" feature works, specifically how to load a setting profile once I have saved it? I know how to save settings under the 1, 2 or 3 but when I try and load something I have saved it doesn't give me the option to-- it just asks to overwrite the saved profiles with the settings currently in place. Am I missing something? Edit: Figured it out.
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2019
  6. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    Yeah, it's kinda facked up. The text displayed for Save and Set are back asswards.
     
  7. Rockwell

    Rockwell Friend

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    Yeah it literally does the exact opposite of what it says it's going to do. In other news after tagging my whole library I loaded it on to the ZX300 and all but about 10 albums displayed their album art accordingly. I downloaded new art for those 10, retagged and loaded them and voila everything worked. Pretty stoked on this thing right now...can't wait until my 4.4mm cable arrives in the mail.
     
  8. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    I'm getting battery drain when not in use. I used to think maybe I was accidentally pressing play but now even on hold the battery drains when not in use.

    For example, a week ago it was on three bars of battery and now its on one despite it being on hold not playing. Bluetooth off.

    What gives?

    I remember the ZX2 lasted forever when not in use.
     
  9. SlingBlayde

    SlingBlayde New

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    Are you leaving headphones plugged in? I got drain one time when not in use but I had left a cable plugged in. Stopped doing that and haven't experienced drain when not in use since. YMMV.
     
  10. Rockwell

    Rockwell Friend

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    Can anyone comment what the different "Phase Linearizer" settings imply? IE., Type A/B Standard, High, Low etc.
     
  11. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    Mine ZX300 drains if on but not playing (much). 3 bars to 1 after a week seems a bit excessive. Nothing quantitative, but my ZX2 also seemed to hold charge better. Could also be due to a bigger battery, as it's significantly heavier.
     
  12. Rockwell

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    Mine drains when I leave my headphones plugged in or the blue tooth on...otherwise it's been pretty good.
     
  13. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    Hmm ... I hadn't thought about phones being plugged in making a difference. The ZX2 would go to sleep after a while even with something plugged in and you could hear the whooosh of the caps charging up the next time you played something. I've been leaving my ZX300 with something plugged in and it doesn't seem to be draining particularly quickly.
     
  14. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    And now the battery is dead despite zero use.

    I bought it from Joybuy - will Sony USA service it? Is it worth the bother?
     
  15. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    Mine drains when not in use as well, but over more than a week. Only once have I turned it on to get a low battery message. However it did not occur to me that having headphones plugged in might drain the battery, but it does make sense as the player can detect when headphones are plugged in, versus the ZX2 which did not.
     
  16. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Sony time strikes again.
     
  17. मानस manas

    मानस manas New

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    I have not used a dedicated music player since I started using smartphones almost a decade back. I had a couple of Creative Zen music players, the last one I used may have been the Zen Vision:M. I enjoy listening to music on the ZX300 - all of the music that I like sounds so much better with this player. I have stopped listening to music on my smartphone completely. I reviewed this thread carefully before making my purchase, thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread! :)

    ---

    I had difficulties with the album art displaying with this player as well. A hint from the help guide on Sony's website helped - I had to save the album art as a "baseline" JPG (as opposed to a progressive JPG)

    Here is what worked for me, on a Linux system:

    First - save the JPG as a baseline JPG
    1. Open the image in an editor such as Gimp
    2. Select 'File -> Overwrite <image name>.jpg'
    3. Under 'Advanced Options' unselect the "Progressive" option (Other settings which are enabled by default for me are: 'Save Exif data', 'Save thumbnail', 'Save color profile' and 'Optimize' - I haven't tested whether changing these affects album art display on the device)
    4. Select 'Export'
    Next - Update the files' metadata with the baseline JPG image (I use kid3)
    then, transfer to the ZX300 making sure to overwrite any files which were already there (or carry out this process on the device's filesystem itself)
     
  18. Rockwell

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    What kind of battery life can be expected on this device? I've been getting 10-12 hours on balanced playing Flacs...is this normal? Edit: I've also got EQ and all the other tweaks activated.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2019
  19. obsiCO

    obsiCO Thai Fish Experiment Gone Wrong

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    That's normal, at least that's what I get too. Pretty huge in the DAP world if you ask me. Some DAPs struggle to get past 6 hrs of play time running lossless files.
     
  20. Stuff Jones

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    Well below advertised specs and the zx2 though.
     

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