Wireless is better than wired. Can Sony MDR-EX750BT and NW-A25 produce super CD sound quality?

Electronic device enthusiasts have long been seeking a way to get rid of the trouble of wires. Now mobile phones, tablets, computers and other terminals have completely broken away from the constraints of wires in terms of network needs. In video transmission, there are also wireless methods such as airplay, DLNA, and streaming. In power transmission, wireless protocols such as Qi and PMA are gradually maturing. However, in the field of audio, although Bluetooth is a wireless technology standard with a history of more than 20 years, its backward and poor coding format has made Bluetooth audio devices useless in the eyes of music enthusiasts.

However, this situation is expected to end in the hands of Sony, which has numerous "black technologies". Sony's affordable choice is the combination of MDR-EX750BT headphones and NW-A25 player, which can recharge your faith at the affordable price of 1,099 yuan + 1,149 yuan, which is simply irresistible.

Look! A fashion traitor has emerged from the music industry!

Sony MDR-EX750BT and NW-A25 both have clean lines and a compact, streamlined appearance, highlighting the simple yet not simple integrated design. At the same time, both devices also use the currently popular "intermediate color", and low-saturation colors are the new trend in today's fashion design industry. Such a stylish appearance plus the convenient wireless function design make the title of the best street equipment well deserved.

The MDR-EX750BT earphones adopt a smooth and slender neck-hanging structure, and the natural curvature provides comfort for the neck when walking or exercising. The back neck part of the MDR-EX750BT uses a skin-like material + metal middle beam design, which has good stability under large-angle bending and expansion and is not easy to break.

The front-end wire has been specially treated. Compared with the pure rubber wire commonly used by other brands on the market, it is not easy to get tangled and dusty. There are quick buttons for volume adjustment, previous and next songs, etc. on the front of the neckband. It is very convenient to not take out the player frequently for operation in daily use. The headphone cable is made of silver-plated OFC (oxygen-free copper) material, which can reduce signal loss and improve sound quality. It only takes half an hour to fully charge the MDR-EX750BT. After being fully charged, it can be used continuously for 7.5 hours, which is more than enough for a day's use.

As a new member of the Walkman series of music players that influenced a generation of people, NW-A25 is extremely thin and light in appearance, with a length, height and width of only 43.6mm, 109mm and 8.7mm respectively, and a weight of only 66 grams, which is equivalent to the weight of a lipstick. It is surprising that it can last up to 50 hours in such a thin body. The plastic body is a little disappointing compared to the full metal body of NW-ZX100, but the price is only 1/3 and the colorful colors also give consumers more choices. Differentiated sales strategies are still necessary.

The front of the device is equipped with a 2.2-inch TFT display with a resolution of 320x240 and video playback capability. In this era when even a thousand-yuan mobile phone can achieve full HD display, the screen performance of Sony Walkman NW-A25 is not delicate, but considering the battery life and current control, such a compromise is understandable. After all, people should leave the work of watching videos to mobile phones with more complete network functions. The NW-A25 has enough power to support 50 hours of music playback, and 30 hours of playback in high-quality mode.

The "black technology" used by MDR-EX750BT and NW-A25 can circle the earth twice when connected

For music enthusiasts, appearance is important, but the quality of sound is what they really care about. As a company known for its "stubbornness" in technology, Sony has installed a staggering amount of "black technology" in the MDR-EX750BT and NW-A25.

"DSEE HX" is a high-quality sound technology introduced by Sony that converts Yasso sound sources to 24bit/192kHz with high bit rate/high sampling rate. It is a new technology brought by Sony to the portable audio industry. "DSEE HX" technology can achieve bit rate expansion, and restore the relatively easy-to-ignore small parts of the sound such as piano faded sound and human voice in CD and compressed sound sources from the weakness during compression to the original thickness of the sound.

Both MDR-EX750BT and NW-A25 support active noise reduction, which does not affect the mood of enjoying high-quality music in a noisy environment. Sony's black technology saves users the trouble of carrying an external noise reduction box, as long as the player and headphones support Sony's active noise reduction technology. Of course, the disadvantage is that if one device does not support it, Sony's noise reduction technology cannot be used.

The reason why Bluetooth is criticized by music lovers as a music carrier is the rigid limit of the transmission rate of the traditional SBC protocol of Bluetooth. After high-quality music is compressed by the SBC protocol, the bit rate is limited to less than 328kbps. Even an amateur can easily hear the loss of sound quality. The LDAC protocol used by Sony in MDR-EX750BT and NW-A25 has a transmission rate more than three times that of traditional Bluetooth, easily achieving Hi-Res high-quality music (96kHz/24bit) playback that exceeds CD sound quality (44.1kHz/16bit). In addition, the MDR-EX750BT can be connected to a headphone cable and used as a wired headphone when it is out of power, with theoretically better sound quality.

NW-A25 also adopts the method of filling the printed circuit board through-holes with copper to stabilize the power line and reduce the circuit impedance, achieving more stable bass, loud treble and clear vocals. Compared with the lead-free solder technology used in the A15/A17 series, this method can bring better sound quality, reduce noise levels and improve sound resolution across the entire frequency band.

From being the only one to being inferior to others and then to being the king of the world?

The sound style of the MDR-EX750BT and NW-A25 is still a typical Sony style. The sound contains good low-frequency thickness and elasticity, the sound base is thick, the mid-frequency is average, the density is appropriate, the treble is round, relatively weak, and the stimulation is not enough. The combination of this headset and player is still biased towards low frequencies, which is more pleasing to users who like pop and rock music. And under many black technologies, MDR-EX750BT and NW-A25 benefit from high bit rate and high sampling rate, the details in the sound are very rich, the resolution is excellent, and the high-quality bass that general users like will definitely win the love of most people.

Once upon a time, Sony's Walkman was synonymous with music players, but in the subsequent wave of large-capacity and multi-functional players, Sony was gradually submerged in the sea of ​​machines. However, today, when mobile phones meet other needs of users, pure players have become the pursuit of music lovers, and the player products that used to win by price and heterogeneity have long since withdrawn from people's sight.

It was then that people realized that Sony had always been there, trying to polish better sound for music enthusiasts. Sony, which was previously mocked by other manufacturers for not knowing how to adapt and not knowing how to fly to the wind, used one patent after another and one technology after another to build a music reinforced concrete building. Instead of collapsing like their thatched houses, it became more and more upright.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.