@haonan
Hello, afew questions to ask you. do you still own the pha05bt? how long is the battery life like? do you think it is enough to replace a standalone dap if my source is sony z ultra, does bt affects the sq of music by a lot? any upcoming successor to the pha05bt? do you know of any similar bt dongle with aptx? sorry for the barrage of question but it seems you're the expert in regards to gears from japan.
right now my understanding is phone(decode) > aptx(m505) > earphones. so this will bypass the smaster dac/amp? really appreciate your help and thanks alot.
Hi Donten, no worries abt the bombarding of enquiries regarding the AT-PHA05BT adaptor. I understand yr concerns well as this product was only marketed/sold in JP solely, it's not carried under by AT SEA locally here and is not usually available easily for sale from other english online stores. I will try to answer yr questions to the best of my ability.
1) Yes I still own the AT-PHA05BT, I bought this around early 2012 together with my Walkman Z DAP in order to pair it for portable music usage (I'm not that much of a smartphone user so the additional feature of hands-free built-in mic function are considered a bonus feature to me)
2) Sorry I have nv done any concrete tests regarding its battery life. However I can prolly mention I also do own some other various BT adaptors by Sony (DRC-BT15P and MW600) and in terms of battery life the AT-PHA05BT doesn't seem to be any much weaker than my previous devices. (I was able to use for more than slightly 1 week before requiring recharging, both the DRC-BT15P/MW600 batt life are rated for abt 7 hours IIRC. Recharging interface for the AT-PHA05BT is via microUSB port)
3) I think it should pair quite well with the Xperia Z Ultra, but I don't think SQ wise this device can completely replace dedicated DAPs such as the Walkman Z/F series (when used directly via IEMs plugged in) if I were to speak honestly.
Despite that the AT-PHA05BT has a built-in powered amplifier (rated at 30mW+30mW measured with a 16 ohms load), it has overall lesser resolution definition as well as a pretty high noise floor level (meaning the background is not black at all, and you can hear audible hiss) when used with sensitive IEMs. I seem to remember from the Rooth Audio Elpis thread that you're one of the owners, so no unfortunately I cannot recommend this product to CIEM owners at all, you will definitely be bothered by the hiss issues.
The AT-PHA05BT does have quite abit of driving power though, to give you an example the vol threshold to maximum is from 0 to 14, IEMs can be powered relatively easy with just just vol level 3, while full-sized/low impedance headphones such as my ATH-A900Ti or Sony CD2000 can alrdy sound quite loud at level 6 or 7. THD performance/clipping issues is another issue though, in short I don't recommend using this to drive headphones if SQ is your utmost priority, but the performance is definitely more than adequate for just driving IEMs.
4) BT connectivity will definitely affect and degrade the overall SQ output from either smartphones or dedicated DAPs. It should only be used for convenience sake, and not as a solution or alternative afterthought to getting good SQ from portable devices. Even though nowadays there are alot of marketing ard by manufacturers and reviews stating that apt-X supported BT devices enhances and improves the SQ by considerable amt, I would still actually rate the older SBC and newer apt-X standard Bluetooth adaptors as having an inferior SQ compared to using dedicated DAPS such as the Sony Walkman series (and im not even bringing in AK120 or even iBasso DX50/DX100 kind of category yet)
5) You can prob take a look at the latest
Sony Walkman M series aka M505 model, that Randius had brought up in one of his posts earlier. I originally shared this piece of news with him when I met up with him during Mook Fest last yr, this is one of the newer Sony products that have been introduced and specially aimed at smartphone users, who also wish to have a portable lightweight DAP with considerably good SQ.
When used directly with headphones/IEMs, it will be driven by the built-in S-master MX DSP/DAC. Wireless connectivity/SQ is via apt-X, and links up and outputs from whatever the original device that you're linking up with. (meaning in this case, the S-master MX DSP is not utilised here at all) You can however use the Clear Bass/Clear Phase/VPT equalizer functions that comes with this BT adaptor, when connected to yr devices wirelessly.
I'm in the office right now, so I can't post too much pictures. Here's a picture comparison of the AT-PHA05BT with the Sony Walkman M series. (contributed by a taiwanese Head-fier)
