Performance
Sony TA-A1ES
Does all this work pay off? Yes, largely it does. The TA-1ES is an impressively pure- sounding product.
Its presentation is clear, immensely detailed and as precise as we’ve heard at this level.
It sounds right at home regardless of whether we listen to Orff’s highly charged or Eminem’s .
We’re taken by the scale and authority of the sound when we listen to Carmina Burana; the stereo image extends well beyond the outer edges of our reference ATC SCM 50 speakers and is delivered with a great deal of confidence.
Sony TA-A1ES
The TA-A1ES goes loud too – we try a range of speakers including Spendor A6Rs and KEF’s LS50s, and the amp always sounds more muscular than its 80-watt per channel power output suggests.
On a practical note, it does tend to run rather warm when pushed hard, so make sure it has enough ventilation around it when placed in an equipment support.
This Sony is happy to step up a gear with Eminem’s rapid-fire delivery on , rendering the angry rapper’s vocal with real clarity and fluidity.
There’s plenty of agility, and a deep extending low-frequency reach that can’t help but impress.
Sony TA-A1ES
The story is similarly positive when it comes to headphones.
All that effort spent designing a dedicated circuit has paid off with a high-quality sound that mirrors that available from the speaker outputs.
The adjustable impedance settings are well worth playing with, as they really do help to fine-tune the sound.
This Sony isn’t quite flawless though.
Compared to Roksan’s Caspian M2, the current champ in this sector, there is a shortfall of rhythmic drive; the TA-A1ES doesn’t convey the momentum or changes in pace of music as well as it might.
Производительность и тестирование
Двуядерные процессоры, которые идут с VAIO NR-серии обеспечивают более чем достаточные возможности для выполнения задач среднего пользователя, даже на 1.5GHz Core 2 Duo который мы тестировали. Нам хотелось бы видеть вариант еще мощнее, Core 2 Duo «Санта-Роса» процессор для тех, потребителей которые готовы платить больше… особенно в виду того что с NR не предлагают более мощные видеокарты. В 3DMark06 показатели являются низкими. Но это объясняется тем фактом, что в нем используют Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, которая использует оперативную память ноутбука. Если наша модель была бы оснащена памятью в 2GB или больше, эти показатели, возможно, были несколько более впечатляющими.
wPrime
wPrime это программа, которая заставляет процессор делать рекурсивные математические расчеты, преимущество этой программы состоит в том, что она имеет многопоточна и может использовать оба ядра процессора одновременно, что дает более точные измерения показателей, чем Супер Пи.
| Notebook / CPU | wPrime 32M time |
| Sony VAIO NR (Core 2 Duo T5250 @ 1.5GHz) | 58.233s |
| Toshiba Tecra A9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz) | 38.343s |
| Toshiba Tecra M9 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz) | 37.299s |
| HP Compaq 6910p (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2GHz) | 40.965s |
| Sony VAIO TZ (Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz) | 76.240s |
| Zepto 6024W (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2GHz) | 42.385s |
| Lenovo T61 (Core 2 Duo T7500 @ 2.2GHz) | 37.705s |
| Alienware M5750 (Core 2 Duo T7600 @ 2.33GHz) | 38.327s |
| Hewlett Packard DV6000z (Turion X2 TL-60 @ 2.0GHz) | 38.720s |
| Samsung Q70 (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2.0GHz) | 42.218s |
| Acer Travelmate 8204WLMi (Core Duo T2500 @ 2.0GHz) | 42.947s |
| Samsung X60plus (Core 2 Duo T7200 @ 2.0GHz) | 44.922s |
| Zepto Znote 6224W (Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2.0GHz) | 45.788s |
| Samsung Q35 (Core 2 Duo T5600 @ 1.83GHz) | 46.274s |
| Samsung R20 (Core Duo T2250 @ 1.73GHz) | 47.563s |
| Dell Inspiron 2650 (Pentium 4 Mobile 1.6GHz) | 231.714s |
PCMark05 comparison results
| Notebook | PCMark05 Score |
| Sony VAIO NR (1.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5250, Intel X3100) | 3,283 PCMarks |
| Sony VAIO CR (1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7100, Intel X3100) | 3,612 PCMarks |
| Lenovo ThinkPad X61 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100) | 4,153 PCMarks |
| Lenovo 3000 V200 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100) | 3,987 PCMarks |
| Lenovo T60 Widescreen (2.0GHz Intel T7200, ATI X1400 128MB) | 4,189 PCMarks |
| HP dv6000t (2.16GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400) | 4,234 PCMarks |
| Fujitsu N6410 (1.66GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400) | 3,487 PCMarks |
| Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60, Nvidia Go 7800GTX) | 5,597 PCMarks |
| Sony VAIO SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400) | 3,637 PCMarks |
| Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400, Nvidia Go 7400) | 3,646 PCMarks |
3DMark06 comparison results
| Notebook | 3DMark06 Score |
| Sony VAIO NR (1.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5250, Intel X3100) | 504 3DMarks |
| Toshiba Tecra A9 (2.20GHz Core 2 Duo T7500, NVIDIA Quadro NVS 130M 256MB) | 932 3DMarks |
| Toshiba Tecra M9 (2.20GHz Core 2 Duo T7500, NVIDIA Quadro NVS 130M 128MB) | 1,115 3DMarks |
| Sony VAIO TZ (1.20GHz Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950) | 122 3DMarks |
| LG R500 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS 256MB) | 2,776 3DMarks |
| HP dv2500t (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB) | 1,055 3DMarks |
| Dell Inspiron 1420 (2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB) | 1,329 3DMarks |
| Sony VAIO FZ (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100) | 532 3DMarks |
| Dell XPS M1330 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB) | 1,408 3DMarks |
| Samsung Q70 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 and nVidia 8400M G GPU) | 1,069 3DMarks |
| Asus F3sv-A1 (Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0GHz, Nvidia 8600M GS 256MB) | 2,344 3DMarks |
| Alienware Area 51 m5550 (2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, nVidia GeForce Go 7600 256MB | 2,183 3DMarks |
| Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi 1526 (1.66 Core Duo, nVidia 7600Go 256 MB) | 2,144 3DMarks |
| Samsung X60plus (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7200, ATI X1700 256MB) | 1,831 3DMarks |
| Asus A6J (1.83GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 128MB) | 1,819 3DMarks |
| HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400) | 827 3DMarks |
Build and design
Sony TA-A1ES
Our first impressions are entirely positive. This is a large, chunky product that feels precision engineered.
The controls – the few that there are – are lovely to use, and the minimalist feature count hints that the engineers focused on performance first and foremost.
The TA-A1ES is a line-level-only unit. It has five inputs – one of which is balanced XLR — each accessible through a dedicated button on the front panel. There aren’t any record player or preamp connections.
When it comes to outputs there’s a set of the chunkiest speaker terminals we’ve seen this side of true high-end amplification, and a front-panel-mounted headphone socket.
Sony TA-A1ES
Sony has included an impedance adjustment control for optimising headphone matching, which indicates there’s been more thought put into this area than is normal.
Indeed, take off the top and you’ll find a dedicated headphone amplifier circuit rather than the usual feed direct from the main power amplifier section. This bodes well for headphone listening.
We like the slim remote handset. It feels a touch insubstantial but is simply laid out and easy to use. Sony has paid a great deal of attention in getting the basics right with this amp.
It starts with solid casework and a generous power supply, and extends to the development of new input buffers to isolate the preamp section from external source influence.
The engineers have also developed new, simplified power amplifier circuitry and a volume system that varies output transistor bias with level to optimise sound regardless of listening volume.
