Sony WF-C500 Teardown by 52Audio
Looking at the internal battery, we have a soft cell pack rather than a coin cell like in previous models. The capacity is 0.27Wh at 3.85V, which is about 70mAh. I am wondering if the plastic holder was not present or modified, if a CP1454 sized battery would fit. It would provide more battery life, 85mAh, but again not sure how the fit would be.
Finally turning to the Bluetooth SoC. The WF-C500 uses the Airoha AB1562M with a production date of week 19 2021, or May 2021. The WF-XB700 also used an Airoha chip, the AB1552, but this new chip offers a few improvements and benefits over the one in the WF-XB700.
The first major change is that the new AB1562 supports Bluetooth 5.2 which could end up being upgraded to LE audio in the future once the specifications are finalized. The SoC also features “New generation echo cancellation and noise reduction schemes improved audio quality of the voice calls”. The WF-C500 has no NC, but perhaps the SoC also helps reduce environmental noise from calls.
The DSP is a Cadence HiFi Mini®Audio Engine with a maximum frequency of 208Mhz. The flash memory is now 32MB, negating the need for a dedicated flash chip on the board. While the SoC does support noise cancellation, the AB1562M version does not.
Compared to the AB1552, I think they are comparable with regards to audio performance and even NC, but I suspect the AB1562 could be built in a newer manufacturing process and should be more efficient.
It will be interesting to see how the upcoming WF-L900 will be built and if it will have more components or less in order to save on costs and battery consumption. Even the WF-1000XM4 uses one main PCB, so I would imagine we will see the same on the L900.
