DAP discussion thread

Discussion in 'IEMs and Portable Gear' started by zerodeefex, Oct 8, 2015.

  1. MiRog

    MiRog New

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    1. Use Neutron.
    Set DISPLAY to NEVER SLEEP (in Neutron there is 2-touch sequence to blank display)
    Set Power-off-timers:
    3. SLEEP to OFF
    4. IDLE POWEROFF to 5min
    All above is needed - from my experience - ONLY if you want RESUME feature from slot 2 to work properly. There is only one BUT: after powering on you have to wait until memory test is done. If you start Neutron before that, it doesn't see slot 2 and fails to resume.
    Solution sucks, I know, every time you let DAP lay for more than 5 min. you'll need to power it on... and it means 3-4 min. :(

    NEUTRON: IMHO (biased) it surpasses native fiio music player in every aspect but one: in neutron you can't ignore folder (make it non-present in media library) and still have access to it. Or at least I don't know how to do it.
     
  2. Grahad2

    Grahad2 Red eyes from too much anime

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    Drop an empty file named ".NOMEDIA" into the folder you want to be absent from media library but still access with the folder interface and see if it works. (I don't use Neutron so you will have to give it a try.)
     
  3. MiRog

    MiRog New

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    I tried, it doesn't work in NEUTRON.
     
  4. AvijitS25

    AvijitS25 Acquaintance

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    Have you guys looked at the new Hiby r6 Dap
     
  5. MiRog

    MiRog New

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    Does it exist?
     
  6. AvijitS25

    AvijitS25 Acquaintance

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  7. matique

    matique New

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    Ended up with the ZX300 after trying several DAPs in the sub USD$700 market. Unimpressed with majority of the android players.

    FiiO X5iii - too many bugs to deal with.
    FiiO X7ii - not as many bugs as the x5 but still have to contend with the FiiO app.
    Onkyo DPX1A - warranty issues and lack of software support.
    Opus #1 - didn't like the UI, too bulky + no streaming.
    iBasso DX200 - didn't like the mango OS, slightly out of my budget.

    All the above has great SQ but also horrible battery life. I've to sacrifice streaming but the ZX300 ticked all the right boxes for me; great SQ, great battery life, solid balanced jack, good and smooth UI that is almost bug-free and easy warranty support. I also got it at a good price due to Singapore's surprisingly cheap MSRP of SGD$799, or about USD$600. Only gripes with it would be the Sony-exclusive charging cable and only 1 SD slot. Higher memory cards tend to fail faster so I usually use lower memory like 128GB but so far my Sandisk Ultra 256GB card is working great with it. Also, the USB DAC function is a little iffy as it isn't playing audio in real time. I have about a 0.5s delay when playing videos, rendering it useless when watching Netflix or YouTube. Other than that, I am darn happy with the ZX300. Would recommend it fully.
     
  8. deafdoorknob

    deafdoorknob Almost "Made"

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    there is also a great "off label" function for the zx300, when in the usb dac mode, you can turn off the charge from source mode, with that and the right interconnects, you could use iphone/android/ipad as a streaming source, which, aside from the longish sony wmport to usb cable, is quite convenient (moreso than mojo or ifi idsd) and better sounding than most unpowered mobile usb dac solutions.

    note: it's stable once it handshakes with the mobile source, but sometimes handshaking is a PiTA, with my ipad and iphone 5c, it's simple plug n play using the regular cck, but with my iphone SE, i need to quit all the music streaming apps first and then relaunch them after connecting otherwise you'd get silence. sometimes i even have to power down the phone first, connect the two before it would stream properly. Having said that, at the end of the day, i have always able to establish a stable link between the dap and mobile sources.
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2017
  9. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    so, just curious, is there anything in the $300 range that pairs well with andro?
     
  10. TheBarnard

    TheBarnard Friend

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    I don't have the X5 yet, but reading the headfi thread, fiio released a turbo mode for balanced output that will increase output to 750mw into a 32ohm load. http://m.fiio.net/en/stories/615

    Considering this will be my only dac/amp for the next 6 months to a year, I'm really happy to hear that.

    This release is a few weeks old, but I haven't seen any talk of it, and was under the impression the balanced was still weaker on paper than the SE (doesn't make sense, but that's what was official)
     
  11. imackler

    imackler Key Lime Pie Infected Aberdeen Wings Spy

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    Pretty the impedance of the AK JR is in the ideal range, but I haven't heard the combo.
     
  12. Grahad2

    Grahad2 Red eyes from too much anime

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    I believe @shotgunshane likes the AK Jr and the Lotoo PAW 5000 with the Andros.
     
  13. shotgunshane

    shotgunshane Floridian Falcon

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    I definitely like the original PAW 5000 with Andromeda. Lotoo has a new MK2 but I haven’t heard it.

    JR impedance is too high for my preferences with Andromeda (1.5 or less). AK states 2 but I think it’s really closer to 3 based on the average armature reactions I hear.
     
  14. drgumbybrain

    drgumbybrain Science Nut

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    Hello friends. How you doing?
    Took out this Saturday to enjoy some music. Stayed all morning using Sony nwwm1z with sennheiser hd800 balanced. So much joy. When I was listening to Asura album 360, I started to do some A and B test with chord mojo. Maybe someone is looking for this comparison.
    In my experience DACs do not have huge differences in a objective way, but those differences can bring the best of the music or not.
    Well, mojo could play f'ing loud and was a winner. But the music presentation was thick, dark and compressed with a flat soundstage. Instruments were less real life felling, especially drums. Sony was better in all those parameters... if only it had more power. What a marveling engineer design. Then, my brother got here and I tried the same album hugo 2. Same results, but H2 played even louder and was near Sony in soundstage and instrument realism. But IMHO Sony was better. Cheers
     
  15. lerrens

    lerrens Facebook Friend

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    I spent one afternoon with WM1A (Not WM1Z though), Mojo, Hugo2 and had similar impressions, I tried them with an HE-4XX with SE & balanced cables:

    WM1A(SE) is really lacking in power compared to Mojo, but out of the WM1A balanced output, the sound opens up and extends better on both ends. The Mojo still has more power than WM1A balanced though, but for longer listening sessions, Mojo's a bit too shouty and I feel myself reaching for the WM1A more often.

    Hugo2 sounds like a "fixed" Mojo. (I listened with the "White Color Filter" which should be the "Neutral" one) Hugo2 is transparent and well extened in higher frequencies. The bass is also quite linear and without any emphasis (like WM1A) or any cutoffs (like Mojo).

    Overall I think I still prefer the sound signature of WM1A a tad better, even though the balanced output lacks a bit in power.... For harder to drive headphones, I believe Hugo2 would be a better choice.


    Additional thought:
    Listening took place in a very decent headphone store here in Taipei. They have a sofa area and there's just this great appeal of simply holding a WM1A and chilling on the sofa.
    (Looking at the pile of mess of [iPhone + CCK + USB cable + Hugo 2] lying on the table, Hugo 2 is less tempting at sight, not to mention connection issues & battery concerns.)
     
  16. Vorlon

    Vorlon self-important, pompous ass

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    I´m looking for a DAP for Sennheiser IE 800 S and the Sony ZX300 is currently the most likely candidate... The only downside is that Sony unfortunately severely limits the output levels on all of their Walkmans sold in the EU. This can be fixed with the Rockbox tool, but it´s unsure if this voids the warranty (you are basically hacking the operating system to a different region). There are also some reports on Head-Fi.org that uncapped EU players still don´t have as much power as US/Asia models. This might not be true, but until someone has measured both versions there´s no way to know. It probably isn´t an issue with IEMs, but if you want to run any full size headphones it might still be safer to import from the US/Asia. Apparently smaller companies can get away with ignoring the EU volume cap law as the Astell & Kern representative on Head-Fi confirmed to me that their players sold in the EU have the same output as the ones elsewhere.

    Currently I´m using a Sony Walkman A35 that I got for 99 euros via Amazon. Awesome battery life, fantastic OS (no Android, yay!) and nice industrial design. SQ wise it´s probably obviously nowhere near the level of ZX300/WM1A, but I´m already very impressed with the stock sound of the proprietary Sony digital amp. It has a very high resolution and it´s not fatiguing at all. Not what I expected considering I somehow held the impression that Sony prefers V-shaped tonality (and by extension their players would be bright and edgy sounding) plus class D amps aren´t usually very relaxed sounding.

    The other DAP that interests me is the new Astell & Kern AK70 mkII, but I´m not sure if I´m ready to give up the battery life and using the 2.5mm balanced jack doesn´t excite me much. It just feels so fragile and I´m a bit worried it´ll eventually fail. The 4.4mm pentaconn connection on the other hand is really solid. Personally I hope Sennheiser and Sony succeed in pushing it as the new balanced standard. Would be great to have the same cables for both mobile and desktop headphones/IEMs.

    I´ll throw a few questions / ideas:

    - Anyone here who has measurement rig and owns the Sony Walkman A35 US/Asia non-capped version? Once I get my new DAP I could send you my EU A35 for testing. It would benefit the EU community a lot to have some objective data on how the Sony volume cap works. By comparing a fully non-capped version to a stock capped EU version and then to the same EU version hacked with the Rockbox tool would answer if the hardware is 100% identical or not. Then EU people would finally know if using the Rockbox tool is 100% the same as importing a Sony DAP from US/Asia.

    - If someone owns the new A&K AK70mkII I´d really be interested in hearing how it works with sensitive IEMs. I´m a bit worried that it might cater too much to full size headphones and perhaps for example hiss with IEMs.
     
    Last edited: Dec 29, 2017
  17. rayfalkner

    rayfalkner Not to be confused with Roy Fokker - Friend

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    Wondered if any of you had experience with the Sony NW-A45. I think it's relatively new; launched on late 2017 or so. One of the entry model Walkman it seems?

    Not that I need another DAP really, the A&K Jr been doing fine so far;
    It's just that there's a limited collaboration-model of A45 with Kalafina styling and, well, they are one of my favorite Japanese group so uhh... yeah having a rather serious GAS here.
     
  18. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    I think it's pretty much the same as the A35 but with external DAC functionality, fancier solder, and MQA support.

    I have the A35 and it's a nice little DAP, if a bit toy like in size. Search for it here as I doubt it would sound too different from the A45.
     
  19. Vorlon

    Vorlon self-important, pompous ass

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    I also eventually ended up with a Sony ZX300. While I thought about getting an A&K player for a while, the 2.5mm balanced jack just seemed like a warranty issue waiting to happen and I had already gotten used to the Sony Walkman OS with its superb battery life thanks to the A35 I got for cheap earlier. I´m not sure what the prices for this are elsewhere, but here in Finland these apparently cost a pretty absurd 750 euros. Amazon.de sells them for 600 euros these days though. The problem with all EU versions is however that you´ll still probably need/want to remove the dreaded volume cap with the Rockbox region change hack (and probably void the warranty in the process). In other words if you want a Sony DAP in Europe there´s not much sense in buying anything else than an imported version from Asia...

    Mine arrived this week from JoyBuy for ~360 dollars shipped. Took a long time to arrive, but it arrived in perfect condition. Had never ordered anything from them before, but figured I´d take the risk as there´s no way I´m paying 600 euros for the volume capped version. This one is the Chinese market version (ZX300A) with 16 gb of internal memory. By the way if you are wondering about importing one of these I can confirm that it is not locked to Chinese like the Japanese local version is locked to Japanese only (can apparently be fixed with the Rockbox tool though). When it first starts you get to pick between three languages, one of them being English. This and the Sennheiser IE 800 S are basically my end game* portable/work rig.

    Some early impressions:

    - Very good build quality. It´s built like a tank and has a nice weight to it. I think the screen is now glass instead of plastic like on the A30/A40 series.
    - I love the minimalistic OS. It´s really old school - in a good way. Does just one thing and does it well. Really glad Sony jumped off the Android train. Sure you lose streaming, but you can always stream using the DAC mode anyway.
    - UI is a lot snappier than on my A35 and the library scans faster too. Probably runs a much better SOC.
    - Haven´t tried any extra features like the built in EQ/DAC mode yet as it just sound so good I haven´t gotten the itch to explore yet. No idea how it compares to the WM1A, but it´s on a different level than my A35 that´s for sure. Going to be really interesting to test how good it sounds in high gain mode with the Focal Clears. Might actually end up being a really good pairing, especially with an aftermarket balanced cable.
    - Still burning this in since it has custom FT caps in the signal path (I remember reading somewhere that only for the balanced output though in order to save costs/space).
    - There´s a neat spectrum analyzer option. It really suits the aesthetics well and I actually prefer it to album covers.

    * Yeah, I know there´s no such thing as end game in this hobby. Read it as "a setup I can see living with happily for several years without following the DAP/IEM market much" instead.

    [​IMG]

    PS: Hopefully more people here get the chance to audition the IE 800 S (not many impressions around yet). Still feel it´s by far the best tuning Sennheiser has managed to pull off since the HD 650. Much, much more balanced than the original.
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2018
  20. matique

    matique New

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    Thank you for mentioning joybuy. Just bought the ZX300A off the site and for USD$360 with the new user coupon it's a damn steal...
     

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