Onkyo DP-X1 DAP

Onkyo DP-X1 DAP Extended Early Impressions (there's a TLDR, don't worry)
Updated September 2016 sections below

TLDR
For under $700 imported from Japan ($899 when it hits the US), this player has satisfied my need for a do-everything work rig that I can move around with.

Pros:
· Very solid feeling and attractive build
· Dual micro SD card slots
· Sounds great with easy to drive gear
· Balanced out ability adds a little extra power and SQ
· Full Android with everything that comes with that (streaming services especially)
· Acceptable battery life if not using wifi
· Physical volume wheel and media buttons

Cons:
· A little more expensive than other Android DAPs like Fiio X7 or Pioneer XDP-100R
· Not ideal with harder to drive headphones (although can reach sufficient volume balanced)
· Some reported 2.5mm jack issues which may or may not be overblown
· Some players (Poweramp, N7, Tidal) apps are buggy or cannot use card #2
· Twice as thick as a phone, bordering on bulky
· No USB DAC feature (rumored to be added in the future, still hasn't been added)

Wordy Stuff
This DAP has generated a bit of buzz as of late, along with its little single-ended brother the Pioneer XDP-100. The Onkyo DP-X1 is not currently out in North America, and seems to still be a couple months away, as demand has been high in Japan and other Asian countries.

Many however, myself included, have imported this DAP from Japan. I paid $685 shipped from Japan from PriceJapan, it took 2 weeks to ship, but shipping itself took less than 3 days, with no import fees. The North American price will be $899, so quite a savings by importing. I also grabbed the official Onkyo case for an additional $39

My only DAP experiences are a Sony NWZ-A17 (for my own files) and a smartphone/Oppo HA-2 stack for streaming services, so I can only compare to those, and the DP-x1 was purchased to replace both of those for work/portable uses.


Build and Interface



The DP-X1 is about the size of your average smartphone, but about twice as thick. It fits well in the pocket of normal fitting jeans. The screen is only 720p, which for a DAP is perfectly acceptable as audio is the focus, however I’ve been surprised how much I’ve noticed the loss in resolution when compared to modern 1080p or even 1440p smartphones.

Up top there are two jacks, single ended 3.5mm and balanced 2.5mm TRRS with the same pinout as the AK players. There have been some rumbling on other forums about crookedly aligned balanced ports that are loose, mine is a little crooked but does not move and I have no worries with it’s stability.

There is a stepped volume wheel on the front-left side. It is digital volume, with 160 steps for volume which is really nice, it gives quite a range to choose from, and the wheel feels good, if a little laggy if trying to make quick drastic changes. The wheel has not turned in my pocket, however there is a software volume lock one can enable. There’s also three gain settings, I typically keep it on the middle one, as it’s plenty for portable gear (100-115 volume for PM3), but the gain seems to add or subtract about 25 notches

The right side of the device contains four hardware buttons: Power/screen off, next, play/pause/and back. These are helpful to quickly change something without having to deal with the touchscreen, however it’s worth noting that inline cable remotes are not supported. The bottom houses a standard micro USB port for charging or access to the micro SD cards, there are rumors of an update to allow USB DAC functionality, but it has not come to fruition yet.




Onkyo rates battery life at 16 hours. I would agree with this, under the conditions of single ended and keeping it in airplane mode. I charge it about every 3 days of service at work, no complaints but it’s not the amazing 30-50 hours of the Sony NWZ-A17.

Dual micro SD Cards

A huge feature in my opinion is the dual SD card slots, which each can accept any sized card on the market, which right now is 200GB. Combined with the 32GB internal memory this allows you to get 100’s of GB of storage for quite cheap, especially by using 64GB or 128GB cards which have fallen so much in price recently.

An important detail however, is very few players can access the second card. So far in both my own experiences and reading online, only the Stock DP-x1 app, and Spotify can see the second card. Other music players and TIDAL can only use the first card. Additionally, you must have all your Spotify library in one location, cannot split between cards (stock player can).

Stock Player and DAP Features

Your favorite Android player may work just fine (Edit: Poweramp and N7 are unusable. TIDAL has a very minor skipping issue when reading off SD card that is well documented). But to avoid any issues and the ability to use both SD cards I’ve forced myself to use the Stock player. It doesn’t necessarily have a name, and cannot be found in the Google Play store as far as I can tell.


It has a great aesthetic, matching the black/yellow scheme of the physical player, wallpapers and optional case. It’s a simpler interface, with a search function for artists/albums/songs so you don’t have to do a lot of scrolling. There’s also a built in equalizer that I haven’t used extensively as EQ typically isn’t my jam. There’s also 3 different digital filters and up sampling options I currently have no comment on.

While running Android, the DP-x1 is a DAP with some features you won’t see on a normal phone. Aside from gain options in deep settings menu, there are a few things in the top bar drop down menu. Line out mode switches to a consistent voltage out (1V RMS I think). There’s a “stand-alone mode” that turns off Wifi, Bluetooth and the screen, in an attempt to reduce electrical interference (of which I have no audible problem) but I don’t really understand how this is different than airplane mode with the screen off, but whatever.

There’s also a balanced selector to turn on or off the 2nd DAC and 2.5mm TRRS output…

Sound Quality and Balanced

Update: September 2016

I've been using K10 and Jupiter with this daily, both balanced. Aside from more power, balanced gives more of a sense of left/right, and a little more fuller bass for both, but especially the K10. It's not night and day but if you already own this thin I'd recommend a balanced cable.​

I can't compare to any competing DAPs, but I really like the sound of these IEMs with the DP-X1. I don't hear any treble haze, which is notorious with SABRE implementations, so that's good.​

I’m newer to nicer portable gear, so I can only compare to the Oppo HA-2 or Sony NWZ-A17. I’ll say it sounds really good to me, and pushes the Oppo PM3 really well, at least as good as the aforementioned products. It’s a SABRE implementation but I don’t perceive any of the famous treble glare. Seems quite neutral, I don’t perceive much of a FR character anywhere. Sounds much better and more dynamic than a Galaxy S5, which is the whole point, so that’s good!



Would like to hear other's thoughts,
I'm happy to answer any questions! I'll have this thing indefinitely

 

Listening to it, I would not have guessed that it was built around a pair of SABRE 9018 DAC chips. I liked what I heard, although the demo unit at Can Jam had only one album on it that I am familiar with ("Kind of Blue"--what else?). I think it's overpriced, however; even if you order it on Rakuten, with a pair of 200gb cards you're still well north of $800 including sales tax.

 

When I heard this at the Austin meet I thought it sounded nice, but maybe not 600+ dollars nice. It had above-average power IMO, and nothing sounded odd with it. To be fair though, I feel like most of the DAP market is overpriced these days. I will say though that this was probably the most impressive player I've ever heard. Someone else at the meet let me listen to their more expensive Astell and Kern (don't remember which model it was, sorry) and I felt that this player was just as capable. My previous experiences were with the Cowon J3, Sansa Clip, iPod classics, and my smartphone.

 

I got from Japan for like $650 last November and I understand the sentiment of how overpriced DAP scene is right now but I still think it's one of the best price to performance king especially given how the balanced out rivals that of AK380. I've tried them side by side and where 380 have better bass and fuller sound, the DP-X1 is more detailed and airy, it might be a subjective measurement but still for something 1/6th of its price it's a good deal imo. Hopefully with this, X7, Opus, and other DAPs sub $1k, it will trigger a race to the bottom. Right now I'm eyeing the iBasso DX200 hopefully it will also be competitively priced.

 

Does this player do a good job of integrating the two SD cards so you can scroll and search through artists, albums and such on both cards at the same time?

 

Yes, the stock player as well as other android players (I use N7player as well) can be told where your music folders are among all three locations (internal, sd1, sd2) and will combine into one single library.

Streaming services however, need to download everything to just one location, in my experience. Spotify can "see" both cards, so you can pick, however TIDAL can only see the first card.

Because of this I have a 128gb microsd in slot 1 for streaming services, and a 200gb in slot 2 for my own music library (which is about 130GB right now)

 

This was my second choice when I was choosing a DAP. I just went with the AK240 because of the massive storage, optical out, and the ability of it becoming a streaming node. I think the DP-X1 is the best in $/performance/feature DAP out there. If I wasn't so hell bent on having optical out, I think I would've gotten it.

I'd love to try this out along with the QP1R side by side.

 

In my mind, QP1R is like a Ferrari, meanwhile DP-X1 is a Nissan GT-R. Both are good at different things and how the manufacturers try to fulfill the needs of their customers.

 

I got one of these and thought it was quite good, better than I expected. The sound was great and the interface and player were very well done. It was a bit big and heavy, and the very square corners made it somewhat uncomfortable. However my biggest closing was the quality of the 3.5mm jack. I didn't try the balanced jack but the 3.5mm had a very poor connection and just bumming it lightly caused the signal to be lost and you would have to remove and reinsert the plug. The jack eventually failed completely. I have since returned the device.

Nut sure if I will risk getting another one of go for another option after seeing that bit of really poor build quality.

 

It's true for earlier batch, I don't know for the current ones. Mine is one of the first, I got it from Yodobashi in November 2015, the 3.5mm jack is loose meanwhile the 2.5mm keeps soldiering on like it was nothing.

 

Sorry to bring up a zombie thread. Your comment made me wonder--these DAPs could work as an output DAC with Rca adapters to powered speakers, yes? Also, what's a streaming node, same as a streamer? I'd love if one of these devices supported Roon.

 

If you're talking about playing directly out of the DAP into powered speakers via said RCA adapter cables that'll work with pretty much any of them, though not all have a dedicated line-out so watch your volume settings on the DAP if you're moving it in and out of the speaker configuration.

If you're talking about it using the DAP as a USB DAC from a computer, then that's very much dependent on the DAP in question. Unless it's been added in a recent firmware update, the DP-X1 specifically doesn't work as a USB DAC (at least it wasn't supported when I had one - but I only kept it for a few days as there were too many issues and too high a fuss-factor with it for my tastes/use cases).

 

@PoochZag. Just found this thread doing research on the Onkyo vs Sony ZX2. I noticed the Onkyo is almost half the price of the Sony ZX2 these days. Do you feel the Sony is worth 2x more money?

 

I actually just got a ZX2 a couple weeks ago, and sold the DP-x1. I mainly made that choice because I'm a heavy Tidal user, and the DP-x1 (along with several other android DAPs) has a small bug where it skips briefly about once per song in offline mode. I lived with this for 11 months, but it ended up being the deciding factor with me, but otherwise I think it's mostly competitive with the ZX2.

The DP-x1 (balanced out) is has a thinner, airier sound than the ZX2 by quite a bit. Not necessarily worse, just different. Some people claim to hear the SABRE glare on DP-x1, but I never did, if its there it's not as bad as on the Oppo HA-2 for instance. I like the added fullness and naturalness of ZX2 with the CA Jupiter, but suspect this wouldn't always be the case depending on the IEM (I'm worried when my K10's come back from reshell, I will hate the additional fullness). The DP-x1 has more modern Android, feels less sluggish, and I like it's stock music player's UI better than the Sony stock. It also has 2 micro sd card slots, to the ZX2's 1 (ZX2 has more internal space though).

The DP-x1 has also had problems with the jacks coming loose, I had to secure one of mine with clear nail polish after 6 months. But honestly, with how much the DP-x1 price has dropped, if it weren't for that minor TIDAL bug, I probably would have kept DP-x1 over ZX2, price considering. If theoretically same price I would lean ZX2 because of more premium feel and a more full sound signature.

(please keep in mind I have only listened to Jupiter with ZX2 at this time)

TLDR: 2x more money, I wouldn't find ZX2 worth it. My used ZX2 was $600, and I find it worth it over a roughly $500-600 new DP-x1 they go for these days

 

I believe it also suffers from the android audio stack plague. I ended up getting rid of the pioneer xdp.100r because it resampled everything.

 

I would take fullness and juice over too thin and airy anyday. The Sony ZX100 could be another alternative although will give up on the streaming possibilities.
I love my Sony A15 so I was looking for an upgrade to that. Thank you for the feedback!

 

I got DP-X1 two days ago.
I expected to like it but I did not expect to like it that much. I do not have much experience with DAPs, except for iBasso DX-80, which I like very much in terms of sound and functionality, not so much for durability. Before DX80, I mostly used HTC 10 with JDSLabs C5.
First impression was very good: in less than an hour I scanned two cards that I moved from DX-80, Tidal and my preferred player UAPP working, and I was listening to music. All without any glitch.

I did most of my listening so far with what Inner Fidelity calls "The Incisive Audio Technica ATHMSR7", but also with SE535. After some reading and trying I am using the Sharp filter, and Lock range Narrow. I do not even know what Lock range is, well vaguely, but after trying different combinations that's what kept ATHMSR7 on my head most of the day today. It is unusual for me to spend so much time with headphones, and interested in music.
I am not very good at describing what I hear but to illustrate my sound preference: I ordered HD650 and HD600 as two candidates for my first serious headphones, returned 650 after five days and never looked back, later I bought HD800S and love it.
Using ATHMSR7 and DP-X1 the presentation of every detail is effortless, precise, and never fatiguing. Bass is very controlled and prominent the same time, and it is just enough of it, treble is very fast and crisp, slightly elevated, all of it without sounding v shaped. I have this feeling of not missing anything without making any effort.
The sound is not as full and engaging as HE500, and sound stage, imaging, are not like on HD800S, but it is just enough to present the music better than I thought possible on a portable device.
iBasso DX80 is less bright, more musical, and fuller sounding, particularly with T5p.2, but I prefer the DP-X1/MSR7 combination. And of course streaming.
I disabled all the apps, notifications, sync, everything I could except for the players, not sure yet if it made a big difference, except everything is as it should be, battery usage is very reasonable, and after almost 7h of listening today it still sounds great.

Cannot wait to try balanced, but I do not have any balanced headphone with the 2.5 jack. I will have to modify a spare SE535 cable, and make the XLR to 2.5 adapter to use with T5p.2 and HD800S. Hopefully will get the a pair of 2.5 balanced Eidolic connectors next week. I would rather buy cables, but all I have found was silly expensive ,without any assurance of quality.

 

Tha sabre brightness and glare on the DP-X1 is just too much for me with the Andromedas. Bass was good sounding with enjoyable mids. The treble was truly painful. Maybe I am so used to R2R sound that anything short is a no-go.

In contrast, the WM1A had a pleasant treble rendition but sub and mid-bass was too pronounced - a problematic Andro pairing. QP1R was very neutralish but lacked excitment - maybe a good thing long-term.

 

This is what I use for portable. I think that balanced does add more than just loudness but maybe I just want to believe I got some value for the money I spent on a balanced cable. I think I might be less sensitive to sharp treble than a lot of others on here, but still, in spots the treble can be sharp. The organ on some Doors songs comes to mind. For the most part though I really like the setup and will check the thread for your impressions.