DAP discussion thread

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

  1. Mimouille

    Mimouille Facebook Friend

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    Here it is:

    Well I played with the DX200 for a couple of minutes and...color me impressed...this guy is going to ruffle some feathers in the high end DAP game. It looks great, works like a charm so far, is very fast and sound awesome (not warm at all in my book, less so than the WM1Z at least).

    The packing is incredibly designed. I am not a fan of the leather case color and shape so I won't use it but is good quality nonetheless. The provided USB type C is very good quality, and the burn in cable for balanced is a great idea.

    My 200g card is recognized without any issue (you have to turn the player off to put the card) and the whole card is scanned in roughly 8mn. Both single ended and balanced sound great without any burn in. Spacious, powerful, very detailed. I am not completely sure on the mids and will give more feedback after some time.

    There are a few minor bugs in tag reading but I guess this will be solved. The navigation on the 200g card is quite fast. First little issue, the tags are not read when navigating through folders.

    Will say more later, but bravo iBasso.

    Second session of listening, a little bit balanced but mostly single ended to do some comparisons with the LPG and WM1Z with my SE5 Ultimate. The DX200 has a larger and airier soundstage then the LPG, bringing out details in a more obvious way. The LPG is more intimate but with very nice depth as always.

    The WM1Z is more or less as large as the DX200 stage-wise but warmer, more full bodied. I would say at this stage the signature is more akin to the AK380 but without the typical AKM liquid sound.

    I tried some of the digital filters which bring subtle differences. I will stick to the default at this stage. I am curious to see how the sound will evolve and what possibilities there will be by switching amps.

    My impression at this stage is that the DX200 is powerful, with a dynamic, airy and well controlled sound, quite neutral and very slightly on the dry side. Mids are not veiled like was suggested but at this stage slightly more distant than on my other two players. The sounds remain nonetheless very clear and clean.

    UI wise, it is very intuitive, but there seem to be few bugs that I will need to confirm, in tagging among other things. The UI is fast, but when you browse by tag, on a full 200g card and full player, you cannot scroll too fast or the software might crash. At this stage no deal breaker, the UI need refining but it is functional.
     
  2. Grahad

    Grahad Guest

    I guess you would say the DX200 is in the ranks of the WM1Z and the LPG?
     
  3. Mimouille

    Mimouille Facebook Friend

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    I'd rather not make sweeping generalizations at this stage, but it is possible.
     
  4. Warrior

    Warrior RIP 2021

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    Looking forward to more impressions @Mimouille. Thank you for sharing, so far sounds very good.

    How is the power with the stock amp?
     
  5. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    Does it suffer from the iBasso digital sound?
     
  6. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    Erk, that's not... ideal. Brave of you to be an early adopter of a relatively expensive iBasso DAP, though.
     
  7. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    Do you remember how I was about to ditch Fiio's M3? Today I googled Fiio firmware yada yada yada because I wanted to check on their promises.

    Firmware 1.9 is out (1.7 had the file tagging issue!) and files are properly tagged. Yeah I still had the M3 gathering dust and I thought well try it out then. Download check, drag and drop follows and I restart the M3. Nothing new so I insert the micro SD card.

    My albums in the folder section are properly tagged. No random out of order file tagging issues.

    Fiio is properly supporting this little DAP it seems.
     
  8. Grahad

    Grahad Guest

    iBasso first firmwares always have issues. The next would be refined enough for usage.

    At least iBasso is supporting their newer products long term (RIP DX100)
     
  9. Mimouille

    Mimouille Facebook Friend

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    Seems as powerful as promised by the crazy specs. Need to do more testing but anyways I have no cans.

    It is not as analog sounding as the WM1Z but I don't find it overly digital.
     
  10. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    That's disappointingly slow.

    They haven't fixed tag-reading/indexing properly on their other units yet, so I wouldn't bet on this.

    It's not just the first ones ...
     
  11. Mimouille

    Mimouille Facebook Friend

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    Just to be clear on the DX200, the long scanning is just the first time. After there is no automatic rescan on startup.

    Now that I have rescanned everything properly, there only one significant bug left, artist names are cut off.

    Honestly, it is fairly stable and operational for a new unit, there is no major hindrance to use it easily.
     
  12. Warrior

    Warrior RIP 2021

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    I'm going to order it this week... I think. Any idea if we can root the DX200?
     
  13. Mimouille

    Mimouille Facebook Friend

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    I hope you are not doing it based on my comments alone :) I am still at the beginning, and the jury is not out.
     
  14. Mimouille

    Mimouille Facebook Friend

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    Hello all,
    I have spent time with the DX200 which has roughly 45 hours of burn in. I listened mostly to my SE5 Ultimate single ended, to compare with the WM1Z and LPG side by side.

    To make a long story short, the strengths of the DX200 (AT THIS STAGE) are width of stage, airiness, detail and punch. The relative weakness (AT THIS STAGE, compared to much more expensive DAPs) is that it has less depth and less good layering than the WM1Z and LPG (which are particularly good in this respect). This difference could change when using balanced, or different filters, or with burn-in. Another trait, which is not necessarily negative, is that the DX200 is relatively more dry and analytical than the other two. This can be fine-tuned with the filters.

    I have played with the filters as, and the changes are small but audible. I have settled on the apodizing linear phase, knowing that default is fast roll-off minimal phase. If you guys have inputs on the filters, I would be interested as I am not familiar with what they entail.

    Finally, I have updated to the latest firmware, and it solved the navigation speed / stability problem, which is great! The only remaining issue I detect is the artist name cutoff in the display.

    I have tested the battery life, and get roughly 8 hours on high gain at moderate volume, in balanced.
     
  15. Cellist88

    Cellist88 Friend

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    So essentially long story short...sabre sound
     
  16. Mimouille

    Mimouille Facebook Friend

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    Sabres are supposed to always sound dry and analytical?
     
  17. Warrior

    Warrior RIP 2021

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    No, I've wanted it for a while, your comments were icing on the cake. I think it will compliment what I have already fairly well. I'm not definitely getting it, but leaning towards yes.
     
  18. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    That's still very slow.

    And a non-starter if you have to swap cards due to not being able to get enough storage in the device. Unless, of course, you want to use folder-browsing, which I don't.
     
  19. Dino

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    That sounds like it may be a little like the PonoMusic Player. It takes quite a while to scan a card that it has not previously scanned. The next time you insert that card, it will scan again but it will be quick about it. The Pono keeps data for 3 MicroSD cards in memory. If you mostly use 3 cards it only has to do the the long/complete scan the first time each card is scanned. (Just speculating about the DX200 maybe doing something similar.)
     
  20. mscott58

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    I've just given in to folder-browsing. Someday when I get a DAP that has a fast enough processor and operating system I might go back to tags. Cheers
     

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