DAP discussion thread

Make sure you are running the latest firmware. I was surprised how much better my A15 now sounds after upgrading the firmware from 1.10 to 1.21. Quite a bit snappier too.
I use my A15 everyday, everywhere and its has withstood quite a few drops and freezing weather. Pretty tough little thing.

 

I've spent a few weeks with the x5 gen3. Overall I'm impressed. I love the interface and it feels surprisingly quick to be such an early firmware version (I don't believe that this is available in the states yet). Very nice looking screen. It won't really drive the hd650 but it's great with my jh13 pro customs and will do for efficient fulled sized headphones just nicely. I think that the new x5 is a keeper for me.

 

What's the price point on the x5iii?

 

Sony A17 is priced $299 new, while on eBay "new other" units can be easily spotted under $230.

 

$399 USD.

 

How is Sony able to double or triple the battery life of all the other competitors. It's such a huge advantage IMO, I'm surprised we don't see more competition on this.

 

My guess is because Sony DAPs don't have DAC-amp chips like traditional sources & Sony chips are power efficient. John Grandberg posted this on Innerfidelity (A Survey of Digital Audio Players Part 3):

"Sony again uses their proprietary S-Master HX system instead of the more typical off-the-shelf DAC chip with separate amplification stage. As I mentioned when covering the NWZ-A17, S-Master has a lot in common with other well-received "direct digital" implementations such as the NuForce DDA-100 and NAD M2. All three use proprietary approaches to pulse-width modulation with the Sony obviously requiring very little output power in comparison. More info about S-Master can be found here and here."

 

Sony DAPs have very low power output, run in class D by design, and as a result of combining the amp and DAC, save on circuitry.

Result: class leading battery life.

(N.B.: Cowon, which usually has exceedingly long battery life too run class D amps in those models.)

 

I managed to get a loaner unit from FiiO - hopefully I get a comparison between it, the X7, and a X5 2nd gen I managed to borrow by the end of this week when I hopefully have time.

But for very brief listening impressions, I agree with @Ice-man has to say about it - sounds pretty nice, works pretty nice (some of the earlier nasty bugs have been ironed out), and is more at home driving IEMs and efficient full-sized headphones than say, planars and the like.

 

Keen to get either ZX2 or Fiio X5 3rd Gen to pair with Andro. If I understood correctly, it does have 2 mode and it does allow install music streaming services such as Tidal and Spotify.. Is this correct?
Did you hear any hiss when you pair with JH13 pro?
Thank you..

 

No hiss for me with jh13 pro with the zx2, 1z or x5iii. The 1z with my jh13 was sublime. Best that I've heard my customs sound.

 

My dx200 was delivered a little while ago. Nice looking dap, feels like it's built well. Just trying to adjust to the UI. I'm probably going to pick up the X5iii as well. Looks really good and hearing good things about it.

 

I'm not the person you quoted, but yes the X5 3rd gen allows you to install most streaming services (it runs full Android and has access to the Google Play Store) and it has the two modes - the regular full Android mode and a "Pure Music" mode that locks you only to the built-in Fiio music app.

 

Thank you very much. I am not sure why they created two different mode but I guess that Pure Music mode provide better sound with snappier browsing..

 

WM1Z is just out of my budget. If you compare between X5 3rd Gen and ZX2 in terms of sound quality, which one do you like more?

 

Honestly it's pretty close. Slight edge to zx2. But why not wait for a few more players to hit the market like Sony 1A?

 

I wonder if the pure music mode is Fiio's way to bypass the android audio resampling. That is my current difficulty with the pioneer xdp.100r, my 44.1 flacs are resampled to 48.

 

It's supposed to be IIRC. Plus, you don't have all the services of Android running, less noise.

 

Thank you very much. Very well noted. I will be mainly pairing with Andro so might need to wait to hear impression X5 3rd Gen with Andro before making a purchase.
WM1A look Gorgeous but I prefer DAP with capability of streaming music services. As far as I understand newer model WM1A and WM1Z have Sony's stock OS so neither of them support streaming services any longer.