DAP discussion thread

Pono has plenty of power in balanced mode. The player gets a little warm sometimes.

 

I wonder if it would be too powerful for the CF Andromeda?

Does it play while charging?

 

It plays while charging. I hope it's not too powerful for the Andromeda, because I do plan on getting those at some point.

Marv said the Andromeda was good with players that had a slightly high Z out, and the Pono is one of those.

 

Hmmm... It seems like the design ethos of the Andromeda is to scale back equipment but with 5 hours of battery life one would need a battery pack for air travel which is basically like adding an amp or DAC/AMP.

On the other hand, if I'm going to spend 1k on IEMs I think I'd want to maximize SQ and go balanced.

Are there any 10+ battery life balanced DAPs that don't include a better amp then the Andromeda will benefit from (i.e. aren't too expensive)?

 

Most planes these days have either an outlet or USB slot for charging while on the flight. Of course, you can't guarantee one will be there, but they're becoming more common.

 

fiio announced some hours ago that they'll be selling the X7 without any module.

 

Unsure what too expensive is but the Onkyo DP-X1 I think gets around 10 hours balanced with WiFi off. I just started using it full-time balanced so it's hard to judge right now, but does mid-teen hours single ended for sure.

 

Since its broken in a bit I'm enjoying my new Ak Jr. with the Andromeda, but some of the bugs with the UI/functionality are really unacceptable at the price point. I can deal with the laggy UI, but the bug where the SQ goes horrible when switching between tracks of different filetypes/frequencies is ridiculous. Going to keep it (for now), but I feel bad for those that have forked over thousands for higher end AK products if they have similar firmware bugs and poor support.

 

Yeah looked at that but its a little bulky isn't it/

 

How can there not be a good DAP for under $500? Is the ipod touch the best option?!

Edit: and by a "good DAP", I mean one that sounds good, is hiss free and has a decent UI.

 

Yeah kinda,the DP-x1 still fits in my jeans pocket okay. It's the size of a standard smartphone but double the thickness

 

How do you like it? I've read some people were having issues with the balanced jack and also noise issues as well, I believe when streaming.

I think the ipod's are excellent choices for portable players. Best UI and I think they sound excellent. I just prefer having other daps, especially Android based daps that I can root, add Viper4Android, and Neutron (love that 20 band parametric eq).

 

I like it a lot, I wrote some impressions on the DP-x1 thread here. The android/streaming and dual card slots were big selling points for me. I didn't have any of the wiggly-jack issues people early on seemed to have. Also no noise, single ended or balanced or anything like that. TIDAL did have some minor known quirks for me a couple months ago, unsure if those have been patched or not, I'm currently not a subscriber. Spotify works just fine, and can see both cards (some apps can only see the first card)

 

Luckily the higher-end AK players use a different OS. The higher-end ones use an Android-based OS while the AK jr uses the same Linux-based OS as the first generation of AK players. The android-based OS has its own share of issues but it is definitely a huge upgrade in terms of performance and reliability.

 

I think that's what I was reading, issues with Tidal. That's one of the major reasons I wanted the Onkyo or Fiio. I still might get the Onkyo. Recently I read that root is possible with the Onkyo, which is important to me.

 

Lemme chim in with my amalgamation of DAP impressions, sans iPhone... Reference IEMs will be UERM mostly.

- iPod touch: warmish sound. Not that resolving. Normal power. Maybe a few ohms of output z. The sound doesn't seem to deviate from iPhone so much. iOS is da best UI evar. iTunes sucks.
- FiiO line: house timbre is more or less plastic. Clean sound, hiss free, but a bit grainy and uncontrolled. Lots of brutal power to burn, low output z. The UI was not appealing to me, but whatever, it's properly functional. I hated the wheel on older iPod, so should I hate it on FiiO products.
- Sony line (A17, ZX1, ZX100) A few output z, low power, and warmish smoothened over sound. In general Sony players have good layering, but the low power is really a universal problem. ZX100 has borderline OK power. Sony UI and Android are great. I was surprised that ZX1 hissed with UERM and 535. ZX1 was not a huge improvement over A17, but ZX100 showed some promise.
- AK Jr: sounds good and looks good - quite resolving actually. Dead-silent and plenty of power. AK players have more power than Sony Walkmans, but less than brutal FiiOs. The AK basic UI sucks balls dipped in broken glasses covered in turd.
- AK100ii: softened AK Jr sound with delicacy. It seems to me that it has less power than Jr, but battery life is better. Balanced out is not a significant step-up than SE out.
- Pono: probably the most resolving DAP, but also the second worst UI and overall design. Most powerful, but each click changes volume too much.

 

Just received my am5 (high power) amp module for my X7. It kills battery life unfortunately, I believe around 6 hours, compared to the 8 and 10~ for the am2 and 1 respectively. About to set it up now. Might be overkill for what I need, but I wanted the damn thing anyway.

 

In other words, pick your poison. There's no all around great DAP at this price range (or possibly any price range it sounds like). Guess I'll keep putting up with the seemingly infinite quirks of my Pono and not bother switching to another DAP anytime soon.

 

Yeah, it's about finding your compromise. Unless Sony could find its mind and get back to the market with proper Walkman.

 

Just received my am5 (high power) amp module for my X7. It kills battery life unfortunately, I believe around 6 hours, compared to the 8 and 10~ for the am2 and 1 respectively. About to set it up now. Might be overkill, but oh well.

I think the Sony daps are very well rounded. If you could root the zx2, it'd be the perfect dap. Install Viper4Android, instant increase in power, the Achilles heel of Sony daps.

With the right amp module, I feel the X7 is the best dap I've owned. I'd love to give Cayin daps a shot. They have the I5 being released soon, which is a true Android dap. Cayin daps have good power too.

Of course there are some other daps that are well received but have their shortcomings as well. Two that come to mind are the Questyle and L&P. Unfortunately, there have been issues reported with both, however both appear to sound very well. I've yet to hear either.