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Author Topic: Let's Talk DAPs - Sony, Cowon, iBasso, Hisound, etc.  (Read 32994 times)

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burnspbesq

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Re: Let's Talk DAPs - Sony, Cowon, iBasso, Hisound, etc.
« Reply #10 on: November 08, 2012, 05:06:19 PM »
I had my first hands-on exposure to the iBasso DX 100 at the meet in Coronado last weekend.

Sounded perfectly decent, and the feature-set is pretty enticing, but man, that interface.  After 11 years of iDevices, the iBasso interface is just flat-out unacceptable.

What I'd really like is a 64Gb iPod Touch with a microSD slot that will play 96/24 AIFF files.
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Deep Funk

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Re: Let's Talk DAPs - Sony, Cowon, iBasso, Hisound, etc.
« Reply #11 on: November 08, 2012, 06:13:37 PM »
I'll just wait. The many suggestions formulated here are already tempting enough...
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shipsupt

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Re: Let's Talk DAPs - Sony, Cowon, iBasso, Hisound, etc.
« Reply #12 on: November 08, 2012, 06:28:48 PM »
Quote from: Questhate on November 08, 2012, 05:01:34 PM
What I'd really love is a good high-capacity DAP. I'm the type of crazy that likes to have all of my music with me, because when I get a hankering to hear a specific song, it's relentless.

If not an HDD based one, hopefully someone can release one that has multiple micro-SD card slots. My lip is quivering at the thought of 4x64GB cards full of music on one device.

That's really the main reason I haven't upgraded from my iPod classic yet.

This is why I still lug around the brick... High capacity iPod classic, solo, and whatever portable I fancy for the day.  If I want to go truly portable, I grab an iSomething and call it good... Fan boy here   :-[
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Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

electropop

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Re: Let's Talk DAPs - Sony, Cowon, iBasso, Hisound, etc.
« Reply #13 on: November 08, 2012, 07:17:49 PM »
Same here. Can't go below 160gb.

Will wait for the slimmer 256gb capacity players to sometimes hit the market..
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Questhate

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Re: Let's Talk DAPs - Sony, Cowon, iBasso, Hisound, etc.
« Reply #14 on: November 08, 2012, 07:22:30 PM »
You'd think with how cheap flash memory is nowadays that someone would put a high-capacity player out. Even a 128GB Ipod Touch would get consideration from me. It's crazy that all of these audiophiles that can play FLAC only have like 32GBs.
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Re: Let's Talk DAPs - Sony, Cowon, iBasso, Hisound, etc.
« Reply #15 on: November 08, 2012, 07:32:42 PM »
Mechanical drives became anathema a couple of years back and we've just been soaking in suck. I don't know whether it's how much further MLC prices have to fall before Apple spring for 128+ models, rather it's this annoying perception on their behalf that there's no demand for plentiful storage. At this point I'll be happy with proper SDXC support provided 256gb cards become sanely priced in the next six months.
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Marvey

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Re: Let's Talk DAPs - Sony, Cowon, iBasso, Hisound, etc.
« Reply #16 on: November 08, 2012, 07:49:50 PM »
I'm sure the DX100's unusable UI did not lend itself to sounding good (why should I be put in a bad mood trying to navigate sluggish menus before I even listen.) Also, if its' going to be that big, it better sound like that ALO brick mk3.
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Sphinxvc

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Re: Let's Talk DAPs - Sony, Cowon, iBasso, Hisound, etc.
« Reply #17 on: November 08, 2012, 08:33:40 PM »
Quote from: hans030390 on November 08, 2012, 03:59:15 PM
What's terrible about the implementation? Genuinely curious. I bought one a couple years ago because of how popular it was. The UI is shit, the battery life is very meh (buy manageable), and it's just a bit buggy overall. Of course, I have the latest firmware and one of the alternative UIs on it, so it could be worse.

Other than that, it's served me well. I like the FLAC support, and it sounds decent enough to my ears. Maybe slightly on the brighter side?

I wouldn't mind switching to something nicer and less complicated/problematic, though.

Full disclosure: I've never been a fan of budget 8740/8741 converters.  The one's I've heard have had a particular sound that, to me, simply does not sound natural.  But I've heard some converters that use the Wolfson chips to some degree of success, they are usually more expensive, so that's why I say implementation must be the problem.
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DaveBSC

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Re: Let's Talk DAPs - Sony, Cowon, iBasso, Hisound, etc.
« Reply #18 on: November 08, 2012, 11:37:08 PM »
As far as I know, the 8740 is the budget version - the 8741 isn't. PS Audio uses the WM8741 in the PWD, and Audio-GD uses them as their Sabre alternative. These guys aren't going to be using budget chips.

There's nothing wrong with Android, but you have to actually understand how build the thing properly, which I don't think Ibasso does. The DX100 will also never be updated past whatever version of Android it shipped with, GB I think. I think you also have to ask, do I want to run apps and web browse on my DAP or not? If the DAP is supposed to be a high-end audio focused machine, my answer would be no. The more basic and less resource intensive the UI, the better. The HM-801 boots in a few seconds, and at least with 16/44 its nice and snappy. 24/96 FLAC seems to bog it down a bit, I assume its a very basic CPU in there and decoding that seems to take pretty much 100% of what little processing power there is. The lack of gapless support is a minor PITA, but there are workarounds, it's not the end of the world.

The HM-901 adds SDXC support, and hopefully is less finicky about types/brands of cards than the 801. I do worry about that Sabre sound though. I have zero interest in any of the Apple stuff, I hope they don't sue me for saying that.
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jupitreas

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Re: Let's Talk DAPs - Sony, Cowon, iBasso, Hisound, etc.
« Reply #19 on: November 08, 2012, 11:51:40 PM »
Hmm.. am I the only one who thinks that Rockboxed clips pretty much exhaust the entire topic of DAPs? They play anything you throw at them with very good quality and offer all the sound manipulation options you could wish for (except for DSP such as BBE).

I don't see any point at all in investing in a supposedly high-end player like the Hifiman stuff (which coincidentally measures very badly) for portable use. How much can you really hear in a crowded street or in a subway? Certainly, with well-isolating headphones, you can have a pretty good sound but lets face it - it will never be as good as what you can get with a nice desktop amp and a quiet home environment. For this reason, it seems completely useless to me to invest in anything expensive when a basic Clip+ or Clip Zip will already provide more fidelity than you can hear in a portable situation anyway...
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