Colorfly C3

I bought this player to complement my larger Cowon players and on the strength of some of the opinions written elsewhere on this site. When I saw it for £70 on Ebay I decided to take the plunge.

 

Boy am I glad I did!

 

The unit comes nicely packaged but my initial impressions were not too positive as the unit needed a firmware upgrade and immediately froze. I could not operate any of the controls and it just sat, blinking at me. Luckily some good advice from fellow enthusiasts helped me sort the problem and the unit does not appear to have suffered any long term ill effects.

 

So now I could get to playing some music on it. It is simply stunning. I have a RoCoo P (reviewed elsewhere) and this stood as the best player I had heard to date. However the C3 shades it in just about every area. The background is dark and hiss free, the vocals emerge from the silence with breathtaking clarity, the instruments are further back but each has its own space. Dead Can Dance rise through the ether with all the mystic glory their music can evoke. Try some DIY krautrock from Amon Duul and the band have never sounded so together.

 

Unlike the RoCoo I do think the C3 benefits from amping, there is clearly not as much power behind it although I would not suggest for a second that it is weak in this area. It is just that the RoCoo has so much welly.

 

Downsides? Well the screen is small but remarkably clear, the touch screen gets a lot of paw prints and the UI is clunky. But really, none of this matters once the music starts to flow.

 

I was sold on the RoCoo until I heard the C3. Now I tend to find I reach for the C3 first if I want to listen to something I have on the MicroSD card. And more music seems to be finding its way onto MicroSD card!

 

Can I ask for anything more than that for £70?

Build Quality
First impressions are very good this thing feels almost bulletproof tough, its heavy for its size but thats not really a bad thing it just means you always know its in your pocket

User Interface
Okay I didn't expect great things about the UI of the C3 after reading some reviews but its not that bad yeah its fiddly sometimes unresponsive and make me wanna throw at the wall in frustration but you can forgive it because this thing sounds so good, the touchscreen is very sensitive and lights up when you press something its not exactly the most stylish of interfaces but its simplicity over aesthetics here

Sound Quality
I was using my iPod before I got this and I thought about upgrading my source, I saw this mentioned in Head fi somewhere and checked it out, I'm glad I did this thing sounds awesome!
Its clarity and detail are outstanding this makes me wanna listen to every song I have only to discover new things I never heard before, this thing makes me look at my iPod with disgust, you may hear a pop between tracks sometimes but its barely noticeable, heres the songs I used to test the C3 using the 'Rock' setting on the EQ:

Pogo - Hundred Acre Rain
Stumbleine - Kaleidoscope
Diiv - Follow
Breakbot ft Irfane - Baby Im Yours

This is one amazing device worthy of the audiophile name and if does has a few flaws but the sound quality is what you buy one of these for and you will not be disappointed there.

I wanted to tell you what this is like straight out of the box because I just got this in less than a week new from hong kong for £70. So this is for anyone wondering about taking a plunge on a dap but not sure which direction to take.
I wanted to post it because I can't believe this is on ebay for £70! It'll surely sell out at that price.
The packaging is bomb proof. It has 6 lots of wrapping around it. You get a set of in ears they look gross. Won't be using them so no idea whether they're bearable. A usb cable a mains plug a velvet sky blue pouch 2 cleaning cloths and a screen protector are provided as well as the beautiful looking cardboard presentation box.
Now onto the c3 itself.... the instructions are in Chinese. It's pretty obvious how to switcch it on. The controls are on the touch screen. Seems easy enough to work for me. There's pre loaded music which is what I listened to to check all was fine.
Through my klipsch x10is I have no complaints. They have put wav and flac files on there for us to try out .There's plenty of depth there. No sibilance is present. The cello sounds absolutely gorgeous as it should do. The vocals are brought nicely to the forefront.
If people are interested I can compare it to my imod 5.5 with rwa lod rsa hornet combo. But let's be serious and state here and now that , being used to that combo which is 8 times more expensive, I am getting a lot of pleasure from the Colorfly C3.
Why on earth don't more out there own it?