I purchased the DX90 a week ago. I had found that I was no longer dragging out CDs to listen to music, but at the same time my MP4s on my iPhone were sounding harsh and un-listenable. As a result I was not listening to much music anymore and really missed it. I occasionally listen on headphones but mostly plug into my stereo (Acurus DIA100 and Paradigm Atom Montior v5). The sound from my iPhone was so harsh and clearly missing much of the detail of the music due to compression. My plan is to rip all my CDs to FLAC files and use the DX90 for portable listening as well as in-home listening through my sound system. I read about the DX90 and then purchased it on eBay from someone who had used it very little--he said about five hours.
I can't stress enough the importance of burn-in on this device. When I first heard it I thought I had made a big mistake. It sounded similar to my iPhone. I'm up to 120 hours of burn-in time right now (the manual recommends 400 hours!)--I leave it on all the time, using the provided burn-in cable. The sound has changed incredibly. It sounds very smooth, open, and detailed. My amp tends to be a bit bright, and I find that the DX90 compliments it well by being more mellow. I've read other reviews that say the DX90 is also bright or harsh, but I don't find that to be the case after proper burn-in.
The OS does some quirky things, like repeating a song when I press the skip forward button, but overall seems to be fine. I mostly randomize my playlist, so I just set it to random and go, so the OS is not much of an issue for me.
I have not taken the DX90 out of the house much, so I don't have a good sense of battery life. I plan to purchase a backup battery and always have one fully charged to grab and go as needed.
I have a 128GB micro SD card that I use, which holds all of my music, and I use Windows Media Player's syncing functionality so when I plug the SD into my computer it automatically syncs any new music. I'm using Exact Audio Copy to rip my CDs and find it fairly quick in processing and converting to FLAC.
Now that I hear the complete music again I just can't believe how long I went listening crappy lossy files! So nice to be enjoying music again.
I can't stress enough the importance of burn-in on this device. When I first heard it I thought I had made a big mistake. It sounded similar to my iPhone. I'm up to 120 hours of burn-in time right now (the manual recommends 400 hours!)--I leave it on all the time, using the provided burn-in cable. The sound has changed incredibly. It sounds very smooth, open, and detailed. My amp tends to be a bit bright, and I find that the DX90 compliments it well by being more mellow. I've read other reviews that say the DX90 is also bright or harsh, but I don't find that to be the case after proper burn-in.
The OS does some quirky things, like repeating a song when I press the skip forward button, but overall seems to be fine. I mostly randomize my playlist, so I just set it to random and go, so the OS is not much of an issue for me.
I have not taken the DX90 out of the house much, so I don't have a good sense of battery life. I plan to purchase a backup battery and always have one fully charged to grab and go as needed.
I have a 128GB micro SD card that I use, which holds all of my music, and I use Windows Media Player's syncing functionality so when I plug the SD into my computer it automatically syncs any new music. I'm using Exact Audio Copy to rip my CDs and find it fairly quick in processing and converting to FLAC.
Now that I hear the complete music again I just can't believe how long I went listening crappy lossy files! So nice to be enjoying music again.
