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HiFiMAN HM-801 - The best portable audio player - mini-review and discussion - Page 4

post #46 of 71
8/1/09 at 1:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by doping panda View Post
Can anyone who has listened to the HM-801 compare it to the Pico DAC/amp? I'm wondering how those two would stack up. I'm considering getting a JH13 and I would probably end up getting one of these two if I did get the Jerry Harveys.
From what I've gathered so far the HiFiMan is leagues above the Pico DAC. I want to know how the amp section of the HiFiMan compares with portable amplifiers like the Lisa III, iQube, and RSA Mustang P-51.
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post #47 of 71
8/1/09 at 3:40am
Btw what dacs are being used in the pico and d10? Its wolfson for the d10 i guess.
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post #48 of 71
8/1/09 at 9:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gammelkaill View Post
(...) Currently I think only iPods supports gapless among the players that are available internationally. (...)
The new firmware for Cowon S9 added gapless support for MP3 (gapless for FLAC was supported already).
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post #49 of 71
8/1/09 at 12:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by electropop View Post
What do you mean by "unmusical"? Explaining this would probably help sort out the differences we're experiencing. Because sound-wise, you obviously couldn't tell..

But yeah, I have one album with 99 songs on it too. Some as short as 3 seconds. So that would obviously be unlistenable on this piece of equipement..
I find it unmusical to chop up the music and put gaps where it isn't supposed to be. It destroys the listening experience.

I had hoped that more people saw my point here, so we can have some real choices of high-end audio for all of us. A portable player should be able to reproduce a CD exactly as it was programmed, including the length of the gap between the tracks. But the developers will only implement gapless if enough consumers demand it.

I am happy to hear that Cowon S9 now supports gapless, then we at least have two brands to choose from. There should be more, including HiFiMAN HM-801 and AMP3.
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post #50 of 71
8/1/09 at 1:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gammelkaill View Post
I find it unmusical to chop up the music and put gaps where it isn't supposed to be. It destroys the listening experience.

I had hoped that more people saw my point here, so we can have some real choices of high-end audio for all of us. A portable player should be able to reproduce a CD exactly as it was programmed, including the length of the gap between the tracks. But the developers will only implement gapless if enough consumers demand it.

I am happy to hear that Cowon S9 now supports gapless, then we at least have two brands to choose from. There should be more, including HiFiMAN HM-801 and AMP3.
I agree with this.

The implementation of gapless will make me much more likely to buy a portable music player. As a classical music fan, it is essential for me. It's why my Clip and D2 are no longer being used (though glad rockbox is running on the clip).

If head-direct wants to make the 801 truly hifi, they need to implement gapless.
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post #51 of 71
8/2/09 at 4:31am
Oh don't worry, I'm with you and understand you completely. How could I have missed your point when you stated it so clearly

But I don't call a Linn Classik Music -system "unmusical" because it's based on a DVD-drive and loads the disc for a mere 15 seconds. So, in other words, your choice of words threw me away. I thought you just attacked it due to it being a hi-fi product with possibly a DA-chip of which sound signature you're familiar with and called it unmusical based on that. I think many truly high-end products can certainly be unmusical with emphasis on so many other things besides the music itself
Nevertheless, I apologize.

I'm just happy if it sounds many times better than my Sony Walkman or an iPod. Plus, you can double it it as a desktop DAC and it's supposed to compete with products well over its price range.. But, time will tell.
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post #52 of 71
8/3/09 at 12:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xeon [09] View Post
From what I've gathered so far the HiFiMan is leagues above the Pico DAC. I want to know how the amp section of the HiFiMan compares with portable amplifiers like the Lisa III, iQube, and RSA Mustang P-51.


Good question, I want to add in one more question, How about the hiss level of the HIFIMAN? it seem JUDE poited out at his part one review that the hiss is somewhat a flaw.

I am not sure for it passed for several months which head direct have enough time to deal with the hiss problem. At least I hope so. Could :Some one release some update news on this issue
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post #53 of 71
8/3/09 at 2:37pm
Thread Starter 
The one that I heard was black as far as I could tell (then again, the room was noisy, even with the RE0's on). Perhaps he updated the amp module or something.
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post #54 of 71
8/10/09 at 10:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MD1032 View Post

Balance-wise, the two players are sorta similar but the iAudio's one flaw is that it's just a tiny bit bright. Most good equipment I've heard exposes this in some way. So yes, the sound is similar, but the balance is clearly better on the HiFiMAN. The bass is much, much better. It's deeper, there's more of it, and it's much more precise. The highs are more detailed, but more laid back than the iAudio. I'd say the balance on the HiFiMAN is pretty much as close to neutral or ideal as you can get. Certainly, the bass improvements I get from using my headphone amp with my iAudio are more than built in to the HiFiMAN, probably a result of the better amp module.
so it`s warmer than X5L??? i feel that X5L too warm for me... i think this dap is not suite to my taste
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post #55 of 71
8/12/09 at 3:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xeon [09] View Post
From what I've gathered so far the HiFiMan is leagues above the Pico DAC. I want to know how the amp section of the HiFiMan compares with portable amplifiers like the Lisa III, iQube, and RSA Mustang P-51.

By and large it seems that the H1xx to an optical DAC is the only real competition to the HiFiMan. By and large, portable DAC's that accept optical have been reputed to sound better than USB DAC implementations. Unfortunately, there isn't many out there to choose from...with the D10 being the only currently produced viable option I'm aware of.
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post #56 of 71
8/12/09 at 3:20pm
I'm pretty sure an 4 to 5.5gen imod + vcap is not only also the real competitor to the hifiman, I think its also better then the H11x+D10
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post #57 of 71
8/12/09 at 6:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bojamijams View Post
I'm pretty sure an 4 to 5.5gen imod + vcap is not only also the real competitor to the hifiman, I think its also better then the H11x+D10

The imod/vcap setups I've seen don't look real portable...but people do seem to agree they sound great.
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post #58 of 71
8/12/09 at 6:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MD1032 View Post
The one that I heard was black as far as I could tell (then again, the room was noisy, even with the RE0's on). Perhaps he updated the amp module or something.
At the NJ meet, Fang told me he did. He also has 2 different amp modules, one for low gain and another for high gain
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post #59 of 71
8/12/09 at 6:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jinp6301 View Post
At the NJ meet, Fang told me he did. He also has 2 different amp modules, one for low gain and another for high gain
Do you know if he'll include both in the package? There wasn't an option when ordering the player, so I was wondering.. This is being discussed in another HM-801 thread as well.
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post #60 of 71
8/12/09 at 9:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfen68 View Post
By and large it seems that the H1xx to an optical DAC is the only real competition to the HiFiMan. By and large, portable DAC's that accept optical have been reputed to sound better than USB DAC implementations. Unfortunately, there isn't many out there to choose from...with the D10 being the only currently produced viable option I'm aware of.
there is an article in the computer as source section that explains the view of many professional studios' that they think USB output are actually better than Optical output due to the fact that Optical output has no correction mechanism and hence jitter(unsure about the last world jitter though)

just go there and have a look, learn that knowledge from headfi so dont quote on me
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