You forget that some people would rather listen to classical music than to the latest black and white sensation. I can't listen to a symphony or a piano concerto over and over again only because I like it or because I don't have enough space on my tiny SD card! Music is about moods. And if today it's Satie, tomorrow or later in the afternoon it could be anything from Albinoni to Stravinski. The beauty of a Classic is that you can carry all this with you, at the touch of a button, plus the whitest/blackest sensation plus whatever is new or of interest to you (including movies or pictures) without having to sacrifice anything. Even better, connect it through a dock to a hifi system and it's almost as good as a cd player. I bet few of you have tried the Ipod with a Wadia Itransport, and even fewer with a Meridian F80 to see exactly how well it can sound. I have both and, while I still prefer my Naim CD player for critical listening, it is so convenient, when you get home, to simply pop the Ipod into its dock and listen to whatever you want to listen in an instant! The Ipod might have many flaws, I am the first to hate the Itunes crap, below average format support and all the proprietary bullshit but never, ever forget that if the Ipod wouldn't have hit the market a few years ago, you would probably still carry a chunky CD player in your bag. It is the work of a genius, like most Apple products (and I am not a fan!) and as far as I can tell, the future of the high end portable industry has little to do with bizarre attempts like your little big Chinese Hifiman. There are at least two projects in progress aiming at extracting a digital signal from the Ipod and feeding it to a portable DAC/amp combo. Since you are doing that anyway with your expensive brick (you could as well strap a Reference Burmester CD player to your neck and power it from a car battery for ultimate portable sound) I bet your Hifiman will soon become history. Soon meaning less than a year.
May I repeat myself, the idea was, is great. However the end product proves beyond doubt that the target is simply too ambitious for a small Chinese company, therefore it should become a joint effort involving the better players in the industry. But guess what: sadly the big fishes in the industry have no interest in the Hifiman.
Unfortunately Mr Nankai will never have the resources to develop even a decent portable player interface on his own, and it all starts from here. If a portable player fails to be first and foremost a decent player, being trashed even by the 20 times cheaper Clip in this respect, it's a fail. Then it's the ridiculous battery life, the biggest, heaviest, ugliest charger I have seen in my life, the poor design, one of the worst internal storage capacities I've seen in a portable player, a bellow average headphone amplifier. In the end what is highend about this player? The DAC section? Is it a portable DAC section alone, with the battery life of a laptop, worth 1000$, as much as a proper desktop DAC?
People are expecting quality from the most expensive portable player in the industry, not just excuses. It uses power hungry internal components which is why you have to charge it every afternoon, the battery is big which is why you have to carry the chunky adapter, the UI is probably the poorest and ugliest in the industry but it's cool because it's a "hihiend", open source player, therefore different, don't forget the wallet with SD cards because a hdd, a SSD or an XD is bad and the future is in the wallet (literally), grab an expensive aftermarket cable and an external amplifier almost as expensive as the best portable player in the world because the best portable player in the world, with the best DAC and amplifier section in the world, can't drive properly a bloody sensitive high-end IEM. In my book all this means just one thing: poor engineering.
And then, when a kid dares to point the finger at the naked king with a proper set of tests, we start blaming the kid, the methodology, tests and standards by which every single audio component in the industry is evaluated. And we still believe, beyond proof, that the best portable player in the world, connected through the most expensive IEM cable in the world, to the most balanced portable amplifier in the world, is the best portable player in the world.
All that is left to say is: enjoy the best portable player in the world.
Edited by revenge - 5/16/10 at 7:18am
