Calling out hippo gumstick owners

There you go Google is your friend.

http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1680&bih=905&q=hippo+gumstick&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=202&t=774522&mid=0

Quote:

Originally Posted by anadin 

There you go Google is your friend.

So is Search.

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/507891/review-hippo-gumstick

Quote:

Originally Posted by subxero 

hey guys i'm gonna order the gumstick in a week soon

i just want ur review on what you like about it and what you don't

and i would appreciate it if someone took pictures from all the angles lol, i jus wanna see where everything is

thanks

Con's:  The eq isn't good, you need a usb cable to connect it to your computer which is a hassle for me, doesn't support all kinds of flac, just some types of flac, haven't figured that part out yet.

Screen is highly reflective and shiny, the blue colour is rather boring, I'd rather a pink/silver/white/orange one or something, and matte instead of shiny.  For half the price you can get a Cube C30 most likely better eq settings and free IEM's that look pretty alright.

Pro's:  There's a cute hippo on the screen when you turn it on.  It comes with a Harry Potter book which is pretty cool, I mean you can actually read it on the 2-line screen.  It says Hippo on the front.  It sounds pretty good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by subxero 

lol what? comes with a harry potter book?

and that FLAC is the only con i have so far with this player

can anyone tell me what the problem is with playing FLAC on this player? because half my music is FLAC, if it can't support it, i'm screwed

Where are you located and where are you buying the Hippo from? 

The Flac issue is about the level of flac compression, I'm sure there's a simple work-around so you can reconvert your flac to the correct flac format and then it will all play fine on the Hippo, I just haven't bothered looking into the exact details of that process yet since I'm basically listening to the same flac album over and over.  Italian baroque =)

Other novelties include a synthetic voice that will tell you the name of the folder you're looking at, so even if you can't see this thing in the sun you can listen your way through the navigation settings.

I feel as though warm, natural and clear sounding, bass-shy earphones pair very well with this unit, of which I only have one pair (and they just semi-broke, thanks to my experimental modding).

Bass-focused earphones do less well, Hippo + A-Jays Three is a negative pairing, the bass becomes full of resonance and overshadows the mids.

Yeah, it comes with a harry potter book, and it's called The Hippo, you wonder if they're aiming this thing at 14 year old girls or something? =p  They should just call it the "Fatty" or "Teddy".

I prefer cube and teclast marketing hehe

I started using FLAC lvl 5 instead of highest compression after I got the Gumstick.

thats one of the dumbest things ive ever heard lol, not supporting the best level of flac, just mid range.

So I just reconvert all my flac to level 5 with dBpoweramp?

Quote:

Originally Posted by swbf2cheater 

thats one of the dumbest things ive ever heard lol, not supporting the best level of flac, just mid range.

I just transcoded a FLAC lv5 file to both lv1 and lv8 in Easy CD-DA Extractor. All three variation plays fine actually.

I had a hiccup on mine w/ a lvl 8 file one time.  Went to 5 after that just to be safe.  I haven't done sufficient testing to rule out possible causes for the error.  I remember reading someone else had the same problem so I just went ahead w/ a known fix w/o troubleshooting.  That problem never happened on anything else I had though.

Well, I think we can all agree that the firmware is far from perfect. I just wish they release the firmwares and its updater so we can try out different version of firmware.