Is the Hifiman HM-601 worth getting?

It doesn't play gapless, costs more than its worth and is way too chunky for a DAP. Testing shows that far from having superior sound quality it has rolled off treble and doesn't do anything else any better either.

It's worthless. Even the first four words show it is worthless. An "audiophile player" that can't play any mix album, live album or concept album like abbey road/we're only in it for the money???? Are you kidding me?

Buy a cheap player that can take Rock Box, be happy and save money.

That's my opinion, and its one side of a coin.

If others reading disagree, rather than flame me, make your counter argument and let the OP decide for themselves.

the no-gapless thing is a no-buy for me too.

I can live with it being bulky, can live with it having small internal memory(2 Gb) but no gapless ?

hell , it's excatly what the person above me said - if your music is playlists of songs then go ahead no problemo.

but me , who like to listen to ALBUMS , no chance i would buy a no-gapless DAP.

abbey road ?

white album ?

aenima ?

parliament ?

what's going on ?

here my dear ?

santana - lotus ?

mars volta - frances the mute ?

all these masterpieces castrated ? no thank you very much.

I can't speak about the quality -as i have not heard it but as i said the no-gapless thing would prohibit me from buying even a DAP made by jesus Christ himself.

Do some shopping around and see what you want from a DAP and which one has all/most of your requirements.

EDIT FOR THE BOST ABOVE ME :

gapless = the DAP plays the tracks without a small gap in between.

imagine a live album , where every track flows seamlessly to the next one , like it's one big track.

The 601 does not do that,

Look a player should basically have a flat frequency response. It's up to the user to add flavour by the choice of headphones or through equalising.

The hifiman players have rolled off treble. That's why people say they sound "smooth" or "warm" or what-have-you.  But that's not an improvement in sound quality - that's a detriment in sound quality some people like the sound of. The exact same effect could be had by eqing down the higher frequencies on any player or buying a set of cans that had rolled off treble and it'd be a lot better value for money.

You have the Arrow ordered - good. It looks like a great amp with loads of functionality at a very fair price. That will genuinely improve your musical experience.

My advice is to stick with the ipod or get something like a clip or a fuze that can be Rockboxed and enjoy your music.

@lander

the quote thing is just something i read and liked as a pseudo 'audiophile' haiku/zen quote  - in fact i too believe that a good/educated audiophile looks the whole sonic picture and not specific parts of the sonic spectrum

if you don't mind about the gapless part , this is good for you - so see whether you want it or not

as fopr the arrow - it is my next buy when i get some money (just spent 240$ on a J3) - but everyone only tells good things about it

Btw , the zero/601 combo should work great as the warm dap completes the zeros. if you want something cheaper , just get a clip+ - even this beats most ipods out there

as i said , do some reading and try to understand what you want most and what each DAP offers.

Good luck

Well I do believe that there is a 30-day return policy, or something of the sort.  You can try it out personally to decide whether or not it's worth it...

read the 601 threads and see if you like it

if you like it and you buy it , wait until you know whether you wanna keep it or not.

if you keep it , sell the zeros.if not,simply return them both back.

simple.

Ugh, don't listen to Eddie or those other people who think flat responses make the best sound. Please people the clip is good for the price but it is not a be-end-all player. Seriously, there are many issues with the clip sound wise that iems like my se530 pick up.

It's not all about flat response curves, it's about enjoying the music.

When this hobby goes beyond enjoying the music and listening to what your ears agree with and starts becoming about frequency responses and all this other mumbo-jumbo crap then honestly you are just being an audio fool.

Go for what you like, not what people say is the "best" - because there is no best.

Once again: This hobby is for enjoying music, not frequency responses and graphs.

I actually didn't say a flat frequency response is the best sound. I think a pair of headphones with a flat frequency response would sound awful.

I said a player should have a flat frequency response. The aim of a player is to reproduce a recording accurately.

It is headphones, speakers twinned if the user preferes with equalisation or sound enhancements which shape the frequency response someone wants to listen to.

If a player has anything but a flat frequency response it is a defect. It doesn't matter if someone says they like the sound of that defect. If a player applied a blanket mid-bass boost to its frequency response a lot of people who listen to the top 40 would probably think it sounds great. It wouldn't though - it would be a flaw in its sound they happened to like the sound of.

I'm not trying to tell anyone what the "best" sound is - we aren't even discussing headphones here.

Lack of gapless is unfortunate, but if you have the disk space to spare it doesn't take too long to convert separate FLAC files into a single file which will play seamlessly. There is no replaygain support either, so if you want a normalised sound level it will be necessary to adjust the files you load on the 601 anyway - replaygain and merging can be done in 1 operation using Foobar2000.

It comes down to whether you like the sound of the 601. If you do, its limitations can be over-come, if not they provide a good reason to view the device even more unfavourably.