Hello Audiophiles,
I'm in a lot of pain right now, but really wan to finally get something out about the 601. I'd like to first say this: I like it. I'm not a stuffy audiophile, nor am I a basher - at least not if I can see where the designer was going with a device. The Hifiman is truly the first audiophile-worthy DAP on the planet. By audiophile, I mean not-mainstream.
I will not get into usage of this device, but I'll say this: Hifiman's firmware and navigation systems are attrocious. They are better than the Teclast T51 as of when I sold mine, but there are heaps of problems with the SD card, ID3 tags, etc. There is NO gapless, nor support for AAC. Whatever, it's an audiophile player, so I didn't expect that, anyway.
I hate to be labelled audiophile, though jokingly, I call myself that sometimes. I don't go for gush over accuracy, or warmth over clarity, but a lot of people do. Well, the Hifman is for them and is good. It really does seem like a tube amp: turn it on and the background noise is high and whiny, but after a few minutes, goes away. I've never seen that before in any portable player, ever. For audiophiles, it is a nice touch. Once it goes away, the background noise is similar to a Cowon D2, maybe just a bit more.
In other words, you'll hear it, but it's livable.
The sound is warm and lush, but not the sort of lush you get with great earphones, like the Earsonics SM3 (They rock). Speaking of, lush earphones are maybe not the best earphones for this player. If you have Etymotic ER4, Audio Technica CK10, or otherwise bright, sharp earphones, the HM601 sounds great. It's got a lot of power under the bonnet, too. Perhaps 4-5dB more than an iPod touch. I'll find out for sure soon, but it seems that way. I've not tested how far the volume scale goes before distorting when under load, but it seems to have more headroom than the ever-dreadful iPod and iPhone.
The soft high end is due to the 601's low-pass filter that cuts the high frequencies quite severely. Those who like this filter like it a lot. With certain earphones, I LOVE it and have emulated it with EQu and Equalizer for the iPhone. I've not found a music that sounds bad, yet. The HM601 deals an even hand everywhere. Jazz, of course, is wonderful, particularly lower percussion, strings, and female vocals. Rock is fun, but toned down - a good thing in my opinion. I wondered if trance would be fine. It is. Kudos Hifiman for hitting all the right notes, despite catering a particular filter.
The HM601 drives low-ohm dynamic earphones very well. They deviate very little when bottlenecking the HM601, so you don't have to worry about an amp. The stereo image bunches up a bit, but not bad. Overall, it keeps space very well. But, not too much. And the soft top end means that sparkle isn't something you'll get, either. Everything is lush and smooth.
Harmonic distortion (the good kind) is quite high and should be familiar to tube lovers. DT880? Great. But even on high gain, it doesn't get too loud. Actually, because the top end is soft, the overall dynamic punch is lessened and, you can listen to loud music without cringing or realising it. Be careful.
The EQ isn't good, but what EQ's really are? Sony have compressed the dynamic range for years, Apple have never got it. Only Cowon really know how to implement EQ's. Hifiman: get EQ right, especially since you have a built-in low-pass filter. There is no such thing a pretending that audiophiles shouldn't have EQ's when a Butterworth filter is built-in to the signal. There is no such thing as right or wrong when it comes to EQ's. It's user choice.
Hifiman: fix the firmware and you'll cement your player as the best audiophile player on the planet. Currently, using the HM601 is at best a nuisance, and at worst, bloody frustrating. I hope this changes. I like the quaintness of the player, even the 1970's cylon-looks. I like the idea. But audiophiles have had to put up with a lot of crap, and I hope that some firmware changes can raise the HM601 so far above the other crap as to seem 100% like a good buy.
Non-audiophiles: If you want to see how the RMAA and square waves panned out, head over here.
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