Colorfly CK4 first review - Page 10

 

I already sold mine. But I loved it very much on my Studio V 3rd ANV. I'd have a hard time believing another player would top it. I mean I even preferred my IE80s out of the Studio V 3rd ANV even more than my DX100 (minus the hiss :P).

I was doing some critical listening this afternoon and made a discovery.

I was wondering why all tracks already loaded on CK4+'s internal memory by the seller sounded so awesome, I mean they sound absolutely fantastic, really dynamic full of life and well separated, but my tracks using the microsd sounded a touch grainy in upper mids a touch sibilant and edgy if you will.

The only tracks I'd listened to on CK4+'s internal memory were the ones preloaded, because I used mircosd from day one. Well, today as an experimental I loaded one album onto the internal memory and micrsd switching between at one set volume one track intro at a time.. Sure enough the internal memory sounded awesome just like the sellers tracks does, full, dynamic no grain, meanwhile external memory sounds grainy in the upper mids is more sibilant and a touch brighter which causes fatigue.

I ran the test several times over and over.. This is not good because now I am left with a 8GB of awesome while the SD card slot is useless to me for critical listening sessions. These might be little things that held the player back from popularity.

RAFA can you run a test mate on your best IEM and see if I'm going crazy please or if you notice the difference?

When you have time of course

Maybe the card needs to be a higher class for read speeds? Just a guess.

I was thinking that, I hope it could be the case or possible option. I'm using Class 4 to my understanding. Two different Sandisk cards both Class 4 do the same thing. It's rather obvious to me.

I would like to know the answer to this question too.

Does the same thing happen with the C3? 

No it doesn't. Not that I can hear.

If you're using the same  microsd cards, then it makes me wonder if the CK4+ is simply a defective unit. One would think that both players would support the same cards, right?

Yeah, one would assume so. I guess it depends on the players reader and software, possibly hardware releated too. I've asked the community, I've found a Class 10 16GB Samsung I'll pick up next week otherwise this will eat me alive. I'm not extremely upset, but a fix would be awesome (Class 10 for eg) I'm going to run some more tests with 320kbps files and see if indeed the same thing occurs. if not it may well be the read speed from external grabbing the larger FLAC files.

It's one of things that would just sneak through too unless you were really really listening for it.

Class 4 should be more than enough my friend lol sounds like a defective unit or just a defective product period.... I think you should just go for a replacement unit from Colorfly or through the vendor you purchased it. I highly doubt a Class 10 is gonna fix this issue.

Edited by lee730 - 12/7/12 at 3:33am

Although Lee put his opinion in harsher words than I would of, I am currently fearing this.

With nothing to lose but $15 I shall try a Class 10 card. Never having problems before with Class 4 cards I am doubtful on the outcome.
Edited by H20Fidelity - 12/7/12 at 3:42am

Well H20 you'll never know until you have the unit replaced by Colorfly or the vendor you bought it from if the Class 10 doesn't work out. I'd do that first before labeling the entire product line defective. Could just be your unit (which I would think would be the case lol.)

A difference would not mean a defect but noticeably worse is not good. I haven't checked lately because this stuff can make you crazy but your Samsung card may sound very slightly different as well. Unfortunately, probably not enough and the basic character of the card slot will remain. None of this should make a difference once you're fast enough which your cards are so this is the devil's subjective playground.  Another issue is that I would wager that the measurements from the card slot are identical to the internal memory so I wouldn't call it defective but instead, a trait.

Thing is goodvibes I don't notice any difference between the Studio V internal and external other than the few quirks they have (lagging issues when moving fast inside the external memory while playing audio).

Each device is different and if you got super critical, you may. If the difference is in the too subtle to matter noise floor, it's good. If it happens to be more significant it doesn't mean defect. If it's playing without issue, there's not much that can be defective. Altmann talks about card read noise issues when designing his Tera. Don't know is it's a big deal or not but he went to some length over it. http://www.altmann.haan.de/tera_player/default.htm

Edited by goodvibes - 12/7/12 at 4:51am

Interesting that the card in his picture is only a Class 2.