h20fidelity said:

My portable amplifier owns both your players. 80 HOURS lol
Just sayin!

Click to expand...

But how long does the transport/source last ?? Having an amp alone that lasts that long plays no music.

He can listen to the background noise from the amp .
 

anakchan said:

But how long does the transport/source last ?? Having an amp alone that lasts that long plays no music.

Click to expand...

8 hours. But still, charging one device is better than two.

Quote:

gloryuprising said:

battery battery battery battery battery expandable.storage battery battery battery
 
Think 18 hour flights+ and you'll see why the DX100 is a no go.  I would consider the DX100 if it charged via USB (thus allowing the USB battery pack).  But comon' round pin charger; really?  What is this, the 90s?

Click to expand...

Or maybe the manufacture struck a good deal on cheap surplus of chargers and that helped to save costs.

Quote:

anakchan said:

Thx for your responses guys. I think the rest of you have pretty much summed it up. I don't see how moving to the RWAK100 is a loss for my use. I've had this player run since 9:30 am to now 1:40 pm with a 30 min break when I was at the Musica Acoustics office & the battery bar hasn't dropped. There's a GUI & is fast to use. I can put my FLAC files natively, & best of all, I don't sacrifice SQ.

My take is, dwelling on the negativity of iRiver & AK100 isn't healthy. There is no benefit to talking what it could have been. It is what it is.

Click to expand...

 
I think branding a player with something sounding more like that of a fashion or jewellery company was really asking for it, but then I'm a cynical person (which just makes pleasant surprises all the greater). 
 
/troll

currawong said:

I think branding a player with something sounding more like that of a fashion or jewellery company was really asking for it, but then I'm a cynical person (which just makes pleasant surprises all the greater). :wink_face:

/troll

Click to expand...

Mate, maybe I should Swarovski-rise my RWAK100. Afterall, it's only in Japan a grown man can get away with it (with my tight pink Versace jeans & yellow Y3 shirt).

Match the looks to the SQ .

lol roar...

Quote:

anakchan said:

Mate, maybe I should Swarovski-rise my RWAK100. Afterall, it's only in Japan a grown man can get away with it (with my tight pink Versace jeans & yellow Y3 shirt).
Match the looks to the SQ .

Click to expand...

Are we playing dress-up Barbie and Ken now for DAPs? I thought that was more in relations to heaphones/IEMs with detachable cables

Your Studio V may have better battery life, but it also has sharp corners capable of piercing a scrotum. J3 FTW!
 

Quote:

doublea71 said:

Your Studio V may have better battery life, but it also has sharp corners capable of piercing a scrotum. J3 FTW!
 

Click to expand...

The sound quality it possesses is also capable of that . Gives the little-guys rhythm.

So here are some of my practical AK100 Notes, tried to organize them somewhat, but I'm sure there will be a bunch of edits & updates:

Build & presentation:

- Yes, it is physically that small, heavy & solid
- But alas the volume knob at least on mine is a bit wobbly
- The screen: resolution, color & viewing angle meh, not any better than 6-year old iPod Classic (not identical though, very slightly smaller) (for a $700 product... does the touch functionality add that much to the cost?)
 

 
General Notes:

- While I think it's OK to not include cheapo-to-average earbuds since most customers will have their own specific choice, not including a USB charger at a $700 pricepoint is pretty sad, I wouldn't want to have to leave my computer turned on for hours just to charge any device. And one like the B&N nook adapter I scrounged is small and stylish enough not to cramp their fancy packaging style...
 


- Booting is rather slow for something entirely flash-based and single-purpose...
 
- The "Lock" function for the volume knob is deeply buried, not well explained: when activated, volume will only be locked if the screen is turned off! (via Power button) And it's almost impossible not to change the volume accidentally when squeezing the player to change tracks etc. since they put the tiny, hard-to-press Forward/Back/Play buttons right opposite the volume knob...
=> iRiver should make the lock faster to access, and explain it more clearly in the manual
 
- The equalizer UI is one of the highlights, but incomplete, to reset you have to either draw a very straight line OR go one level deeper to find a reset button. More importantly, there are no standard presets and worse, no custom presets that can be save to use depending on the headphones plugged in.
=> iRiver should add saveable presets (and an easy reset  button on the the same screen as the equalizer itself)
 
- Good news: generally I have not come across show-stopping bugs and only very rare crashes...
 
- Sound Quality: since pretty much the rest of this thread is mostly about that, I won't dwell on it in this post... Suffice to say, I have the unmodified one and I'm happy with it as is. With full-size cans it works very well compared to my other (desktop) gear, considering the size and battery life, with no distortion up to max. volume. (Ex.: LCD3, PSB M4U 2 with active amplification/noise cancellation turned off etc.) I particularly enjoy the TH900 with it (not that I'd take that one out and about) and despite the 22ohm specter, my Shure 535s don't sound worse than with any other option I've tried so far, and actually between the first time there's no hiss and the rather finely adjustable EQ, it's the best I have heard them so far. IMHO and all that.
 
- No gapless playback, on a $700 "high-end" device, 3 words, one acronym: What?!? Classical music, live concerts, concept albums.... hello?
=> iRiver HAS to add gapless playback to this supposed "High-End" device
 
- Haven't check support for Replay Gain yet, don't use it much but there are some mixed playlists that would benefit from it...
 
Transfers:
 
Using Macbook Pro, informal real-world measurement via Disk Activity Monitor and reported copy times by the Finder:
- USB2 to internal: ~6-6.5 MB/s avg., speed baseline, can't be circumvented
- USB2 to Sandisk Ultra (XC1) in AK100: ~4 MB/s avg. at best -> 21GB transfer est. about 1.5 hours.. bleh
- ExpressCard (= PCI bus for laptops) Reader to same Sandisk Ultra (XC1): ~8-8.5 MB/s avg. -> 21GB transfer est. 40 minutes, even with ~11MB/s bursts
In short if you plan to fill up everything, get started early: fill a 64GB card with fastest option: ~2 hours, x2: 4 hours, internal 32GB full ~1 hour: TOTAL: ~5 hours...

Using the optical IN:
 
Here are the default messages:

After choosing optical audio input:

 
- And the above is plain wrong, since pressing any other key (play/pause) will override it anyway, starting playback from the AK rather than Opt IN while the screen is still displayed, i.e. you can't see anything or use the touch interface anyway. And you can't get back to "Optical In" mode either...
 
- Volume IS adjustable but ONLY IF display is ON -> you have tap the power button once to see the above screen, then adjust volume with knob
=> iRiver should actually lock the controls other than volume while the optical IN is active!
 
- Seemed like it crashed once in the middle of playing a song through optical in, the second time around though, I was right on it, and actually saw it shut down!
In other words, using the optical in makes the AK100 think it's idle and it powers down accordingly after the set time
Of course, if you disable it for home use, you'll have to remember to re-enable it for portable use lest you end up with the battery drained in record time...
=> BUG: iRiver should have the Auto-Power Off DISABLED while the Optical In is detected and in use!
 
Overall, it performed very well, surpassing the FiiO E17 I used on the go, and not the least because it also does double-duty as a self-contained player!

Using the optical OUT:

- Potential TOSlink cable quality issues when playing back very high-def files (above 96/24, the usual limit for optical) Depends on DAC: the Fiio E17 has enough jitter correction to decode 192/24 without a hitch, but the zero-tolerance Yulong Sabre D18 not so much... (same cable)
 


File formats:

- Only tested FLAC since that's my whole point of using the AK100. As I feared, incompatibilities happen! I tested the FLAC files on my Macbook before transferring them, using VLC, a generic media player, Clementine, a dedicated cross-platform music management software and Kid3, an advanced tag editor and all 3 checked all files out OK, art & tags and all...
 
- BUT on the AK100: Lots of "0" and "1" albums, actual album name is disregarded, all mixed together... it took quite a bit of experimentation to try and make some rhyme or reason of that behaviour...
=> Resolved most (~90%) of the album name issues after trying various encodings and forcing conversions to use Western (ISO-8859-1 / Latin 1), NOT UTF-8 or any other OS-specific encoding! The remaining ones are compilation albums, so it look like it disregards the Album Name for some reason?
 
- UPDATE: Thanks to AnakChan: the issue with compilation albums is actually the Compilation Tag itself: remove it and the albums will no longer show up as "1"! Why not just ignore it in the first place if you can't handle it ?!

- All files, incl. straight from HD Tracks (no conversion of mine): the AK100 does not recognize "Album Artist", instead uses first artist name off first track?
 
- Sometimes cover artwork is not displayed... not sure why most conversions are OK and some aren't, but re-embedding them in the FLAC files helped... UPDATE: the size shouldn't be too large (600x600px is OK), .png files can be tricky, .png with alpha channel (ie. transparency) even if not used will fail.
=> iRiver should really work on a more robust FLAC implementation, since it's the format they tout themselves, and for example Album Artist is NOT an exotic tag!
 
- Also, the blurred-out, cut-off cover art/ background is not such a great idea. I understand the idea behind it, but the darkening would be enough for the UI overlay, and even with the loRes screen, the covers could definitely look nicer...
=> it would nice if iRiver had an option to toggle between the current cover style and displaying the full cover in pixel-sharp res, with black bars on the side or their default BG filling in...
 
- Speaking of HD Tracks, the site: I took their new Downloader for a spin by filling in some jazz gaps (Kenny Burrell's Mignight Blue & John Coltrane's Blue Train). It's a bit better but still fails on the most basic level (pause/stop individual track downloads, esp. if you have to restart after a failure and already downloaded a GB or 2... grrr. Anyway, I chose ALAC as the default delivery format and the good news is that both were transcoded perfectly to FLAC and showed up on the AK100 without a hitch.
 
- The "info" tab in the play menu only displays limited information, but since there's already a working touch/scroll interface, there's no reason to not show ALL the info, incl. bit depth, album name, notes etc.!
=> It would be nice if iRiver updated the info tab to include ALL the info for a given file!

Playlists:

- Extremely basic: .pls files in Playlists folder on internal drive. Can't even name them on the device, but at least you can rename them to something more useful via your computer. Individual tracks can be erased on the AK100, but not rearranged... that I could figure out. And yes, I RTFMed, not much help either. Once again, editing the file on your computer seems to be the most flexible way.

- Format: one sound file's absolute path per line, card name ignored, starting with:
/nand3/Music/your_folder/your_subfolder/your_audiofile.ext FOR INTERNAL
/mnt/SD0/your_folder/your_subfolder/your_audiofile.ext FOR SD1 (bottom)
/mnt/SD1/your_folder/your_subfolder/your_audiofile.ext FOR SD2 (top)

As a consequence, the usage is very limited at this time:
- Playlists will be a PITA, even if you're not using iTunes (which exports in almost everything but .pls), you won't be able to drag & drop them over because of the absolute path! At the very least, you'll need to open it in an editor and do a find & replace, or better, write a script to automate it. Assuming that you'll use the same folder structure on the AK100's drives than on your own computer (Mac or PC)!
- Don't mix up your cards' slots or playlists get broken!
- Maybe use iRiver's Plus4 software? (PC only, but frankly if my past experience is anything to go by, I wouldn't get my hopes up)
 
- Speaking of which, here's the System folder structure on the internal drive, apart from the "Playlists" & "Music" folder:
 

The AK100.SYS is plain text, contains the following:
[AK100]
version = 1.20
language = eng
mode = UM
tuner = NO
space = 32G
DRM = 0
DMB = 0
 
Don't know what or why tuner is there or what DMB is for. Even though there is no "tuner", if you delete the Tuner.dat, it will be auto-generated anyway.
More useful: in case of problems, delete both ak100SyncDB.db3 and AlbumArt.dat to clear out everything, then do a manual or automatic Library Scan to rebuilt things form a clean slate.

Conclusion:

- Everything UI & file handling is average asian consumer device, a "release candidate" level firmware that at least provides stable media playback and a bare-bones usable UI to access media (kudos for the EQ implementation though, once you get the hang of it...). This would be OK for an average-to-mid level consumer device, but not for a seven . hundred . dollar supposed state-of-the-art DAP!!! Audiophile claims aside (as hotly debated in this thread) I felt like this, apart from the touchscreen and quality build (volume knob notwithstanding), is not a $700 experience I'm sorry to say.
 
There is no reason a consumer-priced device couldn't have 2 mSD slots and playback higher-bitrate formats (the Fiio X3 will be an interesting comparison, coming in at a much lower price) For comparison, $700 gets you a nice new iPad 4, which can playback HD audio though the USB adapter, offers are far superior UI and can do so much more... or any number of Android tablets for that matter (not sure about the HD Audio playback)
 
- The good news is that the hardware is solid (well, at least from my usage) and the firmware CAN be updated... but boy, do they have their work cut out to justify the price tag. I don't regret the purchase in that I got a device that finally is not just a solid-state replacement but actually an improvement in some ways over my iPod Classic. While I appreciate the pluses like solid performance (to my ears), not requiring a double or triple-deck brick (unless it's an expensive one, not E17 grade, as good a value for the money as it is), or doing triple duty as a player, a digital HD source and mobile external DAC, the minuses at this point do not seem to justify the lofty price to me. I consider it a long-time investment though, so with some firmware updates (incl. native ALAC support) I'm confident it will be an OK ROI.
 
Bonus:
 
Since you made it this far, here's a bonus if you are an old-school "album browser" like me, who doesn't like 5 separate album demo tracks littering your drive but rather a single one. Especially if you have one or more of the tracks in a separate album already anyway... (In my case, the excellent Amber Rubarth album, which I bought in 24/96, which is OK with me since I could not hear ANY difference in any of my setups compared to the included 24/192 version)
 
So without further ado, a 600x600 custom cover for the AK100 sampler, pulled together in Photoshop from a various sources, fittingly in lossless .png format (if Head-Fi will let me...)

wow that was a great read - first decent review of the standard model and its usability.
 
I tend to agree on the value aspect - i still want one but i do have this nagging doubt that half the value is "audiophile tax" and its just not worth it. With that in mind however i still spent more on IE800's and I look at those tiny things in my hand and cant believe what i paid for them
 
thanks for the review

Quote:

hedphonz said:

wow that was a great read - first decent review of the standard model and its usability.
 
I tend to agree on the value aspect - i still want one but i do have this nagging doubt that half the value is "audiophile tax" and its just not worth it. With that in mind however i still spent more on IE800's and I look at those tiny things in my hand and cant believe what i paid for them
 
thanks for the review

Click to expand...

 
That just means "it's only a matter of time!"

@TGOM, good report on the other aspects of the AK100. Whilst I'm not saying what you're reported is incorrect, I'd just like to state it depends on where you're coming from.
 
Judging by your thoughts there, you better stay away from the DX100 and the HM-901 . The DX100 backing is a thin sheet of aluminium and nothing really to enforce it - so it dents. The DX100 UI is slow, and even after booting up you'll have to wait a few good minutes for Media Scanner to re-index. I leave my DX100 on, so I don't have to worry about the Media Scanner (unless I add/delete songs, or eject and insert the microSD) - the DX100 is $829. As for the HM-901, fair enough the one I played with was an October prototype - and it was plasticky. Didn't reflect a $1000 device (or $1200 in Japan - with no amp).
 
Seems all these high end players (maybe the Tera Player is the only exception - there's no LCD to shatter), have build issues.
 
The iDevices, Sonys, and Cowons seem to be better built. Whilst the Sony NW-Z (don't know about the NW-F's) skins do peel after time, at least they're only $400 devices.
 
Actually of all the devices I've owned I hate to say it but it's the iDevices that's the most consistent, dependable, and durable for use. I've not had any problems with album artwork, synchronisation is mostly clockwork and think-free with iTunes, and they're pretty durable. I still have my old iPod Photo after 7 years?

Wow Grumpy, Well Done!
 
The X3 has me not getting a $700+ DAPs right now though the ak100 really intrigues me. It will need to be better than that e17 but could be. I may just hang with my 3rd Anv. and LOD setups for a bit. While I have found 192 better than 96 on the right home setup, I didn't for a long time even though they were always a bit different for me. I think the A2Ds or encoding methods may be improving. I just don't think it's that big a deal for portable use with all the other compromises involved. With enough space, I may just play WAV 24/48 and call it a day.