The New iRiver AK100: A High-End DAP - Page 123

A side question was: what is he Red Wine Audio version, does it differ significantly and improve on the stock?

Yes as has been reported here in this thread probably a few pages back now.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd still pick the RWAK100 version and gladly pay the price. My #2 choice would be the DX100. i.e. the stock AK100 wouldn't be in my shopping list.

Admittedly the 22ohm issue is overblown in this thread by quite a few non-listeners, but their complaints aren't completely unfounded either. In the end for -my- use (primarily easy to drive IEMs and headphones) the AK100 wouldn't fit in my audio environment.

What concerns me about the resistor is that it most likely was placed in the circuit as a load that the output circuit would see if a short were created, which would preserve the circuit. Opamps often have protection for this but this discrete circuit would not, as it is parts and has to be built into the system. So if someone accidentally shorts the headphone output without the resistor, the circuit will see a direct path to ground with no resistance and it will burn out part of the circuit. A thermistor could also do this as it has very little resistance until a certain amount of current is drawn across it but it would, since directly in the signal path, most likely degrade the sound some.

What issues are you having with the Studio V? Give me good detail on exactly the issues you are having with it? I really don't have any major issues with my unit at all. There are a few quirks but its actually a very easy unit to use.

Do all you owners find the DAP to be sluggish in its responsiveness?  I'm reading the pc mag's review of the ak100 and that was something that they found.  I'm wondering if its an early firmware thing or if its still something that's going on with the player.

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2413076,00.asp

I feel this way. That is why I said I don't feel the UI is faster in accessing music over my former DX100 via playlists. The DX100 was more in line with Apples fluidity, especially after rooting my device... But its not so slow where I get really angry. Just I expected it to be more snappy than what it is... Example: when selecting a folder it will take about 2 seconds to open that folder up. Maybe 1.5 seconds. Opposed to the DX100 opening it up immediately. But using the DX100 via other methods may be slightly slower than even the AK100. I wouldn't know so much since I refused to use the slower methods to begin with ;).

Edited by lee730 - 1/14/13 at 12:19am

I'd have honestly sold it anyways Exaptin. The Studio V pretty much set that in motion recently. But I was hoping the RWA AK100 would be an upgrade in respects to what I already have. I'm still not sure if that is the case and to be quite frank it's irritating me lol. But I'll still give the unit more time....

Hey let's meet & you can compare the DX100 side by side to the RWAK100. Also got new IEMs that I'm "giri-giri" about so need your thoughts. Planning on meeting GKanai later this week if he's free. Can U come out or are you on babysitting duty?

So here's the result of my investigation of the AK100 playlists and it ain't pretty:

 

- though the extension is .pls, they are NOT actual standard-compliant PLS files, as a matter when I dropped in a standard one generated by Clementine and hand-edited to use the AK100's correct paths, it showed all the meta-info in the file as garbage and the actual items didn't work either. Before anyone thinks Clementine didn't generate a correct file, I looked up the syntax and checked it when hand-editing the file.

 

- so what are they? Basically a text file containing a list of file locations (that you can rename to something more descriptive than Playlist1 etc.), and NOTHING else. Example:

 

/mnt/SD0/Pop/Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can - 2010/03 - Rambling Man.flac
/mnt/SD0/Pop/Shea Seger - Shea Seger - 2010/07 - Used To.mp3
/nand3/Music/Pop/Melody Gardot - The Absence - 2012/08 - Goodbye.flac
/mnt/SD1/Classical/Michael Stern and Kansas City Symphony - Britten's Orchestra - 2009/01 - The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.flac
/mnt/SD1/Jazz/Bill Evans Trio - Waltz For Debby - 1961/01 - My Foolish Heart.flac

 

The part in bold points to the respective storage area (SD0 = SD1 in the UI = bottom slot; SD1 = SD2 in the UI = top slot; nand3/Music/ = default internal path) Everything else depends ON YOU, so no tagging software or script is going to know automatically which one of the three to pick. And exported .m3u lists actually include the path to your computer's folder/file hierarchy. Again, it's very difficult for a software to know where the cutoff point for path replacement is depending on how deep the folders are nested... And on top of that, at least in my case, sometimes my song/album names do not always correspond to the actual filenames due to naming conventions and filesystem compliance (special characters etc.)

 

Also, one file I generated on the Mac with the correct text didn't work anyway. I assume it's the text encoding, I ended up copy-pasta-ing it into an existing AK100 file and then it was OK.

 

So the takeaway is:

- You might as well type, copy & paste your playlist into an empty .pls file using any text editor (you can open m3u files as well, even if not by the default file association).

- Or just recreate them on the AK100 itself, and rename & re-arrange them in the text-editor as needed.

 

This sucks of course for large playlists, but really that's what databases are for, to remove dependencies on file location esp. using absolute paths... Otherwise you would need to use a music management software that knows 1) where the files are on your computer 2) which of the 3 locations on the AK100 you dragged them to, then generate a matching playlist. Maybe the iRiver 4 software does that, but other generic ones will have trouble since they usually expect only 1 DAP storage location at best. I have a new appreciation for iTunes (at least on the Mac), warts and all... 

Edited by TheGrumpyOldMan - 1/14/13 at 2:02am

What are these new IEMs AnakChan ;).

Man I knew this was gonna be complicating but jeez lol. I have everything synced to the folder via m3u files. So I'd have to convert those files to PLS then change the paths and that should do the trick? Hmm...

 

Also is the unit noticeably more responsive when accessing your music via playlists? This has always been the case with my other DAPs including the DX100.

Quote:

More or less, but you'd also have to edit out all the extra code that a "real" standard-compliant .pls includes...

 

The playlists I tried so far are too small to have much of an impact, but I think access through the database generated by the "Library Scan" should be as fast at least since all the info is accessible in one compact file...

he

Yes, it is laggy, but it is the kind of lag you can generally live with.   It is much better than the ui issues for instance with hifiman or my android phone.   So it is a step up from many hifiman products but it clearly is not up to par with ui on apple products.

 

I imagine that they will be able to simplify the management of the database, and this would likely reduce some of the lag since much of it is is related to moving through the database.