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chrissc said:

@ newbi: cool, glad to hear that the arrow was able to fix some probs for you with the ak100. It could have to do with differences in the impedance between the rwak100 and the ak100, but aside from providing a higher volume ceiling, I just didn't get much out of using the rwak100 with the arrow.. I'm still searching for an amp to pair with it to make my earphones more "alive" (terrible word choice, but I'm drawing at straws right now trying to come up with an acurate description)

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FWIW, I have an Arrow 4G, and after using it quite a bit w/ my RWAK100, my impression matches yours.  I'm not getting an appreciable improvement using the Arrow instead of the RWAK100 hp out.  Soooo, a few hours ago I ordered a Rx MK3-B...  $670USD shipped.  I hate head-fi right now...and I still want to get either an "upgrade" for IEMs (universal only..refuse to do CIEM) or fullsize cans..maybe both.  :sigh:

feverfive said:

(universal only..refuse to do CIEM)

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Just curious, why do you refuse to get CIEMs?

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lee730 said:

The T1 amp did that for me Chris . Still I really found it to be a letdown as I didn't want to use an amp to bring the unit up to snuff. In ClieOS review he had mentioned something about the T1 maintaining very good power even to low impedance IEMs which could also be a factor in its praise?

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Lee, how Tralucent T1 pairs with rwak100 sonically? thanks

For me it really opened up the sound staging, brought more focus to the sound. In that better separation in which the sound isn't so closed in which was a quality of the RWA AK100 I didn't like. Bass was also improved, more controlled.
 

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feverfive said:

^^That's the same reason I decided against the International; have no need for it's DAC & feel like I'm basically paying for a National w/ a DAC stuffed into the box (I know..it's not quite THAT).  I like the features of the MK3, and like I said, it seems it's a piece of gear that seems to meet my planned future needs as well.  Hell, maybe by then I'll even go balanced headphones too.

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hi guys..just want to share my thoughts in regards to The National, The International and Rx mk3. I have tried 3 of those paired with my ak100 stock.
 
The National and International actually shares the same character. SQ wise they are both similar. They are mellow in sound, smooth, warm and has a good kick at the low end. It sounds a bit dark, but very easy to catch up all the detail in music. Sound staging is just okay, but can deliver a good depth feeling to it. Aside from its functionality (dac/balance out), International is indeed has more gain/power to drive a more power hungry cans. The National is fine, but i just feel like National is better for the use of my iems rather my cans. But it does not mean they sound horrible when driving full size cans, they do capable and the sound is good...but maybe with a lesser body to it (i feel so) compared to International. When i refer to ak100...i still prefer International..not only because of more capable in gain..but also the size is meant to match with the size of ak100. They just a perfect coupled. It makes me think that Alo intentionally designed International to pair with AK100.
 
The RxMK3 is different. It has a strong dynamic character. Very good at faster pace music. Music with a lot of beat sounds very good using this amp. Compared to both (National+International), RxMK3 is more crisp, more detail, good texture and able to bring a more lively sound, more musical. Sound staging is also better on MK3. The sound seems like wider or bigger. The bass of MK3 is cleaner with more punch at low end. I would say overall SQ maybe Mk3 has an edge from National and International, but at the end, it will depend to your personal preference. For my self...my main music taste is JAZZ or easy listening genres. Most of the song i listen are with moderate pace. In this case, i prefer the sound from International, just because i think it suits better for my music, it is more relaxing to my ear.
 
Regarding about the balance out, actually most of my headphones and iems come with single ended jack. And some of them i made a DIY balance jack. I did ab-ing between balance out and single out...to my ears not much different. Almost just the same. But if you listen carefully, especially in the very quite room, they are different. Using the balance out, the sound is a tad cleaner, and also a tad more wider in sound. But personally, i does not really matter for me which one should i use. They just about the same.

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lee730 said:

For me it really opened up the sound staging, brought more focus to the sound. In that better separation in which the sound isn't so closed in which was a quality of the RWA AK100 I didn't like. Bass was also improved, more controlled.
 

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G THX, i am considering between T1 and UHA6MkII with dac.

Well, I had to put the RWAK100 up for sale. It's been talked about by others members in this thread but this is due to my reliance on iTunes for new playlists and syncing.
 
getting music onto the RWAK100 is easy enough, just drag and drop from the itunes window. But creating playlists - which I use a lot - is not something the iriver software does to my satisfaction. I was really hoping I'd be able to make the RWAK100 work with my habits but it's too much of a break. I'm a big playlist guy. I still like full albums, but I don't listen to them exclusively.
 
so, anyone looking for a like-new RWAK100 can send me a PM. I'm also looking for a potential cash and trade deal for a pico slim or headstage arrow to use with my iPods.
 
The funny thing about this for me is I am going to sacrifice simplicity in hardware for simplicity in software. one trade-off for another. I will be getting a small portable amp that will hopefully improve some of the sound characteristics of the ipods I have.  so I'll be carrying around a larger brick in order to keep using the Apple software. 

chrissc said:

It's funny, I love my iPhone but really think it set back the portable audiophile movement back about 5 yrs. The problem with them is that the GUI is just so damn good, but clearly music quality took a backseat, and so now we're all searching for a portable music player with excellent GUI and sq, because we know its possible, yet realistically so far from reach. Lets face it: all the top DAPs today are flawed in some way or another. Now I'm just trying to find an amp with a similar footprint to hold me over till a truly excellent player comes around...

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The gui on an ipod is not great, it's just that everyone has used one at one point in their life so they are very familiar with it.
Familiarity can cause you to deem something as good when it may not necessarily be. There was some study about this exact type of thing which was quite interesting.
I can't remember where though, we had to cover it in school. The gist was that whatever you learn on you will prefer even if its worse than the possible alternative.
So if you have had an ipod since you where 15 like alot of people, then switching to a completely different device will almost always seem worse just because its different.

If that's the case then Blackberry and RIM forever! Uh no.

I have been switching from windows phone to blackberries, to ios and to android, and you know what? I found android to have the best ui among all those, with blackberries being dead last

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lcfiner said:

Well, I had to put the RWAK100 up for sale. It's been talked about by others members in this thread but this is due to my reliance on iTunes for new playlists and syncing.
 
getting music onto the RWAK100 is easy enough, just drag and drop from the itunes window. But creating playlists - which I use a lot - is not something the iriver software does to my satisfaction. I was really hoping I'd be able to make the RWAK100 work with my habits but it's too much of a break. I'm a big playlist guy. I still like full albums, but I don't listen to them exclusively.
 
so, anyone looking for a like-new RWAK100 can send me a PM. I'm also looking for a potential cash and trade deal for a pico slim or headstage arrow to use with my iPods.
 
The funny thing about this for me is I am going to sacrifice simplicity in hardware for simplicity in software. one trade-off for another. I will be getting a small portable amp that will hopefully improve some of the sound characteristics of the ipods I have.  so I'll be carrying around a larger brick in order to keep using the Apple software. 

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I do get what you're saying...  I said somewhere else that I am an admitted, kinda-sorta Apple fanboy.  Until I got the RWAK100, I totally shied away from other DAPs (been using a Classic since not long after release, as well as 1st 2 generations of iPod Touch + iPhones up through 5)...but for me it was about lack of ALAC support on non-Apple devices more, though UI had a lot to do w/ it as well.  If i hate the UI, I won't use it, period...  The RWAK100 involves some tradeoffs for me, but so far it's been a mostly good experience (I'm not much of a playlist guy, though).
 
I just got the Arrow 4G delivered a couple days ago, and will probably sell it.  I obviously don't need an AK100, so a cash + trade doesn't work for me, but keep an eye out in the for sale forum in case you're still considering the Arrow in a week or so.

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gintaras said:

 
G THX, i am considering between T1 and UHA6MkII with dac.

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Not really comparing Apples to Apples (Hehehehe) T1 is an amp the UHA6MkII with dac is, well a DAC too. Do you mean you would use the T1 with 100's DAC or the UHA6MkII' dac, bypassing the 100's own DAC?

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kcee said:

The gui on an ipod is not great, it's just that everyone has used one at one point in their life so they are very familiar with it.
Familiarity can cause you to deem something as good when it may not necessarily be. There was some study about this exact type of thing which was quite interesting.
I can't remember where though, we had to cover it in school. The gist was that whatever you learn on you will prefer even if its worse than the possible alternative.
So if you have had an ipod since you where 15 like alot of people, then switching to a completely different device will almost always seem worse just because its different.

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IMO, the i~Devises' UI are the best, easiest, most bullet proof money can buy. Both for a smart phone and DAPs. PERIOD. Of course you are entitled to your opinion.
 
A little bit OT, I just bought my son and father new Windows based laptops. One w Windows 7 and the other Windows 8. I have been using computers since 1974, have had everything from an Intel 8080 to Intel 3.1 Hz quad core, processors. Have owned Dell, Alienware, bunch of other Windows based, and every type MAC since 2006.
 
Currently I use a MPB Retina, MB Air (sometimes), iMac (at work), Dell w W7 (son), HP w W8 (father).  W8 for a non-touch screen computer is a complete horror story and the 7 takes a full 3 minutes from entering the password to being able to use it (it is one week old and fairly decent specs). The oldest MBP from 2006, 2 gigs ram, 2.16 Mz processor took at the most 25 seconds to be ready. And the most time to boot a program was Adobe Elements which took about 15 seconds.
 
Longwinded and I apologize for that. In my experience Windows stinks and is antiquated. MAC is easy, the UI feels light and is plug and play for most software.
Look at the problems on the Audio~gd 11.32 thread here on HF. I am familiar with problems people are having because I read about it. I have never had any with it using my MACs.
 
Is there a Windows 12 step program, I still have to deal with them? 

saraguie said:

Not really comparing Apples to Apples (Hehehehe) T1 is an amp the UHA6MkII with dac is, well a DAC too. Do you mean you 
would use the T1 with 100's DAC or the UHA6MkII' dac, bypassing the 100's own DAC?

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you right, i plan use T1 as amp only or use 6mkII bypassing rwak dac... So question is sonically can leckerton dac best rwak dac because otherwise T1 might be a better choice. I heard superb reviews of T1 and similar great response on latest 6mkII. Price wise leckerton seems very interesting choice because of both amp and dac with optical in.

So I just dusted off my AK100 (v1.30), dumped most of my music on it & 2 mSD cards, ran a manual library scan, and get "There are no Albums", and no tracks, no artists, no genres etc. I manually wiped the database, tried again. Restarted the AK100. No dice. I have about ~6700 tracks on them, shouldn't really be that much of an issue. I can still use the folder navigation. Anybody else run into this, any suggestions?
 
This might just be the last straw. Constantly having to query forums to find solutions for non-working music lists, missing albums art, mangled album & track titles etc is getting reaaally tiring... Never mind the UI, this thing has a subpar music playback support in general, it fails in areas that some sub-$100 players don't. It fails compared to 6-year & older iPod hardware with less CPU horsepower & memory, which still manage to show more tracks, and show them correctly, and make it reasonably easy to browse them in various ways, than this piece.
 
Who cares about sound quality when you can't even get your music to show up & be browsable (no matter what format) without having to re-format, retag, resize files & artwork just to somehow make it work.
 
I'm tired of "audiophile" being an (expensive) excuse for a laughably bad user experience, not even including properly working playlists, no gapless playback (on a "high-end" player!), auto-shutdown during DAC use etc. None of which are apparently getting fixed after they grudgingly added basic ALAC/AAC support in the face of negative reviews etc. All of this might be acceptable if it was a cheap-to-midpriced device, not a ~$700 one (or -even more- if you want the hardware "fixed" for better IEM support)
 
The frustrating part is that the hardware, in terms of processing power, available touch-screen interface, and storage options, is perfectly capable but is completely let down by the firmware... like they got the initial device to kinda work with a select set of files and usage scenarios they had on hand, and that's the end of that for iRiver. The customers in the real world can figure out how to deal with the rest.</rant>