[sirloyne]

My apologies to all. While I may be premature about this, I have hopefully found what may have been causing the ID3 tagging errors. I loaded the whole music folder on my SD card with MP3Tag and found that some of them had something under "Composer". I cleared out this category and did a complete scan (again) and the tagging seems to be fixed. Before, under Genres, I would have things like "Roc" and "Rock", Industria" and Industrial", "Trip-Ho" and "Trip-Hop". For all the ones missing the last letter, the Artist and Song Title would also display missing the last letter as well while playing. Hopefully the problem is cured. I'm normally a tagging nazi, so it was driving me nuts. Now I have to go through the 2 HDD's (internal and external) and fix it all. I usually use Tag&Rename and Easy CD-DA Extractor for ripping and tagging. Sorry if I came off short.

 

[olddude]

  I'm with you on this one. I can defiantly hear the difference my ipod (worst) both Cowon players (better) and the DX50 (best). I just can't hear the difference between flacs and MP3's.
 
By the way, I don't know if it will work with flacs, but with MP3's I can just put the album cover in the same folder as the songs (I use JPEGs), and name it "cover" (w/o the quotes) (and I think "folder" works also). You can free up tons of space by not embedding the artwork in every single song. Yet another reason I have nothing but contempt for the ipod.

I don't know if that works w/DX50.  It doesn't seem to like much in a music folder besides music.  I rip albums using a "Mac" and a program that works on a "Mac" called XLD.  I get a window with all of the songs listed (or need to "get metadata" which will give me all of the songs and, sometimes, album art- if no art appears I can Google Images the album, pull off album art, and place it in the main window), and I can edit metadata there as well.  Then I let it do its thing and I have complete FLAC files with tags and art embedded.   Again, space is not an issue to me. If I need more, I can simply use a second sd card.  
 
As for iPods, I've never used them (my wife has three), but the music player function of iTunes and the iPod-like player in my iPhones allows me to make all sorts of folders and playlists.  That I found very nice, especially as the playlists had no size.  With the DX50, if I make a playlist, it seems that gapless won't work with it, and if I pull out the sd card and then reinsert it, the playlist goes away.  I end up making compilation folders that work the same, but have size as they are actual files.  
 
The main thing I miss is that I had an app called DJay that worked over the music player in the iPhone (and, I assume, in an iPod) that would do cross-fading.  I love cross-fades.  With the DX50, I'd like cross-fades, album-to-album play, and balanced sound so that all albums played at the same level.  Not a big wish list.  My iPhone would do two of those things.    

 

[sirloyne]

  I don't know if that works w/DX50.  It doesn't seem to like much in a music folder besides music.

I'm talking about with the DX50. I think I read somewhere that with flacs the artwork needs to be embedded, but I'm not sure if I'm right about that. With MP'3's the artwork can be in the folder with the songs. Just something people might want to try, to maybe save some space.
 
I'm a PC... and Windows 7 was absolutely NOT my idea, and nor was 8 for that matter. I still run XP. I use Easy CD-DA Extractor to rip. I'm using version 15.2. After that they made some horrible UI changes that kept me from changing. It uses Freedb and MusicBrainz to look up the tagging.

 

[CoiL]

if I pull out the sd card and then reinsert it, the playlist goes away

Interesting. My DX50 doesn`t behave like this. Playlists are nicely still there. Even if I add something new or do rescan library but don`t change playlist folder/files location.
 
About FLAC artwork, if You move files/folders around, then it needs to be embedded into files. It`s easy with EAC+FLACcmd. But carring cover.jpg within folder should also work. Will test it later.
When I used mp3tag to embed artwork it did it (without having cover.jpg inside folder) but as soon as I moved folder to another place on card, it was gone. Now I use only EAC+ Flac frontend while ripping to flac.

 

[karloil]

  Try Sound Unlocked 1.3.3 @ FLAC mode and You will be probably even more surprised
For me most of those sound explosion FW`s sounded artificial. I also tried other custom FW`s & rockbox but so far SU has the cleanest and accurate sound. 
 
Also, after some testing I found that with my Fidelio X1 I prefer different setting than with my external amped speakers.
X1 (head-out) -->  FLAC-only + IRR OFF + CPU default + mid gain
Speakers (line-out) --> FLAC-only + IRR ON + CPU 312kHz
 
With X1 settings speakers soundstage felt littlebit too distant and thus not so clear instruments separation/positioning.
Differences are small though but for my ears noticeable. And I have quite cheap modified speakers system also so it is probably because of that sound reproduction "quality".

 
i just installed SU 1.3.3, but i'm quite lost as to where i can select other settings you mentioned like irr and cpu speed change. could point me to the right direction?

 

[CoiL]

To access All formats / Lossless / FLAC only / IRR Bandwidth / CPU performance menu You must set DX50 to LOCK and shut it down and boot back up with LOCK still ON. Actually it works with just switching LOCK ON before turning DX50 on also. No need to put lock ON inside UI and reboot.
When You have chosen Your options then just turn LOCK to OFF and it will resume into UI. Which mode to use is up to You to test and depends on Your setup, taste, music, cans etc.
but I recommend to start with IRR off + DF Slow roll-off + FLAC only mode and put Your DX50 to mid-gain (turn down vol first).

Quote:

1) FLAC-only + irr OFF + CPU performance default --- more depth towards front/middle and vocals for example more out of headstage.
    More airy soundstage/imaging and more dynamics.
 
2) FLAC-only + irr ON + CPU 312kHz --- closer, more intimate and clearer imaging with little more separation in width.

 

[karloil]

^got it! thanks a lot!

 

[karloil]

WOW! that "hidden" menu did a lot to improve the SQ!!!

 

[olddude]

  Interesting. My DX50 doesn`t behave like this. Playlists are nicely still there. Even if I add something new or do rescan library but don`t change playlist folder/files location.
 
 
 

If you have power OFF, it's fine.  But if the card is out and then you re-power, or power is on when you remove it, Playlist is lost.  I often remove the card to add things using a card reader.  If I leave power ON, ooops, no Playlist.  We can call it user error, but Playlists are not as secure as with iTunes/iDevices, when the actual list is exclusive of the device.

 

[CoiL]

or power is on when you remove it, Playlist is lost. 

No, at least my DX50 doesn`t do that I remove it all the time while power is ON to add new stuff with card reader.

But if the card is out and then you re-power, 

Haven`t tried this. Will try and report back.
 
EDIT: Just tried and playlists are still there and working fine even after reboot with card out! 
 
And just tried again, to be sure, removed card while DX50 is ON, added some music from PC, didn`t touch playlist involving files/folders, put it back while DX50 is ON,
did media scan and Playlists were still there and working fine. New music was added with all the album art and tags and plays nicely.
 
For the record - I`m using Sound Unlocked 1.3.3
 
EDIT2: Even after I rearranged some folders and deleted some, playlist is still there and plays files that were untouched. But that was with USB cable not removed card.
Just happened to do like that and sharing info

 

[BigDave]

I have recently purchased a dx50 w/brainwavz r3 and look forward to having more input on this thread.  I have previously been using a clip+ and a cowon d20 and feel that they are not powering my headphones to their full capability.  Looking forward to putting in my 2 cents and continuing to read the ongoing saga of this dap!

 

[WeirdG]

Bought some VSonic GR07 Classic IEMs today from LMUE today, since they discounted everything by 18%.  Kinda wish I didn't jump the gun on the VSD1S a few weeks ago.  I'm hoping the GR07 will work well with the DX50.  The VSD1S sounded great, so I'm expecting the GR07 to sound even better.

 

[gmahler2u]

Hi.
 
I have a question for everyone.  Where can I get the 1.5 FW....looks like Ibasso.com is down..
 
Thanks

 

[olddude]

Every month they seem to lose their site for a few days.  Try again in a few days.  Otherwise, I guess you could use the Sound Unlocked FW and keep it on stock.  
 
I keep the original download .zip of 1.5.0 on my HD for when I want to reinstall it.  Saves the aggravation of going to iBasso and they are off-line again.

 

[CoiL]

  ...Sound Unlocked FW and keep it on stock. 

SU "stock" (All formats) is not same as original 1.5.0 FW as medmitry explained in previous page. But it`s better