Been running it for 8 hours straight to burn in my new Vsonic VSD3S with no issues or intervention needed.

^ 4 hours listening so far with no hiccups

lurker0 said:

  So, when you notice sound difference in sound stage, how to tell what is the reason: less/more crosstalk on balanced outputs, or more/less crosstalk on unbalanced paths? In other words, is it a distortion or an improvement?
 
In everyday life, I don't care. I prefer to listen to music, not to hardware, firmware, formats...
 

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I agree with you 100%. I like listening to music and I like playing with all the DSP effects turning all "distortions" to my own likeliness at that very moment of mood.
 
Let's ditch all the recording/playback, ADC/DAC technical talks and think about live music performance:
 
1. I am singing on stage and my bass guitarist turn up the "spring reverb" effect on his guitar amp at the beginning of of chorus, would I care about the distortion?
 
2. I am invited to the London Royal Orchestra live performance and is offered the 2nd balcony seating on the left, would I care about the imbalance stereo image?
 
3. I managed to buy a front row seat ticket of a rock concert and my seat is 10 feet from the sub woofer speaker, would I care about the bass response overwhelming the vocal?
 
The answers are  I may or may not, it all depends on the mood and preference I am having at that moment. All the good specifications like high S/N ratio, power, high channel separation, etc of my setup serve the benefits of a good base setup allowing further effect tuning.
 
And I bet the different reverb level of Sony Tokyo studio and Singapore Esplanade will be the least concern of the musician who does the playing there. Similarly, my local band drummer won't care the 5db bass response drop between seat 2A and seat 35H of my local auditorium.

Hey Fellas, how in the world do you guys take out the battery without even denting the battery a little? every time I take mine out either using my finger nails or a small cutter blade the battery gets a little mark/dent from it and I'm afraid by the end of the year my battery is gonna look so beat up. =(

borrego said:

I agree with you 100%. I like listening to music and I like playing with all the DSP effects turning all "distortions" to my own likeliness at that very moment of mood.

Let's ditch all the recording/playback, ADC/DAC technical talks and think about live music performance:

1. I am singing on stage and my bass guitarist turn up the "spring reverb" effect on his guitar amp at the beginning of of chorus, would I care about the distortion?

2. I am invited to the London Royal Orchestra live performance and is offered the 2nd balcony seating on the left, would I care about the imbalance stereo image?

3. I managed to buy a front row seat ticket of a rock concert and my seat is 10 feet from the sub woofer speaker, would I care about the bass response overwhelming the vocal?

The answers are  I may or may not, it all depends on the mood and preference I am having at that moment. All the good specifications like high S/N ratio, power, high channel separation, etc of my setup serve the benefits of a good base setup allowing further effect tuning.

And I bet the different reverb level of Sony Tokyo studio and Singapore Esplanade will be the least concern of the musician who does the playing there. Similarly, my local band drummer won't care the 5db bass response drop between seat 2A and seat 35H of my local auditorium.

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Good response, borrego! Art is an interaction between the artist and the audience. The artist is not god, is not perfect. The audience should be free interpret the art as seen fit, and a lot of more experimental musicians actually encourage this - pushing the boundaries beyond mere static performance.

After removing the back cover u can just jerk the player with downward force with the battery facing down and the battery will just drop. Do catch the battery with yr hand.

zeppu08 said:

Just a question before I do an upgrade.. Is the Intl version 2.1 stable or still on process of testings and all? Thanks!

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it is stable, I think it changed the sound signature compare to FW2.0.

coolmingli said:

Is the Intl version 2.1 stable or still on process of testings and all?

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As stable as stock 2.1.0.

So does it sound better than the regular 2.1?

nmatheis said:

Good response, borrego! Art is an interaction between the artist and the audience. The artist is not god, is not perfect. The audience should be free interpret the art as seen fit, and a lot of more experimental musicians actually encourage this - pushing the boundaries beyond mere static performance.

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It's personal and relates to what music is being listened to but really, I'm not looking to tweak every recording. The ones that have inflection and emotion and/or played in natural space invariably suffer from manipulation, other than simple EQ if absolutely needed. I have recordings that suffer greatly from any sort of that. I can understand playing around with compressed electronic music etc but for me, it would be too much trouble to change up all the time as it wouldn't stir my soul any more with some sort of DSP help. To me it's a tweak to be defeated for the next emotional performance. I'm sure for others, it's a blast to optimize it to their needs all the time. I have no issue with others playing with the sound if that's what one wants to do but to me, it's about an emotional relationship to the art and the art doesn't become more connecting by that sort of manipulation. It's not what I buy what I hope to be a an accurate HiRes player to do. I always feel that if I feel the need to mess around with the sound, that there is likely something fundamentally wrong with my setup. Once a setup has a high enough goose bump factor, minor tonal and other issues are overshadowed by the emotional response.
 
I'm not judging music genres here as I listen to everything from Chemical Bros to Vivaldi to Patty Griffin to Kurt Elling. I'm just not going to mess with a Chem Bros recording only to have to undo it for Kurt when I just want to pick tunes.

I'm hearing a difference in FW2.1 International. It is the exact same sound sig as stock 2.1 but there is a more clarity through the entire frequency range and detail really jumps at you, this is both a good and bad thing as I'll explain. The stock 2.1 sounds a little smoother, almost very lightly veiled through the frequency range. Headwhacker previously mentioned that the DX90 may have a naturally V shaped sound after he deleted all sound libraries in FW2.1 and had a listen, implying that FW2.1 may have pushed the mids forward on a software level to compensate for this. With firmware FW2.1 International its like a totally unveiled version of stock 2.1, as a result the software enhanced mids of 2.1 become painfully obvious to me as the mids have a grainy quality. Although thanks to the removal of the veil both the treble and bass of 2.1 International is better defined, detailed and extended. Overall I prefer the smoother rendition of stock 2.1 though.

goodvibes: I'm with you, man! I don't EQ but rely on different 'phones to impart different sound sig that I feel best gels with the music I'm listening to. In doing so, I am in fact finding the best way to interpret the music to fit my taste. Instead of switching 'phones, some people prefer to tweak EQ settings. They're also finding the best way to interpret the music for themselves. Perhaps you see what I mean?

As I've seen others suggest, find a way to listen that gives you joy and be happy .

Lurker0, maybe you could do a driver for USB for Mac? 
 
On the font for the international, I find it more difficult to read. 

che15 said:

So does it sound better than the regular 2.1?

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I don't know if it was stock or international, my came with 2.0 installed, downloaded the 2.1 from their website then updated.

lurker0 said:

As stable as stock 2.1.0.

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Thanks man..